What does it look like to pattern your family life after the patterns of scripture? Long ago most Christians ignored the word of God for their home life. We learned the ways of the gentiles and our families were out of order - and many did not even know that their family life was a contradiction to the Word of God.

Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture, and we're here today to talk about, well, the sufficiency of Scripture for family life. And we want to engage some passages of Scripture to help us to direct our minds towards Scripture, toward God, and all this. Now I want to just begin by making it clear that the devil has always attacked the family on the matter of the sufficiency of Scripture, or the sufficiency of God in the garden. It was the devil that said to Eve, has God said?

He was challenging her to question God, to question what God had already said. The attack in the garden was the attack on the Word of God. And so all attacks on the family after that were on the same matter, to distract families from walking in the Word of God. So Jason, we want to talk about the sufficiency of Scripture for family life. We know that the devil has the family in his crosshairs and he always attacks the family in the same way, to depart from the Word of God.

Right. If scripture isn't sufficient for home, we really are in a sad condition. Most of life is lived at home. Think of the portion of our lives that are given to marriage, to child training, to living together, you know, before and after work. A lot of life happens at home.

If it's not sufficient for home, we're in trouble. Yeah, and we grow up and we learn a lot about how to live in a home. But at some point, we've got to come back and live in our homes the way that God designed us to, so that means that there's often corrections that need to be made. I'm just going to read a couple of critical passages on the sufficiency of Scripture, just to try to establish that. Deuteronomy 4, 1 and 2, Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you.

You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." Now, this is quoted at the very end of the Bible in Revelation, do not add and do not subtract. So, our whole family life needs to be bounded by the truth of the Word of God. Deuteronomy 12 32, whatever I command you, be careful to observe it, you shall not add to it nor take away from it. God's admonition to Joshua going into the promised land. Be strong and courageous and wherever you go, meditate on the Word of God.

Let that be your guide. Yeah. Yeah, I think about 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's profitable across all of these different categories that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. He's piling up these categorical words that just eliminate any wiggle room for a category that isn't addressed by Scripture, for which scripture isn't sufficient.

Yeah, so if we're going to have a family, we need to understand what the Bible says about everything and to seek those things out. Proverbs 30 verse 5 says, every word of God is pure and he is a shield to those who put their trust in him. Do not add to his words lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar. Here's one for home life, so I'm going to go down a well-worn path here in Deuteronomy chapter 6. Deuteronomy chapter 5 is the giving of the Ten Commandments, the second giving of the Ten Commandments.

And Deuteronomy 6 tells you what to do with the Ten Commandments. Ten Commandments is really a summary of the law of God, sort of the ten categories of the moral law of God. And Deuteronomy chapter 6 tells us what to do with it, so I'll pick it up in verse one. Deuteronomy six, verse one, now this is the commandment and these are the statutes and judgments which the Lord your God has commanded to teach you. That you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the Lord your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, you and your son and your grandson all the days of your life and that your days may be prolonged.

Therefore, hear O Israel and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord God of your fathers has promised you, a land flowing with milk and honey. Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Within that amount of space, I don't know how you could say it more times that the Word of God ought to be central to the functioning and life of a home. Yeah, when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up all the time. Teach them diligently.

Right. Put it on the doorposts. It's frontlets between your eyes. I mean, it's describing a home that is permeated by the Word of God. Right.

It's very interesting how contrary this is to the normal pattern for fathers. Fathers are given very, very explicit instructions. So you're a father, here's what you do. This is the first thing that you do. You take the Word of God and you bring it to your family.

And you know, we've talked about this, you know, many times over the years. And you know men come to us when we preach on a passage like this and they say, well what do I do, how do I do it? And I'll say the same thing. It's very simple. You flop open your Bible and you read it and you ask, what's there for us?

And you probably should pray and maybe if you want to sing. But it's really very simple. And that's all you really need. And you know, men want a big training session for how to be a father. Well, it's just very clear.

Bring the Word of God into your family, into everything that you do. And it isn't just reading to them, it permeates everything in your life, the Word of God does. And this steady drip of the Word of God, a drip a day, you know, you could think of it that way. It's sort of drip irrigation in the home, a little bit of truth, a little bit of recalibrating your thinking every day. You know, it benefits your relationships with God, it benefits your relationship with, your relationships with each other, it tells you to go, how to go about your work day, and, and, and.

I can't think of a more high leverage activity to engage in, meaning you get more, more out of a modest investment than probably anything else you do in your life. Yeah, and the Lord also tells us how we do it. In Ephesians 5.18, that's really the beginning of what theologians call the family life codes, where there's this command in 518, and then the apostle spins out all kinds of different relationships. But he talks about the relationship of a husband and a wife, and then children in chapter 6. But it's all conditioned upon 518.

Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. And so that's the fundamental way that you do all these things. It's the filling of the Spirit. It matters what you do. We're told what to do.

Fathers, you know, should teach their children, but how do they do it? They do it by being filled with the Holy Spirit. So they're not just doing something wooden, it's something that comes up from the Lord in their hearts. And it's all saturated with love. You know, what are the fruits of the Spirit?

Well, that's very clear. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and all those things. So we're not just told what to do. We're also told how To do it in the family life codes, right? You're talking about the family life codes Ephesians 5 and 6 Ephesians 6 verse 4 bring up your children in the training and ammunition Of the Lord now, it's not just to train your children and monish your children It is the writing ammunition of the Lord.

Of course the the Word of God is central to that. So, it really is the equivalent of Deuteronomy chapter 6, maybe a summary statement of Deuteronomy chapter 6, just given in the New Testament. We're supposed to train our children in the Lord. This is centered around the Word of God, and we're supposed to admonish our children in the Lord, and this is admonishing them from the Word of God to help them retrain their thoughts to the higher thoughts of God. Yeah, and then you have the roles and responsibilities in the family life codes.

You have wives who submit to their husbands. You have husbands who love their wives, like Christ loved the church, and then you have children that obey their parents, and you have fathers that don't exasperate their children, and you have fathers that bring their children up in the training and admonition of the Lord. So those are all duties, those are all duties, but the duties aren't meant to just be performed in a wooden way. They're performed in love. All these things should just be filled with joy, with patience, with kindness, with goodness, with faithfulness.

The way that you do it might matter more than what you do. Now, it matters what you do. You have to do what God commanded you to do, But a person has to submit to the Lord and humble themselves before God and say, Lord, use me as an instrument of your love in my family. Let me read the start of Psalm 1 and then try to apply it to home life. How blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.

He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper." I want and need to be like a tree planted by rivers of water, that the roots go down into this sort of inexhaustible resource of what I need so that my leaves don't wither during drought and heat, and so that I continue to bear fruit. Homes need all of that, you know, and so here's a source of it. It can make the Word of God meditating on His Word day and night, delighting in His Word can make you like a tree planted by a stream of water. It can make a home like that too. It really is sufficient for home life.

I love the part that you brought out about the living water, you know, streams of water. Jesus in John 7 37, He says, if anybody is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. And out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And then he said, he spoke about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. So, Scripture is sufficient for family life, but the heart of the matter is that it's a river of living water that springs out of the heart of a father and a mother into the whole life of the family.

You can't underestimate just the personal intimate relationship with God in a father, a father who knows God, a mother who knows God, and they're meditating on the Word of God, and they're filled with the Spirit, and out of their innermost being flows rivers of water. That has everything to do with family life, everything. So that then is the foundation for the training of the children that they are doing. Everyone's training their children, however proactively or not you're doing it, you are training your children. They're learning things from you, and they'll be doing the things that they learned.

So if the fountainhead of that is rich relationship with God and meditating and delighting in the Word of God, then the training comes out of that. Yeah. Amen. And so, boy, There's a lot to say about that. Here's one thing that it means, don't just go get your curriculum.

Don't think that just getting your curriculum set, that you're set, because it's the way that you bring the curriculum as an overflow of love for God is really the most important thing. It really matters that you get your curriculum. But if you have curriculum without the Holy Spirit, you just have a bunch of dead wood. And so the Lord gives us just such richness to teach us about how to have a family. So let's go have families like that.

Let's bring our hearts before the Lord. Let's know God and bring forth the living water from his throne. Well, thanks for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast, and we hope to see you next time. Thanks for listening to the Church and Family Life podcast. We have thousands of resources on our website, announcements of conferences coming up.

Hope you can join us. Go to churchandfamilylife.com. See you