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Speaker 2I'll sing on. And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on. And when from death I'm free, I'll sing and Let's sing before the throne and before the throne of God above. I have a strong and perfectly on great I preach to whose name is love whoever lives and pleads for me. My name is graven on his end.
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My name is red in on his heart. I know that while in heaven he stands, no one can be mean once we divide. No song can be mean once we divide.
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Speaker 3This next song that we're singing, as I was kinda looking in through the pouring over the lyrics here, I if I were to put a a story with this song that we're gonna sing, it would be Luke seven, where this woman who knows she's sinned and she sinned greatly. She comes to Jesus to anoint his feet with oil and wipe his feet with her tears. She just falls at her at his feet. She's broken. She's broken.
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Because she is so grateful for Jesus' forgiveness is why she's doing this. In fact, Jesus says in verse 47, I tell you her sins and they are many, they have been forgiven and so she has shown me much love. But catch this, but a person who is forgiven little shows only little love. But the point is, God's forgiveness led this woman to love. It led her to do what she did.
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And when we begin to understand that we are indeed broken people and that we are in need of forgiveness and that God generously gives that forgiveness, that leads us to love him even more. Amen? But if we don't understand that we're broken people and we need forgiveness, it doesn't lead us to love God a whole lot more. It's God's love. It's his kindness that leads us to repentance.
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Speaker 2And hungry, I come to you for I know he sounds justified. I am empty, but I know you're alone. It is not a run dry, so I will. So I wait for you. So I wait for you.
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I'm falling on my God, I do thank you for your forgiveness and for your truth, for your kindness that leads us
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Speaker 3to repentance. That truly causes us to not just have to, but want to offer ourselves to you. I thank you God for every good and perfect gift. It comes from you. I thank you God for supplying and providing for our every needs, every need.
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And I thank you God though for the spiritual need that you provide for us. I thank you God just for coming to meet us right where we're at. That's what you did. You met people where they're at in life. And we're all over the spectrum.
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We come from all different places and all different walks of life, and yet you are pulling us into the center of your love and truth. And I pray that we would wanna go there. We'd wanna go there and we wanna meet with you. God, thank you for the gifts that you provide. I I as we put our gifts in in that offering plate, I I pray that it would just be an extension of what is happening inside that we would give out of a joyful and and loving and grateful heart.
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In Jesus name. Amen.
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Speaker 1Alright. The children can head down to Peak Children's Church Good morning. How are you? Good morning. A little sleepy?
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It was last week that the time changed. Is y'all have y'all caught up yet? It took a while for me. And it was a busy busy week. This this week, there was a lot going on.
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So I'm glad to be here this morning. And I'm glad to be kind of going forward in scripture. I feel like we've been plotting along for a long time. If you're visiting, and I know we've got folks visiting here from Minnesota, Ecuador, Germany, there are several folks that are here from all over the place and so, just a scheme of what we have been doing for for almost five years now. We've been going forward in scripture.
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First of all, we start off with the life of Jesus in the book of John although it was one of the books that was written later. We start off with the life of Jesus in the book of John then the life of the early church in the book of Acts and we've been going forward chronologically in the order that the books were written as best we can tell. So, we have been through quite a lot of scripture, almost two thirds of the New Testament by this point and today, we're up to Colossians three eighteen and it it bridges the chapter. Those chapters are helpful for us finding stuff but I think they missed the paragraph break on this one. So we're going to go from three eighteen up through four one.
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But before we do that, I want to read what we've been studying for the last three weeks. The last three weeks, we went three weeks ago, it was three one through four, then three one through 11, then three one through 17 and expanding because if you had to condense down the instructional passages from the New Testament, I think Colossians three is as good a place in the Bible as any to see how it is to actually live and put into practice the change that Christ is is making in your life. So, we're going to read three one through 17. If y'all would, you can close your eyes if you want to kind of center yourself, pray for illumination because these 17 verses are the grounding for these practical injunctions and it's there's a list. I don't know why the order is the way that it is but it is this order.
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Wives, husbands, children, fathers, bond servants, and masters and we'll follow that order when we get to it because we like to just go through in order and so that's what we're doing. So, three, one through 17 and do y'all bring your Bibles to church? I know I put every word usually, every word of scripture we read is up there. Do y'all bring em? Anybody?
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A few of you do. Good. Thank you. Check up on me for crying out loud. Let me know.
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If I if if you think I missed something, please do. Let me know. It's important to have him with you. There's David Platt down in Birmingham was some was a pastor for Nancy and Clay for a long time and he says, did you bring your Bibles and I hope you did or something along that with every sermon. It's helpful to have this physical thing and that's why I left actually during the operatory was to go get this physical thing because it wasn't sitting here.
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Would you just pray with me as our pray along with me? Listen as I read this passage three one through 17. If then, you have been raised with Christ. Seek the things that are above where Christ is. Seated at the right hand of God.
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Set your mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth. For you, Christian, you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then, you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these things, the wrath of God is coming.
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And in these things too, you once walked when you were living in them. But now, you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and if anyone has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
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And above all of these, put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. To which indeed, you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him. Lord, I pray that you'd bless the reading of your word and that you would bless each one of us with some illumination this morning to see what our role is, to see what we should do, the practical implications of the putting off of the old self and the putting on of the new creation, the new self in Jesus.
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In Jesus name, we pray. Amen. So that sounded more preacherly to me than anything I've ever said. I I don't know why. Probably because I'm reading for the actual Bible.
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Maybe it's looking at it. These foundational principles, the putting off and putting on lead to these practical injunctions. You could call them commands. They are definitely imperatives. No doubt about it.
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But, one of the great commentators on this, Mr. Carson, Doctor. Carson wrote, he called them practical injunction and I thought that's really good because if they are lived out they are very, very, very practical and they are commands. But there's something about an injunction that seems to be ongoing and all of these, like I said last week, are present tense commands. So we start in 18 with this.
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Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. That's a great way to start off. It's a present tense command. Wives, be submitting yourselves. It's also a middle voice.
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Wives, be submitting yourselves. It's voluntary. Be submitting yourselves to your own husbands as it this, submitting yourselves to your own husbands as this is fitting in the Lord. If I'd started, I would have started with the husbands. But I'm not Paul and I'm not God.
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So he starts off with this, wives, be submitting yourselves to your husbands. It's voluntary. He's talking about a putting off and a putting on immediately before that. Be submitting yourselves to your husbands as it is fitting in the Lord. There are cross references for this.
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If you looked up Genesis three sixteen, it says, and after the fall that the pain of childbirth would increase greatly and that your longing would be after your husband and you would be kind of subject to him. Now there is a lot of talk about that and it's difficult. In men's fraternity, I hear that the the temptation for a man or father is to be passive and not active. They don't say this, but it follows that the temptation for a lady is to be overly active and for the man to be overly passive. And that's based somewhat in this.
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I could get into deep water early, know, but it does not change. Wives, be submitting to your husbands. It doesn't change what it says and I've promised to you that I'm going to say what it says. That's what it says. Wives, be submitting to your husbands.
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Esther one twenty, book that doesn't mention the name of God anywhere. This is a decree by the king that goes out and it says that every wife will serve her husband. Be submitting to her husbands. Ephesians five twenty two says, wives, be submitting to your husbands. First Peter three one, it goes into being submitting to your husband.
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The quiet witness of a loving wife makes a tremendous difference in the family. So those are the cross references. You can look them up on your own. I don't think you're gonna find any cover anywhere else. Now, we are all one in Christ.
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It says that over and over. There's nor Greek nor Jew, slave, free, male, female. It says in another place, couple other places. Our relationship to Christ is not contingent upon our gender. The practical injunction of this section ends right there.
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Wives, be submitting to your husbands as it is fitting in the Lord. And then there's one for the husbands. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. Amen. Husbands, it's a present tense command.
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Y'all be loving your wives, and don't be being harsh with them. It gives us a positive be loving and a negative, and don't be being harsh with them. The loving there is Agape. Agape. Agape love.
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It's the godly kind of love. So, the three different loves. This is the thing that all pastors go through. The Greek three loves. There's Agape, there's Eros, and there's Fileo and Agape love is the kind of love that God has.
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It is loving, it is wishing well to, looking for the best, taking pleasure in, be longing for, it denotes the love of reason and esteem, of great understanding. God's love is agape love. Eros is a selfish type of love. Often, it's used in a physical or sensual context. And then phileo is a brotherly type love, fellowship type love.
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And this one is when it says, y'all be loving, it says it with y'all be loving in that way, esteeming your wife. The Peter, first Peter passage says also, esteeming her and honoring her. So, there are the cross references for this. Ecclesiastes nine nine, Ephesians five twenty five and Ephesians five twenty five lifts the bar even more, I guess, because it says, be loving agape type love, just as Christ loves the church. So that's why I would have started with this one.
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I would have started with husbands because I feel like that's the I feel like that's a difficult task. I feel like it's if a husband is loving his wife like Christ loves the church, it is not the least bit difficult to be submitting. First Peter three:seven in that too, if you want to look those up. Next one's for children. It's only one sentence?
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One sentence. And these are the practical outworkings. And where else but your family do these practical outworkings show up more than any other place? They know you better than anybody else. There's no more effective tool for changing you more and more into the image of Christ than your spouse.
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So or your children. Here we go. Children, children, obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. Now, in our time and in our society, we may want to look for the exceptions and say, but that's not always true. What if what if they give my command that's not?
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This is the these are the practical injunctions that work out from putting off and putting on. Children, obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. And it is also present tense command. Be habitually and continually obeying your parents in everything. Now this is written to Christians.
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So it's written to Christian husbands, wives, families, the children when they're born and coming up. At some point, if the husbands and the wives are living out their calling of being loving and being submitting and caring, then the children should be able to be obeying. Children, be obeying your parents and everything for this is pleasing to the Lord. There are cross references on this one. I don't think I put a sign up there but what's expected of children?
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Y'all, have you all read the shepherding a child's heart? Have you all read that book? I like that. I like that a lot. And this is kind of what's expected of a child is to obey all the way, right away, and with a happy heart.
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And I found myself saying that actually twice this week. And Pascal actually is fairly compliant. She's she's generally fairly obedient. She will obey. Sometimes she will do it all the way.
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Sometimes she'll do it right away. And sometimes she'll do it with a happy heart. But the the the injunction really kinda says to obey all the way right away and with a happy heart knowing that there is a certain authority structure that God has designed. Now I could see people bristle when I say that. If this is tried and practiced, it works.
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It requires everybody in the band to play their role, though. I was thinking today, Carl leads the band, I play the bass. Carl is a rhythmic genius. I am actually quite terrible. I'm not a rhythmic genius by any stretch.
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I have kind of an offbeat way of playing, but he works with me. I submit to his authority certainly in the band and he will look at me sometimes over his shoulder and go, what was that? But he's very, very caring. Before we ever get here, he has gone through the music. He has everybody's music on these little iPads.
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He has it in the keys that I can play in. He has it in the keys that the other guys can play in. If they need to use a capo, he has it figured out. And he goes he really does seek the best of the other. He sets us up to win.
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And to me that's a kind of a fatherly example. He loves it. Now I'm submitting to him because he's the rhythmic genius. I'm not. It works well when all of us play our parts and when we're not trying to play the other parts.
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So practical injunctions. This one's for fathers. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Now this one again is a present tense command. And for me, the reason I say that, if you're not grammar people, might not think there's a big difference.
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But to say, don't provoke your children, okay, I'll receive that. But to say, do not be provoking your children. It's this progressive action. The norm for your life is not provoking your children. This is do not be provoking your children so that they might not become discouraged.
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And my immediate thought is, poor thing, you're discouraged. Big deal. Pick up your clothes and do what you need to do. Discouraged there so that they might not lose heart, so that they might not become despondent, be disheartened, have their spirits completely broken or be dismayed. Discouraged a little a little stronger than, oh, I'm discouraged.
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This constant provoking is dangerous. It's dangerous for a child's development. There's got to be a love there. It doesn't give mothers in this it doesn't give mothers anything about the children in this passage right here. So as I was looking at this, I was I was thinking I'm a husband and I'm a father.
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And in some ways, I'm an employee, and in some ways, I'm a boss. And so we'll get to that stuff in a minute. But if we take what it says directly to us and we do everything we can to implement this into our own lives, I think it makes it easier for everybody else in the band or everybody else in the family to do their role. So fathers, do not be provoking your children so that they might not become despondent, discouraged, lose heart, have their spirits broken. With those four simple verses, that's it.
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Paul just says, that's it for the family. Everybody do this. Here, now he has plenty to say about motherhood in other places and he has more to add in Ephesians and Colossians and Ephesians were written in the same time when Paul was in prison. Paul was in prison when he's writing this stuff. And so with those four simple verses, he just kind of says that this is the way this looks in a family.
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And then he moves on. Well, let's read them again. Wives, be submitting to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, be loving your wives and do not be being harsh with them. Children, be obeying your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord.
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Fathers, do not be provoking your children, lest they become discouraged or despondent or disheartened, have their spirits broken. And he just leaves the realm of the family unit right there. That's it. Just that. How many of y'all understand what I just said?
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How many of y'all find it very difficult to do that? Yeah, me too. It drives us to Christ when we realize our limitations. If you go back to that right there in the Lord, in the Lord is the only way that this works. If the husband is domineering and demanding and mean, he is not being in the Lord.
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Now he may be a Christian, but he is not practicing his Christianity right there. Paul just leaves the realm of the family unit and he takes on this an individual response to slavery as a social institution. Now, you can argue about whether it should be or should not be. Well, I don't think any of us would argue that slavery still should be right here, right now in this time. We all kind of have moved past that point.
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And so slavery as a social institution was a given in his day. There was no doubt about it. It was a matter of law. He's told us, we remember in Romans 13, where we had to be subject to the authorities over us. But if you'll also think back to the bond servants and masters, the relationships, think about what book we studied immediately before Colossians.
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You remember what it was? It was Philemon. It's one page, one letter, just a few verses. And Colossians and Philemon are related. And if you remember the relationship of these two books, I think it makes sense that he gives more about the bond servants and masters talk than he does about the whole family.
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And he gives more reasons along with it and he hedges things a little better. But Philemon and Colossians, Colossians was written to the whole assembly of the church, God's people at Colossae. And it was given general instructions and warnings and it was all about the preeminence of Christ. But the preeminence of Christ has some instructions and some warnings that go along with it. Philemon was written to an individual person, to Philemon.
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He was an individual member of the church at Colossae. And Archippus also was there with him. His wife was mentioned but the book was primarily to Philemon. And it was about one guy's particular situation and that was Onesimus. And Onesimus had been his bond servant or his slave And he had run away and probably stolen some money before he ran away.
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And so Paul was sending back at the same time, on the same trip, Epaphras and Philemon I mean, Epaphras and Onesimus. And they were going back and delivering an individual letter to Philemon about how he should treat the situation and a collective letter to Colossians for how they should treat this situation generally. If you read it like that, the bond servants and masters section to me, Paul was fighting the institution on the grounds that slaves are people, but he had to do it in the place where he was at the time that he was there. And he's trying, trying, trying to have the onus be on the one he's speaking to. Husbands, if you are loving your wives with an unselfish and godly love, you will be happier.
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You'll be happier because it's easier to fall in with you. But even if she doesn't, you still will be doing the right thing. Wives, oh my goodness. Children, God's given you parents to be obedient to those parents that God has given. Not all parents are great.
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Not all parents are right. But Paul is speaking practical injunctions for those who are living out their Christianity, putting off the old and putting on the new. Here we go with bond servants. Bond servants or slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters. Now look at that, earthly.
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He's speaking to bond servants who are Christians. These are slaves who believe in Jesus and he's saying there is some earthly authority and that's it. But the in Christ at the top or in the Lord and he'll say it again here. Be obedient in everything to those who are your earthly masters. Not just by the way of eye service, making things look good, as people pleasers, which are we going to do?
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Please God or please man? If you're a Christian, you seek to please God first. Not as people pleasers but with sincerity of heart, with reverence, and fearing the Lord. Now I hate slavery. I absolutely hate the whole institution of it and it irks me.
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I'm glad Blake's not here. If you start talking a conversation with Blake, you mentioned slavery, he gets visibly upset. He's so upset by it. And he he almost can't think about anything else because it's so wrong and it seems like the Bible is justifying slavery right here. No.
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It's saying to a slave, this is how you can be happy in Jesus. Do your work for the Lord as if for the Lord. This is where you are. This is the situation, and I'm not saying it's a good one. I'm just saying that you can be obedient in everything to your earthly masters, not by way of eye service or people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
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Now if you are living in the twenty first century and you have a boss, I think you can take this as a practical injunction about the people that you work for. You might not be able to stand them. It might be very, very difficult. They may not be believers and their belief system may just irk you to no end. But if you do your work as if unto the Lord, you will be happier in Jesus, and you will be a better example of a Christian.
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Whatever you do, work heartily. Be a good employee. Be a good bond servant. As if for the Lord and not for men, remember this is the bond servants, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You'll receive the inheritance, co heirs with Jesus.
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And so you can be looking forward to that. Now this is to that guy, to that bond servant, to that slave. If I were to, as the boss, to look at him and say, hey, hey, hurdly unto the Lord, Then I'm misusing the passage. I'm completely misusing the passage because as the boss or master in that time, that's the one that I've got to pay attention to. You are serving the Lord Christ by doing what that guy wants me to do.
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I'm serving the Lord Christ. Yes. This is the practical outworking of putting off the old man and putting on the new. And then it comes to masters, practical injunctions for masters here. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong that he has done and there is no partiality.
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Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly knowing that you also have a master in heaven. So do you you hear how that balances out? Yes, bondservant, you have an earthly master and you need to do as he says. But masters, you have a heavenly father. So he's speaking to both bond servants and masters who are believers in Jesus.
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Now to me, that the practical thing that works out of that is slavery is a terrible institution. Stop it. Quit it all over the place. And Paul said almost as much in Philemon, it was subtle, had to be in that day. Under Roman law, master could kill the servant because he was just chattel.
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He was just property. Masters, treat your bond servants justly because they're people and fairly because they're people. They're not just property, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. So the wrongdoer, and you might have thought when I started off I said we're going to go to masters, for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong is done. There's no partiality.
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Masters treat your bonds earnestly and fairly knowing that you also have a master in heaven. If you look at this in context, it could go to either of those. Grammatically, you could look at it and go, the wrongdoer, bondservant and the wrongdoer, master. I think it makes more sense for the masters though. Whatever you do, bondservants, work heartily as for the Lord for you are serving the Lord Christ for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done and there is no partiality.
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Do you think that for a slave who was a Christian who was serving a master who claimed to be a Christian, you think there was some time in his life where he said, don't think that guy's saved. He is not in my family. Probably. Paul is reassuring them that a wrongdoer, someone who is opposer, someone who there will be plenty of severe punishment for the wrongdoer. Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly knowing that you also have a master in heaven.
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I think it makes more sense to go with masters, but in humility as employees, we better take it for our own good too. Try any time that we can see in scripture a command or an injunction that comes towards us, we need to take it. And if there's a warning, we need to take that too. So the wrongdoers will be paid back. Practical injunctions, there they are, for wives, husbands, children, fathers, bond servants, and masters.
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And when you're preparing to preach a sermon about wives and husbands, It is a terrible week the week before, you know? Because we're thinking, I'd love to just be this great, wonderful husband and then I find that I'm not loving my wife in a selfless and godly love. Oh, that's aggravating. Yeah. And the children think.
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I generally when I think of Pascal, I think of her as loving and obedient and compliant. But this week, I didn't think that way. Because if we look at ourselves as human beings, we see we fail. We have flaws. We have failures, and it's obvious if we take it seriously.
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I think that's the last slide. Don't I think there's anything I could add to it. Y'all come on back up. Let's play our parts in the band here. Yeah, making a promise to stick with it and just kind of plow on through, forces you to pay attention.
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And so I'd say, wives, be submitting to your husbands as is fitting and right in the Lord. Husbands, be loving your wives and do not be being harsh with them. Children, be obeying your parents in everything for this pleases or is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not be provoking your children so that they may not be discouraged, disheartened, lose heart, have a broken spirit. Bond servants, work hardly for the Lord.
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You are serving the Lord in your job whether that person is a believer or not, you're serving the Lord by doing your job and doing it well. And bosses, you have a you have an authority to answer to. Treat your people well. There's a lot of good advice that Paul has given. It's scripture.
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It needs to be taken seriously. In Jesus' name, Lord, would you help us implement these practical injunctions in our lives? Amen. Would you all stand and sing with us?
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Speaker 2Yeah.
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Speaker 3Notice in this last song that it doesn't say they'll know that we're Christians by our church attendance. It is the world will know that we are Christ followers by our love, by our actions.
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Speaker 2The spirit. We are one in the spirit. We are one in the Lord. And we
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Speaker 1So, this is the next verse and it's the benediction for the day. So, wives, husbands, children, fathers, employees, and bosses, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it and the it right there is whatever command was above for you. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in whatever command God has given. In it, with thanksgiving. In Jesus name, may we walk out our faith.
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Amen.
