The best way to love your family is to be a family that follows in the way of Jesus Christ.
The fifth chapter of the Letter of the Ephesians has a section that addresses families. One verse it talks about husbands and wives. The next verse it talks about Christ and the church. The following verse we are back to husbands and wives. And so on. The takeaway is that the way we best love our family is inseparable from the way we follow Jesus. There are no easy lifehacks to creating a happy family. A happy, healthy family is one of the results of following Jesus.
Elsewhere in the same chapter we learn the distinctive feature of being a family that follows Jesus: mutual submission. In contrast to our cultural value of radical egalitarianism, a Christian family practices submission. Not domination. Not exploitation. Submission. One member of the family voluntarily submits to another out of love.
One further observation about loving our families: Families are the foundation of God’s plan for the universe. When we take care of our families, we are doing the most important work that we can do, and we are participating in God’s eternal plan for his creation.
In our sermon this Sunday we are going to talk about how to be a family that follows the way of Jesus Christ, the best way to love our family.