Introduction
Little Suzie came home from first grade and excitedly said, "Mom, today our teacher told us the story of Snow White.” For the next five minutes, she then recounted the fairy tale including the arrival of Prince Charming and his rescue of Snow White. "Then do you know what happened, Mom?” Suzie asked. "They lived happily ever after?” "No, Mom, they got married."
Someone said, "All marriages are happy. It is the living together afterwards which causes all the trouble.” Even if a marriage is made in heaven, we are responsible to maintain it and that’s not an easy task. Lots of marriages break down and seem beyond repair. In our country, roughly half of the marriages end in divorce. There are also many which are intact, but not healthy or happy ones. Unfortunately, marriage problems are not just statistics. They involve real people. Our friends, family members, maybe even we, ourselves, struggle to make marriage work. With so many folks having a tough time in their relationship with their spouse, the church of Jesus Christ, has a fantastic opportunity to show people a better way. We can let folks know that faith in Christ helps us live happily ever after as husband and wife. Unfortunately, in many cases Christian marriages, where husband and wife are both believers in Christ, don’t work much better than a marriage where neither partner is a follower of Jesus. In fact, a recent survey showed that Christians have a higher rate of divorce than the average person. This is partly because cohabitation and de-cohabitating have replaced marriage and divorce in some circles, but it clearly shows that Christian marriages often are not working.
So, what can we do? The old saying is "When all else fails, read the directions.” That is good advice. In this case, we need to pick up the Bible and see what God says about building a marriage which will work as He intended. Today we take a look at the directions He gives us in Colossians 3:18-21. There are a lot of good books out there on how to have a better marriage. Books have been written by James Dobson, Gary Smalley, Dennis Rainey, etc., etc., but what we are going to explore today is far more important than all of them put together. God is the Creator of marriage. These are His instructions to us through Paul. These words apply to people who lived in Ephesus in 60 A.D., to folks in Louisville, KY in 2000, and to every time and place in between.
Read Scripture
Supremacy of Christ
1. The theme throughout the Book of Colossians is the supremacy of Jesus Christ
2. As a demonstration of Jesus as our "all-sufficient" Savior, we now
find His apostle Paul giving guidelines by which we can successfully
conduct our family and business matters!
3. This passage illustrates that the supremacy of Christ reaches every aspect of our lives.
As this passage focuses on relationships in the home, Paul first gives a word to Wives and Husbands and a Word to Children and Parents.
I. A Word to Wives and Husbands (3:18,19)
In the Scriptures, marriage is the first institution created by God. It is described first in Genesis: "For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave [be united] to his wife; and they shall become one flesh."
A. Wives Roles
1. Submit
a. What it is not:
· Submission is not a surrender of her will--that is due only to God.
· Submission in no way implies inferiority.
· Submission is not absolute. A wife may refuse to submit to her husband’s desires if they violate God’s word.
b. What it is:
To obey, without necessary reference to agreement. We must trust that the person to whom we are submitting is qualified to make good judgements. It is always used of a particular relationship where there is a reciprocal propriety or authority. It is used of the Son’s submission to the Father
Illustration
A 1998 Gallup Poll showed that 69% of the public disagreed when asked if they concurred with the statement that wives should “submit graciously” to the “servant leadership” of their husbands
2. Respect (Eph 5:33)
“Wives, respect your husbands". The wife is to have a strong, and deep respect for her husband. She is to believe that he’s the best man in the universe. And that, not because ’love is blind.’ In fact, love is very far from being blind. It has been said that, "Love is not blind; that is the last thing it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind."
B. Husbands Roles
1. Love your wives
Ephesians 5:25 adds “just as Christ loved the church.”
Christ gave Himself for the church; so husbands should give themselves sacrificially for their wives. That’s what Christ did on the cross. He gave his life up instead of requiring his wife to. Husbands, when was the last time you sacrificed something for your wife? When did you give up? If you gave something up, was it of little surrender value, or great?? Look at what Christ gave up, and then see if you’ve really given up anything.
Christ calls us to give not something, but ourselves up for our wives. That is love: to lay down our lives. Do not leave here without resolving to give yourself up for your wife.
Luther Quote
“Of course, the Christian should love his wife. He is supposed to love his neighbor, and since his wife is his nearest neighbor, she should be his deepest love.”
2. Do not be bitter toward them
Paul modified his call for husbands to love their wives by adding that they are not to be embittered against them. The only other time this word is used in the New Testament, it refers to something bitter in taste. Paul is telling husbands not to call their wives “honey” and then act like vinegar. Paul is calling husbands to loving service. In this context, the warning against not becoming "embittered " against our wives makes sense. If we serve merely out of duty, as opposed to out of love, we will grow bitter towards the one we are serving. Paul calls husbands to serve their wives out of loving concern for their spiritual well-being This is the way Christ loves the church. Christ did not serve us because the Father made Him serve us. The Son of Man came to serve us because He had a loving interest in the condition of our souls (Mk. 10:45).
3. Lead Your Home
To the Ephesians Paul writes, "Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church "(Eph. 5:22, 23). I can assure you, ladies, that the news just got better not worse. Paul says that "the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church ". At this point we must pause and ask the question, ’How is Christ the head of the church?’. The word translated, ’head’, also means ’leader’. Paul says that men are to be leaders in the home, but they are to be leaders in the home in the same way that Jesus is the leader of the church .
Why is the issue of male headship in the home so controversial? Because, for the most part, husbands have failed to lead their wives the way Christ leads the church. Paul is not giving husbands permission to be domineering. Paul is not giving husbands permission to plop themselves in front of the TV, and to order their wives around. Paul is not writing husbands an exemption from household chores. Paul is insisting that husbands lead their homes in the same way Christ leads the church.
Leading the way Christ leads means washing feet, but more than that, it means husbands are responsible for spiritually nurturing your wives. Paul says, in Ephesians, that Christ died that He might "cleanse " the church and that "He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle "(Eph. 5:26, 27). As the head of the church, Jesus died to spiritually cleanse the church. If husbands are to lead as Christ leads, we must take seriously the spiritual health of those in our household. Husbands should be diligent to initiate prayer, diligent to initiate discussions on faith, and should be exemplary in their church attendance.
Tim Allen Quote
“Dad needs to show an incredible amount of respect and humor and friendship toward his mate so the kids understand their parents are sexy, they’re fun, they do things together, they’re best friends. Kids learn by example. If I respect Mon, they’re going to respect Mom.”
II. A Word to Children and Parents (3:20,21)
A. Children
1. Obey
5th Commandment
1st commandment with a promise “that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you” – Ex 20:12
2. Well pleasing to the Lord
a. Obedience to parents must not conflict with the Lord’s word - Eph. 6:1. Cf. Mt. 10:37.
3. Disobedience is a serious matter - Rom. 1:30. Cf. 2 Tim. 3:2.
a. In the OT, disobedience was punished by death - Deut. 21:18-21. Cf. Exodus. 21:15,17; Lev. 20:9.
b. Rebellious children can:
1) Diminish their parents’ happiness - Proverbs 10:1; 17:25.
2) Mar their parents’ reputation - 1 Sam. 3:13.
3) Diminish their parents’ opportunities in service to the Lord –
1 Tim. 3:4,5,12; Tit. 1:6.
B. Parents
Fathers have a special, unique responsibility in how the family is brought up (but note in this passage, "pater" is used, which could refer to both parents, so this could apply to a single mother too)
1. Parents have a responsibility to nurture, discipline, enforce obedience - Eph. 6:4; Col. 3:21. Cf. 1 Sam. 3:13; Prov. 13:24; 19:18; 22:6,15; 23:13,14; 29:15,17;.
a. “Rearing children is like holding a very wet bar of soap — too firm a grasp and it shoots from your hand, too loose a grasp and it slides away. A gentle but firm grasp keeps it in your control”
2. Some qualities of effective discipline:
1) Instructive, as well as corrective, discipline.
2) Neither excessively lenient nor harsh.
3) Not abusive.
4) Consistent.
A child’s heart is a precious gift of God that we should be careful with. We don’t want children to think our love is dependent on a specific behavior, and we don’t want them to doubt our love for them. It is a crucial spiritual lesson that children should learn that we can both love and disapprove at the same time. We should not raise children so that they think it is impossible to please us; children’s ability to please their parents reflects on our ability to please our heavenly Father [with His help].
Parents, fathers in particular, need to learn to listen long enough to their children so that they are not going to be an exasperation. They need to understand what makes their children exasperated. When I think I am being a reasonable dad and giving reasonable orders, and my children are upset, I must consider that I may be doing something wrong. I have to listen to them and figure out why they are upset. If I’m not going to exasperate them I’ve got to understand them, and that creates relationship again, just as we saw in the command to husbands to love their wives.
Conclusion
Notice the importance in all these commands of faith in God. The motivations of those in authority and those obeying are the same--it is because they have a master in heaven. Everything we do in marriage, between parents and children, or in a working environment; and in every conversation we have in whatever setting, we have as Master over us, and we must please him. He will reward us for our service to him. That is the only basis on which life makes sense. Because we have a Master whom we’re serving, our attitude ought to be one acting to benefit other people, and being a servant to someone else, whether through love or submission, through leading or following. We do that joyfully because there is One greater than we whom we long to please.
Jesus is the role model, both as the head (of the Church) and as the one submitting (to the Father). We are in Christ and want to please him in every way.
In 1993, workers doing some moving and remodeling at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, discovered something rather unusual. As they were moving a display case, they found an old photograph tucked behind the case. It was a photo of a stocky, friendly-looking man in a baseball uniform with the words “Sinclair Oil” on the shirt.
Stapled to the picture was a note in a man’s scrawl that said, “You were never to tired to play ball. On your days off, you helped build the Little League field. You always came to watch me play. You ware a Hall of Fame dad. I wish I could share this moment with you.”
No one know how the picture got there or the identity of the dad in the photo. A national sports magazine picked up the touching story, and a man came forward to say that he had tucked the picture and the note behind the display case during a visit to the Hall of Fame.
It seems the ballplayer in the photo was this man’s late father. Just like the note said, this man was proud of his dad and believed he deserved to receive special recognition. So, he decided to honor his father by holding his own little ceremony to induct his dad into the Hall of Fame.
That’s wonderful! What this man was saying was, “Dad, you deserve a place alongside the best ballplayers. You were a Hall of Fame father.”
I want to be in the Hall of Fame, don’t you? Let’s be the kind of husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, and children who make it a joy and delight for our spouses, children, and parents to obey God’s commands.
