God’s Recipe for Household Success
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Feminist Historian Linda Gordon once shared that, “The nuclear family must be destroyed… Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families is not an objectively revolutionary process.”
The nuclear family has been and is currently under attack in our world. This isn’t anything new - we can go back to Karl Marx in the 1800s as he called for the “abolition of the family.” Why is the family under attack? Why do many people hate the family unit? Why does the Government seek to take over the realm of the family?
For one, the family is God’s design. In the Garden of Eden, all was good with the exception of 1 thing… it was not good for Adam to be alone, so God created his help-mate named Eve. From Eden onward, the family has been God’s design. The family was created before the Fall, before sin entered the world, there was the family… and whatever God creates, Satan tries to destroy. And try he certainly has for centuries. God’s design is one man, one woman, for life. What have we seen in the home? We’ve seen a redefinition of marriage. We’ve seen sexual confusion. We’ve seen a fatherlessness epidemic. We’ve seen people try to establish a new foundation on which to build their lives upon.
24 “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
25 The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock.
26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
There are 2 foundations to build upon - the rock solid foundation and authority of God’s Word, and everything else. There is God’s Way and there is the way of the world. Only one of these options will stand! So, what is God’s plan for the family? Our world says that the family, much like the church, is outdated and dangerous. It needs to be torn down. It needs a software update to get up with the times of a modern world. We need new leadership. We need a new definition. We need a new recipe for success. We need a new foundation. Into this strange new world, what is the Biblical response? The same that it has always been: We must build our foundation on the rock solid Word of the Living God!
This morning in Colossians 3, we’re going to see a passage that will undoubtedly confront our cultural understanding of the family. This is a passage that many people have abused over the years… and this has led many people to simply avoid this passage altogether! Y’all know by now that this is not an option for your pastor because all Scripture is God-breathed, authoritative, inspired, and profitable for us as God’s people. Let’s dive into Colossians 3:18 this morning and see what God’s design is for His people starting inside the home.
18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them.
20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.
21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they won’t become discouraged.
22 Slaves, obey your human masters in everything. Don’t work only while being watched, as people-pleasers, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.
23 Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people,
24 knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.
25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism.
1 Masters, deal with your slaves justly and fairly, since you know that you too have a Master in heaven.
This is God’s Word and regardless of what our world says, the family matters. You matter. Whoever you are, whatever your past looks like, wherever you’ve been, God has a plan and a purpose for you and part of that purpose is to do everything for His glory. Let’s pray and ask Him to help us grow in this area today
Wives and Husbands (18-19)
Wives and Husbands (18-19)
Whenever you preach expositionally, or verse by verse through books of the Bible, eventually you cover all of Scripture and that’s a tremendous blessing! But one of the hardest parts of expositional preaching is that you cover all of Scripture… including passages that step on toes, that aren’t popular in our world, and passages that are simply difficult for us to understand due to our time and place in history. This morning is one of those passages that would be much easier to skip over than to dig in and preach, but that’s not an option. Augustine, an early church leader shared that if you only believe what you like in the Bible and reject what you don’t like, it’s not the Bible that you believe in, but yourself. I’m convinced from my head to my toes that this is God’s Word and we know that all of Scripture is profitable for us - this means that Colossians 3:18-4:1 is not only inspired by God but it is important for God’s people. Some of you might be thinking what on earth is profitable in this passage? Some likely are already defensive because of certain words in this passage or because of the picture this passage paints. Because of the fall, we know that our world is broken. We know that the family is broken. We know that we as individuals are broken. Some of you have stories of this brokenness in your own family and maybe that makes this passage hard to understand. We might feel a bunch of different ways with a passage like this, but God still has a perfect purpose for what His Word says about the family.
Because God has all power and because His Word is authoritative, God has the right to tell us what to do. This includes those three spheres of authority: Government, Church, and the Home. Christ has authority over all of these and He expects us to submit to His leadership across the board. This means that as we come across things in Scripture that tell us of God’s design for the home, for example, God gets to define what those roles are because God designed the home in the first place. This morning we’re going to see 3 relationships inside the home and every person in the home has equal value before God because we are all made in His image. As we look at the members of our home, we all have different roles and God assigns those roles. Now, many in our world believe that when we see these types of roles and things in the New Testament that they’re outdated, patriarchal, misogynistic, and all the other adjectives in the book. Let me speak on behalf of Paul because he can’t speak for himself against these arguments, Paul didn’t hate women. Jesus didn’t hate women. God doesn’t hate women. This passage shows us that God has a design for His glory and the good of the family and it starts with the opening word of our text
WIVES
In typical household codes of the Roman and Greek and Jewish world, everything started with the man of the house. In fact, in the ancient world the woman was the possession of her husband. That seems so backwards, but it was the way that society operated. Understand this reality, 2000 years ago, a Jewish husband could divorce his wife for any reason but the wife could not initiate a divorce. In Greek culture, a wife was to serve in the household while the husband could go out in public and even enter into relationships with other women, and this was celebrated. This is the context in Colossae - men enjoyed privileges and women enjoyed the duties of the household. Paul addresses who first? WIVES. Understand this, Paul is addressing wives as EQUALS to their husbands. In other words, both wives and husbands had duties in the Christian home, not just the wives. This is revolutionary! The shock that everyone would have felt would have been significant simply with this opening word of addressing wives first and sharing their God-given responsibilities.
What instruction is given to the wife? To submit to your husband as is fitting in the Lord. Part of the human condition is to hate the word submit. This specific word appears 41 times in the New Testament and we see it in multiple respects.
Wives submitting to Husbands - Colossians 3:18, Ephesians 5:22
Citizens submitting to Government Leaders - Romans 13:1
Church members submitting to pastors/elders/overseers - Hebrews 13:17
Children submit to parents
The Son submitting to the Father - 1 Corinthians 15:28
The Church submitting to Jesus Christ - Ephesians 5:24
Christians submitting ourselves to God - James 4:7
We see this throughout Scripture - this is not exclusively used here in reference to Christian wives. This is a Biblical practice. This is not saying that the wife has to obey everything that her husband says, this is not saying that the wife is inherently lesser than her husband, this is not suggesting that the wife is to subject herself to physical, mental, or emotional abuse! This term implies “voluntarily and cheerfully placing yourself under another person and following and respecting them.” Why on earth would the Bible say this? The end of the verse - as is fitting in the Lord. For those who say this is outdated or only included in the Bible because of the type of culture the world was in back in the day, this destroys that argument. This type of voluntarily submission in the home for those who belong to Jesus is appropriate and fitting in the Lord. Notice, Paul doesn’t specify how this looks. He doesn’t give a list of do’s and don’ts. The spirit of this imperative command to Christian wives reflects the heart of Jesus in Philippians 2 who was equal with the Father, but willingly humbled Himself. Practically this is respecting and honoring the husband. God has delegated authority and in the home, the husband is not to be a tyrant or a dictator but the leader and it is fitting in the Lord when His order is followed. He has a plan that is for our good! But whatever God creates, Satan tries to destroy. Think of how the enemy has attempted to destroy God’s design for the home in two ways: First, husbands who do not lead in a way that honors Christ. Husbands who are abusive or husbands who are passive. Husbands who are not respectful. Husbands who demand submission. These things are wrong and they destroy that good design! Second, wives who demand to lead. Wives who will not follow in a way that honors the Lord. We see these realities in our world but Scripture tells us something different
23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body.
3 But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ.
Have these passages been used to perpetuate abuse? Yes, they have been. Do those abuses by sinful men mean that God’s Word has changed? No. This teaching of headship seems crazy backward in our society - but God has a good purpose in what He structures in His Word. Before we go thinking that this is Paul getting his anger out on women, look at what he calls on the husbands to do in verse 19. Love your wives. This is a present tense command - meaning to continually love your wife. In the ancient world, the household code said for men to rule over their wife… but God says to love your wife. The Greek word for love varies from place to place in Scripture, this is not a romantic love, this is not a brotherly love, this is an unconditional love. A sacrificial love. A love that puts others first. A Christ-like love. Now, this sounds a whole lot like Ephesians 5, doesn’t it?
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her
28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.
In a Christian marriage, the husband must submit to Christ! So how is a husband to love his wife? As much as you love the things you love, you are to love your wife more. Husbands, you are to love your wife as Christ loved His church and He loved His church enough to die for His church.
Love is best spelled with TIME
Years ago a researcher interviewed husbands and wives privately who said that they were happily married and of the hundreds and hundreds of interviews that were conducted, these were the top 2 things they said about their spouse: My spouse is my best friend… I like my spouse as a person. Good marriages require husbands and wives to spend time together. To look to Jesus together. To work together. To fulfill their roles together. Colossians 3:18-19 seems radical in our world - and this is why the enemy is continuing to work to destroy the nuclear family! The call for wives to submit to their husbands and the call for husbands to love their wives, church these two things go together!
The Christian marriage is marked by humility that goes low in order to push the other person high.
Christian Husband: I will sacrifice myself to lift you up
Christian Wife: I will submit myself to your sacrificial love
This passage is difficult as the commands for both husbands and wives are challenging… I knew this would be a difficult text to preach months ago - as Colossians 3 has been full of multiple difficult texts! In fact, yesterday I was talking to my mom about church and she knew this passage was coming up and shared a little of her story with Colossians 3:18-19. My parents got married when my dad was 19 and my mom was a little bit older than that… they both were called to ministry and she had just completed her masters degree from Southern Seminary. They got married and the idea of submitting as this passage says was challenging. Given the influences of 2nd and 3rd wave feminism which teaches that there are not different roles for men and women, as well as the fact that she was older and had more ministry related experience than my dad, and you’re left with a tough situation of sorts as our world would say under no circumstances to follow and submit because “you don’t need no man.” She said that after a few years of marriage, as she sat under “better Bible preaching” she began to see the beauty of God’s plan and craved his leadership in the home and as the Lord worked in her life, the Lord also worked in his life to help him mature and be the leader that God wanted him to be in our home. As they both submitted to the Lord’s plan, the “power pull” evaporated.
Husbands and Wives, guess what? We’re both going to drop the ball. Passages like this can make us feel like an absolute failure! Can I give you some good news? Because of Jesus, there is grace from God when you fall short of the mark with the role He has given you… One of the biggest blessings of God’s design is that there is also grace in our marriage when we fall short of the mark too. We need Christ-Centered Marriages in the Home!
Children and Parents (20-21)
Children and Parents (20-21)
As we continue in our passage we come to the second relationship and that is between children and their parents. We can think of some challenging and demanding jobs out there - working on an offshore oil rig, being a firefighter or police officer, a surgeon, a pilot, being the person that has to climb those really tall towers thousands of feet in the sky in order to replace lights at the very top - there are a lot of hard jobs out there… survey after survey comes back sharing that the hardest job is parenting. It’s unpredictable, there are no days off, it’s stressful, the pay isn’t great and they don’t offer overtime benefits… parenting is hard. But parenting is a gift from God!
Look at what our text says about this relationship between children and parents - we live in a world that is upside down when it comes to authority. A world that says that parents have to obey their children and do whatever the children want to do… but the Bible tells us that it is children who are commanded in verse 20 to obey their parents. This word is different than the word for submit in verse 18. Submit carries with it a voluntary nature of laying down ones rights in order to follow someone else… obedience in verse 20 is to comply with everything a parent says! The favorite question of every child is about to come up: WHY?
12 Honor your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right.
17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Children are to obey their parents supremely because this pleases the Lord. Whenever we follow God’s plan, God is glorified and we come to realize that even if we don’t fully understand it in the moment, God has our best interests at heart and works for our good! The reason that children obey their parents is because doing so pleases the Lord and whenever we please Christ, we find satisfaction and fulfillment because we fulfill our created purpose!
Paul pairs this command with a command to the father’s to not exasperate their children, so they don’t become discouraged. That word means to frustrate or irritate. Possibly this means for parents to not impose legalistic standards that are impossible for their children to live up to - some of you today might have experienced that weight growing up! The purpose of the Christian home is to grow to become more like Christ. See, we only get 3 hours, max, at church each week. How much time do our kids get at school each week? 40 hours. How much time on sports? 5? 10? More? Music? Hobbies? Friends? Yet, what happens, is in the American church we expect 3 hours at church to be enough time to disciple our kids so that when they turn 18 and go out into the world for college or careers, they are ready spiritually. If all we do is give them 3 hours of Jesus each week, 2 hours on Sunday and 1 hour on Wednesday, and that’s it, it’s like sending them out to the front line of the battle whenever they’re not even done with their basic training. They have some tools, they have some training, but they simply haven’t had the intentionality and the training - and many kids in this situation go out to college and within weeks or months they abandon their faith and parents come back and wonder “what happened? What went wrong?” It starts in the home. Teaching children the things of Scripture. Pointing them to Jesus in the good days and the bad days.
Christ-Centered Parenting involves
Discipling Your Children
Disciplining Your Children
Not Discouraging Your Children
Parents, your child IS being discipled. If we don’t disciple them in the Word, the world will gladly disciple them to distance themselves from the Word. If we don’t disciple them to understand that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by Jesus Christ and that Jesus has a perfect purpose for their life to KNOW Him and to HONOR Him, the world will gladly confuse them into thinking that they are a mistake and that they need to follow their heart in order to find true purpose and meaning. This means that sometimes, correction is in order. We read in Scripture that the Lord disciplines the one He loves and as parents, our responsibility is to help our children become more like Jesus.
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight.
The house is the central hub of discipleship as mom’s and dad’s work together to help children trust in the Lord. Stand on His Word. And live a life that brings Jesus glory!
Servants and Masters (22-4:1)
Servants and Masters (22-4:1)
The third and final relationship in the household is likely the most challenging for our culture given the way that we think naturally of the word “slave” and “slavery.” We have to be honest and state unequivocally that Paul is not advocating slavery. All human beings, regardless of race, background, from the womb to the tomb are made in God’s image and worthy of respect, honor, and dignity because life is sacred. This is the clear Biblical teaching. The Bible is also clear that the greatest means for changing a broken world is with the transformative power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ because only the Gospel can change the human heart. Consider this church for a minute - you have Jews and Greeks, husbands and wives, parents and children, and slaves and masters all in this church. Paul writes this letter and it is delivered and one of the elders or pastors is reading Paul’s letter in the church. You probably have the “have’s” sitting towards the front, and the have “nots” sitting in the back. What does Paul do in these verses? He not only addresses wives and husbands equally in this household code section, but he also addresses children, a foreign concept at the time, and now he addresses the servants in the church. In other words, Paul is speaking to those in the back, just as he is instructing those in the front as well.
We have to backup just a little bit because of our idea of slavery in our country. We usually think of slavery in terms of being racially motivated as there were white slave owners in our country’s past who “owned” black slaves - this is brutal and inhumane and sinfully wrong! In the Roman empire things were slightly different. In the home there were these relationships between the master of the house and the slaves or servants and some of these servants could earn an income from their labor and eventually earn their freedom by buying it from their master. Others could earn their freedom as an inheritance from their master whenever he passed away. This slavery was not the same racially motivated system that we think of today, but again, much wrong and sin was done under this system… so what does Paul do? He doesn’t endorse the system, he just got done in verse 11 saying that these slaves and free people are united in the body of Christ! He acknowledges these slaves first, who at this point would have only been acknowledged by their master. Then he redirects the focus of what they do. Don’t just obey for the sake of a promotion. Don’t just do what you are told because it might help you out… Paul reorients their focus by telling them that their work WILL be rewarded by their ultimate Master, the Lord Jesus Christ!
At the same time, Paul addresses the masters in the room by telling them that they will be accountable for the right and wrong that they do. Many slaves were subjected to abuse - point blank, the Bible is not suggesting that anyone is to obey and submit themselves to abusive situations. Wives, children, anyone. That’s sinful and it’s wrong. What is Paul’s point in this passage? Again, demonstrating that obeying those above us is one way that we honor Jesus. Paul addresses the masters in this church as well and reminds them that they are to deal justly and fairly because ultimately even these human masters have a Master in heaven. We all know the temptation to cut corners in life… whenever we were kids and mom told us to go clean our room and we think to ourselves, “I’ll do that later” and then later comes and mom is about to come check to make sure that our room is cleaned up and we scramble and throw stuff under the bed or in the closet hoping that she won’t notice! We know what it’s like to cut corners in life, and we know this temptation exists in our jobs as well - this is why Paul says whatever we do, do it from the heart and for the Lord.
Some of you are here today and you think that you have a “nothing” job. You mow lawns. You work behind a computer. You’re a stay at home mom. You clean homes. You teach students who seem to want to be anywhere other than with you. You see nothing special or sacred about the work that you are doing. Friend, let me encourage you today. Jesus sees that work. Momma’s, Jesus sees all that you do whenever you think no one else does.
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
Jesus changes our mentality about everything! Jesus turns human nothing into heavenly something and He changes the way that we approach every aspect of our lives, including our work. As born-again, blood-bought believers we work supremely to glorify Jesus! Paul saw these precious image bearers of God for who they were - brothers and sisters in Christ and he encouraged them to keep their eyes on Jesus. These forgotten people were known by God… and they were to be loved by the body because they are one in body of Christ.
Christians and Christ
Christians and Christ
Christ changes those whom He saves. He changes what we do on Sunday morning as we gather with our brothers and sisters in Christ when the rest of the world is in bed sleeping or getting ready for Sunday afternoon kickoff. Jesus changes the way that we approach our time as we seek to use our time to glorify Him. He changes the way that we look at our treasure as we seek to use the gifts that God has given us to further His Kingdom and generate an eternal return on our investment. He changes the way that we view authority because we ultimately realize that by obeying, serving, loving, and submitting to others, we are following Christ.
All of this is great… on Sunday. But what about when Monday comes? When we leave to go to work, school, the store, the office, the ball field? That’s when the rubber meets the road. Jesus doesn’t just change our Sunday schedule, He changes our Monday mood. We need our home to be the center of discipleship where our families seek after Jesus, study His Word, submit to HIS authority, and strive to do everything for His glory in every aspect of our lives! We need the family. Husbands, your family needs you to lead them spiritually. Wives, your family needs you to put Jesus first in all you do. Children, you have a role to play in your family and that starts with knowing Jesus and obeying mom and dad. That might not always sound like a great idea - but as your parents follow Jesus, they have your best interests at heart… and when they stumble and fall, children you can know that your heavenly Father will never fall short.
While we have different roles, we all have a role to play in the home and we all have a role to play in the church! I’m forever thankful for the family that God has given to me. One of the greatest blessings outside of salvation is your spouse and getting to come home to my bride is so refreshing after a long day at the office. I’m thankful for the role she plays in our home because our home would be a wreck without God gifting her and her servant heart to make our home, home. If your house has kids, they have a role too! Sometimes obedience looks like getting ready for bed and other times it looks like not stealing your brother’s toy for the 10th time… Just as there are roles in the house, there are roles in the church and every role matters! God has gifted each Christian and at South Gate, I am so thankful for you and how the Lord uses you in our church for His glory and the good of our body! Come back to business meeting tonight and you’ll hear more about the needs that we have for people to step up and serve within our body - 96 helpers each month in Kidz Ministry, Student Ministry, Music Ministry, servant teams of the church, etc.
There are different roles in the house - but that doesn’t mean that some matter more than others, we are equally important and valuable before God. There are different roles in the Church - but that doesn’t mean that some matter more than others, we are equally important and valuable before God.
How can we do our part in the home and Church?
Bloom Where You Are Planted
So often we compare ourselves to other people. Our family to other families. Our church to other churches. Whenever we do this, we usually waste more time on comparison than we do giving thanks to Christ for what He has blessed us with! We miss out on growing to be the person, family, and church that Jesus wants us to be! God calls on us to bloom where He plants us. To grow where we are placed. To serve Him where we are.
Build Your Life on God’s Word
These household codes go against much of what our world tells us… but that doesn’t mean the world has it all figured out. We are to build our life on God’s Word, not what our world says. We honor Christ and fulfill our purpose whenever we do what the Bible tells us to do in our home with our family and in our church with our church family as well! Whether that means serving at home or serving at church, we are people of the Book. We will face challenges, but we know that God’s plan is best and we submit completely and cheerfully as Christians to His perfect Word!
Be Salt and Light
God’s Word is the rock solid foundation of our lives and as we stand on Scripture, we know that we will stand out. A Christ-Centered Marriage stands out. A Christ-Centered Church stands out. Whenever we do what Scripture says, we allow the light of Christ to shine through us… and His light pierces back the darkness. Whenever a husband and wife put Jesus first and seek to honor His Word and submit to His plan, they are like salt that slows the rot of decay in a society that has lost its mind.
South Gate, God’s designed the home and He gets to define the home. He has a plan for His glory and our good. Today, let’s pray for Christ-Centered Homes. Husbands, pray that Jesus would help you to lead your family well. Wives, pray for God to lead your husband and, maybe, that means God shaking your husband up a little bit. Kids, pray for Jesus to help you obey your parents. South Gate, let’s pray that Jesus would help us be a Christ-Centered people for His glory and our ultimate good!
