Slides: Christ-Centered Families

Christ-Centered Families
Colossians 3:18-21

18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. [literally: this is pleasing in the Lord]
21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

Christ-centered families

• Christ lives in you, so display His life in relationships—starting with family.

• Christ lives in other family members, so nurture and connect with Christ in them.

• Family members are people too! Hold yourself to at least as high a standard for relating to family as to others.

• Each role within family life is designed to display something about Christ.

Living the Christ-life together

• Rooted in the gospel of Christ

• Realizing who we are in Christ

• Relating in the gracious love of Christ

• Ruled by the peace of Christ

• Relishing the word of Christ

• Representing the name of Christ

• Rejoicing in thanks for Christ

Christ-centered families

• Christ lives in you, so display His life in relationships—starting with family.

• Christ lives in other family members, so nurture and connect with Christ in them.

• Family members are people too! Hold yourself to at least as high a standard for relating to family as to others.

• Each role within family life is designed to display something about Christ.

Marriage hints at God-Christ relationship in Trinity

• The head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. (1 Corinthians 11:3)

• God and Christ are united and equal, with God leading and Christ responding.

• Husband and wife are united and equal, with husband leading and wife responding.

• A wrong view of husband-wife relationship proclaims heresy about the Trinity.

Marriage pictures Christ and his church

The husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. (Ephesians 5:23)

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31-32)

Husband Pictures Christ

Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. (Colossians 3:19)

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. (Ephesians 5:25)

• The way a husband relates to his wife pictures how Christ relates to his church. The picture may be true or it may be false; but either way, a husband can't help picturing Christ.

Wife pictures church’s submission to Christ

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. (Colossians 3:18)

Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Ephesians 5:24)

• A wife's response to her husband pictures the church's response to Christ. The picture may be lovely or it may be ugly, but a wife can't help sending a message about the church's response to Christ.

Healthy headship

• It is my Father who glorifies me. (John 8:54)

• Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might present the church to himself in splendor. (Eph 5:25,27)

• Husbands should love their 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 Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. (Eph 5:28-30)

Children’s attitude to parents pictures attitude to the Father

• If then I am a father, where is my honor? (Malachi 1:6)

• I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. (John 8:28)

• I do as the father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. (John 14:31)

Parenthood pictures the Fatherhood of God

• As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. (Psalm 103:13)

• Our Father who art in heaven. (Matthew 6:9)

• You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased. (Mark 1:11)

• The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. (John 5:20)

Christ-Centered Families

18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. [literally: this is pleasing in the Lord]
21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.