A Place for Faith: The Family

The family unit is considered by many to be the most important social unit of society. I want to illustrate to you the change in the family unit through getting you to think about the evolution of the family through television shows. Some of you in the room grew up on shows like Leave it to Beaver, The Waltons, and The Cosby Show. The family unit is made up of a husband, wife, and and a few children right? And even when you look at shows with only one spouse such as My Three Sons or Bonanza the single status of a parent is always the result of being a widow, never divorced, or unwed. As we move in history to the late 80s and early 90s we see a shift away from this proper, healthy, and functional family life to shows like Roseanne, Married with Children, and the Simpsons. While these shows reflected traditional families in the sense of married couples with children, these families are a little more dysfunctional right? Even shows that do feature traditional family structures like Everybody Loves Raymond and Two and Half Men feature less traditional characters in supporting roles like the brothers in both of those shows. In 2009, ABC started a show called Modern Family, which has a divorced and remarried father with a step child, and two biological children. One of the children is in a traditional two parent household, and the other is a gay man in a committed relationships raising an adopted daughter. So family tv shows are moving away from the idealistic family and are becoming more relatable. People want to watch family shows where they can see their own families in the characters on the show. As we approach this passage in Colossians 3, we find Paul giving advice to the family, but before he discusses the family he gives us a description of how our lives ought to operate:

Peace Rules:

"And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful." - Colossians 3:15

The peace of Christ doesn’t just dwell in us, it rules in us. The word for rule here is literally to arbitrate, to act as a judge. His peace reigns in our hearts. We can always have peace regardless of our circumstances. 

Because we have the peace of Christ reigning in our hearts we can be thankful. We can always be thankful for what our God does, and how he works in and through us. Our circumstances might not be what we want them to be, but we can give thanks because peace reigns in our hearts. We can lay down in bed every night, and close our eyes knowing that our God provides us peace. 

Jesus himself tells his disciples in John 24:27 that he is going to give them peace, and he is going to leave that peace with them even after he is gone. He says don’t let your hearts be troubled, nor let them be afraid. 

Not only should the peace of Christ rule in your heart, but Paul teaches us here that we were called to peace. You want to impress your unbelieving friends around you? Exhibit peace in the midst of your trials. When things don’t go your way, don’t run around frantically pouting or being anxious. Exhibit the peace that you were called to. I can assure you that living at peace will make you stand apart from those around you.

The Word Dwells:

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God." - Colossians 3:16

Paul uses an adverb here that is of great significance to this passage. So it isn’t just that the word should dwell in us, but that it should dwell in us, richly. 

When God’s word dwells in us richly, our response is exactly what Paul describes in the second half of this verse. We desire to teach it to others, we want to encourage one another, and we respond with a spirit of thankfulness as his word changes us. 

This is why we want to strive to not only read the Word of God, but memorize what it says. Because when you memorize something in your mind and heart it becomes a part of who you are. Now I realize that we don’t live in a world where memorizing information is that important. When you have a smart phone or a computer with you every second of the day, a simple google search will give you whatever answer you need, but we don’t memorize God’s word just have the information in our heads. We memorize God’s word to have it transform our hearts. 

• I don’t know about you, but I probably know the lyrics to hundreds of songs. And I realize that memorizing things to music is much easier to do, but brothers and sisters our minds are capable of memorizing the word of God. You know phone numbers, account numbers, street addresses, driver’s license numbers, and passwords. You can memorize the word of God. I am not asking you to memorize the whole New Testament, but I am challenging you to put the word of Christ in your heart. Let it dwell in you as Paul tells us here. 

William Tyndale was the first man to translate the New Testament Bible into English that was made through the printing press. Before the printing press all copies were done by hand. Tyndale was influential in providing a translation of the Bible that was mass produced. Eventually Tyndale faced execution and was deemed a heretic because he believed that faith alone justified and that to believe in the forgiveness of sins and to embrace the mercy offered in the gospel was enough for salvation. As he faced death, his dying words were “Lord, open the eyes of the King of England,” which at this time was Henry VIII. Three years later, this same king who had Tyndale strangled to death and his body burned required every parish church in England to make a copy of the English Bible available to its members. The Bible you read today was literally the result of men like Tyndale willing to die for what it said. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Jesus is the Ethic:

"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." - Colossians 3:17

I can’t think of a better ethic by which to live your life than this verse. Before you decide to do something ask yourself, Can I do this in the name of Jesus? Can I give thanks to God in the midst of this action? That is an ethic worth living your life by. 

This verse prevents us from compartmentalizing our Christian faith. It forces us to put Jesus at the front of our mind throughout the day. It is really easy for us to compartmentalize our faith. We know we are supposed to spend time daily in Scripture, and prayer but if we aren’t careful we will compartmentalize that aspect of our day and it won’t transform us throughout the day. We can show up to worship on Sunday, and if we are not careful we will leave that time of worship thinking that is the only time worship happens, and of course, we know that is not true. 

Compartmentalizing our Christian faith will cause us to become stagnant in our discipleship, in our evangelism, and in our prayer life. We don’t do these things only in the context of church life. We should be doing all of these things in the context of our everyday life. We never just automatically drift towards sharing our faith with people, or spending time with God through prayer. These are things that require effort and intentionality on our part. 

 

Everyone Has a Role in the Family:

"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 provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." - Colossians 3:18-21

 

I want us to pause for a moment before we get into the roles that Paul lays out for us here. And I want you to consider these 3 statements as you approach a text that causes you to dismiss it, have anxiety, or become angry.

Consider that the text might not teach what you think it teaches.

• Let’s flesh out what this means here: Robert Alter a Jewish Scholar wrote a book entitled The Art of Biblical Narrative and he gives an example of the book of Genesis. And in Genesis there are two big themes that come up that our culture today would disagree with:

• Polygamy: the marrying of multiple wives and
• Primogenitor: the oldest in the family gets all of the privileges, blessings, etc.
• Alter says that when you actually read Genesis you notice two things:

• That polygamy always wreaks havoc on the families it created problems for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and
• God honors the younger son in Genesis not the older son. Jacob is the line through which Israel is born, and Joseph and Benjamin are the two favorite sons of Jacob not his oldest son.

Consider that you might be viewing the text with your own cultural blinders.

An example of this would be slavery. Often times people will say well Paul tells slaves to be obedient to their masters so the Bible must be condoning slavery, but you have to understand when we think of slavery we are thinking of 18th and 19th century African slavery, but in the first century as Murray Harris says in a book he wrote on Greco-Roman slavery slavery he informs us that slaves were virtually indistinguishable from everyone else, never segregated from society, often times more educated than their owners, and held managerial positions in society, they also made money and even enough to often times buy themselves out of slavery, and very few persons were slaves for life in the first century. Read Paul’s letter to Philemon, and see how he handles the slave Onesimus and his relationship to his owner, Philemon. So with all of that background being said, let’s look at the household code Paul sets out here: 

Wives you are to be submissive to your husbands, as is fitting to the Lord. That is an important clarification. What this doesn’t mean is that when your husband shakes his tea glass that you are required to fill it up at that moment.

Paul is not asking you be your husband’s personal assistant and do everything for him. It is also not saying that woman are naturally or spiritually inferior to the man or the wife to the husband. Paul did believe that both the husband and the wife had rights in the marriage.

Let’s stop again and really think this through, it is not accurate to say that women are viewed as inferior in the New Testament. “Well how can I say that” you say, who are the first people to visit Jesus at his tomb? It wasn’t men, it was women. Who did Paul associate with, and receive patronage from when he wrote the epistle to the Romans? Phoebe. Who was the first documented convert to Christianity in Europe? It was Lydia who gave Paul hospitality in Philippi when he visited there. So we see throughout the New Testament between Jesus and Paul that neither was opposed to women even women having leadership, but Paul did believe that there was a hierarchical order in creation and Christ was the head of man, and man was the head of woman. But don’t take that to mean that there is this inferior view of woman. 

Husband your role is just as important. Love your wife. Not just in a romantic or sexual way, but you generally care about her well being. When Paul says do not be harsh in Greco-Roman culture there was very little hope for women who were being treated wrongly by their husbands under the law, but Paul is saying, “Christian husband you do not need to treat your wife harshly.” 

Children you have a duty to obey your parents. Even if what they are telling you to do doesn’t make sense at the time, as long as it isn’t illegal or unethical, do what they say. 

Fathers don’t put unreasonable demands on your children that they cannot keep. I have actually told my son to stop crying before when he hurt himself just because his cry can be really annoying. That’s not a good thing. When you are 3, crying is a legitimate response to pain, and when you are 45 crying can be a legitimate response to pain. Don’t provoke them. Sometimes as parents it can be fun to provoke our children, and see how they respond. Paul says we don’t need to be doing that. 

So how do we sum up Paul’s teaching here? The family works best when each part is doing its job. It’s like the human body, when everything is working properly the body has a beautiful rhythm. When each member of the family is doing their role the way Paul describes it here, it is working at full strength. 

When children don’t obey their parents, parents begin to put more demands and rules on children, when wives are not submissive to their husbands, it can lead men to becoming more dominant in their authority, when men aren’t caring for their wives it can lead to bitterness and anger in the wives, and when fathers provoke their children it can lead to strain relationships with children. Each member of the body has a role, and when that role is fulfilled properly the family is healthy. 

So when people look at our individual families what do you want them to see? The success of your children in school? The type of college or university they get accepted into? The amount of accolades they get on the sports field? How much money your family has? All of these things will fade away. When we are stripped of all the stuff, what will we have left to show for what we did with our families? I suggest to you this morning that we all strive to follow the words of Paul: And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.