Twelve Keys to
Spiritual Maturity
A Godly Home
Colossians 3:18-21

In approaching these keys to spiritual maturity, it is very easy to convey
two mistaken impressions.

The first one is the belief that the Christian life is about achieving
some sort of whiz-bang, MTV, instant attainment thing. Just apply the magic
formula, the correct set of mantras and, “Hey Presto” a mature
Christian.

It’s a bit like America on Line. This week I have spoken to young men (at
least they sounded young to me) called Jerry, Ben and, well some others that I
can’t quite recall. My AOL was giving me problems. Not ethical problems so
much as software problems. I called AOL Help and this young voice says, “Hi
Derek, I’m Ben.” “What can I do for you?” “You can solve
this problem” I said, (I describe it) and instantly (a little too
instantly) he says, “I’m attaching a file to an e-mail I’m going to
send you. Just click on this file and that should do the trick.”
Right!

It didn’t! In fact, as I kept on insisting to someone called Jason, it made
things worse! It had promised an instant cure, but it made things worse. Because
as you all know, software problems are designed to be complicated. There’s a
Gnostic conspiracy that only people like Ben and Jason can really live their
lives to the full.

Christian maturity is more than simply down-loading a file and
double-clicking!

But there’s a second mistake that we can make. It has to do with
guilt! Yes, guilt! Because a series like this one can bat you up. And tonight we
are going to touch on marriage and children and the home, and I don’t think
there’s anyone here tonight who doesn’t feel some measure of guilt about the
way we handle this aspect of our lives. In this area, more than any other, I
find myself saying, “Could I get a replay of that?” And although I
want us to look at this tonight I feel it important to remind myself that if we
confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to purify
us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Having seen those two mistakes that we can make, Paul wants us to see that
the way our relationship with Christ manifests itself is in the every-day issues
of life. Colossians 3 is one of the most fundamental chapters in the whole Bible
on the issue of what it means to be a Christian. It would repay very careful
study indeed. We looked at the opening verses in two sessions right at the very
beginning of this series where Paul talks about what it means to have a
spiritual mindset. And now, without pausing for breath, Paul turns to
marriage and makes these seemingly simple (they are not, of course!) commands to
husbands, wives and children. Because the way our spiritual maturity works
itself out is in the context of the relationships that we forge. What you are in
your prayer closet is one thing; but, what you are in your relationship with
your spouse is where it is measured.

Throughout this whole section in Colossians, Paul has been saying that the
Christian life can be lived in any and every circumstance if we grasp this
fundamental point: in all of life’s relationships we are living primarily
for our Lord Jesus Christ
. See no one in the picture but Jesus. If you grasp
this principle, it really will transform your life in every relationship in
which you are engaged. There is always a greater loyalty that you owe than the
one you owe to your husband or wife, viz., your relationship to Jesus Christ.
That’s the most important thing of all. Look at what he says in the
immediately preceding verses (vv.15,16 and 17). When he talks about their
relationship to each other, he punctuates it with these little expressions:

in the Lord (v18),
well-pleasing to the Lord (v.20), or
with respect to slaves, fearing the Lord (v.22).

Then again in verse 22, “it is the Lord Christ that you serve.”

You are to live, not primarily with your husband in view, or your wife in
view, or your parents in view, but with Jesus in view. I do this for Jesus sake.
And here in chapter 3, when he speaks about marriage, he speaks about living in
such a way that has great worth or value in God’s sight. That’s the thing
that will sweeten the relationship in every relationship: my relationship with
the Lord Jesus Christ. When we think of the relationships and responsibilities
of marriage, if Jesus isn’t at the head of it, if He isn’t the one
determining the perspectives, then everything is going to get out of whack. You
will end up with husbands with the ethical finesse of Jabba the Hut, and wives
with the scheming subtlety of Lady Macbeth.

You remember how George Herbert puts it in his beautiful little poem, The
Elixir
,


All may of Thee partake
Nothing can be so mean
Which with his tincture, for thy sake
will not grow bright and clean.

If you bow before Him, then in whatever sphere you find yourself in, an
entirely different atmosphere will pervade your life as you find yourself in
circumstances which are less than ideal.

Now what I want to do is to look at what Paul has to say to wives in v 18,
and then in the second place to husbands in verses 19 and 20, and then to
fathers and children in v.21. And then I want to make a series of applications
to a variety of situations from all of this.

There’s a great deal of cynicism about marriage these days. Its not
surprising whenever we see the statistics about divorce. One little girl had
been to see Cinderella, and whenever she was being asked about it, the
questioner said, “I know what happens in the end, Cinderella and the Prince
live happily ever after.” And the girl replied, “O no they didn’t.
They got married!”

Let’s take a look at what Paul says.

I. His counsel to wives: what is it? Be submissive.

Now, according to a
leading commentary on Colossians, of the over 40 occurrences of this word in the
New Testament, they all carry “the overtone of authority and
subjection.” What Paul is saying here, as he makes clear elsewhere, is what
is said at the very beginning of the Bible: that the central ministry of a wife
is to be a “helper suitable” for her husband (Gen. 2:18).

Now Paul doesn’t so say so here, but in Ephesians 5 (and remember that
these two epistles, Ephesians and Colossians were circular ones which were read
and re-read throughout the Lycus Valley where Colosse was situated, and that
therefore these Colossian Christian would have been familiar with what Paul had
written in Ephesians) he goes to draw the metaphor that submission to one’s
husband is illustrated in how the church submits herself to Christ.

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the
head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which He is
the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to
their husbands in everything” (Eph. 5:22-24).

Think about it! The reason why the church submits herself to her Lord is not
only because He is her head, but also because He is her Savior! He is the one
who protects and keeps her. There is a pattern established that, to cite Peter,
it is the “unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” in which a
woman finds her true identity. It is the “fitting” thing to do. It is
the divine pattern that God has established. A marriage is like a jigsaw puzzle
in which the pieces fit perfectly as they are intended to. Baulk at this, and
you are baulking at the natural order of things, the creational order of things.
God has made male and female to complement each other, rather than to be equal
to each to each other. And it is the principle of complementarity, rather than
egalitarianism that Paul is concerned to show. There are roles to fulfil, and in
the fulfilling of them we find ourselves mirroring something of the
extraordinary mystery which is Christ’s relationship to His bride, the church.

“The holier a woman is” wrote Leon Bloy, “the more she is a
woman.” What spiritual maturity displays in a woman is her femininity. What
is that Jesus says? “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow. Because only as you lose yourself will you
find yourself.” Let me put that this way: only as you lose yourself in
Jesus will you find yourself. Let Me be a Woman, is the title of one
Elizabeth Elliot’s books, isn’t it. And being a woman means embracing
femininity and celebrating it as made in heaven with a view to complementing
masculinity, that apart from which it would for ever be less than complete.
There is a void at the heart of masculinity that can only ever be adequately
filled by a woman.

II. To husbands. He goes for the jugular of
male-chauvinism: Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

Paul, far from
advancing the cause of male-chauvinism, is aware of the possible abuse: the
marital finesse of the grand sultan of Morocco. So he makes a positive and
negative command: love your wives and do not be harsh with them.

There is the positive: love your wives. Elsewhere Paul likens this to the way
Jesus loves His church and gives Himself for her that He might present her as a
spotless bride, and so. Self-sacrificing love.

And the negative: not to be harsh. The word may imply that the husband takes
out the frustrations and bitterness he feels in other areas of life on his wife.
Such a practice has to stop.

You cannot pretend that you know anything of spiritual maturity if, when you
speak to your wife, you reduce her to tears. If you snap and growl and bear your
teeth like some prize Rottweiler. I’m going to come back to this in a moment,
but we (and I’m addressing to the men here) need to appreciate that the
measure of our spiritual maturity is not what we pretend to be in front of
others, but what we actually are in front of our wives.

Men! The pattern here is Jesus Christ! His love for the church!
His willingness to give Himself to the point of death on her behalf. His
willingness to deny Himself all of his rights for her.

Now we need to understand and we are fast losing it in this world of radical
feminism. That what the gospel of Christ brought into the world, the honor
and respect of wives, is fast being demolished in our society. How God intended
husbands to be as to a profound sense of thoughtfulness as to who they are and
what they need.

I want to go to 1 Peter to help us understand what this means. In 1
Peter 3:7, Peter says:

“Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives,
and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the
gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.”

How are we to love our wives? Treat them with respect, honor. What does a
Christian man do with respect to his wife? He gives her honor. And then he
explains a little more as to what that means: he says, you not only give her
honor, but you must regard her as an heiress. Now you need to understand that
this was a world in which women didn’t inherit! You need to understand how
shocking these injunctions were, how radically different the Bible thinks of
women than the world around it did. He is saying they are heirs of the kingdom
of God! And he is really saying that you have to apply within your
marriage a principle that can be applied across the board: you are dealing with
one of God’s heirs. You honor them, because Jesus Christ has honored them, and
as he says at the end of verse 7, so that you can live in communion with God.

Isn’t that staggering: that you come before God in your prayers, and
because you are not honoring your wife, God says, “I cannot have communion
with you.” Men, I don’t know about you but I find to be very sobering
indeed. Because you are going about sulking and not speaking to your spouse
means that, well, “We will not talk either.” “You go and put this
right and then come back to me and we will put things right,” God is
saying.

III. There’s a third admonition. It has to do with
children.

“Children, obey
your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter
your children, or they will become discouraged” (Col. 3:20-21).

Now, time will not permit me to open this out in the way I would like, but I
want us to see that there is an order within the family that we ignore at our
peril. We are to rear our children in such a way that this order is preserved.
What this is trying to preserve is the complementarity of the family unit. There
is a role for the wife, there is a role for the husband and there is a role for
the child. I know it says, “in everything” but, I think we are meant
to understand that as “everything that is compatible with my primary
loyalty to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.”

But note the warning to the parents: “do not embitter your children, or
they will be discouraged.” Is Paul thinking of something that had happened
to him in his own childhood? Perhaps. He is saying that parents can make
unreasonable demands, or show favoritism to one child over another, or fail to
show love. Humiliating them, putting them down, failing to praise them, and the
consequence? Angry young men and women. It means allowing children to be what
God means them to be, to have their own personalities, their own talents, their
own particular gift-mix. Parents, do your children disappoint you because they
are not turning out the way you wanted them to be? I’m not talking about
letting their sinfulness run rampant. I’m talking about recognizing that God
has made them in a particular way and it may not be the way you would wanted.
Are you going to go through life always wanting that child to be someone else?
Don’t be surprised if he or she becomes discouraged! I have a faithful friend
here in the congregation who was brave enough to point out that I may well have
been guilty of this very thing.


IV. Now let me try and sum up a few things:

Wives are called to be submissive

Husbands are called to take loving leadership


First of all to those of you who are married: let me ask you if this is a
description of your marriage? As Paul does his “Focus on the Family”
section in the letter, let me ask it again, is this a description of your
marriage? Because it is the single most powerful evangelistic tool the church
has today! Let me suggest that you find some quiet space and read over this
passage and ask the Lord to show ways in which you may be practically obedient
about your married life.


Second, it is saying that the mark of our devotion to Christ can be
measured in our homes. How you behave in public is one thing, but how you are in
your home is where it is measured. Let me ask you men how much you love your
wives? Winston Churchill once attended a banquet in London in which he was asked
(along with others), “If you could not be who you are, who would you like
to be?” Churchill was sitting next to his wife, Clemmie, and everyone was
eager to hear what he would say. When it came to his turn, he rose and gave the
answer, “If I could not be who I am, I would most like to be,”–here
he paused and took hold of his wife’s hand, –”Lady Churchill’s second
husband.”


Third, I want us to be aware of something that I think the devil is doing
at the minute. If you wanted to destroy the very fabric of society, destabilize
everything, bring about a quiet revolution, how would you go about that? Well,
you would begin to systematically undo the sanctity of marriage and family. I
have a little questionnaire that I give to prospective suitors of my daughter,
and one of the questions reads: “Do you have one male parent and one female
parent?” Its meant to be a little bit of humor on part. Except, it
isn’t! Because it’s all too easy for the answer to that question to be
“No!” My point is, that the place the devil gains ground is
inside the front door of our homes. You know it and I know it! And we need
to resolve to drive him out. “As for me an my house, we will serve the
Lord” Joshua said.

Are we saying that, too?

© 2024 First Presbyterian Church.

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