Rooted In Christ - Sermon 7

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Transcript

Rooting Your Home In Christ

Text: Colossians 3:18-25

Introduction

Paul is inviting us all to take a tour of the Christian home. He is not speaking of a perfect home. However, he will introduce a home where a continual effort is being taken to stay rooted in the person of Christ.
Question: What makes a home Christian? Is it the artwork on the walls? Is it the Christian music playing in the background?
Let quickly gather a working definition of a Christian home:
It is a place where ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN who are born-again, dwelling together in the covenant of marriage in effort to live obediently to God.
In other words, a christian home is the place where an individual(s) whom Christ dwells in, live.
The flow from this point is that Christ must be SEEN in your home. Of course, that is to say, Christ must be SEEN through YOU!
It is important to recognize the flow of this chapter before moving on:
Ascend you mind to Christ.
Put to death the sinful members of your life.
Put on the new man who is created by Christ and keep him/her close to Him.
Christ dwells in you.
Put on Christ.
Let His peace rule you.
Let His Word dwell and be seen in you.
I review all of that for this reason; you must understand what it means to BE CHRISTIAN before you will ever find yourself being “pleasing unto the Lord” through the role of husband, wife, or child.
Once you commit to and pray for those things previously stated to become a reality in your everyday life, only then will you receive and live out well what is found in our text today!
VERSE 18
The party responsible for application is the one to whom it is addressed too; the wife, the husband, the child.
The only one who has authority to make such demands on their character is God
That is to say, the husband is not commissioned to forcefully bring his wife into submission.
Neither can the wife force her husband to love her and never resent her.

A. The wife’s role

All who are wives today, DON’T MISS the last part of this verse; “fitting unto the Lord.”
So, whatever is meant by this verse, it is pleasing to God.
This call to action is directed toward your relationship to your husband (not wife or husbands)
What is the wife’s obligation to God?
“submit yourselves unto your own husbands”
Let’s start with a good understanding of the word:
to be submissive v. — to be or become inclined or willing to submit to orders or wishes of others or showing such inclination.
Before you act, you must be WILLING. That is why Paul uses the word SUBMIT here.
The Christian life for a wife is a call to action. A call to follow God’s plan for what a Christian home should look like.
Where did this obligation begin?
It began in the mind of God and put into time and space in the Garden of Eden of which we learn about in the book of Genesis.
Turn to: Genesis 2:18, 21-25
“brought her unto the man”
Adam said, “she is just like me.” (some say, Adam was the rough draft and Eve was the masterpiece)
In other words, Adam was saying, “She is the most special creation I have ever seen.”
He became linked to her! They were one!
What submission is NOT:
Don’t think of this word as “slavery” or “subjugations.”
It comes from the military vocabulary; meaning “to arrange under rank.”
This is not stating one’s VALUE.
What submission IS:
It is referring to rank, not value.
Loving Headship and leadership.
Remember, God is a God of order, not chaos.
Both the husband and wife submit to the Lord and each other.
Quote: In other words, it is mutual respect under the lordship of Jesus Christ. — Warren Wiersbe
VERSE 19

B. The husband’s role

You are responsible to love your wife the way Christ loved His church: sacrificially, a servant of love.
Eph. 5:25 “25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;”
Eph. 5:28 “28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.”
Eph. 5:33 “33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”
Christ was willing to give His all. HE DID!!!
All marriages often begin with a normal, romantic love.
IT MUST GROWN DEEPER!
Paul is talking about a love that only comes FROM GOD.
Quote: The measure of a man’s love for his wife is not seen only in gifts or words, but in acts of sacrifice and concern for her happiness and welfare. Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 142.
Is there exceptions to this? NO NO NO!!!
It is a shame if God’s children are always looking for a way out of obedience to their king.
Paul addresses a NEGATIVE aspect to the husbands role:
“Don’t be bitter against them.”
Don’t harbor ill will based on something they did or did not do.
Eph. 4:31 “31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:”
Hebrews 12:15 “15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;”
If I could give you a sure way to prevent Satan getting a foothold on your marriage and home, would you want to know what it is????
Ephesians 4:15 “15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:”
Keep short accounts with each other.
Ephesians 4:26 “26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:”

C. Let’s tie these two together

HUSBANDS
If you truly love your wife, you will not behave harshly or try to throw your weight around.
1 Cor. 13:4-5 “4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;”
WIVES
She will not have difficulty following through when she is reassured that her husband loves her through a sacrificial life.
Your love to your husband is seen through the response of willingness to follow his leadership.
Where will you find a happy home?
Where you find loving sacrifice and submission in action.
This does not happen automatically!
If you live with submission to God, you will find yourselves submitting to one another.
VERSES 20-21
It is sad we live in a day that the rights of a child have to be fought for!
Children have a right to not only be born, but to be born in a Christian home.
Eph. 6:4 “4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”
They deserve to have Godly parents who teach them God’s Word.
TRUE STORY: John H. Starkey was a violent British criminal. He murdered his own wife, then was convicted for the crime and executed. The officials asked General William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, to conduct Starkey’s funeral. Booth faced as ugly and mean a crowd as he had ever seen in his life, but his first words stopped them and held them: “John H. Starkey never had a praying mother!” Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 143.
Children also have a responsibility to OBEY.
“in all things”
The question comes up, “What if the parents ask them to do something wrong?”
That won’t happen if the parents are already practising submission and sacrifice.
You can guarantee that children will not obey any outside authority if they are not first obeying their parents.
Your child’s obedience outside the home, speaks to the quality of obedience inside the home.
Quote: For the most part, children do not create problems; they reveal them. Parents who cannot discipline themselves cannot discipline their children. Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 143.
What is a child’s motivation to obey their parents?
“well pleasing unto the Lord.”
Parents came make this easier or more difficult:
Evaluate each request. Don’t just also give a quick NO.
Don’t swing from extreme permissiveness to extreme legalism.
Spend quality time with your children.
Illustration: “You took time to have me,” a child said to her father, “but you won’t take time to listen to me!” What an indictment! Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 143.
To abandon things as this, makes your children easier prey for the Devil!!!
Your home should be the place where your kids can find refuge, strength, and love.
A child deserves for HOME to meet his/her needs.
For parents to take this seriously, creates a place where Jesus can be found more easily.
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