Family disfunction is often more spiritual than relational, despite how regular tension and conflict might make it feel. Satan rejoices when homes are ruined. He fights to make families weak. The weaker the family, the stronger his rule and the more his course advances. Satan uses instruments, human ways, in battle. He often works through flesh and blood. Nevertheless, we do not fight against flesh and blood. Instead, we rely on flesh-and-blood relationships as we fight against him in our homes.
Which relationships do we need to rely on? What alliances will help us defeat Satan as he attacks our homes? Our great alliance is with our brothers and sisters in the church. They are our fellow soldiers fighting the same war and unity is key. We work together and depend on each other for lasting triumph. The church is the army in the great spiritual war. While every family faces its individual battles, warfare is also a group undertaking. We wrestle together against a common enemy, Satan. We can see this reality especially in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where the apostle gives instructions about family relationships.
Ephesians 5:22 & 6:1
22 For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 1Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do.
Prior to his instructions on the family, Paul explains how we are to live and worship as a family.
Ephesians 5:15–21(NLT)
15 So be careful how you live. Live as men who are wise and not foolish. 16 Make the best use of your time. These are sinful days. 17 Do not be foolish. Understand what the Lord wants you to do. 18 Do not get drunk with wine. That leads to wild living. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit. 19 Tell of your joy to each other by singing the Songs of David and church songs. Sing in your heart to the Lord. 20 Always give thanks for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Walking in wisdom, entails being filled with the Spirit by speaking and singing truth to Christ and one another in unified worship. In this way, the Spirit fills God’s gathered family and empowers them to live out the gospel, claiming victory in their homes. When God’s people are filled with the Spirit through worship, wives submit to their husbands, husbands love their wives, children obey their parents, fathers tenderly train their children, servants obey their masters, and masters do good to their servants.
When filled with the Spirit, God’s family becomes not only the power but the pattern for our own individual families. Wives submit as the church submits to Christ. Husbands love as Christ loved the church. Children obey parents in the Lord, as God’s children also obey him. Fathers take their cue from the heavenly Father in exercising gentleness. Servants obey as they would Christ. Masters treat their servants respectfully because both masters and servants have one Master. Thus, the church’s relationship with her Lord and heavenly Father becomes the pattern for a Spirit-filled family.
Beyond Flesh and Blood
Having called specific members of the church to walk by the Spirit, honoring Christ in their respective callings, Paul draws the church to the armor of God that will keep its individual families firm in the path before them. Every family member husbands, wives, parents, and children must be strong in the Lord to “stand against the schemes of the devil”
Ephesians 6:13 (NKJV)
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
One of the devil’s schemes, against which the church must stand, is the temptation to devalue the place of God’s family for our individual families. Many Christians today fail to see family worship and warfare as essential tool. The gathering of the church is optional; we easily forsake the gathering for other pursuits when we should let go of every other pursuit to gather with the church. When the devil separates us from the army of God, he has better chances for victory against our families.
Any military commander would be a fool if he sent his men into battle detached from each other. A commander who separates one man from the team may, in effect, send that soldier to his death. If an army is divided among itself, how can it stand? It can be a crime in the military to desert your team or to forsake a wounded member of the team. You fight for your country; you fight with each other; you protect each other. Caring for one another is key. When believers forget and forsake the rest of the military, the church, they give an advantage to the devil.
We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but we need flesh and blood for the war against the devil. No family feud is only relational; there is always more going on than meets the eyes. Eve’s disobedience and Adam’s submissiveness may have appeared as just as a flesh-and-blood issue. The counsel of Job’s wife, as the waves of trials swept over them, may have seemed simply like the words of a troubled soul. But Job lifts the curtains and shows us that behind those words lay an evil force. Job’s battle was not against flesh and blood; it was spiritual.
Full Armor for the Family
How do we fight these spiritual wars? In part, we do so as a family. We stand the whole armor Christ has won for us, and we fight with the word of God. The pieces of armor Paul lists are not different from the truth we confess and sing to each other in worship. Being strong in the strength of the Lord is similar to being filled with the Spirit, who “strengthens with power” in the inner man.
Ephesians 3:14-16 (NIV)
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,
We put on the whole armor when we address each other with the truth of the gospel, our true righteousness in Christ, and the gospel of peace, strengthening each other’s faith in the gospel, singing of our great salvation, joining in songs that are rich with the word, which is the sword of the Spirit. Worship itself is warfare.
While these pieces of armor can be put on at the individual level, the family dimension is vital. For example, as individuals, we may not always have our shields up. But in warfare, when a husband’s shield falls, others can gather around him and protect him with their own shields, praying and encouraging him back to the battle. Victory for individual families comes as we are engaged in God’s family, where we wage the war with others against the schemes of the devil.
This reality also places a burden of responsibility on local churches, since the health of her families, in large measure, depends on the strength of a church’s worship and warfare. What the gathered family does with the truth determines the health of its individual families.
We Fight Together or Fail
Group worship and warfare are indispensable for our marriages and families. If we despise the family of God, we will not survive in the effort to establish ours. Your family needs God’s family. Your marriage needs God’s marriage. Your parenting needs God’s fatherly relationship with his people. We fight together or we fail.
If we isolate ourselves from the community of God’s people, we will absolutely fall in the battle. God has not designed us to live that way. The health of your family is the project of God’s family. We worship together, we war together, and by God’s grace, we will win together.
God Bless, Israel
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