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00:00:00 today's scripture reading is taken from Ephesians 5:15 to chapter 6:4 be very careful then how you live not as unwise but as wise making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil therefore do not be foolish but understand what the Lord's will is do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery instead be filled with the spirit speaking to one another with Psalms hymns and songs from the spirit sing and make music from your heart to the lord always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our
00:00:42 Lord Jesus Christ submit to one another out of reverence for Christ wives submit yourselves to your husbands as you do 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 husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up to up for her to make I'm so sorry to make her holy cleansing her by the washing with water
00:01:20 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 in this same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies he who loves his wife loves himself after all no one ever hated their own body but they feed and care for their body just as Christ does the church for we are members of his body for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be United to his wife and the two will become one flesh
00:01:55 this is a profound mystery but I am talking about Christ and the church however each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with the promise so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth fathers do not exasperate your children instead bring them up in the training and instructions of the Lord this is the
00:02:30 word of God thank you very much uh Rebecca I love listening to you read just now especially the last few verses oh the lights are very bright huh okay can hardly see um very good morning church and a very blessed New Year to all of you all of you sitting here as well as of those of you who are sitting at home right worshiping at home it is indeed good to be in the house of the Lord At the beginning of 2022 now as we were reminder just now 2021 has been a challenging year for many of us covid-19 lasted longer than
00:03:31 expected just as we finally got out of mco2 and mco3 we were then struck again with Omicron variant the year also closed out with a massive flooding in various parts of Malaysia compounding what had already been so much hardship not only physically and economically but also in terms of our emotional and our mental Wellness now I made all this you know bad things that has happened it is easy to overlook what God has so graciously done and bless us with so since it's the start of the year I thought it's fitting for us to take
00:04:21 some time to look back and recount some of the things that we did and then also to look forward so so I'm going to spend a few minutes looking back at what we had set out to do as a church and then I'm going to try and share with you what we discussed in the leadership a particular area that we want us as a church to look into and why we are looking into that and that will be my message for you later on work oh switch on okay this is not working can somebody move the slides oh okay okay oh I I was going to
00:05:21 ask you can anybody remember what was last year's uh theme okay those eyes who were fast enough I would have seen it okay last year's theme was unleashing the Gospel now that's uh pretty General theme but basically what it means is that we don't only share the gospel with the people around us but we actually live out the gospel in our lives now if you hadn't remembered the uh theme uh you know at least I hope that you remember the four areas of focus which I wrote about at the beginning of last year
00:06:01 now we first started um you know trying to focus because of the the scattered nature of the church because of covid-19 we all had to be locked down right so uh what we had sought to do right at the beginning of last year is to invest right more on technology uh we upgraded our Hardware so that our internet speed would be faster and then uh you know we put a lot of our material gamma beta you know uh you know adult education material online so that you guys can actually self- serve and learned all right at uh from
00:06:39 from from home all these things are continuing to evolved you know and in the months ahead we're going to look at uh investing uh in uh upgrade of software so that we can have a members page all right we can improve the communication within the church oh this is clicker is really not working bit of uh that topic right uh in FBC today um oops sorry yeah the third objective was to have a church of life group all right means we want people to meet up in small Le groups in order to encourage one another
00:08:02 during the time of uh uh you know uh the pandemic uh we currently have 23 official live groups we have three new ones in the course of the year uh and we have also seen that uh participation in live groups over Zoom right have actually increased last but not least leadership renewal we asked everyone in the AOL to read a particular book called lead by Paul trip so that we could actually learn about what it means to have to live out our gospel values in the leadership Community right to uh to practice what
00:08:42 we preach gospel values such as forgiveness such as being gracious to one another of course uh in the course of the year you have also seen quite a number of new faces up here uh teaching and preaching uh and we have elected among Miss uh two new associate Elders so these are some of the things that we tried to do last year uh of course you know we are not finished uh by any means and and we will continue to build this kind of uh uh uh think in the church that's not the most important part that I want to share with you you
00:09:22 know uh last year was a difficult year uh and so you know I was thinking you know when two nights ago when we had the uh wash night service you know I I was going to share if I had a chance so many people were there so I didn't get a chance to share but it was really a year whereby I appreciated the ordinary the ordinary so how did FBC how did you unleash the gospel well we did a lot of uh work in the social concern area uh covid-19 relief more than 500 grocery uh packages were actually delivered and more than 100 families 400
00:10:10 individuals were actually blessed by these efforts but the point is it's not just uh food that uh you know we give out money that we give out checks that we write the important thing is that unseen to a lot of you okay a lot of FBC members actually put boots to the ground all right and hands to the plow so to speak they went and actually delivered the food themselves so more than 24 groups involving live groups as well as uh uh you know Ministry groups right were actually involved in the actual
00:10:58 delivering of the goods and uh ministering to uh the people concerned and these are some of the pictures we recently ministered to uh a large group of uh about 12 to 15 burmes families okay this is The Zo Community uh and they still stay over at Good Year Cod we also partner with a lot of uh NOS okay and these are some of them okay for example uh we donated uh school uniforms right uh to the community uh we recently because of the clang flood uh we also donated some manyy to help uh burning bush we also help uh crest for example
00:11:49 uh by loaning them our van and also donating quite a sizable sum uh to them in order to uh set up all right the covid-19 uh uh you know quarantine center for the b4s so all in all during the course of last year we actually uh spent about 400,000 uh uh ring of of you know the church money right in helping the communities and of course uh we also had a new initiative right in the soup kitchen whereby even last up to last Wednesday we had about 150 to 200 packets of food given out to the community every week
00:12:36 we also collected a lot of all these old and used uh uh pieces so that we can actually refurbish them and give them out to uh the ores and those people who are in need right that's the soup kitchen so what I'm trying to say is that things have been happen happening in spite of the fact that you know most of us probably do not know okay uh and I personally am very deeply encouraged right by how uh we have tried to reach out to the community as part of our efforts in unleashing the gospel now this is uh taken recently I
00:13:21 can't put a lot of photograph uh in one slide okay uh we have different small groups Gathering so that you know they can actually minister to one another and encourage one another uh Andrew and Dr Peter organized a gathering okay in which uh they invited 26 non-christians to come during the Christmas season to celebrate All right so this is what has transpired uh in in in the last year and I just want to share this with you not so that we can you know Pat ourselves on the back and says oh okay what a good
00:14:02 job you have done but to encourage you that even in the midst of difficulty the Lord has blessed us and blessed the community Through us okay that the you know that we are able to continue to function as a church all right uh even with so many of the restrictions in place so before I continue I just want to invite all of us uh to join me in a prayer of Thanksgiving but before I do that now just let me grab water parge lips can I invite you just to Bow your heads and so that we can all just pray a
00:14:39 prayer of Thanksgiving dear heavenly father as we look back at last year we want to give you thanks that in spite of all the uncertainties that we went through and all the hardship and all the pains and all the sufferings we were still able to largely function as a church and we were still being ministered to and we were still being able to minister to one another and to the community Lord we thank you for ordinary mercies we thank you for your provision we thank you for your guidance we thank you for health and
00:15:47 your for your protection Lord if anything it has caused us to realize what is important in life the life on Earth is indeed uncertain and fleeting and one day soon this world will pass away but as Christians and as followers of Christ Our eternity is in heaven and that our hope is in the Eternal God and in our Lord Jesus Christ so Lord help us as we begin a new year to constantly Look to You Lord as our provider as our savior and as our Lord that our eyes may be fixed on Jesus and when we do that oh Lord we are
00:16:50 not afraid of what may come covid-19 is still with us but we are wondering closer to when this disease is eradicated and of course this year we would have our fair share of difficulties and uncertainties but we are confident Lord that if we place our trust in you you shall remain faithful as you have always been so for that we thank you for seeing us through last year and we pray for for your guidance for the year to come we thank you and we pray all this in jesus' name amen now this year we are not going to
00:17:41 have a new thema okay because I think uh we'll continue the theme with unleashing the gospel is fairly Broad and general enough to capture all the things that we want to do in this church but we would just add a new dimension to our continued drive all right to unleash the gospel we will continue the work that we have set up that I have just mentioned and the four areas you know that we set out to do last year uh but we also want to pay particular attention to the institution of the family and hence the
00:18:14 title of my message today the family in God's church now specifically what it means is we want to examine how we can live out our gospel values in the family and also to pass it on to the next generation now why the family you might ask well because in the last two years we have observed a worrying Trend that has been laid bare by the effects of the pandemic lockdown newspaper reports a huge spite in the number of domestic violence as much as 56% during the first few months of the lockdown in 2020 the general trend is that more
00:18:57 marriages are breaking down divorce rates have gone up and the basic institution of society the family is under threat while we have been battling the Corona virus there is a more subtle invisible and deadly pandemic that has been plaguing Society the church including us is not immune to it this disease has been around for a long time now but in recent years and decades they have become stronger more resilient and infiltrating the church the family at large is dying and they succumbing to a prevailing culture
00:19:44 that promotes individualism self-fulfillment and Independence ours is a culture standing up for your rights of challenging Authority in whatever form and a me first mentality now you might think that this is a western problem you know and that we are relatively shed here in Malaysia because we live in quite a conservative uh Islamic Society right but with the internet you know entertainment channels like Netflix and social media platforms we can't prevent this Trends from entering into our society and also
00:20:26 into our lives now just consider these samplings of uh reports you know that uh my daughter Jessica helped me to pull up in a new St Times report dated November 2021 just a couple of months back I quote statistics reveal the existence of nearly 235,000 single mothers or 1.7% of the total population single mother families are increasing causing a great concern for the Govern government statistics also show a rising incidents of divorce in Malaysia in another report over 880,000 divorce cases were recorded Nationwide
00:21:12 over a span of about 18 months this is equivalent to about 130 divorce cases a day and sadly many of this involved married couples who have been married for less than 10 years now based on this data gathered by the women and family development Ministry domestic violence jumped 57% in the first 2 weeks since the first MCO was imposed and since then there has been over 9,000 domestic violence cases since the first MCO and speaking on the effects of divorces focus on family Malaysia chairman Mr Lee we Min said the children
00:21:58 directly affected by the divorce of their parents could very well turn to bad coping mechanism to deal with their emotions including mixing with the wrong group of friends or succumbing to drug abuse so folks we don't have to go to a you know liberal Western democracy to see the assault on of the prevailing culture on the family it's right here in our backyard and these are not just phenomenons because of the pandemic you know they've been around for decades it's just a little bit more prominent during the pandemic because
00:22:42 why when you put members of the family dysfunctional families together they can't get along with one another you put them in one household what do they do in during the lockdown they explode and that's why it becomes more prominent and one the pregnant es abortions abandoned babies domestic violence child abuse Etc are just symptomatic of a breakdown of the family so what concerns us now in the leadership right is that the church is not spared right from the onslaughts of Christian Family Values many young people are choosing
00:23:21 careers over marriage some of those who are married consider children to be a liability rather than a blessing they rather have a dog than a child often citing that children are cramping their lifestyle or limiting their freedoms or just simply too expensive to Bear then you have the obligations of children you know how they honor their parents I come from Singapore you know in Singapore they have a maintenance of parents act where elderly parents can sue their children for support family relationships in the
00:24:04 world is far from ideal now in our church you know we let let's be honest we have our fair share of difficult marriages and family relationships now the reason why we want to deal with this immensely complex issue okay is not because we want to stigmat highlight and stigmatize any particular group here no we all can do with better family relationships I certainly can cannot lay claim to having a perfect family now I've got permission to say this from my family okay all right I mean Cynthia and I have a fair share of
00:24:52 uh uh difficulties and problems you know I sometimes struggle to understand what my daughters think and and you know in trying to communicate with them okay whenever I try to pass some advice to them know the moment I say know when I was your age you know what happens I think you know they I sense their defenses immediately uh comes up you know and they shut their ears so have you ever wondered your parents when your children want advice do they come to you or do they go to their online friends some of whom they may never even
00:25:35 have met before well with the internet and with their iPhones they are far more exposed and vulnerable than we were at their age right so the questions I guess we should ask ourselves is do we understand the issues that confront us today and they're not easy issues they are complex issues do we understand what God requires of us in our family relationships and if we know what to do do we actually practice them and just as important how are we ensuring that these knowledge and values are passed On to
00:26:27 the Next Generation you see whether you're talking about the church or whether you're talking about Society at large it only takes one generation okay to destroy the community you know there's a Chinese saying that this generation plants the tree and the Next Generation uh uh benefits from the shade so the question we have to ask ourself as a church you know we all love our children right are we doing the responsible thing to plant the trees so that they can enjoy the shade in future generation the world we live in today is
00:27:27 more complex and the pressures on families are probably greater I'll be the first to tell you that I don't have all the answers to the messiness and the complexities that deal with family relationships but I can tell you where we can start we can go back to the creator of marriage and the family and consult God on how best to live the marriage and family life God has given us the user manual that instructs us on how we can relate to each other in a marriage and in a family we have the answers in the
00:28:02 Bible and that's where we have to start so in the course of this year and possibly even beyond that I want to invite all of us to journey together to learn and even relearn how we should live according to God's divine plan for the family and here I just want to make mention you know to the singles as we look at this series and this theme I don't I don't want you to feel that you are left out you know because the Bible says you know there's a place for being single okay so you're going to hear uh messages
00:28:46 relating to singlehood but in any case even if you are single you are a child of your parents right and if your parents have passed on you are a member of a spiritual family and this is something that I'm going to talk about also you know later on in the message so all of us in FBC are included H okay so my message to you is that let's journey together all right I'm not a family expert but I I do trust and believe that the Bible has given us the answers and together no matter who you are we're not trying to stigmatize or or
00:29:32 or or shine a spotlight on anybody together we would learn so in our text right in Ephesians 5 Paul writes some very explicit instructions regarding the family now just a bit of background Ephesus was the capital of the Roman province of Asia Minor okay which is modern turkey okay today and at the time of writing the city was a thriving Metropolis okay very much like uh what you will find in uh New York or in Hong Kong uh except maybe perhaps in those days it was probably more decadent and liberal why do I say that now you have
00:30:23 to remember in the New Testament era when Paul was writing his message he was living under the Roman Empire and the prevailing culture of day is a combination of the Greek culture as well as the Roman way of life so if you dig into the history books you find that family life in those days was nothing like what God had intended it to be so here are some asps right from the world history encyclopedia and what it has to say about ancient Roman family life it's very interesting to a Roman male his family
00:31:03 was more than just his wife and children it determin both his social standing and personal worth under Roman law the father possessed absolute paternal power not only over his wife and children but also his children's children and even his slaves in fact anyone who lived under his roof in other words it is a very male dominated Society right much like what we experience today in a lot of cultures of course there could be no family without marriage again most marriages were not for love but were more commonly arranged for
00:31:42 political social or financial reasons here's something they say about women's status it is evident that women were generally not held in high regard in Rome they were married at an early age to a man they may or may not have loved the control of their very being was handed over from father to the new husband if a woman could not have children it was considered her fought the real purpose of marriage aside from the political one was to produce children and a as and in ancient Sparta it was not uncommon for weak
00:32:18 disabled or unwanted children to be left exposed to the elements girls particularly in poal families were especially unwanted because of the need to provide a DIY and their marriage husbands frequently visited prostitutes in bruttles or encountered them at parties or festivals prostitution male or female was not only legal but considered as natural an aspect of society as employing people to sweep the FL to sweep the streets and to clean out the lrin right end quote so in fact what you find in ancient Rome okay is a a very very low
00:32:59 view of the family things like homosexuality and pedophilia were actually common practices so it is again such a backdrop right that Paul was writing to the Christians Paul exalts them to walk not as unwise but as wise why because the days are evil those days were evil today those evil still exist male chauvinism is still well in alive children are considered a burden or an obstacle to personal freedoms premarital sex cohabitation extramarital Affairs are no longer frowned upon and the prevailing
00:33:54 culture sometimes even deem these things as Progressive even Christians are being desensitized to these Norms so against such a backdrop Paul is telling us and exalting the Christians then and us today to walk wisely all right and then to understand the will of the Lord so what does it mean to walk wisely and to understand the will of the Lord where do we find wisdom where do we find the will of God I think you already know the answer wisdom is found in God's word his will is also found in God's
00:34:37 word in proverbs 4 1-6 it says listen my sons to a father's instruction pay attention and gain understanding I give you sound learning so do not forsake my teaching for I too was a son to my father still tender and cherished by my mother then he taught me and he said to me take hold of my words with all your heart keep my Commandments and you will leave get wisdom see that get wisdom get understanding do not forget my words or turn away from them do not forsake wisdom and she will protect you love her
00:35:20 and she will watch over you so here wisdom is equated with God's word and God's commandment of course in this particular case we get the picture of King Solomon teaching his son and saying that he himself was being taught by his father King David you know in those days the Jewish culture right was that God's Commandments God's teaching God's word was passed on all right from generation to generation where in the temple no at home so at home parents in particular the fathers have a responsibility to pass on the
00:36:04 Commandments the word of God from generation to generation today I'm afraid that that's no longer the case I think all of us can improve in this area I think even in church whether consciously or unconsciously a lot of us relegate the teaching of our kids right to who to the Sunday school so in Psalm 11915 your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path so the first takeway that I want us all to grasp this morning right is this be first of all be grounded in God's word okay be grounded in God's
00:36:57 word that that's where you find God's original design that's where you can find God's original plan for what constitutes a happy marriage Now isn't that what the Bible is all about God's salvation plan is to restore us to be conformed to the image of God before it was tannish by sin now when I say be grounded in the word of God I'm not saying that the Bible has an exhaustive list of Dos and Don for every possible scenarios that you find in your family to do that is not practical right and not realistic but what I will submit to you
00:37:44 is that the word of God is sufficient to provide the model the principles and the guidelines for what we ought to do of course there's a place you know for science for counseling for psychology and everything okay for uh methods of communication for example but you have to remember we are not just talking about behavior modification here when two when a couple cannot get along with one another you just don't send them out you know on date nights right regularly I mean they can't already stand one another the change
00:38:22 must be from within the change must be from the inside and that that is only possible if we go back to the word of God then we continue right do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery instead be filled with the spirit so that's the second key element to understand why Paul brings up this whole business about wine and drunkenness again you have to go back to the historical uh cultural context here Paul is trying to make a contrast okay he's trying to contrast the Spirit-filled life and the condition
00:39:17 of being drunk okay you recognize this guy you you have to understand right the Greeks and Romans right in Paul's days were engaging in a pagan form of worship right to a deity called dionysis dionysis right I think that's how it's pronounced dionysis I'm surprised that my daughters Rebecca and Jessica knew a lot about this because they said this is actually Greek mythology you know and they read it in all this uh uh fantasy fiction so to the Pagan world all right when they worship dionysis dionysis is
00:40:09 actually the Greek god of wind and fertility and some say he's also the god of parties right you have to understand that during that time in some of this Temple worship especially to the god of d uh bionis they actually would get themselves drunk okay and they would take poppies poppy all right or what we call marijuana today so that they can can get themselves into a euphoric High into a state of easy okay and for them this is Joy all right this is part of their Temple worship and by drinking and getting
00:40:50 themselves into state of intoxication they lose all their inhab inhibition all right and what they would do right they that they would do all sorts of uh sexual activities right as part of the temple worship okay with the temple prostitutes so by contrast Paul is telling the Christians not to lose their inhibitions like the pagans they are in state to be grounded and to be filled by God's spirit one is to be controlled one all right the Pagan worship is controlled by flesh desires right and the other is to be
00:41:30 controlled by the spirit now you remember Paul says the same thing in the book to the Romans okay and how right the spirit is always in a battle constant battle right with the flesh okay the flesh is to submit to uh the desires of self you know uh of uh lust of Pride rest to be controlled by the spirit right is to be fill build uh and to manifest uh you know Godly values now what does it mean to be controlled by the spirit this definition uh from a commentary is one I think is pretty useful being filled with the spirit is
00:42:21 living in the conscious presence of the Lord Jesus Christ and letting his mind through his word word dominate everything that is thought and done I repeat being filled with the spirit is living in the conscious presence of the Lord Jesus Christ letting his mind through the word dominate everything that is thought and done now a simpler definition is perhaps this a spirit filled person is simply a spiritually matured person whom Christ is very real in his life a spirit filled person is a loving a
00:43:01 joyful peaceloving forbearing kind faithful gentle person he's always giving thanks as we read just now in the verse okay singing hymns always humming a Melody to himself now when a person is filled with spirit and he's thanks thankful all the time it's very hard not to like a person like this isn't it it's very hard to pick a fight with him or her now Tim Keller made what I think is quite an astute observation about a Spirit-filled person he says that you can tell a Spirit-filled person in the way he handles or he gives
00:43:50 criticism okay so for a spirit fied person if someone criticizes him he doesn't overreact you know and become defensive why he's unfaced is not easily angered because it matters very little to him what the other person thinks because he's only concerned about what Jesus would think of him similarly when he gives criticism he does so in a Gentle Spirit without crushing that person when he does it he would think what would Christ do if he were in this situation because Christ would do it out of love and then he also says that the
00:44:43 spirit filled person is one who is forgiving and he forgives easily with no residual anger now granted is not an attitude or a mindset that you can just turn on and off so we need to invest time and energy in prayer and in the study of God's word and in The Fellowship of the Saints so that we can encourage one another it is a process that takes time to cultivate as we yield to the spirit's work in our lives and out of the abundance of a spirit filled life is a heart that is always grateful to God and evidence by joyful singing of
00:45:29 songs and Melodies with Thanksgiving so I remember you know a few years back at the church camp you know where some of you might also remember that one of the questions that the camp speaker Christia asked you know are you walking I think it's something like this you know I can't remember the exact words but are you walking to the Temple of the world or are you walking to the Temple of Jesus Christ the rhythm of Jesus Christ so what he's trying to say is really you know is your life so saturated with
00:46:01 Jesus Christ that he not only lives in your conscious mind but also in your subconsciousness that means you spontaneously live life through the mind of Christ so that's what it means by being spirit filled it's not easy I admit with self it will be almost impossible and that's why it's not called self-control that's why it's called Spirit controlled because God promises us that if we invest the time and the energy to obey him in his word he will surely bring it to pass so the second key component then is not to
00:46:59 be drunk right not to lose control but to be filled with the spirit so second takeaway God's word is sufficient be spirit filled so only when we are Spirit-filled and when we are grounded in the word of God then we are able to do what is the key verse in today's message verse 21 submit to one another out of reverence for Christ so the foundational attitude for any successful relationships in the family is to have a spirit of submission and that is only possible if you live a Spirit-filled life you see
00:47:49 the flow of thought here by Paul submission in the context of a Christian relationship includes the idea of of putting someone's else's needs above your own this is not for personal benefit but rather out of reverence for Christ when we serve others we serve the Lord now this runs completely counter to today's culture where the emphasis is is on personal fulfillment and what I can get out of the relationship where people are more interested in material Goods than in relationships and where Independence is
00:48:28 priced above Mutual interdependence and where is better to receive than to give now bear in mind that this command applies to everyone including husbands and fathers having this submissive heart is to take into consideration the needs of your wife and your children before your own so submission here therefore does not NE at the authority that God has given you as fathers and husbands in fact that submissive spirit is crucial for the man to exercise his authority in the correct way submission also doesn't make you any
00:49:15 less right so when the Bible says wife submit to your husband it doesn't mean that you are lesser than your husband so in all relationships we are asked here to practice Mutual submission wife is not less valuable than a husband and children are not less valuable than their parents in God's economy we are all equal spiritually in the sight of God even me and my children if they are Christians so if you are you might ask H okay if everyone is submitting to one another so who is going to lead well
00:49:54 that's where God has given us a pattern or a blueprint on how we should function within the institutions of marriage the family the church and even the state there exists within each of these institution a leadership role in which God has also given the authority to carry out that role so for instance in a marriage Paul says in verse 22 and 24 you know as you read on the screen wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church his
00:50:32 body of which he is the savior now as the church submits to Christ so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything here we see a difference in the way Mutual submission plays out okay wives are to submit to their husbands by honoring affirming and respecting his leadership what does that mean it means supporting and following and affirming his spiritual Direction and his guidance what about a husband verse 25 says husband love your wife just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her husbands you are to
00:51:20 submit in your leadership role by giving yourself sacrificially for your wives just as Christ has done the same for the church and that means putting her interest first before your own God has given you husbands The Authority right so that not to Lord over her but to provide for her and to protect her you must get it that having Authority is not the same as being Authority it's a huge difference so in your role relationships as husband and wife you are to model yourself after the way Christ gave
00:52:09 himself for the church and the way the church submits to Christ so you see submission and Authority does coexist in God's plan is Christ the leader of the Church of course he is and yet he submits to the needs of the church to the point of giving his life for her just take a moment and think about our Lord Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ equal to God the Father yeah of course he is in essence they are completely equal is God Superior to Christ no of course not but does Christ submit to the will of the father absolutely
00:53:06 yes so it simply means that in God's plan and design for Redemption God submitted himself to the father's will so the principle of submission extends across from our biological families also to our spiritual families as well so if you were to back up a few chapters in the book of Ephesians huh all right to chapter two in talking about the finished work of Christ in reconciling both the Jewish and the Gentile Believers into one body Paul describes the Gentile Believers in Ephesus uh like this Paul calls them
00:53:56 consequently you are no longer foreigners and strangers but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the Chief Cornerstone Paul is telling the Christians in Ephesus that you are now followers of Christ and as followers of Christ you are join AES with Christ and you are now part of the house household of God what is the household of God family right so the principles of mutual submission in the family extends to our
00:54:40 spiritual family here in the church so again here in FBC whether you are an elder a member of cares a youth male female whatever your race or your background there is mutual submission to to one another as we are all spiritual equals yet there is Authority and Leadership vested in the elders because they have responsibility over your spiritual welfare and we are supposed to nourish you in the word of God care for you and to protect you and you flock are supposed to submit and follow the spiritual directions of
00:55:24 the elders so as an elder I'm not here to bark at you you know and and and to ask you to follow whatever I want for myself no I'm here to consider your interest as even more important than my own so there's a very good illustration that I can think of you know and this is something that I brought up in the family devotions uh not family devotions uh Wednesday devotions that I have with the office a couple of weeks back uh and I was trying to describe you know what a little bit about what leadership is is like in the
00:56:09 church um now if you are in the corporate world right you would recognize this guy Jack Welsh no he's passed away I think a couple of years back but he was a very famous Titan of the corporate world in the' 80s and uh some of you okay would know him okay Jack Welsh uh LED G right to become the most valuable uh company in the world in corporate history in 1980 uh it was number one on the NASDAQ okay and everybody right uh you know it is the uh uh um the trophy I mean the the the best example that anybody could
00:56:56 find right in the corporate world in terms of leadership and management and Jack Welch was the highest paid CEO at that time and of course as CEO he got many perks all right uh he used to fly around in his own private jets right uh to meetings okay but he has got a very very aggressive style in the corporate world all right exemplified very very clearly by Jack Welsh what he says is Gospel okay he has one very famous uh policy in in G right some of you might have read in his book winning I read this book you
00:57:38 know it was a good read okay uh in his company he will always rate all the employees right it's a bell curve he always reward very highly the top 10% performance and you know what he does to the bottom 10% they're automatically fired okay uh so everybody is kept on their toes the culture is Cutthroat it's basically survivor of the fitus now unconsciously you know those of us who work in a corporate world I mean some of us we use right to belong to organizations with that kind of a thinking that's the kind of leadership
00:58:25 in the world that's the kind of authority that is given to leaders of the world but this kind of leadership and this kind of authority has got no place in the church in the church is this kind of leadership exemplified by Jesus washing the feet of his disciples in the church leadership and Authority is about servanthood is about having a servant heart is about giving is about serving one another listen to what Jesus had to say in Matthew chapter 20 25-28 Jesus told his disciples that you know that the
00:59:14 rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them and their High officials exercise authority over them not so with you instead whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be your slave that's pretty radical don't you think just as the son of man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many so when submission Authority and Leadership coexist in the way God has designed it to be there is balance unity and harmony not only in the family but
00:59:59 also in the extended family of the church only when we submit to each other with reverence to Christ will we have fulfilling relationships between husbands and wives and between parents and children so the third takeaway we must all have have a submissive heart a submissive heart that is only possible when your spirit filled by the spirit's illumination of your understanding of God's word you know we always start the new year with a sense of hope and I just want to say that no matter where we find ourselves today in
01:00:55 our relationship with one another there's always hope you know the Old Testament is full of examples of broken families beginning with Adam and Eve where one son murdered another you remember Noah After the flood he planted his Vineyard and then he became drunk and then he fell into a horrible sin a sexual sin remember Jacob and Esau sibling rivalries can't stand one another we've got that even in the church what about David he had all sort of family problems one of his sons wanted to murder him and he had to flee
01:02:00 so my point is this we have hope we have hope in the Bible we have hope in God we have hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in spite of the broken families in the examples that I've just given you you find that God was merciful to them and God brought restoration to them when they confessed when they sought and year after God so in the months to come God willing we will return back to this passage right in Ephesians and then to look into details what God has for us in specific relationships in marriage and
01:02:55 in the family but we will also look at certain portraits of dysfunctional families all right in the Old Testament okay and I think uh Elder Arnold will will bring us those stories so we are going to learn from positive and negative examples positive as well as negative instructions um and I just want to remind us you know in closing um that when we talk about having a submissive Spirit one of the prerequisites right of having a a submissive heart uh is humility and I cannot think of a better uh symbol all right of humility uh that
01:03:48 what you can find here on the stage okay is the cross and the crown and if you want something to remember uh what humility is all about folks this is it okay you read in uh today's FBC uh today's article that I wrote okay uh about New Year resolution and how my family and I you know will always try to live by one word you know for a particular year and we hold one another accountable so if you want one word for the new year okay uh this would be it humility and if you want a picture word I would suggest that every time you come
01:04:36 through the doors and you look at the cross and the crown there you will find the Supreme example of humility and a submissive spirit in none other than our Lord Jesus Christ Jesus Christ was God he wears the crown in heaven in the Book of Matthew you know we have preached right his majesty he is the king the king of the Jews he ushered in his kingdom and yet for our sakes he bore the ultimate symbol of Shame the cross and he died the most shameful death that anybody could have died in those days by
01:05:33 crucifixion so that your sins and my sins can be paid for so in closing I want you guys to remember these three takeaways and also the image you know behind me right because in a few moments uh I'm going to ask the uh leaders the the worship team to come up all right uh and we're going to partake together the Lord's Supper but let me just close by praying all right and I want you to Bow your heads and meditate upon what I've just said uh before we come to the Lord's table remember the symbol of the
01:06:51 crown and the cross let us pray dear heavenly father I want to thank you for your word that is powerful that is clear and that is instructive we thank you for the gift of marriage the gift of family and the gift of children and even the gift of singlehood these are blessings from you Lord but in sin oh Lord we often disobeyed your pattern and your principles and as we come before you we want you to examine our hearts we want to confess to you oh Lord that we have often not lived up to your design to your
01:08:07 principles because we are sinners and yet we thank you that we have hope because in Christ we have our sins forgiven Lord I pray that whatever we have heard today would not return to your Void but it may accomplish in us some self-reflection so that we might ask the question how can I be a better father how can I be a better mother how can I be a better husband a better wife or a better child Lord I pray that you help us to always live and Endeavor to live a spirit filed life to model our lives like
01:09:21 Jesus who is the Supreme example of submission and humility we pray all this in Jesus name amen as part of our response songs I've chosen uh one of my favorite hymns all right uh and it's called and can it be right I I think uh you know this hymn is probably most of you should be familiar with it right I if I'm not mistaken it's by Charles Charles Wesley huh yeah it is Charles Wesley okay um and as suggested by Michelle all right we tone down the music okay let's it's a new year let's try something new okay we tone down the
01:10:11 music and I want you all to really sing aloud from your heart you know the passage from Ephesians that we have uh just heard right that we are supposed to sing to each other right in songs and in hymns and in Melody okay uh and to encourage one another through all this songs okay so can I get you all to stand all right as the worship team uh and I will try to lead us uh in this [Music] song sing and can it be it and can it be that I should gain and in the savior's blood died he for me who CA his pain for
01:11:13 me who he to death pursue amazing love how can it be my God should die for me amazing love how can it be that all my God should for come on Church let's [Music] sing thr of the throne above so free so inite his grace and himself of all but love and bl for Adam's helpless R this Mery all immen and free oh oh my God if follow me his Mercy immen and fre for oh my God it found [Music] me long Myra and spirit L Bound in sin and anous th I a quing rain I walk the D Flames with fly my CH love my heart was free I went
01:13:12 forth and follow the My Chains fell my heart was free I Rose when fall Then Fall the sing one last verse no condemnation no condemnation now I Jesus and all in him is mine I him my living head and clothe in rightousness divine [Music] I approach the etal and cl the CR through Christ my own I approach Eternal and claim the ground through Christ my own and cl the through Christ my own [Music] thank you you may be seated [Music] and can it be that I should gain an interest in the savior's blood died he for me who caused his
01:15:11 pain for me who him to death pursued for our sake Christ pursued us Amazing Love how can it be that thou my God should die for [Music] me he left his father's throne above so free so infinite his grace emptied himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race is Mercy all immense and free for oh my God it found out me the hymn that we' have just sung and can it be to me really captures the essence of what Christ has done for us as Christians we have been commanded by Christ himself to come regularly
01:16:15 together as a family as the body of Christ to remember his death for us on the cross and and we do so by partaking of these elements that you have in your hands and I just want to make sure that all of us uh who are partaking haveit anybody who doesn't have have this please raise your hand and the ushers will come uh and pass you one [Music] in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 when ad administering the Lord supper Paul admonishes the Christians let a person examine himself then so that he may eat of the bread and drink of the
01:17:13 cup worthily so before we come and partake of the Lord's supper and to remember our Lord's death on the cross let us have a moment of silence bow our heads and reflect and then I'll lead us in prayer dear heavenly father as we gather together as your children we want to once again thank you for your love for us the love that compels you to send your only begotten son even our Lord Jesus Christ to pursue us as it were to the point where he gave himself up to die on the cross for our sins he died a death that we should have
01:18:37 died in order to give us the life eternal life that only Jesus Christ in his own perfect life can purchase for us so our hearts are filled with gratitude as we meditate upon this fact and just as Christ submitted himself fully to the will of the father I pray Lord that you help us to not only fully submit to you but as an expression of that to submit to one another in reverence for Christ Lord we pray that you help us so that we don't come to the table unworthily we pray that you forgive us of our sins for we claim your promise
01:19:39 that if we confess our sins you be just and righteous to forgive us and as we come to you oh Lord we pray that you also grant us a forgiving spirit because you have forgiven us much and so we must forgive others we pray all this in Jesus name amen for I receive from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord on the night when he was betrayed he took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and said this is my body which is for you do this in remembrance of me let us take out the bread and partake of it
01:20:48 together in the same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the New Covenant in my blood do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes let us partake of this wine together
