Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

I am reading this morning from Colossians chapter 3 beginning in verse 18 where Paul writes, “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 provoke your children lest they become discouraged.  Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.  Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.  You are serving the Lord Christ.  For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.  Masters, treat your bondservant's justly and fairly knowing that you also have a master in heaven.”

 0:01:19.0

Now, we've been studying through the letter to the Colossians.  Our theme has been “Jesus is greater than,” and Paul is making this argument, taking aim at the false teachers who have crept their way into the church at Colossae nearly 2000 years ago.  And he is laying aside, in so many ways, the “less than” Jesus that they presented.  And he is reminding us of a number of things.  And it was important that Paul takes us on this theological journey up to this point.  You remember, when he writes his letters he lays out his doctrine first, and then his practical duties later.  He lays out his theology, his orthodoxy, and then his orthopraxy.  Let me just say up front, given the text of Scripture that I just read, if Paul had put that at the beginning of the letter, we would not have the theological context to understand things like “Wives, submit to your husbands.  Husbands, love your wives.”  All that he has said up to this point is vitally important for us to understanding these words.  You take these words out of the context of the “Jesus is greater than” theology, and we have trouble with these words.

0:02:46.3

You’ve probably heard these words before.  Some are explosive.  They are culturally insensitive today.  We can’t imagine, you know, that these have application for us today.  That’s because we don't understand the theology that’s leading up to this.  We’re going to get to that in a moment.  But it's been important for us to understand, for example, the deep roots of our faith and the real substance of our faith.  These are messages previously in the series.  It's important for us to understand the mystery of God in you and in me that Paul talks about.  It’s been important for us to understand that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God and the firstborn of creation, this “greater than” Jesus.  It's important for us to understand our new identity in Christ and how we live out of that identity in Christ.  It’s important for us to know how to put on the new self as we put off the old self.  All of that is a lead-up to verse 18, the orthopraxy of the orthodoxy.  And even that time in Colossians 3:4 where Paul says, “Christ, who is our life…”  We will never understand the unique roles and the relationship—even in Christian marriage, let alone the family, let alone the workplace—if Christ is not our life, if He is not…if He's just some periphery for you, you won’t understand the theological context that leads up to a teaching like this.  When we make Christ our life, as Paul says in chapter 3 and verse four, He positively impacts our relationships in at least three spheres, three spheres that Paul goes into that I want to touch on today.

0:04:39.1

 I'll spend most of my time in the first one for some obvious reasons.  But the first sphere is the relationship between husbands and wives.  Here’s the practical implication of the “Jesus is greater than” theology, the fact that Jesus is “superior than” and worthy of our worship.  Here’s some of the practical workings out of that.  “Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” what Paul is been arguing for up to this point in what he is saying in these verses and the ones the following is that Christian marriage demonstrates that Jesus is “greater than” In fact, we have a more excellent understanding of marriage as God intended it because we are in Christ, because we start with Christ and creation and the church.  And it gives us a greater understanding of the excellency of Christian marriage.  In fact, I would say to you the starting point in any discussion about marriage…and who would argue that marriage is not a hot topic in the culture today?  Oh my, are we just rockin’ and rollin’ on that subject.  And people are trying to redefine marriage and all that.  Let me just say up front, the starting point in any discussion about marriage is Christ and creation, not the culture.  The culture doesn't own marriage, God does.  Marriage was God's idea.  He alone gets the right to define it.  And our starting point in any understanding of marriage is not what the culture thinks about it, not as the culture evolves, but what Christ thinks about.  And we go all the way back to creation.

0:06:44.2

Now, Colossians 3:18-19 is the Cliff Notes version of a larger commentary that Paul gives in a parallel passage.  I’m thinking about Ephesians 5.  So go to Ephesians 5 with me.  I don't have time to expound all of Ephesians 5, the latter part of that chapter.  But it's probably the longest section of scripture in the New Testament given to instructions related to husbands and wives.  And we see some similar language there.  But toward the end in verse 31-33 Paul summarizes his instruction to husbands and wives.  And he says this, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  Sound familiar?  Where do we hear that?  In the creation story.  Genesis 2 is where that comes from, just before the fall in Genesis 3.  Marriage was God's idea.  He came up with the institution of marriage.  He and He alone has the right to define what marriage is and what marriage is not, regardless of what the culture says.  And He says, “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave [or hold fast] to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  The biblical definition of marriage is one man with one woman for one lifetime.  We start with creation.

0:08:14.8

Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 5:32, “This mystery is profound.” What’s he talking about?  He’s talking about marriage.  He says, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.  However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”  Earlier in the passages he says, “Wives, submit to your husband.”

0:08:46.2

Three things I want you to understand about marriage.  First of all, your marriage is a mystery.  Some of you are saying, “Yeah, I have been trying to tell my spouse that for 37 years.  It’s a mystery.  Haven’t figured it out yet.”  I didn’t say it’s a mystery.  God says it’s a mystery.  A mystery is something that was once concealed that is now revealed.  A mystery is a divine picture that unfolds throughout the pages of scripture.  I don’t think Adam and Eve, when they were married at the end of Genesis 2, really understood the full picture and meaning of marriage.  But the Bible begins in Genesis 1.  He created us in his image, “Male and female he made them.” Two genders, just two.  Come on.  Male and female He made them, and then He married them in chapter 2.  The two became one flesh.  And this marriage that God created, this institution of marriage was His idea.

0:09:52.7

Paul says it’s a profound mystery, and then he unpacks the mystery little bit.  He says, “I am saying that it,”—that is marriage—“refers to Christ and the church.”  So your marriage is a mystery.  Secondly, your marriage is a gospel presentation; it's a gospel drama.  It’s not primarily about you and getting your needs met, or your spouse.  It’s primarily a picture of Christ and the church.  Ferguson says “Christian marriage is a domestic cameo of grace.  In the marriage relationship, a gospel drama is being played out in a unique way through a human relationship.”  Now, you're not going to hear this in the culture.  The culture always veers off into some ditch when it comes to marriage.

0:10:56.1

I spent 20 years in Texas.  My wife is a Texan.  You travel down the freeways in Texas; you’ll see a sign that says “Don’t mess with Texas.”  And it's an anti-littering, kind of, campaign.  When it comes to marriage, don't mess with marriage.  It was God's idea, and it was a mystery.  And it's a picture.  It's a cameo of grace.  It’s a gospel drama.  And, wives, you have a cameo appearance to make.  Husbands, we have a cameo appearance to make.  We have roles in this drama.  A wife's responsibility is to put on display and demonstrate within the body of Christ—and, yes, even to a watching world—what it looks like for the bride of Christ to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ by the way she submits to her husband's leadership.  Now do you understand the theology and the Christ and creation and the church in the mystery that marriage is behind the words?  Now after all this, in Colossians 3:18, in light of Christ who is “greater than,” wives, you have a part to play.  You have a cameo appearance to make in this gospel drama.  And your part is to demonstrate what it looks like for the bride of Christ, which is the church, to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

0:12:29.2

Now, I understand that word “submit” is a toxic one in our culture.  But we’re not starting with the culture.  We’re starting with Christ.  We’re starting with creation.  We’re starting with an understanding of this mystery called marriage, which is a picture of the relationship between Christ and His church.  It’s a gospel story.  And when we understand it that way, we get closer to maybe lessening the toxicity of a word like “submit.”

0:13:04.1

By the way, this word is all over the Christian life; a subordination ethic, we might call it.  We are to learn to submit to one another.  I’m to learn in the body of Christ to lay aside my preferences for this, that, or the other thing, and elevate your preferences, and vice versa.  That’s the way living in community and following after Christ works best.  By the way, it works best that way in a family as well.  You can't just walk in there and say, “It’s always my way or the highway.”  No, in the body of Christ we love one another.  We’re kind to one another.  We bear one another's burdens and, yes, the New Testament also says, submit to one another.  The subordination ethic.

0:13:48.5

People in the military understand it.  Without the subordination ethic, there's no order in the military.  Is no order in an orchestra without everybody following the lead of the conductor?  There’s no order on a sports team without all the players following the leadership of the coach.  When I played quarterback on my high school football team, there was no order in the huddle unless everybody listened to me call the play.  That’s just the way life works.  We call it the subordination ethic.  God is a God of order, and it starts with the wife playing this cameo role in a gospel drama that puts on display to the body of Christ, to the bride of Christ, which is the church, and to a watching world what it looks like for the church, the bride of Christ, to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ.  And, ladies, can I just say this to you, wives?  We need your help.  Put this on display for us, because I’m one of the knucklehead guys around here that don't get it as well.  And we need your help in putting that on display so we can be better followers of Jesus Christ.  And the world will look in and kind of scratch their head.  They don’t understand this, because they’re not starting with Christ and creation and the church.  They’re just…you know, well, we’re evolving as a culture.

0:15:13.9

The subordination ethic is seen in the Godhead- the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, right?  The mystery of the Trinity.  And it is a mystery how one God reveals Himself and expresses Himself in three distinct persons and personalities.  That’s about as good as I can get.  Beyond that, it's a mystery, right?  But in the Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—there is equality.  God the Father is equal to God the Son who's equal to God the Holy Spirit who is equal to God the Father and any way you work it.  There is no inequality in the Godhead, in the mystery of the Trinity.  There’s no, oh, this aspect of God is superior to this one.

0:15:56.5

But in the unique relationship within the Godhead, you find the subordination ethic.  You find Jesus, the second member of the Trinity, the Son, in the Garden of Gethsemane saying, “I want My way.”  No, He didn’t say that.  “I’m equal to You.  Why are You calling the shots?”  No, He didn’t say that.  He says, “Father, if there's another way to get this done, I’m wide open to it.”  But He says, “Not my will but thine be done.”  And He submits to the Father's authority.

0:16:31.9

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ?  We have to learn to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ.  Wives, in the marriage relationship you have this unique cameo appearance in marriage to put that on display and demonstrate it.  Here’s what you do.  Here’s what you need to understand.  Here’s what the culture doesn’t understand.  Here’s what a lot of us in the body of Christ don't understand.  There’s nothing inferior between you and your husband.  In fact, Peter reminds us.  He reminds husbands, “Relate to her as a fellow heir of the grace of life.”  You know what that does?  It puts your wife right alongside you.  Not six steps behind you as she is to walk in some Middle Eastern cultures as an inferior person.  2000 years ago…listen, these words are as toxic and run cross our culture today as much as they did 2000 years ago, because 2000 years ago husbands treated the wives harshly, terribly.  The only time they were nice to them was when they wanted something physically from them.  Paul writes, “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh to them.”  That was radical in the 1st century, and so in an equal way it's radical for us in the 21st century to hear some of this.

0:17:54.6

Here are a couple other things you need to understand about the subordination ethic and how it plays out in a marriage relationship.  Wives, this does not mean that you need to submit to every man in the culture.  This has absolutely nothing to do with whether a woman can climb the corporate ladder and become the CEO, or whether she can become the general in the Army, or whether she can become the President of the United States.  Listen, I can think of a couple of female politicians I would love to see in the White House and I would vote for.  This has nothing to do with that.  Why?  Because this is about a gospel message.  This is about a gospel presentation and a gospel drama that is uniquely pictured in an institution called marriage that God created.  But that gospel drama is not played out in the military or in the corporate world or in politics.  It is unique to the marriage relationship.

0:18:47.7

The other thing I would say is, ladies, this does not mean you submit to the abusive leadership of your husband physically, emotionally or verbally.  (0:19:00.0) You do not have to submit to that.  If you're in one of those kinds of relationships, please come talk to me.  We’ll find a safe place for you, and we’ll set this guy straight.  This is not a license, husbands, to throw “Wives, submit to your husbands” in her face and demand that she do.  In fact, don’t ever quote it to her, all right.  That won’t go very well.  It just won’t.  Let the Holy Spirit do that work.

0:19:29.9

But for all the ways that we don't do this well, let’s come back and understand the purity of Christian marriage just prior to Genesis 3.  Now that the fall has taken place and we are “fallen though redeemed in Christ” human beings, we still have a sin nature, and we don't do this very well.  But just remember, ladies, wives, your cameo appearance.  You have a high and holy (0:20:00.1) calling to demonstrate before us how this works in the bride of Christ called the church as we submit to the leadership and lordship of Jesus Christ.  You model that in the way you relate to your husband, how you joyfully, willingly, respectfully follow his lead.

0:20:22.8

Now, men, husbands, we have a cameo appearance to play as well.  Our job is to stand not in the place of the bride of Christ, the church, but in the place of Christ Himself.  “Husbands, love your wives because the husband is the head of the wife,”—now I’m in Ephesians 5—“husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church.”  Headship is leadership.  You want to be the head?  Okay.  You are the most responsible person before God in that relationship.  But your job and my job as a husband is to demonstrate before the body of Christ and before a watching world what it looks like when Jesus Christ loves His bride.  I know some guys who would say, “I get off easy.  I just have love my wife.”  Really?  “Love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself for her.”  When was the last time you sacrificed your own needs or something you wanted for the sake of your bride, your wife?  And, guys, that's the high and holy calling that we play.

0:21:32.8

So your marriage is a mystery.  Your marriage is a gospel presentation.  It brings me to this third conclusion.  Your marriage is not primarily about your personal happiness.  I say primarily because we all want happy marriages.  Most marriage counseling is about becoming happier in your marriage, because maybe one spouse or the other is not getting his or her needs met.  And so that's the focus of the counseling.  But it's not the primary issue.  The primary matter in the marriage relationship is not your personal happiness.  It’s how well you are playing your cameo role and demonstrating to the church, the bride of Christ, and to the watching world what it looks like for the bride of Christ to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ, and what it looks like for the Jesus Christ to love His bride, the church, and give Himself for her.  That’s marriage.  That’s Christian marriage.  That’s God's idea.  It was a picture.  And we have strayed so far from an understanding of that because we’re all worried about getting our needs met.  And I get that.  We all want happy, satisfied, fulfilled marriages.

0:22:52.3

Now, if I were the devil I would attack marriage.  And here's how I would attack it.  The definition of biblical marriage is one man with one woman for one lifetime.  Maybe a generation ago I would attack the “one lifetime” part.  And I’d try introduce some legislation and some understanding that led to no-fault divorce.  It’s what happened.  Now, a generation later, he's attacking the “one man with one woman” part.  And now we have men marrying men and women marrying women.  And the whole infrastructure is falling apart in the culture.  And it’s creeping into the church—are you kidding me?—because we don't have a proper theological foundation and understanding that starts with Christ and creation, and an understanding of the church and the picture that God created with marriage.  We’re still trying to define marriage by the culture.  And the culture is going to drive this right into the ditch every time.  That's why Paul didn't start in chapter 1 and verse 1 and say, “Wives, submit to your husbands.  Husbands, love your wives.” You don't have the theological background and understanding for it.  You're going to start with the culture.  And we always have to start with Christ and creation.

0:24:13.9

So what does this look like in everyday life?  Let’s just, kind of, give you another picture of it.  And I’ve illustrated it this way before, so just smile and go along like you’ve never heard it before.  But Cathryn and I call it the marriage dance, all right.  When you have two people in Christian marriage that are playing their cameo roles well, it's sort of like a dance.  I’m not a good dancer.  Not because I’m Baptist.  It’s nothing theological.  I just have no rhythm.  And Catherine knew this when we got engaged.  But, you know, she’s a good Texas girl.  She’s an exquisite dancer.  She does the Texas two-step really, really well.  We were engaged and just a month or two into our engagement when we went out dancing with some friends in Dallas.  And we were going to go kicker dancing.  And I get out there on the floor, and you’ve got all these cowboys and cowgirls twirling and swirling around me.  And my wife looks…or my fiancée at the time looks at me and says, “Just follow the beat.  Can you hear the beat?”  And I said, “What beat?”  And here we are standing right next to the woofer.  “Can you not hear the beat?”  “No, I can’t.”  I’m stepping all over her toes.  She got frustrated.  She says, “Let’s go sit down.”  And we went and sat down.  And I must have turned this way.  The next thing I know, I look around…she's twirling around the dance floor with some other guy, one of my friends.  And the worst of it, she looked like she was having fun.  And I wasn't.  We almost didn't continue the engagement.  No, it wasn’t that bad.

0:25:40.7

But I’m not a very good dancer.  I understand dancing intellectually, all right.  Here’s what I know.  You’ve got to follow the beat.  But the other thing I know is that somebody has to lead and somebody has to follow.  Whether you’re ballroom dancing or you’re kicker dancing, somebody has to lead, somebody has to follow.  But when it's done well, when there's this seamless choreography on the dance floor, you can't tell who's leading and who's following because they’re just one.  They’re so seamlessly in step with one another.  That’s the marriage dance.  That’s the picture of New Testament marriage where the husband plays his cameo role in this gospel drama, the wife plays her cameo role.  There is no loss of equality.  There’s no inferiority and superiority in the relationship.  There are just different roles to play, because the gospel is at stake here, friends.  You want to know why the church needs to stand strong on Christian marriage?  It’s a gospel issue going all the way back to creation where God gave us a picture.  He gave us a drama called marriage.  And the devil knows it's a gospel matter.  That’s why he attacks it in every generation.  He doesn't want the gospel to get out.  He doesn't want the bride of Christ to understand Christ and all of that.  And here we are.

0:27:18.0

So your marriage is a mystery.  Your marriage is a gospel presentation.  Your marriage is not primarily about your personal happiness.  I’ve got to move on to this second sphere.  They’re related to one another, the sphere between husbands and wives and now the second one- parents and children.  Keep in mind the subordination ethic as we read on in verse 20.  “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.  Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged.”  Now, again, Paul is giving a Cliff Notes version of what he expands on in his letter to the Ephesians.  But I just want you to circle that word “obey.”  “Children, obey your parents in everything.”  Obviously, Paul is not talking about if they tell you to do something immoral or unethical or illegal.  But in every sense of a good home, do what your parents tell you to do.

0:28:25.3

The first place children learn to respect divine authority—in other words, to obey God—is in the home.  Parents, it's on us to raise our kids to obey, to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ and do what He says.  Jesus says, “If you love me you’ll keep my commandments.”  It's just that simple, all right.  So obedience, as much as submission to authority, are two very important characteristics in the Christian life.  And where does a child learn respect not only for divine authority, but any legitimate authority in society?  I’m not talking about people who abuse their authority.  I’m talking about legitimate people who have been given God-established authority or legitimate authority in our culture.  And we’re all under someone's authority.  If you have any doubts about that, the next time the policeman pulls you over for some traffic violation, try mouthing back to him or her.  It doesn’t work.  He’s got the badge.  She’s got the badge.  All of that.  Got the little ticket thing.  You just submit to their authority.  “Yes, sir.  No, sir.  Yes, ma’am.  No, ma’am,” right?  You can go fight it in a court if you want to, but not in a disrespectful way.  You can't walk into a court of law be disrespectful to the judge.

0:29:54.6

But here's what happens when parents don't teach children to obey and to respect authority in the home.  They raise kids who are the next generation of anarchists.  And we have not a respect for authority in our culture today, we have anarchy in our culture.  People who don't respect police officers and coaches and teachers and legitimate government authorities, even pastors and leaders in the church.  There is this suspicion built in that anybody who is in leadership or authority, “No, I’m going to fight that.  I’m going to resist that.”  That is not a godly characteristic.  But it's our responsibility as parents to teach our kids.

0:30:41.1

And here's how it won't work.  If you try to be your children's best friend, you won't raise kids who respect authority.  Don’t be harsh with them.  Raise them with the rightful ways to instill discipline and boundaries and rules and in a way that, when you say, “Because I said so,” they say, “Yes, ma’am,” and, “Yes, sir.”  Plenty of opportunity to sit down and explain the rationale.  But children need to learn just to be good citizens in society that you're in charge.  You’re their parents.  Now, my kids are college and post-college now.  My youngest just went off to her senior year in college today.  And, you know, we do have a friendship relationship with our kids now as you get a little bit older.  But we try to be their best friends when they were little kids.  That’s when you need to be a parent.  Lovingly establish those boundaries.  Lovingly discipline your child so that they learn to respect mom and dad.  They’ll have a better chance of respecting the Lord when the Lord says, “Because I said so.”

0:32:02.6

Of course, Paul balances this by saying, “Fathers, do not provoke your children.”  The parallel passage in Ephesians says, “…provoke them to anger lest they become discouraged.” Why does he address fathers here?  Because in the home, the father is primarily responsible for the children.  You do this together as mom and dad, husband and wife. But the primary responsibility falls at the feet of fathers.  “Do not provoke your children to anger.”  It’s not hard to picture a mom and a dad coming into a pastor's office and saying, “Pastor, we’re having troubles with one of our kids.  They just seem angry.” Maybe it's an explosive fit of anger- thumos in the Greek New Testament.  Or maybe its orge- that kind of anger that is pushed deep down.  And they're just angry.

0:33:05.9

Lou Priolo wrote a book years ago published by, I believe, Focus on the Family called The Heart of Anger.  And it had a picture of a little boy who is just stewing anger on the front.  And the author identified about 25 ways in which parents can sow the seeds of anger in their kids.  I won’t go into all of that.  But, fathers, don't provoke your kids to anger.  Teach them to obey.  Teach them to respect your authority.  Teach them to understand that when you say, “Because I said so,” it means something.  But don't go over the edge on that to where you're sowing seeds of anger.  And that's the art of parenting, is it not?  And we’re not taking our cues from the culture on how to parent, let alone how to be married.  We’re taking our cues from Christ and from creation and from the church and so forth.

0:34:00.3

Let me move onto the third sphere.  This one I would just identify as employers and employees.  Although Paul is identifying a particular relationship related to the Roman slave culture—bondservants and slaves and masters—his primary point here is not to take on the institution of slavery.  He could've done that very easily.  But what he does is he acknowledges that some are in very difficult relationships here.  And how does a Christ-like person, you know, deal with a situation like that?  You may be in a situation with your employer where you are working for an absolute jerk.  What does it look like for a follower of Jesus Christ to work in an environment like that?  Listen to these words.  He says, “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as a people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.”  In other words, don't just work hard when the boss is watching you. Anybody can do that.  I have always worked in an environment where I have a lot of autonomy.  But the day of accountability comes, you know, when the reports of the numbers and so forth…  I can always tell staff other places whether somebody's doing their job, and they have a lot of autonomy.  Even in ministry it’s not a 9 to 5 kind of thing. Hours are fluid.  But you can tell whether the results are there.  You can tell whether somebody's been working hard and getting after it.  Not just when the boss shows up, you know.

0:35:48.4

Verse 23, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.  You are serving the Lord Christ.  For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.  Masters, treat your bond servants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”  Paul spends more time on this sphere of relationships than he does the others.  Some people think that he has the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus in mind because Onesimus was a member of the church in Colossae and he was a runaway slave or bondservant from a guy named Philemon.  And read the letter to Philemon and see how Paul mends a relationship there, because Onesimus came to faith in Jesus Christ.

0:36:37.6

But Paul addresses what might be a very difficult working relationship.  And he provides three motivations for the worker that are linked to the character of God, first relating to God's sovereignty.  He says, “Obey in everything…sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.” Fear here is respect for.  A person who has respect for the Lord will respect those other people who are also in authority to them.  He also says in the end of verse 24, “You are serving the Lord Christ.” You want to change your attitude in a nanosecond tomorrow when you go to work?  Think of yourself as “Jesus Christ is my boss.  I am working to hear, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant,’ one day, even though my boss, a person who's in authority over me, is a class A jerk.”  Sovereignty of God.

0:37:44.9

Secondly are eternal rewards.  He says, verse 24, “Knowing that from the Lord you will receive that benefit in the sales incentive program that the company laid out for you.”  No, that’s not what Paul’s focus is.  And you know that because he’s already said, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on this earth.”  He says, “Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.”  He is talking about eternal rewards here.  Is it possible that there is an eternal reward waiting for somebody who maybe finds themselves in a very difficult working relationship, but because of the way they respond to it, they demonstrate the grace of Jesus Christ through their good work ethic, unlike other people?  I think Paul’s implying that here.

0:38:38.2

And then he appeals to the justice of God.  Verse 25, “For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.” You want to get back at that boss of yours that’s treating you so poorly?  The Lord says, “Vengeance is mine.  Let Me take care of it, and I will.  You just make Christ your life and remain as godly in your response and in your work ethic as you can.  I will write all the wrongs in My time, including the wrongs of slavery.”  As egregious as that thought is in all the cultures of the world we know about, including our own American history, there’s a way to rise above that and have an eternal perspective and know that the God of the universe, who is the final judge of the universe, will write all the wrongs.  Fight for justice, absolutely, all those kinds of things.  But at the end of the day when you're powerless to do so, you entrust that to the Lord.

0:39:42.7

Christ in the home, in our marriages, in our work relationships.  I mean, who would've ever thought that the gospel of our as Lord Jesus Christ is as practical as what Paul is talking about here.  But you’re got to think theologically.  But everything in our world today is culture, culture, culture.  And if we’re not careful, it creeps even into the church and the body of Christ, and we begin to look more like the culture than Christ, and creation, and the church that God intended for us.

0:40:39.7