OPEN: After creating heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing the Heavenly Father said to these first children was, "Don’t."
"Don’t what?" Adam replied.
“Don’t eat the forbidden fruit." God said.
"Forbidden fruit? We have forbidden fruit? Hey, Eve. . . we have forbidden fruit!"
"Naw!"
"Yeah!"
"Do NOT eat the fruit!" said God.
“Why?"
“Because I am your Father and I said so!" God replied. A few minutes later, God saw His children having an apple break and was He ticked!
"Didn’t I tell you not to eat the fruit? "God (as our first parent) asked?
"Uh huh," Adam replied.
"Then why did you?" said the Father.
"I don’t know," said Eve.
"She started it!" Adam said,
"Did not!" "Did too!" "DID NOT!
At this point, God had had enough… and to punishment Adam and Eve He decreed that they
should have children of their own. Thus, the pattern was set and it has never changed!
APPLY: There are people who believe that their family was a punishment from God:
The husband doesn’t love
The wife doesn’t submit
The children don’t obey
And the parents are harsh and sometimes difficult to be around.
NOW… I don’t know if families (with problems like these) are being punished by God… but such families are unhealthy. They are diseased. They’re sick! And their sickness has a name: The sickness is called Sin.
But, there is a cure. God has a prescription that you can take to heal the broken home. And that cure is found in Colossians 3:18-21
“Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.”
I. As with all illnesses, when a Doctor prescribes a medication … you need to take it the way the Doctor ordered.
ILLUS: Now, I don’t know how it is with you… when I get medicines at the pharmacy - I don’t read ALL of the instructions on my medicine… or I just don’t bother to read them at all. I figure – it’s medicine – all I have to do is swallow it!
I did that once with a medicine my Doctor prescribed. I didn’t bother to read the instructions that came along with the antibiotic I was given and I ended up with a mouthful of sores that took me better than a week to get healed.
When you buy a medicine for an illness, they have those little papers that come along with them to tell you ‘how’ to take your pills. Believe it or not, we’re expected to read those silly things.
And if we don’t… and something goes wrong… we can blame ONLY ourselves.
So (now) God gives us instructions on how to have a perfect, healthy home
· Wives submit
· Husbands love
· Kids obey
· Dads don’t get too rough
And there are people who figure… if that’s the medicine all I have to do is swallow it and I’ll have a happy, healthy home… And a lot of times they’re not far off.
But there are other times when people use this prescription in a way it wasn’t intended and the result is damaged relationships and rebellious families.
II. How could you possibly misuse this prescription for creating healthy homes?
By not understanding the instructions that came along with the medicine. By not reading the rest of what Colossians has to say about your relationship to God.
You see, Paul’s theme, up to this point, has been – Jesus is Lord.
What does it mean for Jesus to be Lord? It means:
– He made everything
– He owns everything
– And (most importantly) He owns you
AND NOW, what we’re being told is - Jesus owns our families too. He owns our relationships.
When you declared that Jesus was your Lord you were turning over the keys to every aspect of your life
Ø Your possessions
Ø your future,
Ø and your spouse and kids.
Take a good look at your family – they don’t belong to you anymore. You gave them to Jesus when you were saved. They BELONG to Him. That’s what it means when we say “Jesus is our Lord!” We are saying that Jesus owns us and everything we have.
Now since, your husband/ or wife, children/ parents – belong to Jesus Christ, you are responsible to HIM for how you treat them.
Colossians 3 is a description of how Jesus expects you to treat what belongs to Him
It is not a description of how the people in your family are to treat you. (REPEAT)
If you don’t follow THIS prescription the way Jesus expects you to you will hurt yourself AND you will hurt your family.
Colossians 3:17 tells us “… whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him”
And the place to start doing thing in the name of Jesus… is with your family.
III. So, let’s sort this out… what is Paul telling us?
Paul is telling us that we are to be ministers to those in our families. Now, I’m not going to take this in the order in which Paul wrote them… but hey, I’m the preacher, I can do that:
· Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.” Colossians 3:20
In fact, Paul goes even further when he writes the church in Ephesus…
“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’— which is the first commandment with a promise — ‘that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.’” (Ephesians 6:1-3)
This becomes a particular issue for kids that are in their teens. Teenagers are that awkward age where they sometimes want more authority than their parents are willing to let them have. And this creates a power struggle in the family. Often times the kids would just as soon their parents allow them to run their own lives their own way.
However, teenagers, there is Biblical authority structure for family… and allow me let you in on a secret = YOU ARE NOT AT THE TOP OF THAT AUTHORITY STRUCTURE
This struggle between parents and teenagers can be so intense that it can be a source of frustration for both sides. Dave Barry once joked: "Teenaged boys already know everything. When a boy reaches 13 years of age, the Knowledge Fairy comes around and inserts into his brain all the information in the entire universe. From that point on, he no longer needs any parental guidance. All he needs is parental money."
But, of course, that’s not really the problem. The problem is – you are getting old enough to be entrusted with responsibility, but you are not considered old enough to make ALL the decisions you’d like to make. So (at times) you find yourself in a power struggle with your parents.
AND it’s hard to let go. It’s hard to let your parents be your parents, because at times you THINK you know better than they do. AND at times you do – you’re not dumb. Let anybody ask your parents, they’ll tell them you’re the smartest kid they know.
You are smart. Sometimes smarter than your parents. But when you forget who is supposed to be in charge, you find yourself in conflict with your parents… and it IS frustrating. BECAUSE THEY WILL WIN. They control the parental money. They control the parental permission of where you can go and where you can’t. They control the parental car keys. It can be frustrating.
Into this difficult relationship, Jesus gives you a ministry. He calls you to minister to your parents by letting them be right (even when they’re wrong).
Why?
Because your being “right” isn’t what Jesus is worried about here. Whenever you “honor” your parents… whenever you “obey” your parents you are showing them what it is to be a Christian. And you are making it easier for them to swallow their pride (when they are wrong).
AND it makes it easier for them to trust you with more decisions. Because you have shown them you respect their leadership & values.
Now God understands how hard this is to do… and so He gives you an added incentive… He says: If you will obey me by honoring your father and mother, THEN I’ll make life go easier for you and I’ll make it so that you can enjoy long life on the earth – For added emphasis, God makes sure you realize this was the only one of the 10 Commandments He added a promise to.
So, children obey your parents…
Now, we come to an even more difficult command:
· Wives, submit to your husbands
ILLUS: I once held a wedding rehearsal for a young couple. In my wedding vows I always include a passage like this from Ephesians or Colossians that includes the word “submit.” During the rehearsal, one of the friends of the bride literally jumped up in her pew and cried out “You don’t have to do that! Times have changed and you don’t have to “submit” to anybody!”
Fortunately, the bride graciously turned and replied “but this is what we want in our vows. It’s OK.”
Wives submit to your husbands. Why? Well, because (wives) - that’s your spiritual service. Your objective is to create a spiritual leader in your husband. You teach your husband to be a spiritual leader by training him to lead AND you can only do that by letting him make mistakes.
Does your husband make mistakes (a lot of laughter and agreement in the crowd).
You do it by refusing to take the reins of leadership away from him and refusing to make the leadership decisions him.
God’s goal for your husband is for him to be a spiritual leader. And you assist God in training your husband by displaying proper submission, a submission that honors and respects your husband so that he gains confidence enough to assert Godly leadership outside the home as well.
BUT (you might say) he doesn’t deserve for me to be submissive to him…
ILLUS: That reminds me of the story of a speaker at a women’s club who was lecturing on marriage. She asked the audience how many of them wanted to "mother" their husbands.
One woman in the back row raised her hand.
"Now, let me get this straight, you say you want to ’mother’ your husband? the speaker asked.
"Mother?" the woman echoed. "I thought you said ’smother!"
It’s hard to submit to a husband who doesn’t deserve to be submitted to. But let you in on a secret… NOBODY deserves to be in a position of being submitted to – except Jesus.
Husbands, wives, kids… we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. THE ONLY person who has ever deserved submission is Jesus Christ.
Sooo. If a husband NEVER deserves to be submitted to - why should you?
Because Jesus asked you to. Because this is your spiritual service. This is part of your ministry within the family.
ILLUS: Norman M. Lobsenz once wrote: “One woman I know was distressed by her husband’s chronic thoughtlessness. Immersed in business affairs, he seldom even remembered her birthday.
‘I could have tried to force him into changing his ways,’ she said, ‘but it only seemed to me that this would only make matters worse. Instead, I waited for the first chance I had to praise him for some small act of thoughtfulness. When he finally brought home a book I had asked for four times, I thanked him as if it were a diamond necklace! He looked at me oddly, but I could see he was pleased. I did this a few more times, and gradually he began to want to think about me because he enjoyed being appreciated.’”
What she was doing was learning to submit – and in time, she changed her husband’s behavior. Why? Because she did things the way Jesus wanted it done.
So, children, obey your parents and wives submit to your husbands. Now for the another hard command:
· Husbands, love your wives… and fathers do not embitter your children”
Notice what Jesus is not saying:
Jesus isn’t telling you to RUN your wife and kids
Jesus isn’t telling you to dominate your wife and kids
Jesus isn’t telling you to forcefully assert your position as “head of the house”
That’s how pagans behave…
that’s how unbelievers treat their families…
that’s the wicked exercise authority in their families
That’s the kind of lifestyle we’re trying to get away from – we’re not pagans!!!
How should the head of the house exert his authority?
“Jesus called (His disciples) together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matthew 20:25-28)
Yes husbands… yes fathers…You ARE called by God to be the heads of your household – but you didn’t earn that position, you don’t own that position… It was given you by God. And, in addition to that, when you were buried in the waters of Christian baptism, you surrendered that “authority” to Jesus. NOW you exercise that leadership in the family as Christ’s agent
And God WILL HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE for how you treat those under your care. In I Peter (for example) we’re told that God won’t listen to our prayers if we mistreat our wives.
Soooo, Husbands love your wives… fathers don’t embitter your children. In so doing, you are modeling Christ for your wife and your kids.
CLOSE: Allow me close with a story that illustrates how family members become servants of each other: (From "It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It" by Robert Fulghum)
It was Molly’s, age 7, job to pack the lunches for her family. She would put in the sandwiches, cookies, fruit and so on in a paper bag. One day, in addition to the paper bag she usually packed for her father, she gave him a second bag - enclosed by duct tape, staples, and paper clips. The dad, in a hurry to get to work didn’t have time to ask what was inside, quickly thanked her, gave her a kiss and took both bags with him to work. At lunch time, as he was eating his lunch, he remembered his daughter’s gift and brought it out. Since it proved too difficult to open any other way, he tore it open on the side, and out spilled these objects:
2 hair ribbons
3 small stones
1 plastic dinosaur
A pencil stub
A tiny seashell
2 animal crackers
A marble
A used lipstick
A small doll
2 chocolate kisses
& 13 pennies
Unsure of what she meant by this gift, he smiled to himself and thought "how quaint." Then realizing the lateness of the hour, he hurriedly swept his desk clean, including the "gifts," and put them in the wastebasket.
He did this, he noted later, "because there was nothing in there that I needed." That night, as he sat in his easy chair, his daughter approached him and asked, "where is my bag?"
“Your bag?" he asked uneasily.
“Yes my bag of treasures I gave you this morning. I thought you might like to play with them."
“Oh, that bag. Well, it’s still at the office.”
"I want it back," she said. "Those things are very important to me."
"Of course, honey. I’ll get it for your tomorrow."
"Oh, and daddy, there’s something I forgot to put in your bag," and she handed him a note. Unfolding the paper he read "Daddy, I love you."
Slipping out to his car, he drove hurriedly to his office and frantically checked his wastebasket and found to his relief that it had not been emptied yet. Quickly, he dumped its contents onto his desk and sorted thru them for the "treasures."
Just then the janitor came in and, asked, "did you lose something."
"Yes," he replied, "I think I’ve lost my mind."
The next day, at home, he asked his daughter to explain the meaning of the items in the bag and patiently listened as she explained each item in detail, how they each meant something special to her, a special event, or something he had given to her.
The daughter was a minister to her father, not just in the lunch she made but in the love she gave
The father learned his job was to minister to her - holding her treasures as being important to him
That’s the prescription for a healthy and a Godly family
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
· Remembering What We Have - Colossians 1:1-1:14
· He Is Lord Because Of Who He Is - Colossians 1:15-1:23
· The Mystery - Colossians 1:21-1:29
· Jesus is Lord Because Of How He Rules - Colossians 2:1-2:23
· Feet On The Earth, Head In The Sky - Colossians 3:1-3:17
· Prescription for a Healthy Family - Colossians 3:17-3:21
· Working For Jesus - Colossians 3:22-4:1
· Thinking Like Jesus - Colossians 4:1-4:6
· Someone Else - Colossians 4:7-4:18
