Two Words Every Family Member Needs Series

Title: A Nurturing Family

Theme: To show that each person in the family has a role to play and if we fulfill that then we will have a great family.

Text: Ephesians 5:22 – 6:4

Ephesians 5:22-33 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. (23) For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. (24) Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. (25) Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, (26) that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, (27) 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. (28) So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. (29) For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. (30) For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. (31) "For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." (32) This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. (33) 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.

Ephesians 6:1-4 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. (2) "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: (3) "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth." (4) And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

Review

The last few weeks we have been talking about memorials. We started with Joshua and the Israelites who walked through the river Jordan. God split the river. As they walked through the Lord told Joshua to chose a man from each to take a stone out of the river and place it on the side. This is so that when they are walking with their children then they could tell them what the Lord had done. A memorial to the deliverance and miracles of the Lord.

Next we saw Rites of Passages. These are events and ceremonies in our children’s lives in which we help them move into another stage of their destiny. These include graduations, marriages, baptisms, or even dedications.

Today I want to step back and look at what is called the Traditional family. I say that because as we live in a contemporary world we deal with a society that says the family is no longer described as what it is. So let us look today at what constitutes a Biblical family.

Introduction: It all begins with marriage

Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all [2] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (27) So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (28) Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Genesis 2:18-25 And the Lord God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him." (19) Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. (20) So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. (21) And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. (22) Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. (23) And Adam said: "This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man." (24) Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (25) And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.