Key Truth: As a result of our resurrection, we are to display the image of Christ in our families and our vocations.  

Introduction:

Q: What has most influenced your views on family and vocation?

“The whole of life, both thought and conduct, is to be submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ. No area of life stands outside his control; so there is no final distinction between the sacred and the secular. Yet the household rules indicate how this obedience is concretely expressed.”

Peter T. O’Brien,
Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 44: Colossians, Philemon

Displaying the Resurrection in Our Family:

Colossians 3:18-21

“For on the one hand the Christian Home is truly “the masterpiece of the applied Gospel”; the scene of the loveliest manifestations of its spirit, and then also the source, or reservoir, out of which its noblest influence is to flow around. On the other hand Home is the place of all others where it is most easy for us forgetful sinners not to live in the full light and power of the Gospel. It is the place where we most easily go off our guard; where small inconsistencies are most readily allowed to grow into habits; where the member of the circle may only too lightly act as if there were less need there than elsewhere of the fullness of the Spirit, the indwelling of the Lord in the heart, the surrender of the whole life to God.”

H.C.G. Moule,
Colossian and Philemon Studies: Lessons in Faith and Holiness

Q: How are you displaying the resurrection in your family?

Displaying the Resurrection in Our Vocations:

Colossians 3:22-4:1

“Smiting on the anvil, sawing a beam, white-washing a wall, driving horses, sweeping, scouring, everything gives God some glory if being in His grace you do it as your duty. To go to Communion worthily gives God great glory, but to take food in thankfulness and temperance gives Him glory too. He is so great that all things give Him glory if you mean they should. So then, my brethren, live.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Notebooks and Papers

Q: How are you displaying the resurrection in your vocation?

Colossians 3:18-4:1 teaches us that we are to display the resurrection in our:

- family

- vocation

Benediction: 

Colossians 4:2,5-6