Family Order

Ephesians 5:22-6:4

As we move into the Christmas season we move into a time that has always been one of my favorites through the year. I love this time of year because of the great joy that everyone seems to have around them for Christmas and celebrating the birth of our Savior is always a worthy cause to be joyous. Another thing that I love greatly about the Christmas season is the focus on families and spending time together as a family during this time. In the world today I do not believe there is a Christian virtue attacked more than the virtue of a Christian traditional family. Homosexuality, transgenderism, abortion to name a few that I know likely all of us will agree to oppose, but what of faithlessness to our spouses, untrained children, and absent men in homes? Are we as Christians just as dedicated to opposing these attacks on the family or are we perputrating the cultural norm and allowing our families to be weak shells of what God has called them to be. You see God has given us families to be a sort of fortress for safety and protection from the world around us and yet we leave them is such states of disrepair that they are collapsing around us and the world is creeping in to tear us all apart. We as Christians then must be prepared to uphold and defend the views on family that we are called to hold by His word in order to strengthen our defenses and fortify our walls so that the world may not dare to creep into our homes. If we are to do that then we must know what the blueprint for the Christian family is which can be found in Ephesians.

Ephesians 5:22 “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”

Let us take a pause here because it is only one sentence deep into our passage for the day and the world has already labeled us sexist and hateful and cruel oppressive backwards uncivilized misogyinists. Wives submit to your husbands? We may as well tell the world that we want to enslave all women and lock them to the kitchen stove. That is what they hear when we say this but I want to let you know that Christianity is the farthest thing from this oppresive view that one could possibly imagine. Interestingly enough one of the first insults that the early Christians recieved from the Romans around them was that Christianity was the religion for the weak for the women for the slaves and for the poor. Essentially their insult was that Christianity was the religion of the oppressed and to that we say yes praise Christ yes it is the religion of the oppressed. It is the religion of the downtrodden and hurt and this includes women who for thousands of years found no freedom apart from the freedom found in Christ. It is also interesting to note that the only nations on earth to every truly treat women as equals are the ones that are founded on Christian values. All this to say that history resoundingly proves that the opposite is true and that women only find freedom when surrounded by believers and apart from the values of Christians women would indeed be treated as nothing more than possessions to be had. This is not to say that bad apples have never come through to leave a bad impression on people just like any other belief some of taken things out of context and used Christianity to oppress women however we must maintain that this is not nor has it ever been the traditional belief of the Church as God’s word has always taught equality in Christ.

So then what does it mean for wives to submit to their husbands? First it is important to note that it says submit to their husbands and not to all men. This is not to say that all men have equal rights to take charge of all women. It is simply that within the household the wife is to submit to the husband which then brings up still the problem of submission. You see we have this misconstrued idea that submission inherently means of a lesser value but I will borrow an analogy from Dr. Voddie Baucham on this. He states that it is in the same way that a soldier submits to his officer. As human beings and as soldiers they both have equal value but to ensure order someone must be in charge and so the officer has charge over the soldier. God wanted to ensure that there was order within the family and to do so He appointed the man to be the head of the household to lead and guide without a question of where the authority comes from. Again Dr. Baucham states jokingly that anything with two heads is a monster and we all agree that monsters should be killed. His point being that if we do not have a leader within a relationship then it will be disfunctional and create chaos. To safegaurd against this we are given male headship.

Most importantly though is how the wives are to submit, as to the Lord. An important theme that we will see continually through this message is the connection between the family and our relationship with God.

Ephesians 5:23–24 “For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

You see God is so good and knowing that humans have a hard time grasping spiritual concepts He continually gives us physical representations to understand spiritual truths such as the agony of the cross to represent the wrath of God being poured onto Christ or the physical elements in the sacraments to represent the spiritual union with Christ. So to is marriage a physical representation of what is happening on the spiritual level between us and Christ.

We as Christians carry on the tradition of Israel in that we are considered the bride of Christ and so we are called to submission to Christ to follow His leadership and guidance and obey His commands out of love for Him just as wives are called to follow their husbands out of the love that they feel for him. In doing this women have an opportunity to display for the world watching how we as Christians are to live in submission to Christ. Now what of the husband? Is he to just sit around ruling without anything being asked of him?

Ephesians 5:25–33 “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

You’ll note here the disparity in size between what has been asked of the wives versus what has been asked of the husbands. With leadership comes more that is required and husbandship is no different. First it is important to note that this passage is not about how men are to rule over their wives but it is about how men are to love their wives and scripture calls us to love our lives just as Christ loved the church. Again we get this relationship being compared to us and Christ and that tells us a lot about what is expected of us as husbands. Christ loved the church so much that He did not come down to sit upon a throne and be waited on hand and foot by us as believers, no He loves us and gives us freedom and has given us freedom by surrendering His own life to pay for our sins and justify us before God so that we could have a relationship with the Father. This is the way we are to love our wives. We are to surrender our own life to her. Our own desires and passions take a back seat to our wives. I see so many men today that the passenger seat beside them directing them where they go is not God is not their wife, but is hunting or a sport or work or anything apart from what it should be. As a married man our priority number one of course is God, but right underneath Him is our wife and no that does not change when we have children. As tempting as it may be for us to place our children above our wives we must remember that when the kids are grown who is left? It’s the woman sitting beside you it’s the woman that God gave you as a helper to walk alongside you and be your partner. We then are called to live our lives in service to our lives and when we do this it suddenly is not so hard for them to submit to our leadership because they know that we have their best interest above all others including ourselves. So we care for our wives as we care for ourselves because through marriage we are unified becoming one flesh which again is symbolic of the relationship that we have with Christ in that through His death we are unified to Him and when the Father looks upon us He sees not the wretched vile creature that we have made ourselves through sin but instead sees His beloved son who has unified Himself to us redeeming us in love.

Now in this love we are called to care for our wives needs and of course this means physical necessities but more than just the physical world we as men are called to be ministers to our wives just as Christ ministers to us. Men so often want to leave the work of ministry to the pastors of their church but if that is all that your wife is receiving then you are failing as a husband and I hate to seem so harsh but I have never been one to sugar coat things. It is our duty to teach and guide our wives in the word of God. After the sermon on the way home talk about the message give your thoughts on it that is a great place to start. Maybe find a devotional to do with your wife spend time in prayer with her. I would love to sit here and say that I am doing all of these things perfectly myself but then I would be lying and I try not to make a habit of that. We get busy and tend to slip up but the point is that we are making efforts to help our wives deepen their relationships with Christ. We are called to be the leader of the household not just in home decisions or some sort of management but much more importantly in leading our wives closer to Christ.

Finally then what of the children in the family?

Ephesians 6:1–4 “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.”

First is the calling of the children to obey their parents. Students, children, God has called us to be obedient to the commands of our parents even when you disagree or think you know better the word is clear that we are to be obedient to our parents. Why? Go back to what the family represents. We are just the little children of God and so often we think we know better and want to rebel against what God has commanded us to do but as His children we are called to obedience knowing that even if we can’t see it or understand it we know that God knows better. Children I assure you that your parents are doing what is best for you though you may not see it or understand it now they are working for your good just as God works for all our good. When we view our relationship with God in this way I believe it can help us gain some patience and understanding when things do not go our way. I know that their have been several times when I have been annoyed by Luke’s continued disobedience or even worse the students that I teach and their continual refusal to learn and when I get frustrated I simply think of how annoying it must be for God to deal with my constant groanings and incessent failures. When I look at it from this perspective I suddenly have a great deal more patience for the little ones around me because I know I am no better.

Now a key verse here though is verse four. First note who is being addressed here. in the first three verses it is the children being told to obey their parents meaning fathers and mothers, but now we are seeing specifically the fathers being addressed which is of great importance as we will see. The fathers are first called to not provoke your children to wrath which goes into what we were just saying in being patient with our children and understanding of them. We as men have a tendency to be quick tempered and harsh. If our heavenly Father were to treat us in the same measure that we often can treat our children we would all be doomed. Share that grace with your children and do not abuse the power that God has given to you. Instead use the power that God has given to you has the leader of the home train and prepare your children. Unfortunately I feel as though the general attitude of many men in the American churches is that we send our kids to kids church or youth group and that is where they will receive their knowledge of God and so they do not have any further responsibility. Let me be clear here that in a perfect world my job as a youth pastor or my Aunts job as a childrens minister would not be necessary. In a perfect world children would be trained in the word in their homes. Now deacons before you decide to save money and let me go, we unfortunately do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world where many kids have likely only seen their father open his bible on a Sunday morning. Men it is time to step up. You have been called by God to teach your kids about His word and to train them so that the world does not corrupt them. The world may look at this and say it is indoctrination and to an extent I say yes it is and unfortunately we are not doing it well enough. We should be raising our kids to engrained in the faith that they have the doctrines of our faith burned into their brains so that when the world tries to lead them astray they are prepared to fight back. Instead we sit back and hope that they learn something once or twice a week from youth group or kids church. Men protect your family and open your Bible daily with yor family. A practice I have recently been trying to get more regular at with my family is setting aside a time for family worship. Reading some scripture maybe a devotional and singing a hymn together and praying together. Start when they are young and train them through their lives in the word.

Grandfathers do not feel as though you are left out of this either. When I was a kid growing up my Papaw was an amazing scholar of the Bible. My cousins and I would often go to stay the night with them growing up and when he got home from work we would eat supper, clear the table, and then my Papaw would pull out his Bible and begin to read. He did not force us to join him but we loved him so and wanted to spend time doing what he was doing. I can remember that quickly I started bringing my Bible with me every time I went to their house because I knew it meant he would teach me something new about scripture. I still to this day when I think of stories like Zacheaus or the dry bones coming to life I think of the way my Papaw told me the story sitting at his kitchen table after working all day in the log woods.

Our families each and every member has an important role to play as symbolizing aspects of our relationship with God. When we protect these roles and fill them well we represent Christ well and show the world around us a beautiful picture of what it means to be Christian all while at the same time fortifying ourselves ensuring that our families will be safe from the world around it because we have God and each other to lean on.