Nathan Rambeck - The Christian Family: Husbands & Wives, Part 2

[0:00] Well, it's great to see everybody this morning. You know, this whole idea of church and the body of Christ, that was God's idea. And it's just such a blessing to me every single Sunday to come here and meet with all of you people.

[0:14] And it just puts a smile on my face. Especially when the sun shines out, too. That puts a smile on my face, too. I want to do just another pitch for the April 3rd Sunday, where we're going to have Joel Tay here from Creation Ministries International.

[0:34] Their whole ministry is focused on going to churches and preparing Christians, teaching Christians on what the Bible has to say about origins.

[0:45] And also looking at the science, too. You know, one of the things I've observed over the years is that in talking to people about Christianity, people who are not believers, the number one thing that I've found, and I don't know if there's statistics out there, but the number one thing that I've found in my observation that prevents people from considering Christianity is this topic of evolution.

[1:09] People get this idea, well, we evolved through chance, sheer chance, from nothing. You know, out of nothing came everything, right?

[1:23] And that's a popular idea. It's very scientific, right? You start with nothing and then you get everything. That's science today. But it is the number one reason why so many people refuse to even just consider Christianity.

[1:38] Because, of course, evolution is true and we all evolved from, you know, from nothing. And so, you know, why should I consider the claims of Christianity? Christianity. So, if we can address this issue, if we can know how to defend not only what the Bible says, but also looking at the science, the bad science, I consider, that tries to hold up this concept of evolution, then I think we can have a better chance at trying to reach people for the gospel.

[2:13] Amen? Amen. So, invite friends. It will be a great event. We're also trying to plan another event down in Wilmington for Joel to speak that evening, kind of to homeschoolers and that kind of thing, the homeschool community that we're a part of.

[2:26] So, if you can, try to make it out. I guess, just as a reminder, so children are dismissed before we get started here, if you want to take advantage of the children's classes.

[2:41] So, all right. So, I'm excited because this morning we're going to continue on this topic of the Christian family. And like I said last week, it's not necessarily the Christian family, right?

[2:56] Maybe I should have titled this God's Design for the Family. Because God created the family, it was his idea, and he didn't create it just for Christians. In fact, it goes all the way back to the very beginning, to Genesis.

[3:11] And so, but as Christians, we ought to look at what God designed and how he designed the family and model our families according to his design.

[3:22] Last week, we started talking about certain roles in the family. And those two roles are husbands and wives. And husbands and wives are the core.

[3:35] There's this relationship called marriage with one man and one woman together with a commitment for life.

[3:46] And that forms the core of a family. The core of a family. But we ended starting to look at Ephesians chapter 5. So, we're going to pick up from there.

[3:57] So, let's go to Ephesians chapter 5. If you've got a Bible or technology, you've got a tablet or a phone, you can pull up the Bible. And we'll look at Ephesians 5.

[4:09] We'll read through this. There's 11 verses here. Ephesians 5. We'll start with verse 22. I'll give you just a moment to get there. Give me a moment to get there. Ephesians 5.

[4:24] We'll start with verse 22 and we'll go to the end here. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church.

[4:37] And he is the savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her.

[4:53] That he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the word. That he might present her to himself as a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

[5:07] So husbands ought to love their own 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 the Lord does the church.

[5:23] For we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh.

[5:36] This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

[5:52] So, this scripture is how it's talking about, this is from Paul's epistle to the Ephesians. And we know Paul had a tendency to give some, in the beginning of his letters, to give kind of doctrine, theology, if you will, and then get into more practical matters in the latter half of his letters.

[6:13] And this is a more practical matter about how families should operate. This whole idea of patriarchy, I mentioned this word, is getting a bad rap today.

[6:24] Patriarchy means father rule, that's the etymology of the word, father rule. And this idea that fathers should rule households is a controversial idea today.

[6:38] Interestingly enough, I was reading a book that we just had in our house about Western civilization. One that we picked up at a homeschool fair, our book fair.

[6:48] And there was a reference to a book written in 1973. The name of the book was called The Inevitability of Patriarchy. The Inevitability of Patriarchy.

[7:00] It was written by a guy named Steven Goldberg. It published, what, 50 years ago almost. And the concept of the book is that this idea that fathers would rule, that men would kind of dominate in the world, is not just an idea that somebody just came up with and decided, oh, this is the way that things ought to be, but it's the way that, it's the natural order of things.

[7:31] When we've read in Genesis, what was the commandment that God gave to Adam, and Eve with him, but to Adam, that you were to what? Take dominion over the earth.

[7:45] To take dominion. And so one of the things that we see that's part of the nature of men is this nature to dominate. And we look at the earth.

[7:55] We see empires. We see building of businesses. We see, you know, you look at this country and all the things that were here. And just, what, three or four hundred years ago, it would just be trees everywhere you could see, right?

[8:10] Trees and maybe grasslands or whatever. But now we see this entire nation build up from almost nothing in just a few hundred years.

[8:22] And there's this impulse, this motivation, inside mankind, but specifically and especially in men, to dominate the earth. And it's something that God put in specifically in men.

[8:37] And not every man is the same as far as, you know, there's kind of a variation. But in his book, he tries to show this as a biological thing. One of the things you'll notice, right, with young boys and young girls is they're different.

[8:56] And they're even different in their play, right? Boys, what do they like to do for fun? They like to wrestle. Did you ever notice that?

[9:07] Little boys, they like to wrestle. They like to roughhouse. They like to hit each other, right? And then as the boys get older, does that get old? No. You know, what do we like to do?

[9:19] I remember one of my favorite sports in high school was wrestling. So you get on a mat with another guy, and you just, like, go at it. And just manhandle each other. It's so much fun.

[9:30] And, but girls look at that, and they say, that is so weird. Why do these boys, they roughhouse, they wrestle, they hit each other, and they enjoy it. And it's so, and what do little girls do?

[9:42] Do little girls like to wrestle? Well, sometimes if they spend too much time with their brothers. But little girls, they like to play with dolls, right? And God put in women this motivation to nurture, to nurture.

[9:59] And it starts so early, so early. It's amazing. But that's the nature of things. And we see when you have a lack of male leadership in a society, or in a group, things start to break down.

[10:16] One of the things I think of in this country, you see, it creates a vacuum. You'll see maybe neighborhoods where, you know, you think of ghettos, where a lot of the households are without fathers.

[10:34] They're run a lot of times by single mothers. And what happens in that vacuum? One of the things that I think is easy to observe is we have this culture of gangs in cities where a lot of times there's a lack of male leadership, especially in the homes, and these tendency of these boys who have this dominating energy, and they use it for ill, and they form these gangs, right?

[11:06] In some big cities, this is a huge problem. The streets, sometimes, if you don't have a really good police presence, can be ruled by gangs. So nature itself teaches us, and the Bible itself teaches us, that God put in men this motivation, this desire to dominate, and it can be for good, right?

[11:32] Or it can be for ill. But one of the things I think that we do a disservice in our culture and our families is if we just ignore that and pretend it doesn't exist or pretend that it ought not to be that way.

[11:48] We need sanctified leadership, sanctified domination, not get rid of it completely, right?

[12:01] In the church, the body of Christ, in the greater church, there has been a debate over the years about whether households specifically should be led by men or not.

[12:16] And there are two big words that I'll share with you that are used to kind of frame the debate. The word egalitarian.

[12:28] So there's two basically camps, and this is an inside debate within Christianity. Egalitarian view of the household, and the other is called complementarian.

[12:40] And we like to add the word ism to the end. So egalitarianism, that's a mouthful, right? And complementarianism. And egalitarianism is this concept that, and it's used in other areas, but that there is no leadership.

[12:57] There is no head. Everybody is just the same when it comes to authority. You can think of, well, one of the things I think of is, when it comes to nation states, is anarchy.

[13:12] Everybody's just the same. There is no rule. There's no king. There's no president. There's no prime minister. Everybody is just on their own and trying to lead together.

[13:24] And one of the things, interestingly enough, was it last week? I can't remember. Or two weeks ago, we went out to Indiana. We saw a play about the tale, or a tale of two cities. And the, if you're familiar with that, by Charles Dickens, the context or the setting was the French Revolution.

[13:42] Anybody ever read about the French Revolution? The French Revolution, the people who were in charge, really did a disservice to the people that they were ruling over, and it caused a lot of grief and problems.

[14:03] And so there was an uprising of the people to take over, basically. And it turned into anarchy, right? Where there was no ruler. The rulers were, the big thing during the French Revolution was what?

[14:17] The guillotine. There was a lot of heads lopped off. But one of the things that came out of that play was how that anarchy led to so much grief.

[14:29] And there was grief before, but the anarchy didn't relieve the grief, it just caused a different kind. It just redirected it. God really likes this concept of authority.

[14:43] Authority is his idea. We have things like nation states. And does the Bible say anything about the leaders of nations and whether the authority that leaders have is legitimate or not?

[14:58] It does, right? It was God's idea. If you read in the book of Romans, chapter 12, it talks about, as Christians, we ought to submit to our rulers.

[15:11] Back to egalitarian versus complementarian. So egalitarian, there is no hierarchy, there is no hierarchy, there is no rule, there is no authority or any authority above another.

[15:23] Complementarian has this idea that God created men and women to be different and that their differences would complement one another. Those differences would complement one another.

[15:38] And so, so it allows for or promotes the idea of authority in a household and that that's good and right and proper.

[15:52] So, as we look at this section here of Ephesians, chapter 5, these first few verses, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.

[16:06] For the husband is head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the church or savior of the body. So there's a comparison here between Christ and husbands and that comparison goes all the way down through the end of the chapter.

[16:26] In fact, sometimes it's hard to tell where he's talking about the family and where he's talking about Christ and the church because there's so many similarities and it was meant to be that way. But this concept of there being a head of a family and we even use this terminology in our culture today.

[16:46] Has anybody ever filled out tax forms? Yeah. And one of the things you have to say is are you the head of a household? Right? And I can't, there's rules around head of household and all that kind of thing.

[16:59] But God designed for households, for families, to be led by one person and to be led by a man.

[17:14] When we look at other authorities like kings or presidents, we even have businesses, right? They have leaders. We have churches that have leaders, right?

[17:28] And God is very happy to delegate authority because we know from the scriptures, right, that the top dog, if you will, we use that terminology, is God.

[17:41] He is over all. But he's very happy to delegate authority to others, to kings, to leaders of churches, to leaders of households specifically.

[17:56] When, let's say you have a business and you, the business needs a CEO. Let's say it's a large business. How do you, how does that business choose a CEO, a leader for the company?

[18:08] Well, if it's a big company, a lot of times they have a board of directors, right? The board of directors will do a search and they'll try to find a CEO for their company. And, what do they do, what do they look at?

[18:21] They look at their qualifications. Have they run, run other businesses before? You know, are they a person that's morally upright? You know, are they somebody who's, you know, stolen money from their company before or things like that?

[18:35] But they look at all these qualifications and as a group they'll decide, is this person qualified to be a good leader for this company?

[18:47] But how does this work when it comes to a household? How does it, how does this work when it comes to a household? We just talked about how leadership in a household, God intended for that household to be run by a man and I think there are two primary non-negotiable requirements for being the head of a household.

[19:11] The two bottom line foundational requirements is one, you be a man and two, you have to be married. One, you're a man and two, you have to be married because you can't run a household if you're not married.

[19:30] You've got to convince a woman to marry you, right, to start a family. And so, if you think about it, who is the one who's going to decide if a man is qualified because we have the foundational qualifications qualifications, but are those qualifications of being a man and married, those are just the foundational basics, right?

[19:59] Are there other qualifications that should be in place to be the head of a household? A man should be good and kind and just, and he should be a hard worker.

[20:09] There's lots of things, right, we could consider. Those are all things that you should have if you're going to be the leader of a household. but who's going to decide if this man is ready and qualified to be a good leader?

[20:27] And if you think about it, who's the one that installs the man as the head of the household? Who's the one that decides that he's ready? Well, it's the woman, right?

[20:41] The woman decides and a man might propose and say, would you be willing to start a family with me? Right? That's what marriage is.

[20:53] It's starting a family. And the woman gets to decide if he's qualified or not to lead a family. And if he's not, she should say, no.

[21:06] But if he is, then we can get on board and start this family where the husband will lead the family. And so this is an important decision, right, for young ladies to make.

[21:19] It's an important decision on both sides, right? Getting married and who you marry. It's important to find a good wife as the scriptures talk about. A man who finds a wife finds a good thing.

[21:32] And then it's important for the woman also to make good choice when it comes to marriage. So, choosing a spouse, there are, I think, two primary things to consider when choosing a spouse.

[21:49] The Bible talks about not being unequally yoked. Not being unequally yoked. And there are, the visual that that brings, what is a yoke anyway?

[22:02] It's not something that we use, a word that we use a lot today. But a yoke is, you think about beasts of burden, that you yoke together, right?

[22:12] You tie two horses or two bulls or two donkeys together and they pull the plow or whatever it is that they're pulling. And if you have a weak bull and then an out-of-control, really dominant bull together, what's going to happen?

[22:31] Is any work going to get done? No work is going to get done, right? It's just going to be a complete and total mess. You'd actually get more work done if you had two scrawny cows pulling a yoke than if you had a really strong one and a really weak one, right?

[22:50] You get a lot more work done. So it's important to have two people who are on the same page. Because families are important and they do a lot.

[23:01] faith. So number one is faith. And this is for the Christian family. Number one is faith. Is this person, is this man, is this woman on the same page regarding our faith?

[23:18] Are they a believer like I'm a believer? And two, do they live like a believer? Those are the two things I always bring up when we're talking about this with my kids is those can be two separate things, right?

[23:34] Somebody who is a believer but then it's a whole other thing to live like a believer. There's a way as Christians we ought to live and nobody lives the Christian life perfectly but some people it seems make very little effort to live the kind of Christian life that God has asked us and expects us to live.

[23:58] So those two things when it comes to faith. Be a believer and live like a believer. But is that sufficient? It can be. It can work. That gets you a good part of the way there.

[24:10] But I think the other part that we need to consider is values. What are our values? What are the things that are important to me? And some of those things may be moral. I think that gets back into is somebody living the Christian life the way that they ought to.

[24:26] but matters of wisdom. Matters of character. And even sometimes matters of preference. You know one of the things that we have in our family is we have Jamie she stays home with the kids and has ever since our oldest was born.

[24:48] And we do the homeschooling thing and that's something that we value a lot in our family. and it's just it's a high value.

[25:00] Part of that is preference. It's not something that you have to do but it's it's something that we find very useful and wise as an approach to how we do family.

[25:12] And I've talked to my girls about looking for a spouse and if that's something that's valuable to them that they are able to stay home with their kids after they're married then they need to find a man who shares that same value.

[25:32] Right? Because if you know what happens right when God created us this way he created men and women to be like magnets.

[25:45] Right? And especially when you're when you're young and we have these things called hormones and it just causes boys and girls to just kind of be attracted to each other.

[25:56] And sometimes reason and logic kind of just disappears. Right? When there's a pretty girl or a you know a hunk of a man or whatever. But if if a young woman who wants that kind of a life marries a man who is not on the same page right what's more important in her family is that she follows her husband and so she's going to have a lifestyle that is based on his preferences.

[26:37] Now you might think well I'll just I'll just change his mind. This isn't how he thinks now but you know I he's really cute.

[26:49] And I mean he'll he'll get it right? We'll just we'll get married and then we'll talk and then he'll change his mind about all the different preferences that I want in life.

[27:00] All the things that I think are important. And of course he loves me and he'll just want to do whatever I want to do. Is that what happens? Sometimes right?

[27:11] Maybe I know that Jamie and I we've gotten married and we've talked to each other and there's things that you know things that I've changed my mind on because because of her and vice versa and that happens but not always and so it's important when it comes to not just our faith but our values.

[27:32] What are the things that are really important to us when it comes to how we want our families to be? Another thing that I wanted to bring up was you know in ancient times the woman actually didn't have much of a choice right?

[27:51] When it came to who she married it was purely arranged marriages and we even have that to a certain extent today if you look in India I think it's becoming less and less so as times change but even just maybe a few generations ago a woman didn't pick her spouse it was her father that did that one of our favorite movies is Fiddler on the Roof anybody ever seen Fiddler on the Roof if you haven't you're totally missing out you got to go rent it and watch it's a great film but it's about a Jewish family in Russia I believe and the big theme of the movie is the father picks the spouse for his daughters and Reptivia has these daughters that are ready for marriage and the world is becoming more modern and they're choosing their own husbands instead of him and he doesn't know what to do about it now I think that's one extreme fathers choosing exclusively their husbands but today

[28:58] I think we've gone to the other extreme the exact opposite extreme where women and young ladies especially when you're young are expected to choose a spouse choose a husband completely on their own without any input from their parents and I think that's totally unwise and sometimes that has to be the case sometimes you just don't have parents or maybe parents that don't have the wisdom that they ought to to be able to help you with those kinds of decisions but if you have wise parents if a young woman or a young man has wise parents should be involved because parents have a little bit of experience we've done this before we know what's around the corner and so it it's I think it's important and wise for young people to get that input and for parents not to step back and say well it's just their decision so

[30:00] I'm not going to say anything no we should we should so I think there should be a mix right of parental involvement and helping guide but also a young man and a young woman especially to make good choices for who they marry now when it comes to authority in the household that authority is always delegated down right one of the things I think about always is Moses Moses was in charge of the whole nation of Israel and there was this event happened where his father-in-law Jethro noticed that Moses was in bad shape and he was so stressed out I'm kind of interpreting here but he said Moses all these people are coming to you with all their problems and you're being the judge over all the people and he said you need to delegate some of this to other people so what ended up happening was

[31:08] Moses asked among the people find some people who are good at making good judgments and I'm going to put people over thousands and hundreds and tens right and that's a great idea delegate all the way down delegation happens in families and so it's not that a man being the head of a household means that he makes all the decisions but I think it does mean hey the buck stops with him there's not just authority but also responsibility and those two kind of go hand in hand responsibility and authority in Proverbs chapter 31 we've heard the phrase it's good to be a Proverbs 31 woman and if you've ever read Proverbs 31 especially as a woman it's kind of overwhelming right you gotta be like you gotta wake up at like 4am I think right before the sun's up and you gotta sew all kinds of linens you gotta make all the clothes basically for the house

[32:13] I think it talks about and then you gotta be able to buy land and do all that kind of thing I mean it lists just all these things it's like wow and so I think we there's a truth there but we shouldn't let that kind of overwhelm the situation but one of the things that it says there in Proverbs chapter 31 this is verses 10 and 11 it says who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies the heart of her husband safely trusts her so he will have no lack of gain and that's such an important thing for a husband to have a wife where his heart safely trusts in her he knows that she's not going to do something behind his back that she's going to support him in the things that he chooses to do in the direction that he decides to lead the family that he can safely delegate anything to her to her stead and know that what he's asking will be accomplished and that is part of being a virtuous wife now one of the things that comes up here is well yeah

[33:38] I guess the Bible says that men should lead families but what if they don't do a good job and do all men do good jobs at leading their families do some of them make a complete disaster and mess out of their families it's not hard to find right I mean a lot of times those things are plastered on people magazine as you're you know going through the checkout at the store the ways that men specifically have messed up their families so well what do you do with that you know one of the things that Jesus mentioned we'll talk about this a little bit more in a little bit but he talked about the mistake of lording it over people he said among the Gentiles the rulers of the Gentiles they lord it over people and that's kind of a funny phrase what does that even mean but lording it over somebody means you kind of you abuse your authority basically it's like well I'm in charge and so

[34:45] I'm going to enrich myself or you know you can imagine right the dad who just uses in fact one of the big things that comes up in my mind I was in I was a missionary in Vietnam and we lived in the big city Ho Chi Minh City I like to call it Saigon because that's the original name before the communists took over but we lived kind of in an alleyway in a big four or five story building and up at the top was like a balcony and sometimes I'd wake up in the morning and go up there and do some exercise or something and people would be out in the alleyway doing their exercises and things but I'd be up there maybe during the day and one of the things I noticed I'd see is everybody had a little business right they had like a little barber shop or they were selling something in the front of their house there and then they would live upstairs and I would watch all these men playing cards and drinking sometimes and all the women doing all the work it was like hey

[36:02] I'm in charge right so you get all the work done and I've got some cards to play and those kinds of things can happen it's an abuse of authority and Jesus warned as leaders we shouldn't do that we shouldn't lord it over one another but I think we make a mistake if because of these abuses we decide well let's just abandon God's design let's just abandon it all together because we can see plenty of examples where this just is not working out but is that what we ought to do to just abandon God's design not at all and when it comes to abuse of authority in a household there are provisions one men can hold other men accountable and as Christians ought we as men who have other men in our lives specifically in the church hold other men accountable for the way that they lead their families absolutely and one of the things that that requires right is in being involved in other people's lives and knowing what's going on a lot of times you know people are hard right and sometimes relationships are hard so we kind of just we don't have that many friends because sometimes friends can be a pain in the neck and then some people are you know the opposite they're friends with everybody everybody's different as far as their friendships but we ought to have close connected relationships with other people especially other

[37:38] Christian people and when we see things and it might be a little thing sometimes it might be a big thing other men ought to say something there was one situation that I was involved in with a couple that were having some really major issues and at one point just lots of mostly just verbal abuse on both sides but there was one situation where I had to call up a dad or a husband husband and a dad and say hey listen dude we've been friends for a few years and what you're doing what you've been doing these last few weeks is unacceptable and either you need to leave the house or I'm going to come and we're going to pick up your wife and kids because this is completely unacceptable and we had to deal with that and those kinds of things should happen sometimes that authority gets abused to the extent that it becomes criminal and in that case in that case

[38:50] God has instituted something we call the government the state to get involved in matters of criminality separation and divorce those are things that God has provided for when Jesus talked about divorce he said divorce wasn't something that was part of God's original plan it wasn't designed that men should get married and divorced but in the law of Moses it did provide provisions right and why did Jesus say because of sin sin comes in and just messes everything up and so sometimes we need to make difficult choices and there are times where families and one of the things that divorce does is it breaks families up breaks them apart and that's not part of God's design but sometimes it is necessary because of sinfulness sometimes it's the best choice sometimes it's an option as long as right there and there are grounds the Bible talks about proper grounds today in this country and in a lot of countries in the world we have what's called no fault divorce well it's no fault nobody's fault we just kind of drifted apart and that's completely inappropriate that we should have that kind of thing but sometimes things can get bad enough to the point where there are valid grounds biblical grounds for divorce and divorce can be a deposing of a tyrant right in a household you know divorce happens for multiple reasons but if somebody if a man becomes especially abusive things like that the way to depose of a tyrant in a household can be through divorce if there's valid grounds but one of the things that's not an alternative that we shouldn't look to is just anarchy because we see abuse because we see mishandling of authority some people might tend towards anarchy where we just get rid of authority like we talked about with the

[41:03] French Revolution man that and one of the things that you notice with the French Revolution is how long did that anarchy last did it last very long no I have friends out there who think that anarchy is a great idea there's streams of libertarianism that are all the way on the anarchy side and I just think oh my goodness haven't you ever read a history book things get really really bad in fact in fact a cruel tyrant sometimes is a better option I'm talking about states here a cruel tyrant is a better option than complete anarchy it just is the next thing if you let's go ahead and look at the next verse we'll go back to Genesis chapter 2 I guess we could read also in Ephesians because it's quoted there in that verse or that passage we read in Ephesians but

[42:04] Genesis chapter 2 verse 24 so this is God presented the woman to man Eve to Adam and Adam said verse 23 this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man and it says this as kind of an aside therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh and it's I find it interesting the way that that's phrased because he could have said therefore a woman shall leave her household or her father or something like that and be joined to her husband why would it say that the man leaves because when you kind of think about it well you know the woman kind of leaves her family and joins the man at least that's one way of thinking about it so why would he phrase it in that way and

[43:13] I think there's an emphasis here as part of there wasn't just a dominion mandate when we go back to Genesis we talk about the dominion mandate but there's a multiplication mandate right it's do it with people and that's done through families through households and I think what's being emphasized here is there is a creation of a brand new household so a man a young man will leave his father's household and start a brand new one from scratch and that's how multiplication happens you have a father he builds a family he has sons and daughters and eventually the sons grow up and they start their own households through marriage and so what does it say a man shall leave his father and mother so his family his household and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh and sometimes there can be problems in marriages because sometimes a husband or even this can happen with wives too can physically leave their father and their mother but sometimes they don't maybe emotionally leave or there are other attachments that are improper and of course we have family we love our families and we want to have you know continue to have attachments but there needs to be a proper leaving and cleaving we say right a proper separation between this household and we're going to start our new household that means that a son is no longer under his father or his parents authority now he's got to be in charge and that's a big change right from kind of being a son who is told what to do and I think as a good father or good parents one of the things that we could do especially with sons is to as they age as they grow older start to give more responsibility delegate more responsibility as they get older because eventually these sons will likely not always but

[45:47] I think it's the natural kind of the typical natural order is for sons to become to get married and start their own families and be the head of that family and we should train them to be ready for that prepared for that we don't want sons to all of a sudden have zero authority to have zero responsibility and all of a sudden just in one moment they're responsible for a whole family let's give them some training and it's something that as sons these young men should take seriously being the head of a household is not just fun and games now it should be fun and games too like to have fun and games but it's a serious matter to lead a household to be responsible for a household there's a tradition we have in this country and it's actually a tradition I think in most countries I would say where a when a man and a woman get married there's a change of names right and the woman will take the name the last name the family name of the husband when she gets married and today there's all kinds of you know people have kind of pushed back against that in our current culture people do things like hyphenation hyphenation of their names and sometimes people will flip that and man

[47:23] I've known people personally who have done the opposite and I don't this isn't a hard and fast rule this isn't a biblical thing this is what you have to do in fact the whole family name thing there are cultures where every time you get married and start your own household you actually get a brand new name that's actually where our does anybody here have a last name that ends in son anybody we have Johnson right and Richardson and those are names that the etymology of those names right is that at some point somebody their family name was I'm my father's son so my father was Richard and so I'm James Richardson right and that's where these names came from sometimes the name would be well I'm a black smith and so my name is James Smith because I'm a smith it's interesting looking at the etymology of where we come we come up with all these names but it's been traditional that families throughout generations would keep the same family name

[48:34] I think it makes things a little bit easier it helps keep track of lineages and that kind of thing again it's not a biblical requirement anyway but I think this idea of women when they get married taking their husband's name I think it's a good idea again not required but I think it's a good idea and one of the things it symbolizes or shows here is that this man is creating a new household and this woman is joining herself to this man and his household and that's the way that God designed it to be I mentioned that I was a missionary in Vietnam and Vietnam has an interesting tradition I looked this up to see if it was common in Asia but it's actually unique to Vietnam women do not take their husband's family name they when they get married they just keep their father's name and you know when you grow up with that it's pretty normal you don't really probably think too much of it but there was the husband and wife who ran the underground church that we ministered with that we worked with became really good friends in fact this pastor's wife kind of took us me and two other young men we were probably in our early 20s at the time under her wing and she called us her sons and in fact she just came out to visit us this last summer or fall

[50:13] I can't remember I hadn't seen her in almost 20 years and she is very special to me but what was I going to say oh she mentioned to me that this actually causes some consternation among women because they a woman gets married and she keeps her father's name and the husband of course keeps his father's name and then what happens with the children they need to take somebody's name and they always take the father's name right and so she told me she said a lot of women can feel like they're isolated from their own family because they have their husband and his family name and her children and they have that same family name and she's the outsider she's different and that made an impact on me thinking about that and again this is not something where we have to do it one way or the other cultures you know but I think it's you know when I think about it

[51:16] I think there's wisdom in how we do it there is a lot of pushback today against patriarchy against father-led homes and I think as believers we ought to be committed to what the Bible has to say and not allow that pushback to impact how we do family we need to stand firm on God's word but I think there is also a risk when it comes to these things that we push back and go too far right there's always a risk with that and when it comes to this whole we have egalitarianism that's kind of a debate in the church we have feminism we call in the culture and we see all kinds of bad things that are happening there and subverting families and we might push back and we might go to another extreme so I wanted to just talk about that a little bit one thing is that verse that

[52:37] I talked about lording it over and I was watching a video this is some Christian leaders talking and they were talking about how bad feminism was and all that kind of thing and they were talking about this concept of servant leadership and servant leadership you know is something that people talk a lot about but it's really just weakness and we shouldn't promote that idea of servant leadership and I think there was some attempt to balance it out a little bit but it kind of put a bad taste in my mouth but let's look and see what Jesus said about this topic go to Mark chapter 10 because I think we really should look at this and read it in black and white Mark chapter 10 all right verse 42 through 45 but Jesus called them to himself and said to them you know that those who are considered rulers over the

[53:56] Gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them yet it shall not be so among you but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant and whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all for even the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many authority and so Jesus addressed this whole idea as authority given for the purpose of position and title you know you think about kings and kings have things like crowns right and thrones and scepters and we have all these symbols and you know these are things that show honor right to that position but it's not just the position that matters it's the authority the responsibility to rule and to do it well is what's important we think you know one of the symbols that is traditional for heads of households for fathers or husbands is we have it's a kind of traditional

[55:17] I don't know maybe not so much anymore but to have when you're sitting down as a family you have the seat at the head of the table right and a lot of times the father will take that seat at the head of the table but that position isn't what matters that's not what leadership is all about it's about it's about the how you how you rule how you wield that authority the kinds of things that you do to lead the family and leadership is about serving it's about serving and we ought to serve well so there are three things in talking about all this looking at husbands we talked a lot about leadership the other thing I think that's important to talk about when it comes to husbands specifically and their responsibility is provision 1st Timothy 5 8 says this but if anyone does not provide for his own house and especially for those of his household he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever you know we look back at the curse and what was the curse for the man was that he would toil in the ground and we talked about how there's actually a blessing in that there's a blessing in that curse because it makes provision more difficult which causes men and women especially in a family to need each other even more and that brings us together when sin might you know tend to push us apart but men ought to take that responsibility seriously so in raising up boys being a hard worker is really really important and being wise in learning how to make a wage how to provide and then back to

[57:08] Ephesians that we read men ought to lay down their lives for their wives to sacrificially love and honor their wives in everything to treat their wives the scripture said as we read as themselves as their own bodies just like we take care right we provide comfort and shelter and care nourishment and we cherish our own bodies right right and we ought to do the same thing as men for our wives to wrap this up there's movements today we talked a little bit about them not much but we have this women's rights movement and we have something that I didn't know existed until a few years ago we have a men's rights movement also that's kind of a pushback to that a feminism you might call it

[58:18] I don't know if there's another name for the men's rights movement masculinism or something I don't know if that's a thing and with those things those movements I think both of them are destructive towards the family towards society but for anything like that there's always truth there's always at least a sliver of truth and sometimes a lot of truth in those things you know if you look at the certain things that in the women's rights movement that get brought up you know there's some legitimate concerns but we can't undermine God's design in order to address these concerns and that's what happens so many times it's let's just destroy the foundations things are messed up things are broken let's destroy the foundations and change God's design we ought never to do that we need to build up the foundations right we need to teach young men to lead properly not teach them to take no responsibility we need to encourage men among us in our own families and the families that we interact with to do to do to be diligent in leading their families the right way not destroy the foundations and so

[59:54] I'm going to end there that's my encouragement to everyone today there's there's a lot of confusion in our culture and even in the Christian church these are things that are debated in Christian churches today about how things ought to be but I think this is an important enough issue where we need to go to the scriptures understand what it says and uphold the way that God designed the family to be amen all right let's close in prayer father the world that we live in today I guess not unlike the world over the last however many millennia is difficult sometimes to live in and there's all kinds of different things in the culture for us to deal with and to struggle with we thank you for your word that guides us nature provides some insight in how things ought to be but you didn't leave us with just nature you provided in black and white these words to show us how we ought to live it's not easy in a world fraught with sin sin impacts not just the world around us but even our own families and in the midst of all those things

[61:22] Father your grace your love your mercy for how we can create families that honor you that build strong foundations for our lives and for entire societies and civilizations we ask that you would be at work in our lives each and every day to show us again remind us how we ought to live and not only remind us but help us to do so by your grace in Jesus name Amen