Family Ministry (Part 1 of 2)

What Would Others Who Know You? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explores this question and takes a closer look at what Oh Lord our God, unless we know the enabling of your Spirit both in speaking and in hearing, we now engage in an exercise of futility. We do not believe that you've brought us here except for the express purpose that through your Word you would speak to our lives. So speak, Lord, in the stillness while we wait upon you. For Jesus' sake we ask it.

Amen. What is your household known for? Do they know your house on the street? Do they know your house in the community?

And do people say, In that house is such-and-such, or from that house comes such-and-such a thing? You may be known for your dog. You may be known for your mailbox. You may be known for the volume of your son's or daughter's radio in their car when they come home in the later evening.

You may be known for a number of things. Houses have a look. Houses have a feel. And if I may say so graciously, houses also have a smell. An aroma is a better word, an aroma. And don't go from here saying, The pastor said that my house stinks.

I did not say that. I said that your house has an aroma. So much so that as a child my mother was able to identify the houses out of which I had come on the basis of the peculiar aromas that were part and parcel of some of the homes in our community—ethnic cooking of the good Scottish variety, involving a tremendous amount of fat.

And as a result of that, there was a sort of fatty element to me when I came home that pervaded both my clothing and my hair, and she would know. Now, it was this flavor with which we ended our study last time in verse 14, because we said that what was the emphasis of the Holy Spirit in relationship to the matter of these things was simply this—that there should be an all-pervading element of love which was marking the relationships among the Corinthian believers, that they were to be seasoned by love, and that that should be spilling over into the community. That both as a church family and then as individual families, they would be learning that one of the great evidences of the fact that Jesus Christ is alive from the dead is to be found in the loving lifestyle of Christian families. The loving lifestyle of Christian families. The way in which father and mother relate to each other, the way in which parent treats child, and child parent, and sibling sibling. There should be this Christ-exalting, Spirit-filled element which is part and parcel of these houses.

It's a quite challenging thought. Now, the household of Stephanos, in verse 15, is just such a household. The household of Stephanos is to be a household that's on its guard, standing firm in the faith, courageous and strong. In other words, Christian living is to be marked by a courage that will never retreat.

But the household of Stephanos is also to be one in which they are doing everything in love. Therefore, Christian living is to be marked by a love that will never fail. And those two things frame a large part of what it will mean for us to live out the life of Jesus at this point in time. We were to be those who are marked by a courage that does not retreat—hence verse 13—and by a love that never fails—verse 14—and now exemplified in verse 15 and following. It was a word that was of vital importance to these Corinthian believers, because, you will recall from our earlier studies, they were a fairly selfish group of people. They were preoccupied with themselves and with their own peculiar concerns, and indeed, in certain cases, the teachers that they liked at the communion services, they were in need of rebuke, because people were showing up early just to eat all of the food.

And when people arrived, in the hope that they would also be able to share in the meal, what was known as a love feast had become actually a feast of selfishness. And so it is not a matter of passing import that, as Paul draws this great epistle to a conclusion, that he should give this vital instruction as to the nature of Christian love. Now, as we think about love, then, fleshing itself out in family life, in the ministry to a family and through a family, we do well to pay attention to the household of Stephanus. And that is why he is mentioned for us here. I have five words that I'd like to use as the guiding lights, as it were, through these four verses this morning.

And each word, with the exception of one, is actually in the text. The first word is the word conversion. You know that the household of Stephanus were the first converts in a KI. The first thing that we know about them is that they were once darkness and now they're light in the Lord. We're not told that they were religious people. We're not told that they were church-going people.

We're told that they were converted people. And indeed, in the ministry which Paul had exercised in the city of Corinth, says Paul, according to my recollection, when I think of those who came to faith in Jesus Christ, Stephanus and his family were right at the front of the queue. Now, if you turn back to Acts chapter 18, you can see there the historical record of what took place when Paul went into Corinth to preach. We're told that in verse 4, on the Sabbath day, he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

There was a dialogue which was taking place. Paul was in the context of Judaism, and he was reasoning, he was arguing, he was discussing, disputing, emphasizing the peculiarity, particularity, and exclusivity of the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And of course, this is a fairly daunting challenge insofar as he's in a synagogue doing so. The synagogue folks were monotheistic, they believed in Jehovah God, and they regarded this Jesus of Nazareth as something less than the incarnate God.

The people on the outskirts of the synagogue were living in an arena not dissimilar to contemporary Cleveland insofar as they were living in a world of pluralism. Everyone had their own idea, everyone had their own God, everyone had their own belief system, and the one thing that was absolutely taboo was that an individual should try and unsettle others in the convictions to which they had made a severe and vast and fast hold, especially in the matter of faith. And so Paul is very politically incorrect insofar as he gives himself, says Luke, to the matter of persuasion. He was seeking to persuade the Jews and to persuade the Greeks. He was doing all in his power to make clear that Jesus was the person he claimed to be, that he was the Savior, and it was a Savior that these individuals needed.

He is bearing out in his actual ministry the commitment that he makes reference to in 2 Corinthians 5.11, where he says, Knowing the fear of the LORD, we persuade men and women. I want to say to you, believer this morning, that you have been called of God to a ministry of persuasion. Can I urge you to be persuasive—to be persuasive in your approach to your children? Enough of this silly contemporary nonsense about when they're old enough to choose, then we'll give them the information necessary?

The greatest deprivation of choice is to deprive them of the information they need in order to make a cogent choice. And unless you, as parents, take it upon yourself to be persuasive in the things of faith, then it is unlikely that there will be any others who will be able to fill the gap adequately. It is to the ministry of persuasion that we're called amongst our friends and our neighbors.

Our work colleagues, to whom we return tomorrow, are interested as to what it is that makes us tick. And with grace and with kindness, with sensitivity, with wisdom and with skill, we follow the example of Paul whereby he seeks to persuade them. Now, as persuasive as he was, and as helped as he was, the response, we're told, was not exactly wonderful. Indeed, in verse 6 we're told that the Jews opposed Paul and they became abusive. So here he is reasoning, dialoguing, proclaiming, arguing, persuading, and the reaction of the people is, Get out of here! And so what we're told is, He gets out of there. Indeed, in a symbolic demonstration of his response to them, he, we're told by Luke, shook his clothes. He shook his clothes in protest. It's the same picture that you have of Jesus when the disciples come back and say, We're not really doing too well over here. Jesus said to them, Just shake the dust off your sandals. In other words, We're out of here! Shake the dust off your clothes! And look at what he says to them.

Not exactly a user-friendly approach, would you say? Your blood be on your own heads. I told you, I'm not here by my own appointing. I have a message to proclaim.

I didn't create it. I'm not trying to be unkind. I'm not seeking to be abusive in any way. I'm seeking to speak to you the truth in love. Your reaction is opposition and abuse. So, hey, see you around. It's really a sorry picture of the contemporary church running after people, saying, Excuse me?

It was such a wimpy kind of church, you know? Spit it out! What are you trying to say? Oh, sorry, I didn't want to say too much. I first said, They're gone.

When you finally get your eyes and your mouth open, the person's gone. Paul is clear. Guys, I want you to know about Jesus. I don't just want you to know, I want to persuade you to believe in Jesus. I want to do everything in my power.

If I could do it myself, I want to make you a believer. But since you choose not to hear, I'm going next door. Now, if you want to come next door, that's okay, but I'm going next door. And so he goes next door, okay? He does the exact same thing.

It's quite good. His landlord put him out, and he'd already built some kind of opportunity, so he just tried to get a place next door, which opened up for him perfectly. He moves into the home of Tishius Justus, who is a worshiper of God, and he's no sooner moved next door than the ruler of the synagogue and his whole house become believers. The guy who leads the group that threw him out comes next door, and God opens his heart, and he believes.

Now, while this was going on, we're told that many people believed at the same time. That's in verse 8. And many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized. You turn back to 1 Corinthians 16, you cross-reference the thing, and he says, You know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia. Right at the very beginning of this ministry, he says, right at the front of the line, Stephanas and his family, in keeping with the plan of God. In Acts chapter 18 and verse 9—I hope you kept your finger in it—many people believed, and the Spirit of God tells him in verse 10, I'm with you, no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.

You understand this? The Spirit of God says to him, I want you to know the greatest encouragement you could ever have. As you dialogue, reason, preach, proclaim, and persuade, I have people in this city who are going to believe because of your faithfulness to the preaching of the Word. The great encouragement to preach is the fact that God has purposed and planned to save. You have this all the way through the Scriptures. Wonderful summary of it in 2 Thessalonians and chapter 2 and verse 13.

We always ought to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. Who did the choosing? God. Who did the believing?

You did. Isn't that something of a paradox and antinomy? It absolutely is. What do we know? We know that both truths sit side by side in the Bible. God is about the business of choosing, and we are about the business of believing. And it was as a result of Paul's faithful preaching that men and women came to believe, and as a result of having come to believe, as they walk down the road of faith and they turn and they look back, they say, Isn't this a great marvel that God chose me before the foundation of the world? That, you see, is God's plan, and Paul's purpose in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 19 was summarized very clearly—"that I might win," says Paul, "...as many people as possible." What was Paul doing? He was seeking to win as many as possible.

What a wonderful plan and way to spend your life! And as he sought to win as many as possible, right at the front of the line was the household of Stephanas, and that accounts for his involvement in their baptisms. If you turn back to chapter 1 and verse 16, where he addresses the issue of baptism and the confusion that's involved there, he says, I'm thankful that I didn't baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius so that no one can say you were baptized in my name. Now, I can imagine—this is my imagination, of course—but I can imagine him dictating this.

And he's speaking out loud, and his secretary's writing it down. And the amanuestus, who was more than likely Sostenous, who's mentioned in verse 1—Sostenous is writing it down, and Paul says, "...I'm thankful that I didn't baptize any one of you except Crispus and Gaius so that no one can say you were baptized in my name." And then he said, Pardon? And Sostenous said, Are you forgetting about Stephanas' household? Then he says, Oh yeah, I also baptized the household of Stephanas.

Beyond that, I don't remember. Did you get a picture of the way the New Testament works? Here's a letter written to Corinth. Acts chapter 18 gives you him in Corinth. The baptism that he refers to in chapter 1 is directly related to his awareness of them. Hundreds and hundreds of people came to faith in Jesus Christ as a result of Paul's ministry. He clearly couldn't be involved in the baptism of them all. He obviously didn't even remember them all, and he needed his mind to be jogged in relationship to Stephanas.

But he was in no doubt about this. Stephanas and his household were converted. They were converted.

They were changed. Can I ask you this morning, do people know of your household, that it is a converted household? Do people, have they identified the fact that they would be able to come to you for information concerning this same Jesus?

Could they come to my door and say, I think perhaps you could help me with this or with that? Because the identifying factor of our lives is that we're new people. Oh, we're ordinary people.

We go the same places, similar places, we do the same kind of things, we dress in similar ways. But there's been a mighty change brought about in our lives. It is to this end that we labor here week by week and day by day not to build a large number of people sitting in these seats, not simply to provide information, not simply to give you religious principles that you may find in other places, but we labor to this end that we might persuade you that you need a Savior in Christ and that, in trusting unreservedly in him, you may be changed, forgiven, ransomed, restored, and so on.

Is your household converted? Second word is not conversion, but it is devotion. Devotion. These individuals had clearly understood that conversion is not a terminus.

It's a starting point. Paul, we're told in Acts 18.11, had stayed on in Corinth for eighteen months, providing them with all the information that they needed to go on with Christ. And this family had clearly understood that salvation was the pathway to blessing—that now that they had been converted, it was not an option for them to be devoted.

It was only natural that they would be devoted. You get married, and you go down the front of the aisle, and you say all those things, and you go out the door. I don't know about you, but I wasn't looking around going, What do you want to do now? What, do you want to go out for coffee or a…? I don't know what to do. You know what, I may go, You know, could you take the car? I think I'll go see my mother. Who said, I don't think a marriage took place here.

I don't know what took place here. Because I expect to see the people going, Oh, thank you for coming, thank you for coming, thank you for coming. Goodbye!

They're gone. Why? Because they want to be hopelessly devoted to each other. Hopelessly devoted.

It's not an option. It's an understandable obligation. And that's what conversion brings. Indeed, when you show me people who claim to be converted without being devoted, I wonder what it was happened to them. Let's have none of this silly teaching about the various stages involved in a progression of a walk with Christ, as if you can have the conversion package, which includes heaven and no hell, but nothing beyond that. Or if you would like a little more, you can have the devotion package, which involves a little more commitment on your part, but it yields special benefits.

Or you can have and so on. And so many people I talk to, they think of the Christian life just like that. Oh no, I'm just converted. I'm not devoted. I'm converted but not devoted.

I want to say to you, if you're not devoted, it's questionable whether you're converted. Now, the interesting thing is that their devotion reveals itself in service. They devoted themselves to something. What are you doing over there? Oh, I'm just devoting.

It doesn't work like that. You know devotion in relationship to something, and they devoted themselves specifically to the service of the saints. Phillips puts it, they made up their minds to devote their lives to serving others. They imposed upon themselves a duty.

Question. What is there about your Christian life and mine that speaks to the issue of self-imposed duty? Two things that ought to mark our lives as believers, a courage that won't retreat and a love that never fails. You're listening to Truth for Life, that's Alistair Begg with part one of a message titled Family Ministry.

We'll hear the conclusion to this message on Monday. In our world today, being courageous and holding firm to our Christian faith seems to put us more and more in the minority. Alistair Begg has written a book titled Brave by Faith, where he draws lessons from the book of Daniel, who also lived in a society that did not uphold God's laws.

Daniel, however, remained steadfast in his faith. Alistair helps us learn from Daniel's experience so that we too can trust entirely in God, even when we face fierce objections from a secular culture. Brave by Faith is an audiobook read by Alistair, and you can download it for free this month at truthforlife.org slash brave by faith. You can also download a free companion study guide. Now today is the last day we're offering a book titled Lessons from the Upper Room.

It's written by Sinclair Ferguson, and he gives us a close-up look at Jesus' final hours with his disciples, as described in John's Gospel. Sinclair walks us through the scene with the sensitivity of a pastor who is eager to help us understand and apply all that's explained for us in these important verses. Request Lessons from the Upper Room when you give to support the teaching you hear on Truth for Life. Just visit truthforlife.org slash donate. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. On behalf of all of us here at Truth for Life, we wish you and your family a very blessed and happy Easter as you celebrate with your local church. Join us again Monday when we'll find out why Christian usefulness has more to do with availability than with any special ability. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.