Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

How many of you have ever seen the reality show /Extreme Makeover: Home Edition/?

I haven’t watched that show in a while, but the essence of it is about totally making over a struggling family's house, including all rooms, exterior and landscaping, by a team of builders and designers in 7 days while the family goes off on vacation.

While the family is off to Disneyland or wherever, they are given a laptop to watch video messages and to see their current home be demolished.

At this point, the family watches in amazement as a huge monster truck comes through and totally destroys their current home.

Now my favorite part, without a doubt, is definitely when they bring the family back with the whole town waiting for them and a bus is covering the view of their new home.

At this point, everyone says, “BUS DRIVER, MOVE THAT BUS!” The family then runs into their new house screaming and crying with joy.

I have always wondered though, how are these families doing after the fact, like a year or 5 years or 10 years later?

Because you and I both know very well, you can give somebody a house, but it is a different story to build a home right?

Once the show is over and cameras are gone, how are they going to live?

With the early church at Colossae, Paul wanted the believers to see that the Supremacy of Jesus Christ is not just a Sunday thing or something abstract and out there, but something that pervades every area of their lives; something very real that funnels into even your home.

Jesus is about doing an extreme makeover of your entire life and relationships.

When you become a believer, He bulldozes through and destroys everything not of him and then doesn’t just leave you to figure out what to do, but takes residence and precedence in your home and life.

Christianity in that culture was so radical.

William Barclay in his commentary, says that,

“Under Jewish law a woman was a thing, the possession of her husband, just as much as his house or his flocks or his material goods.

She had no legal rights whatever.

For instance, under Jewish law, a husband could divorce his wife for any cause, while a wife had no rights whatever in the initiation of divorce; and the only grounds on which a divorce might be awarded her were if her husband developed leprosy, became an apostate or ravished a virgin.

In Greek society a respectable woman lived a life of entire seclusion.

She never appeared on the streets alone, not even to go marketing.

She lived in the women’s apartments and did not join her menfolk even for meals.

From her there was demanded complete servitude and chastity; but her husband could go out as much as he chose and could enter into as many relationships outside marriage as he liked without incurring any stigma.

Under both Jewish and Greek laws and custom all the privileges belonged to the husband and all the duties to the wife.

In the ancient world children were very much under the domination of their parents.

The supreme example was the Roman /Patria Potestas/, the law of the father’s power.

Under it a parent could do anything he liked with his child.

He could sell him into slavery; he could make him work like a laborer on his farm; he had even the right to condemn his child to death and to carry out the execution.

All the privileges and rights belonged to the parent and all the duties to the child.

Most of all this was the case in slavery.

The slave was a thing in the eyes of the law.

There was no such thing as a code of working conditions.

When the slave was past his work, he could be thrown out to die.

He had not even the right to marry, and if he cohabited and there was a child, the child belonged to the master, just as the lambs of the flock belonged to the shepherd.

Once again all the rights belonged to the master and all the duties to the slave.[1]

When Christianity showed up, it was so radical.

No more, “what do others owe me?” but “what do I owe others?”

Everyone had responsibilities.

Not just wives, children and slaves, but husbands, parents and masters as well.

Jesus was not just Savior, but Lord and Ruler, even subduing and taking over the life of the home as well.

For a long time at my parent’s house in NY, we had a sign up saying, “Jesus is the head of this house.

He is the unseen guest at every meal and the silent listener to every conversation.”

But for 17 years of life there, this was just a sign.

Jesus was just a Sunday thing.

But then the greatest thing happened.

The Creator of the Universe came into our house.

He made that sign a reality and turned our small hell into a small heaven.

Jesus is still transforming homes and households!

Today I want to talk to you about “the Supremacy Demonstrated: In your home and work.

What does it mean to have Jesus Christ as Supreme, the number one thing in your family, in the closest of relationships?

What does it mean as a husband?

A wife?

A child?

As your work in the marketplace?

Notice in Colossians 3:18ff, how many times “the Lord” is mentioned?

Jesus is interested in everything about you!

Even your closest relationships!

Three sets of relationships are before us today: husband~/wife, parent~/child and slave~/master, of which the modern parallel is that of the employee~/employer.

Paul does not go into great detail here.

He is just hitting the main issues.

We will also be looking at Ephesians 5:22- 6:9 to give us some commentary as well on these verses in Colossians.

So much is packed into these verses before us that in order to do justice to the text, I had to divide up this section into two weeks.

So this week is part one.

Let’s start with this, (Paul begins with the closest of relationships), The Supremacy of Jesus Christ is demonstrated:

I.    In the marriage through submissive wives and loving husbands (Col.

3:18-19).

I understand some of you are a long way from thinking about marriage and some are probably fewer years away, but it would be good for you to file this away and hear from God’s Word about what He desires for you, if and when it comes up in your own life down the road.

Col. 3:18 is one of those controversial verses.

Submission in marriage is a touchy topic \\ and this verse has been misconstrued and used by domineering authoritative men to treat women like property.

So I want to start by saying what submission is not:

a)     Inferiority.

The same word is used of Christ submitting to God in 1 Cor.

15:27-28 and obviously Jesus Christ is in no way inferior to God.

Paul just said in Col. 3:11 that the ground is level at the cross.

In Gal.

3:28, Paul says in regards to salvation, we are all one in Christ Jesus, whether male or female.

b)   Absolute.

The Bible never asks the wife to obey, as children and slaves are asked.

And wives should never submit to anything that violates God’s Word.

c)    General.

Ephesians 5:22 makes it clear that the submission is /only/ to their own husbands and not other men.

It is only in a marriage relationship.

It is very specific.

d)   Suppression.

It does not mean sitting quietly around your house, making no eye contact, head down, only talking when asked and going about doing your duties, without any opinions or thoughts.

When you read Proverbs 31, you don’t find that.

You find a woman with a lot of creative energy, with a lot of spunk and someone who is industrious.

The Bible does not say only introverts are truly submissive.

A woman can be an extrovert and yet submissive.

Just as much as an introverted husband can lead a family as much as an extroverted husband.

e)    Silence.

It does not mean you never criticize your husband.

In fact, constructive criticism that is motivated by love and corrective in nature does not contradict biblical submission.

It does not mean you cannot make any requests of him.

It does not mean you cannot teach your husband (Prov.

31:26; Acts 18:26).

I have learned a lot of things from my wife!

But what is submission?

I would say this for you wives:

a)    It is for the Lord.

Notice the text, “as is fitting the Lord.”

Like a hand to a glove and foot to a slipper, so submission is appropriate and right to the Lord.