Zion Church | Home Work Pt. 3 | Pastor Keith Battle

Colossians 3 puts the house in order by starting with wives, husbands, children, and fathers, but love your family is not something that can just go without saying. The call to love family tells the truth that some of the hardest people in the world to love are the people right in the house. The most difficult relationships require a higher version of a person, because the same unchanged person cannot build a better marriage and still brag, “I’m still who I always was.”

A healthy marriage plan begins where the Bible begins: “In the beginning, God.” God created marriage, so a marriage without his guidance is trying to operate something divine with human guesses. A spiritual plan asks how a husband and wife will worship, pray, share the Word, and seek God together instead of just doing life off instinct.

A communication and conflict plan matters because a lot of marriages are not suffering from the wrong spouse, but from no skills. Lodebar becomes the zip code of too many homes, a place of “no words,” where people only use survival language and talk when crisis has already heated everybody up. Good communication listens, understands, and validates, like a drive thru that repeats the order until it gets it right.

A financial plan matters because the Bible says two become one, and money that stays “two” can build division into the structure of the marriage. An intimacy plan matters because physical intimacy and emotional intimacy feed each other, and fun is not optional. Dates and getaways are oxygen, because homes can suffocate under kids, bills, duties, and routine.

A family plan, growth plan, protection plan, mission plan, and legacy plan help a marriage stop drifting. Roles do not have to copy mama, daddy, culture, or the old song. The question is what works best for that house under God. The mission plan asks why God brought the two together, because one can chase a thousand, but two can put ten thousand to flight.

Colossians 3 also shows that everything starts at the top. When a wife will not arrange herself under her husband, and when a husband will not love his wife with agape love, that energy cascades through the house. Children can feel emotional unsafety even when nobody is yelling.

The call to love family presses past fantasy. A real marriage cannot last while somebody keeps waiting on a fantasy spouse to show up. Love has to attach to the real husband, the real wife, the real child, and the real family God gave. The prodigal son shows that the father loved the wild child before he left, while he was gone, and when he came back. Judgment suffocates love, but the blood of Jesus overrides judgment. God gives a heart that loves better, not just a heart that beats better.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. Love the real family given. The call to love family does not wait for the fantasy version of a spouse, child, or parent to finally appear. Love becomes costly when it has to deal with the actual person, with real weaknesses, real disappointments, and real history. God gives people to love, not because they are easy, but because his own love has already shown how to move toward the undeserving. [33:34]
• 2. A marriage needs a plan. Love may start a marriage, but love without structure can drift into reaction, resentment, and survival mode. A marriage plan gives spiritual habits, communication rhythms, financial agreement, intimacy, protection, mission, and legacy a place to live. The plan does not replace affection, but it gives affection a road to walk on when feelings get tired. [04:50]
• 3. Lodebar kills communication slowly. A home can have the same address and still live in Lodebar, the place of no words. Survival language may keep schedules moving, but it cannot carry tenderness, repentance, clarity, or shared dreams. Communication has to be practiced before crisis, because anger lowers the very skills needed to heal what anger exposes. [09:44]
• 4. Judgment suffocates family love. Judgment can become an override that cancels the love God already placed in a parent, spouse, sibling, or child. The prodigal’s brother could not rejoice because he saw sin more clearly than sonship. The Father’s love does not deny wrong, but it refuses to let wrong have the final authority over belonging. [51:40]
• 5. Today can still be holy. Regret says the truth came too late, but God calls the present moment “the day of salvation.” A person hears when the heart is finally ready, and readiness itself is mercy. What came twenty years later can still become obedience now, healing now, and a new beginning now.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [01:40] - Colossians 3 and Family Order
• [03:30] - Love Your Family
• [04:50] - Building a Marriage Plan
• [06:17] - God Must Be First
• [06:51] - Communication and Conflict Skills
• [09:26] - Leaving Lodebar
• [14:01] - Money, Oneness, and Transparency
• [15:57] - Intimacy, Friendship, and Fun
• [17:25] - Family Roles That Actually Fit
• [19:14] - Growth, Protection, Mission, Legacy
• [24:07] - Everything Starts at the Top
• [30:12] - Releasing the Fantasy Marriage
• [40:47] - Loving Children Below Expectations
• [45:30] - The Prodigal and the Father’s Love
• [51:40] - Judgment Suffocates Love
• [55:16] - Hearing Truth Today
• [60:44] - A Heart That Loves Better

Bible Reading

Colossians 3:18-21
“Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” [01:40]

Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” [06:17]

Deuteronomy 32:30
“How could one person chase a thousand of them, and two people put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?” [22:57]

Luke 15:11-32
“Jesus continued: ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. “Your brother has come,” he replied, “and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.” The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” “My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”’” [45:30]

2 Corinthians 6:2
“For God says, ‘At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.’ Indeed, the ‘right time’ is now. Today is the day of salvation.” [55:39]

Observation questions

1. In Colossians 3:18-21, what instructions are given to wives, husbands, children, and fathers, and what effect is named for children when fathers handle them wrongly?
2. What kinds of plans help keep a marriage from drifting, and which one must come first? [06:51]
3. What did “Lodebar” represent, and what are some signs that a home has slipped into that place of “no words”? [09:44]
4. In Luke 15, what did the father do when the younger son left, returned, and before the son could even finish his speech? [48:14]

Interpretation questions

1. Genesis begins with “In the beginning, God.” What does that suggest about why family life falls apart when people try to build it on instinct, habit, or human guesses instead of God’s direction? [06:25]
2. Colossians 3 puts special weight on husbands and wives before moving to children. Why does trouble “at the top” spread emotional unrest through the whole house, even when nobody is shouting? [24:29]
3. The father in Luke 15 loved a son who was clearly wrong, while the older brother viewed him through judgment. What does that show about the difference between love that remembers belonging and judgment that only remembers failure? [51:23]
4. “Today is the day of salvation.” How does that challenge the regret that says truth came too late to make any real difference in a family? [55:59]

Application questions

1. Who in the family has become hardest to love lately, and what would it look like to stop waiting on a fantasy version of that person and start loving the real person God has given? [33:34]
2. Which part of a household plan most needs attention right now—spiritual life, communication, finances, intimacy, family roles, protection, mission, or legacy—and why does that area need care now? [04:50]
3. Has the home been living in “survival language”? What kinds of conversations happen regularly, and what kinds of conversations have been missing for too long? [10:00]
4. When conflict happens, is there a real effort to listen, understand, and validate before answering back? What usually gets in the way of that? [11:03]
5. Are there places where judgment has been overriding love toward a spouse, child, parent, or sibling? What labels have quietly replaced tenderness? [51:57]
6. What would it mean this week to give family something better than the tired, irritated version of the heart? What small change would make that visible at home? [44:03]
7. Is there a relationship that needs a present-tense response instead of more regret? What could obedience look like today—a conversation, an apology, a prayer, a visit, or a change in attitude? [55:31]