Bringing It Home

BRINGING IT HOME

Dismantling Legalism in Our Families

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: November 24, 2024

Series: Dismantling Legalism

Note:   Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard   Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

This is the fifth and final installment of the Dismantling Legalism Series. Today’s sermon is entitled “Bringing It Home”. The idea that I wish to convey is that if we are going to succeed at Dismantling Legalism, then we must dismantle legalism at home where we do life with our families. Everyday must be seasoned with grace.

Several weeks ago, when I was thinking about what I was going to preach about before the next big series, I had two short series in mind: this Dismantling Legalism Series, and then a Christian Family Series. But as I have been going through the Dismantling Legalism Series, what I realized is that one of the most important things for us to within our families is to apply the Dismantling Legalism lessons at home. If we apply these lessons at home, and cultivate our families in the soil of grace, then our families will flourish. And this got me thinking that now isn’t the right time to do a Christian Family Series, because all I want to say to families right now is: put legalism to death at home. Work on that for the next year. Then maybe in 12-15 months we’ll do a Christian Family Series and highlight some other important aspects of family life. With all that in mind, it is fitting to devote this final sermon to applying the anti-legalist lessons to our home life.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

To get the ball rolling, consider a few verses. Holy Scripture says:

“Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” (Colossians 3:19)

“Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” (Colossians 3:21)

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4)

“Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.” (Ephesians 6:9)

GETTING A FEW KEY POINTS

While I am especially addressing husbands and fathers in terms of the tone we set for our homes, the principles are applicable to wives and mothers, and frankly to all of us. Before getting to the application of the anti-legalist lessons to home life, let’s observe a few things from these passages.

The priority of love

First, the over-arching principle is love: “Husbands, love your wives”. Husbands, your love in demonstrable practice for your wife, should set the entire atmosphere for your home. Look at the love pyramid in Colossians 3:12-14 –

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:12-14)

Men, the first order of business is not business; the first order of business is not law and order; the first order of business is not direction and guidance. Do you want to treat your wife as the Lord would have you treat her? Then, keeping in mind the stunning fact that the Lord, the most powerful person in the universe, condescended to manhood and servanthood and suffering and death on a cross, thereby demonstrating love for His bride, you walk in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, and love.

Of course, women also must “love their husbands and children” (Titus 2:4), and all of us must exhibit sacrificial love toward each other.

Now regarding parenthood, fathers and mothers, your vision for your children is that they be brought up in the training and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). The assumption is that Dad is walking in love while he is teaching and directing his children. Sometimes people lift instructions out of context, and some ambitious men might use Ephesians 6:4 as a bludgeon to justify intense military-like training of their young children. But Ephesians 5:1-2 comes before Ephesians 6:4, and what does that say? “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2) If you are mature in the Lord, then you know that the reason you humbly accept the Lord’s discipline, reproof, and correction, is because you know that the Lord loves you (Proverbs 3:11-12). And when I say ‘you know that the Lord loves you’, I mean you really know it, you have tasted and seen that He is good, you have received His kindness, you are overwhelmed by His grace, you remember the cross. Too many men jump to the discipline, reproof, and correction component, arguing that these are a form of love (which indeed they ought to be), but they haven’t first established a deep relational context of love, mercy, and grace. Fathers, do your children know that you love them? It is good and important for you to tell them that you love them, but it is even more important to demonstrate practically that you love them.

So, both by direct command to husbands, and by the context leading up to the instruction to both husbands and fathers, the first order of business for men to love their wives and children. And remember, love means demonstrating “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) to your wife and your children. If someone comes along and says, ‘Man, you should lead your wife with a strong hand’, one good reply would be, ‘That’s not what Colossians 3:19 says.’ The implication of Colossians 3:18-19 is that a husband should lead his wife with a loving hand, with a gentle hand, with a leadership style that is patient and kind. When a man opts for the strong hand approach, that too easily becomes a harsh hand. And Colossians 3:19 says: “and do not be harsh with them”.

Three warnings from our passages

Now let’s talk about these three warnings: “do not be harsh with them” (Colossians 3:19), “do not provoke your children [e.g., to anger]” (Colossians 3:21, Ephesians 6:4), and “stop your threatening” (Ephesians 6:9). In a little while I will suggest to you that being legalistic is a surefire way to disobey these warnings. But first, let’s take note of these three warnings.

The first warning: “do not be harsh”

“Husband’s, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” The idea here is that husbands should not be harsh toward, angry with, or embittered against their wives. Why would a husband be tempted to be harsh toward, angry with, or embittered against his wife? Well, remember that each one of us should have the attitude that ‘my greatest problem is the sin within my own heart’. If we give way to our own sin, our own selfishness, our own ambition, our own way, then we will find it very easy to become harsh toward, angry with, or embittered against anyone who gets in the way of our self-absorbed comfort and ease.

Jesus, the Holy One, didn’t come in order to please Himself (as we read in Romans 15:3 last week). He came in order to serve His bride. She was overwhelmed with sin, guilt, shame, fear, immaturity, and a whole host of practical needs (I am describing us, we who are members of the body of Christ). Jesus didn’t become harsh toward, angry with, or embittered against His bride. He didn’t chastise her or shame her. He took the cost of her redemption upon Himself, and sacrificed Himself for her, in order to wash her and renew her and clothe her with grace. He continues to sustain her on her earthly pilgrimage, patiently guiding her through this present world.

Now in marriage, the husband and wife are supposed to portray this remarkable love that Christ has for His bride. Think about it: the husband himself has his own sin, guilt, shame, fear, immaturity, and practical needs. Humbled by this awareness of his own deficiencies and needs, and grateful for the Lord’s grace to him, the husband is go and face his wife who has her own sin, guilt, shame, fear, immaturity, and practical needs. How is the husband supposed to relate to his wife? No self-righteousness. No judgmentalism. No snarky comments. No heaping up guilt and shame. No resentment that you are supposed to love her and live sacrificially toward her. But instead, you are humble, gentle, gracious, kind. Are you kind to your wife so that you build her up? Or are you critical and irritable toward your wife so that you cut her down?

There is within our world and even within the religious world a certain sub-culture of brash men. The phrase “toxic masculinity” gets thrown around, and the reason I don’t like a phrase like that is because masculinity is not inherently toxic. There is a kind of leadership entrusted to men which, when stewarded in humility and love and courage and sacrifice, is a wonderful gift to the world, and to women and children. But if we are going to be honest, then we have to acknowledge that masculinity, when distorted by sin, can easily become toxic and brash. Brash men are not sensitive, thoughtful, and understanding toward their wives. And husbands who are not sensitive, thoughtful, and understanding toward their wives are not living as Christian men.

The second warning: “do not provoke”

Let’s move to the second warning: “Fathers, do not provoke your children” (Colossians 3:21). The Ephesians 6:4 passage adds two words: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger”. Men, we are to relate to our children in such a way that we do not provoke them, we do not irritate them, we do not stir up their displeasure. Once again, if we act selfishly and treat our children like an electronic device that exists to make us happy and upon which we can impose our self-absorbed will, then we are going to turn our children into discontented little people. Children are not cogs in the machine of your life. Children are not a blank canvas upon which you get to impose your iron will. Furthermore, children are not a distraction from the primary calling of your life, and their childhood is not an inconvenience to be rushed past. Some of us have the unfortunate attitude of the immature disciples:

“Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.” And he laid his hands on them and went away.” (Mathew 19:13-15)

Jesus made time for the kids. Now the calling upon Dads and Moms is of incomparable value: “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” The very fact that this exhortation in Ephesians is preceded by “do not provoke your children to anger”, highlights the fact that the manner in which you relate to your children is key to your parenting and discipling work. Your children are precious souls, with each child having a precious heart that is being molded and shaped by ten thousand interactions in the home. How are you molding and shaping their heart? Consider this: the type of husband who is angry toward his wife (in violation of Colossians 3:19), is the type of father who is raising up angry children (in violation of Colossians 3:21 and Ephesians 6:4).

Generally speaking, you will reproduce your character in your children. We are real fools, sometimes, imagining that our anger is going to generate their godliness, that our harshness is going to attract them to righteousness, or that our strictness is going to sanctify them. But like I was saying a few weeks ago, our attempt to influence other people toward righteousness is often counterproductive, is often having the very opposite effect. Think about it this way: if you angrily and irritably and frustratingly beat your religion into your children, you may or may not make them religious, but you will make them angry, irritable, and frustrated. You will reproduce yourself. And by the way, if your religiosity is causing you to be angry, irritable, and frustrated all the time, and to feel this overwhelming burden to get everyone else straightened out, then let me be clear that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not in the driver’s seat of your life. “His law is love and His gospel is peace” (from the hymn “O Holy Night”) shouldn’t just be words that are sung on Christmas Eve, but should describe the tenor of our hearts. Are you a provoker who exasperates others because you yourself are exasperated that life isn’t easy and you often don’t get your way? Or are you a peaceable and patient Christian living under the influence of the Holy Spirit?

In the end, the precious hearts of your children will be left disheartened and discouraged if you relate to them in an overbearing and provoking manner: “Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.” How many children are discouraged and weary of heart, because they have heard Dad’s loud voice too many times, they have sensed Dad’s displeasure too many times, they have had their own individuality and interests shut down too many times. They longed to hear tender words from their father, they longed to know that their father delighted in them, they wanted to know that their Daddy was interested in the things that interested them, they wanted to have a feeling that they were a valued part of the family. But the imbalance has gone on for far too long, and now your child is discouraged, weary, empty.

The third warning: “stop your threatening”

Now let’s ponder the third warning: “Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening” (Ephesians 6:9). I readily admit that this passage is not about the husband-wife relationship and is not about the parent-child relationship, but is actually about the master-servant relationship. Though the master-servant or master-slave relationship is not immediately applicable to us in our current socio-economic situation, this passage is often applied into the context of the workplace, and to managerial or supervisory relationships within the workplace. And there is wisdom in making that application. But I want to approach it from a different angle, remembering that when Paul was writing this letter, the master-servant relationship was part of the overall household dynamic. So, consider this: if it would be wrong for a master to govern his servants by threats, then how much more is it wrong for a father to govern his children by threats or for a husband to lead his wife by threats.

As a general rule, making threats is a very immature way of trying to influence others. I say ‘as a general rule’, because there are times when it is appropriate to give warnings: God Himself warns us of consequences throughout the Bible. There are times when a relational situation is so serious that it is wise to share the likely negative outcomes if the situation doesn’t change. There are times when, in a level-headed manner, we do have to communicate expectations and consequences to our children, with the mindset that we will enact those consequences if necessary. However, the general rule of thumb for how we relate to each other, appeal to each other, and influence each other, should be non-coercive communication. The ordinary way that husbands and wives relate to each other, that parents relate to their children, and that all of us relate to each other, should not be through coercive and manipulative threats. We don’t want to influence one another to be primarily motivated by a fear that wants to avoid the threatened consequences. Instead, we want to influence one another to be primarily motivated by the love of what is good.

Let me wrap up the three warnings this way: if the normal way in which you attempt to influence your spouse or children is with threats, or with fear, or with guilt, or with anger, or with critical comments, or with emotional pressure, then your approach is not good. Your approach is not Christlike. Your approach is not consistent with biblical instruction. Stop threatening your loved ones. Stop provoking your children anger. Stop treating your wife harshly.

HOW THE ABOVE INSTRUCTION RELATES TO LEGALISM

Now this is that moment in the sermon where I ask, ‘What does all this have to do with legalism?’ And then I answer, very predictably, quite a lot! I am not claiming that legalism is the only way to disobey the household instructions in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6. I am simply claiming that legalism is one way to disobey the household instructions in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6. And since I have included this sermon in the Dismantling Legalism Series, this is the application I want to make in today’s message.

Take note of the legalistic how-to manual

There are two things I want to do in order to bring it home. First, I want us to remember what Jesus said about the legalistic hypocritical Pharisees in Matthew 23. I will be speaking with sarcasm for the next few minutes, so listeners and readers beware! If you want to cultivate a legalistic hypocritical environment in your home, here’s a simple how-to manual. And by the way, this simple how-to-manual has insurance: if it doesn’t succeed at making your family hyper-religious, then at the very least it will make your family hate religion and hate churchgoing.

• First: “[Preach], but do not practice” (Matthew 23:3). Make sure that you frequently tell your wife and children how important biblical instruction is and that they should follow it, and then make sure that you don’t follow it yourself. This is a great way to build resentment. Immediately following your flowery prayers of thanksgiving with tirades against under-performing family members will also do the trick.

• Second: “lay [heavy burdens] on people’s shoulders, but” don’t lift a finger to help (Matthew 23:4). Be an overbearing taskmaster. Expect your wife and children to carry the weight of the household, while you kick your feet up. Tell them that if they just do a little bit more, it will be okay. This is a proven way to provoke them to anger. Of course, in all of this preachy imposition of heavy burdens, multiply man-made rules, which is to say, multiply your own rules. And like a good legislator, make sure there are loopholes for yourself.

• Third: “do all [your] deeds to be seen by others.” (Matthew 23:5) Even though you don’t practice what you preach and don’t share the burdens you have placed on others, be sure to look like Mr. Religious Guy when you are out in public. Your family will see the hypocrisy and eventually hate you for it. In the same vein, tell your family members to keep up appearances when they are out in public. You want them to be hypocritical with you. You want your whole family to look like shiny happy people. This will teach your children that looking good is more important than being good. Every time “you clean the outside of the cup” (Matthew 23:25) but leave the inside to rot, you are sure to make a negative impression upon your family members who know what you’re really like behind closed doors and who suspect what you’re really doing on the internet.

• Fourth: “tithe [on] mint and dill and cumin, and… neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness.” (Matthew 23:23) The lesson here is to get laser focused on relatively minor issues. Get your family preoccupied with boycotting pagan companies and never watching anything produced by the wrong people, and don’t demonstrate love for the elderly woman across the street. Always have an eye for the fine print of a thousand rules, but ignore people’s obvious needs. Blessed are the meticulous! This is also a promising way to promote legalism within your family.

• Fifth – and I draw this point, not from Matthew 23, but from other passages: look down upon tax collectors, the sexually immoral, and other obvious sinners, and keep your distance from them. Talk bad about other sinners, and set before your wife and children a clear view of all the people they should criticize. Teach your family that the way to be holy is to stay away from sinners. This is a proven method for getting your family members to see everyone else’s sins, but to ignore their own sins.

And so, if you follow these ancient ways of the hypocritical legalistic Pharisees, don’t be surprised when your family either becomes legalistic like you or reacts negatively to you and wants nothing to do with your brand of religion.

Now assuming that you don’t want to shape your family with a legalistic spirit, let’s try an alternative approach. So, the second thing I want to do to bring it home is to apply some of the lessons from the previous sermons into a home environment.

God’s justifying grace[1]

First, it all starts, of course, with God’s justifying grace: He justifies us, He counts us righteous, by sheer grace. Ponder the implications for your family. God the Father loves, welcomes, and accepts His blood-bought people by His grace, given freely through Christ, and received by faith. Ponder the Father’s love, and let that shape the way that you do family life. The feel of your home ought to be that you have loved, welcomed, and accepted each family member, apart from works, apart from performance, apart from merit. Don’t make your favor dependent on their performance, unless you want them to be legalists. But if you want them to be or ever become healthy Christians, then make your favor independent of their performance. Love on them; give them warm hugs; show them in words and deeds and smiles that you are glad and grateful that God has made them part of your family; make it clear that you delight in them and find them wonderfully interesting and value them as a priceless image-bearer of God. Go out of your way to make it clear that their standing with you doesn’t depend on works.

Of course, God’s justifying grace also includes forgiveness. Don’t be the sort of spouse or parent who is quick to criticize, and slow to forgive. Don’t be the sort of spouse or parent who is highly skilled at pointing out every flaw that you see. Don’t be the sort of spouse or parent who expects your family members to make a detailed confession of every sin and apologize for every failing, unless you want them to be legalists. Exude grace. Exercise patience. Extend mercy. Overlook sin. The good news of God’s redeeming grace is that God sent Jesus to die for us when we were filthy sinners; and the good news of God’s persevering grace is that He continues to love us and be 100% for us even though we still sin every day. Model God’s love for your spouse and children. Continue your love and favor toward them, even when they fail. Don’t say things like, “You always” or “You never”. You’re supposed to be showing compassion, not counting iniquities.

Secondary matters[2]

Second, with respect to last week’s sermon – Don’t turn secondary matters into legalistic fodder – this is highly relevant to family life. Families have to navigate dozens of secondary matters and dozens of tertiary matters. The way of wisdom requires you to make some decisions about secondary matters. In last week’s sermon I shared that after watching the crime drama Criminal Minds for many years, I decided to stop watching it because it was negatively affecting my heart. In doing so, I’m not attempting to draw and hard and fast line by which to judge other people. This is clearly a secondary matter. However, the fact that it is a secondary matter doesn’t mean that I let my older kids watch it simply because they want to and it happens to be a secondary matter. Parents as shepherds have to make certain judgment calls that affect the well-being of their children. Churches do the same thing: a church like ours understands that moderate alcohol consumption is a secondary matter and we give freedom to one another in it, and yet the church had decided prior to my coming that we wouldn’t allow alcoholic beverages on the church building premises, which means they don’t get to be included in our fellowship meals. That policy isn’t inherently legalistic; it is simply a prudential policy designed to help all of us flourish together when we are together.

Well, families have to do the same thing. But we need to understand what we are doing and communicate clearly to our children. We need to be able to say: a) this is God’s command and we must abide by it. We also need to be able to say: b) this is Dad and Mom’s household policy; this isn’t the Word of God; and when you grow up you might decide to handle this differently, and that’s okay. This logic is assumed in obey your father and mother. But parents need to know what they are doing: parents especially, and also children (especially as they get older) need to be able to differentiate Scriptural directives from prudential household policies.

However, I want to sound a caution. Another way that legalism slips in the backdoor is to make rules about everything. How many spouses and parents get to criticizing and complaining, not because the other spouse or the children have sinned against God, but because they have broken one of your petty rules? If we’re going to get serious about not promoting legalism in our homes, then we must refrain from smothering our loved ones with rules. Do I really want to insist that my children wash dishes my way? Do I really want to insist that my children solve the math problem my way when there is more than way to solve it? Instead of smothering them with rules and have-tos, we want to cultivate a gracious environment in which they can learn and grow and discover without the pressure of constant overbearing expectations. Constant overbearing expectations, combined with frequent criticism, is a fine way for legalism to come through the backdoor, and to provoke your children to anger.

Log and speck [3]

Finally, apply the speck and the log message at home. When you are part of a family, you get front row seats to other people’s sins, weaknesses, and imperfections. This affords you a wonderful opportunity to live out the gospel with your fellow sinners. I suspect that some spouses and parents feel like they have to hide their own sins, because they have believed the lie that they won’t be able to influence others toward righteousness unless they are viewed as righteous. So, they refuse to address and confess their own sins, and they present themselves as righteous to their spouse and children, and they are always calling their spouse and children to repentance. What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong is that you are teaching them a variation of legalism: look good, and then your ministry to others will be productive. This is a great time to share a quote from John Piper:

“Legalism is a more dangerous disease than alcoholism because it doesn’t look like one. Alcoholism makes men fail; legalism helps them succeed in the world. Alcoholism makes men depend on the bottle; legalism makes them self-sufficient, depending on no one. Alcoholism destroys moral resolve; legalism gives it strength. Alcoholics don’t feel welcome in the church; legalists love to hear their morality extolled in church.”[4]

Christian parents, who rightly want their children to obey the Lord, face a serious temptation here: the temptation is that as long as our children look outwardly righteous, then we feel really good about them and our parenting. We might think how wonderful it is that our children aren’t obvious disasters like those alcoholics. But once you realize that legalism is more sinister than alcoholism and other sins of the flesh, you will get sober-minded and seek to address the issues of the heart. But what we learned from Luke 6:39-42 is that the primary qualification for dealing with other people’s issues is dealing honestly with your own heart-issues first.

And so, if you truly want to influence your spouse and children toward true internal righteousness, then you need to teach them to be honest about sin, to confess sin, to depend on the Lord’s grace. And the best way to teach them these things, is to model it. Make it clear that you see yourself as a sinner who is radically dependent on God’s grace. Show them that God isn’t looking for people who look good, but for people who aren’t good who will turn to him in humble repentance. Do you want to family to walk in repentance? Then you, especially you Dads, be the lead repenter. Be the man: assume responsibility, humbly seek the Lord, confess that you are sinful but the Lord is merciful, confess that you are weak but the Lord is strong, confess that you are inadequate but the Lord upholds you. Then you will take the pressure off your loved ones, and then you will become a humble, patient, and increasingly wise influencer who can offer some real help to your wife and children in their spiritual journey. Men, if your wife and children see you as the self-proclaimed Expert, you’re not going to get very far in your efforts. But if they see you as a humble man who knows how to repent and be honest and come clean, then you might actually make some real progress. God’s grace is all over humble repenters; but God’s grace is far from the self-righteous legalists. Therefore, take heed to yourself!

A final word

Brothers and sisters, if you walk in these gracious ways; and if practice what you preach; and if you aim to lighten the load of others and bear their burdens; and if you’re humble and honest enough to keep it real and not put on a show; and if you major on the important things and hold the less important things with a grain of salt; and if you speak compassionately about the lost sinners across the street and make a real effort to love them; and if you speak compassionately about your fellow believers who do things differently than you do; then you will be on your way to dismantling legalism at home. And within that context, you may indeed expect that your efforts to bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord will bear good fruit.

ENDNOTES

[1] This section – “God’s justifying grace” – relates to the October 27, 2024 (“Justified: Pulling up the roots of legalism”) and November 10, 2024 (“How the Justified Person Lives: The faith that drives practical obedience”) sermons.

[2] This section – “Secondary matters” – relates to the November 17, 2024 sermon (“Don’t Turn Secondary Matters into Legalistic Fodder: A fresh look at Romans 14:1-15:7”).

[3] This section – “Log and speck” – relates to the November 3 sermon (“The Speck and the Log: The grace of addressing your own sin first”).

[4] John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionsals.