#1,334 10/7/18 20 Ephesians 5:21-6:4

Fellow Members of the Family of God,

Is a Christian more like a river or a reservoir? I once heard this question asked and this comparison made in describing the Christian life. Both have water running into them, but a reservoir holds the water. The water in a river continues running right on through it, and it keeps flowing downstream, perhaps reaching the ocean. The rain and snow and underground springs keep providing more water that fills the river and keeps flowing through it.

In a way, the Christian is like a river. The blessings of God keep flowing into the Christian’s life. God’s Word instructs the Christian not to just hold onto those blessings for himself, but to share those blessings with others – to be a river, not a reservoir. We share our material blessings with our families, for God’s kingdom work, for the needy, for the government. We are especially to share God’s spiritual blessings we’ve received with others: His Word, His forgiveness, His love, His peace.

The Christian family is an expanded part of the Christian life, and it too is like a river, with God’s love and blessings flowing to it and through it. This well-known section of Paul’s letter to the Ephesian Christians makes clear: ’S LOVE FLOWS THROUGH THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY.

I. Husbands Love Wives as Christ Loved the Church. A. It’s interesting to note that in these well-known verses about family and the rolls within marriage God’s Word spends 3 times as many verses speaking to husbands than to wives or children. As it says, “the husband is the head of the wife.” Yet, the “flow-chart” in the Christian family doesn’t begin with the husband or father; it begins with Christ. God’s Word makes this clear when it says that Christian husbands are to love their wives “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” For His bride, the Church, Christ gave up His comforts and riches of heaven. He gave up His time and glorious position. He gave up His own personal gain and fame. Disregarding His own pain and suffering, He gave up His life as the Son of God for Her. As I reminded everyone in last week’s financial stewardship presentation after each service, referring to John 3:16, God’s true love shows itself in giving. He gave His Son as your Savior. He gave His blood for your forgiveness. He gave His life to win your eternal life with Him in paradise. This is the love of Christ that flows into the heart and life of the Christian husband and father whom God has placed as the head of his family. This giving love can’t help but flow like a river through him to his wife and children.

B. Christ didn’t just die for His bride, the Church. Look at the way He treats her and considers her! “He gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way husbands ought to love their wives.” Sinful though we believers in Christ’s Church are, He counts us holy and blameless and spotless in His sight through faith. Like a “Cinderella story,” He has taken lowly, filthy sinners and washed us clean so that we are His beautiful bride whom He loves and cherishes. Even though Christian wives are sinners, like their husbands, a Christian husband sees his bride with the eyes of Christ. She is forgiven by Christ. A husband will forgive her faults too. She has faults and shortcomings, but her husband will cherish her still, the way Christ does the Church.

C. This is the way Christ’s love flows through the Christian family. It is to begin with the husband as head who loves his wife as Christ does the Church. Just as the love of Christ continues to flow for us believing sinners, so will the love within the Christian marriage and family. A professional counselor’s article in the newspaper recently noted that half of all divorces take place during the first two years of marriage. When the marriage loses some of its newness and excitement; when the tedium and challenges of daily life grow heavy, some marriage partners give up. The professional counselor said that lifelong commitment is what’s needed. She compared the commitment needed in marriage to Ben Roethlisberger’s commitment from Findlay High School on to become a star pro football quarterback. Christian husbands have a much bigger “Star” to turn to for strength and commitment. That’s Christ. Husbands, let Christ’s committed love for you flow through you to love and give to and cherish the spouse He has given you.

II. Wives Submit to Husbands as to the Lord. A. I read recently that when Queen Elizabeth of England was married she refused to have the word “obey” taken out of her marriage vows. Even though in the eyes of the British government she held a position of greater authority than her husband, she recognized that in the eyes of God and the Church and holy Scripture here her husband was still her head whom she was to obey. The loving commitment for a Christian wife to fulfill her role in Christian marriage as the “helper” and submit to her husband as the “head” also flows from Christ. The says about Christ, the Head of the Church: “He humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:8) In fact, the Bible even says: “For the joy set before him [He] endured the cross, scorning its shame.” (Hebrews 12:2) Christ didn’t consider it beneath Him to obey His Father’s will, to obey the commandments in our place, to obediently go to the shameful cross for us. He did so joyfully out of love for us sinners. That’s the powerful love that flows into the Christian wife’s heart and life to move her to submit to her husband as her head in marriage.

B. Do you think that God knew that husbands would make sinful mistakes and be imperfect heads and not always show perfect, committed love to their wives when He first established husband and wife as head and helper at the first marriage between Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Of course, He knew. It is to sinful, imperfect, marriage partners that these divinely inspired words in Ephesians were written, long after the Fall into sin. Still, it says that Christian wives are to submit to their husbands as head. The only exclusion the Bible gives for not submitting is when a husband or anyone in authority requires something that disagrees with God’s Word. Submission and obedience to any imperfect human being can be difficult. That’s why God reminds Christian wives: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” Christian wives don’t submit to their husbands because husbands are perfect or wiser or more sanctified – they aren’t, but they do so “as to the Lord,” for the Lord’s sake. Christian wives, let the submissive love of Christ that led Him to sacrifice Himself for you flow through you as you give glory to your God and recognize your husband as head.

III. Children Obey Parents in the Lord. A. The last section of this Christian family reading speaks to Christian children. It makes reference to the 4th Commandment which God gave through Moses on Mt. Sinai. One of the few things known about Christ’s childhood is that incident about Him as a 12-year-old boy at the temple in . When Christ’s parents, Mary and Joseph, came looking for Him among the crowds of people attending the feast in Jerusalem, He told them: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” He was studying the Scriptures with the religious leaders in the temple. Still, it says that He “went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.” (Luke 2:49,51) obeyed the 4th Commandment and was obedient to His earthly parents. Jesus obeyed all of the commandments. He did so for us sinners. He did so for all of the times we disobey parents and others in authority. He did so for all the times we are not loving husbands and wives, sons and daughters, neighbors and friends. The Bible says that Christ’s obedience is credited to us through faith when it says: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)

B. Christian children, God says: “Obey your parents in the Lord.” The love of your Lord Jesus Christ that moved Him to obey and fulfill God’s Law in your place and make you holy is the love that inspires your obedience to your parents and others in authority. God’s Word makes clear that when Christian children obey their parents it shows love and honor to the Lord Himself because parents are His representatives whom He has placed over children for their physical and spiritual blessing. Obedience to parents shows love to parents and love to God. Christ said: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (John 14:14) Christian children, let Christ’s love flow through you as you obey your parents whom God has given you as His representatives.

C. So, are you a river or a reservoir? Christ’s love continues to flow abundantly into our lives every day, but we must admit that it doesn’t always flow out or through us. We fail to love as the Christian husbands and wives, children and parents, family members and friends that Christ has made us. When we recognize our own sinful failures, we will appreciate His forgiving love that flows to us all the more. May that love of Christ flow through us more and more in whatever role or station in life God has placed us. Let us be rivers of Christ’s love flowing out to others and back to Him, our loving Lord and Savior. Amen.