A Home of Self-Sacrifice

Ephesians 5:1-6

One of the biggest pain points for people today is family.

How do I save my marriage?

How do I become a good parent?

People have questions; questions the Bible can answer.

The next four weeks we are going to focus on relationships in the home.

We are going to use the instructions found in Ephesians 5 and 6 to discuss love in the contexts of marriage, family, and parenting.

But the truths that we discuss will help us in any relationship we have.

Today we want to look at Ephesians 5:1-6.

In this first section of Ephesians 5, we learn that our greatest model for loving others is the way that Jesus loves us.

2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

Jesus loved us so much that he gave himself, he laid down His life for us.

When we die to ourselves, we are obeying God and following His example.

Would you like to have a better relationship with your spouse?

How about your children

your parents

your friends

your coworkers

your fellow church members?

Having the type of relationships that we need to have in our homes begins with this right here!

Living the way Jesus lived - self-sacrificially

Loving the way He loved - Giving of Himself.

Let’s Look at Four Necessary Changes that will help us to have a better home.

It starts with you!

Our home ought to be a safe haven!

A little boy named Danny lived with his family in a trailer. One day someone asked him, “Don’t you wish you had a real home?” Danny’s reply was wise beyond his years. He said, “We have a real home. We just don’t have a house to put it in.”

A house and a home are very different. A house is just a physical structure, made perhaps of brick or wood or stone. It can be large or small. It may not have persons inside. If a house does not include persons, the house is not really a home.

By contrast, a home is a haven of shelter, acceptance and unconditional love. It includes at least one person. In a home, each person’s value is unlimited, and their mutual commitment is forever. Any decent contractor can construct a house, but only God can build a home.

And God wants to build a home in your house!

But the truth is we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we dare to believe!

We are more of a problem than we often want to give ourselves the credit for.

But at the same time, we are more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared to hope.

We can have a godly home through Christ!

Don’t wait for the other person to start.

You will be disappointed every time.

When you consistently do right, others may just see the change in you, and follow along.

If they don’t, doing right will still help you be blameless before God, and enable God’s grace to help you.

So what are the Four Necessary Changes we need to have a better home?

I. Follow God

I know what you are thinking…CHECK!

That’s easy, I’m already doing that!

We are not talking about just going to church, or accepting Christ.

We are talking truly, completely being a follower of God!

This means we are going to have to:

A. Not Following Our Desires

If we are going to be followers of God, as verse 1 tells us, then we cannot be following our own desires.

We cannot follow in two different directions.

We want respect and kindness - and we ought to receive that…but whether we get respect and kindness from the other in our relationship…we still have a responsibility to Follow God in our actions.

The Bible tells us if we Walk in the Spirit (follow God) you will not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

The lust of the flesh is not just fornication and adultery…Galatians tells us it is also wrath, strife, separations (divisions), envy, and others.

But the problem it is a constant war between our desires and God’s desires!

Galatians 5:17 KJV

17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

So you can’t be yielded to, or follow after your flesh (your own desires)…You need to choose to Follow God!

Verse one tells us we need to do this...

B. But As Children of God

…as dear children

We need to remember who we are!

I have told my kids when they go to someone else’s house, or go with someone somewhere…something along the lines of …remember your a Wallace.

This means:

What you do and what you say affects your entire family

Our name has a testimony and what you do will affect that testimony.

Make good decisions.

I don’t expect any of my children to be perfect…There is no one named Wallace that is perfect (maybe Aimee, the perfect child).

But they know the behavior that I expect from them.

Likewise we know the behavior that God expects from us.

After the dedication of his baby brother in church, little Johnny sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong. Finally the boy replied, “That pastor said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I want to stay with you guys!”

And we ought to follow the behavior that God wants from us.

It seems like, sometimes, we tend to think that we can have one kind of behavior outside of our home, and another behavior inside our home.

God is watching no matter where you are.

If we are going to have the kind of home we ought to have for the Lord, we are going to have a spirit of self-sacrifice.

Romans 12:10 KJV

10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;

Four necessary changes we need to make in order for us to have a Better Home:

Follow God as Children of God

II. Walk in Love

2 And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

We say that we love one another.

We commit to one another in marriage, or in a relationship of parent/child by telling them that you’ll always take care of them…and yet when we speak to each other…well let’s say it is not always in love.

What does this look like?

A. Love As Christ Loved

…as Christ also hath loved us...

What did Jesus do?

He was always reaching out around Him in love.

Jesus had compassion on those around Him, the sick, the blind, the hungry…he freed those who were oppressed and possessed.

Jesus forgave those around Him.

Jesus encouraged those around Him to do right.

Jesus served those around Him.

Jesus sat with those who were hurting.

Jesus pulled people back to the right course in a loving and patient way.

What would happen in our homes if we would consistently keep in our minds to “Walk in Love as Christ also hath loved us.”

Our home life would truly transform!

This word love here is God’s love - Agape love.

Agape love is an unselfish, sacrificial, and unconditional love.

Is the love you show your spouse an unselfish love?

Is the love you show your children an unconditional love?

Is the love you show your family a sacrificial love?

God calls us to love one another the way that He loved us!

That also means that we need to Walk in Love by...

B. Giving of Ourselves

Verse two tell us that Christ … “loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.”

Jesus gave Himself without any thought of self.

Jesus worked Himself to the point of exhaustion helping those that were around Him.

We act put out when our husband or wife asks us to get something for them.

We act like we are doing our family a favor when we forgive them for a small transgression.

We allow ourselves to become aggravated over trivial matters.

We bite and argue and fight over things that have no eternal value.

Someone said, “Who can ever forget Winston Churchill’s immortal words: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, and we shall fight in the hills.” It sounds exactly like our family vacation.”

Fortunately it didn’t sound like our most recent vacation, but it certainly could have been as much stress as we were all under!

But those people that are in that house with us are eternal beings.

Oh be careful how you treat one another!

Walk in Love…As Christ loved you…and gave himself for you.

Jesus laid his very life out for us…are we ready to live our lives out for Him…in the way we love one another?

Four necessary changes we need to make in order for us to have a Better Home:

Follow God as Children of God

Walk in Love as Christ loved us and Gave Himself for us...

III. Put Off Sin

The Bible repeatedly uses the imagery of taking off and putting on clothing as an example of what we ought to do with sin and righteousness.

I have, for years, used a chart that I made called the “Put off / Put on Chart”

It is a laminated sheet that gives a list of sins to put off and the opposite righteous act that we should replace it with.

I got this from a chart in a book by Dr. John Goetsch called, “What’s on Your Mind?”

A great book dealing with our thoughts and how they lead to our actions, both right and wrong.

Verses 3 and 4 give us a small list of things we need to put off.

3 But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints;

4 Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks.

Many of these listed are destroying homes all around us!

God says, Let these not once be named among you, as becometh saints.

In other words - No Child of God, no saint should ever be able to be accused of any of these sins -

Keep yourself clean from them!!!

And yet there are many Christians that have soiled their testimonies, their families testimony and harmed their home.

If you find that there is something on this list that you have done…make it right with God today!

If it was a public sin (known among the family) confess it before the family (or those involved) and ask forgiveness and move on.

What does he say to put off?

A. Fornication

We have talked about this before, but this word that is translated fornication is the Greek word porneia.

This word defines any sexual sin or lewdness.

It is a general word that includes adultery, pornography, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, any sexual act outside the bonds of marriage.

This sin is destroying more people today than ever before.

Adult websites and videos are available anywhere and everywhere.

Thousands of men and women are trapped in the bondage of porn.

It is destroying homes.

It needs to be put off.

B. Uncleanness

This Greek word translated uncleanness means lewd, or polluted, obscene, impure, wantonness, contaminated.

It is used to describe food that was unfit, or character or behavior that would make one unclean.

We are not bound by the Jewish Purification laws, so this word used here speaks to our behavior or talking that is unclean.

I’ve seen little kids with dirtier mouths than truck drivers and sailors I’ve met.

Where do they learn to talk like that?

From their parents, of course.

I’ve seen kids come to church with a critical spirit about the church…kids don’t learn that on their own…it’s taught!

The Christian ought not be marked by uncleanness.

Our homes ought not contain uncleanness.

C. Covetousness

We all know what covetousness is.

Greediness, Covetousness, Envy.

It destroys homes.

Sister envies another sister

Husband envies the wife (or vice versa)

Greed makes decisions for the family.

The mom and dad want to live a particular lifestyle and so they work ungodly hours so they can have it.

At the expense of their children and their marriage.

Or they go into massive amounts of debt to get what they want.

It destroys people from the inside out, because it makes them discontent.

Paul tells us that none of these things ought to be named among us Christians!

But there are many Christians that are in bondage to their greed.

D. Filthiness

This word, in the Bible dictionary, is defined as indecent, summarizing improper conduct hat when exposed by the light makes the person ashamed of himself.

Live transparent lives!

I remember when my kids were real young, all of sudden the silent alarm started going off - everything was silent, so I got alarmed!

I would find one of my kids hiding in a corner or behind something with a candy, or treat that they weren’t supposed to have.

We don’t have to be taught to hide what we know is wrong.

We do it naturally from a very young age.

Live in the light!!!

Our homes are free when we aren’t having to hide something wrong.

E. Foolish Talk

Literally speaking foolishly, It is the type of speech that betrays a person as foolish.

Think before you speak!

Does it match up with biblical principle?

If not it is foolish talk!

This speaks especially to taking something that is shameful and making it appear acceptable by humor.

The Greek word is used of joking about something immoral, and by so making it not appear as immoral.

TV shows and movies for decades now have been actively changing the morality of America by laughing at sin.

Whether it is promiscuity , or it be homosexuality, or greed, or improper roles in the home, or demeaning male leadership in the home, or demeaning the beauty of the role of a wife.

Anything that God has given us a plan for, the world and the devil have attacked and tried to destroy.

And it is done by Foolish talk.

F. Jesting

You may think that this would mean the joking about the improper, but this word speaks directly to the ability to extricate oneself from difficult situations with witty or clever words.

Or the ability to manipulate circumstances or people through humor…it is used to describe the scoffer, a sneerer or course joker.

We see this all the time when the world is confronted with biblical principles about any thing, they laugh it off and scoff at it.

The Christian ought not involve themselves with this kind of behavior - not patterned after the world’s philosophy…but patterned after Jesus - Following God!

Paul tells us these things (the filthiness, foolish talking and jesting) are not convenient (that is proper or becoming.)

But rather Paul gives us a substitute for these...

And here we see the fourth necessary change that we need to make in order for us to have a Better Home:

Follow God as Children of God

Walk in Love as Christ loved us and Gave Himself for us

Put off Sin...

IV. Give Thanks

a very simple few words, that could maybe easily be missed…but how important they are!

…but rather giving of thanks.

this right here can help us with all the other three!

If we really think about all the things that God has done for us we will gladly Follow Him!

If we are truly thankful our husband or wife, our children, our parents, our siblings…we will walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us.

If we truly were thankful for the family that God has given us, the home he has allowed us to have, the salvation that He has given us…we would quickly and gladly put off sin…and put on righteousness.

Are you struggling in your home?

fighting with your spouse

frustrated with your children

aggravated by your sibling

I want to challenge you to sit down today with a piece of paper and ask the Lord to show you all the things you should be thankful for that person.

I guarantee you it will help!

Will it help your husband finally see that you were right?

no, but it might make forgiveness a little easier.

Will it help your children calm down and clean their room and do their chores?

probably not, but it will help you realize that there will be a day that you would give anything for messy house…if you could just have them back with you again.

Will it help your sibling quit aggravating you

No, but it may help you have more patience when you realize it truly is a blessing to have a brother or sister.

There are probably some shaking heads right now…but you are just proving that you need to do this exercise!

Conclusion

Most problems at home begin with selfishness.

But just like Christ, we need to have a heart of self-sacrifice.

My way is not what is important

My peace and quiet is not what is important

My rights are not what is important.

What is important is to live like Christ - to have a home that is Christ honoring.

A home that Follows God

A home that Walks in Love

A home that Puts off Sin

A home that Gives Thanks