Submitting to One Another in the Fear of Christ
First B Jackson
2026-06-07

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Oh, Judy. Great. My tribute. If you know the words of that one, it's even more powerful. Right?

That's a beautiful, beautiful song. But here we are. I'm back. Thank you for the grace of allowing me to be going last week up to Grable. We went up and did a funeral for Eric Anderson and it was a blessing.

It was a wonderful thing. It's great when someone lives life well and you get to tell about it. You know, it's really good. So we made the preacher's job easy and there were two preachers and there were lots of eulogists and there's lots of family gathered around and y'all can keep on and please do keep praying for the family, Joanne especially, Having lost her husband, Eric Anderson and it was good though and we stayed up overnight and we're able to be with the family for the next day and Brad preached for me last week and I have heard that it was good although I hadn't slowed down long enough to hear it myself. He had said that his money had been stewing and percolating and he needed to express it and so it hit at just the right time and then Van had preached the week before.

So I've been out of the pulpit for three, two weeks, you know, and I'm back. It's three weeks later. Whoo. That is the most nerve racking time of life for me when I've been out. I get used to being up here and then when I'm not, it it's hard for me but I had the first service.

We're gonna be continuing in Ephesians five and so where I left off last time was verse 17. Five seventeen is where I left off and then Van just followed. We are trying to stay on a track where we're mostly, we're going to be together and just kind of go forward in scripture when there's a special guest, they'll say something else but we're trying to stick with it. So, he did 18 through 21 last time. So, we're gonna continue forward.

Before I get started, this little clicky clicker is not working exactly right. I have said multiple times since I've been up here that the book of Ephesians is really really helpful if you know and understand and have accepted and received. I think it's fine. I just think a yippee. Is it fine?

It's fine. So, thank you. I can see the look on Josh's face up there that it's fine. Continuing in Ephesians five. So, I'm gonna go back for a second and I wanna read some of what Paul says you are in Ephesians one, okay?

Now, I could do this for all three chapters. The last time that I went back, when the reason I say this is because if you hear any of chapter four or chapter five or chapter six in some ways from Ephesians, you might see it or hear it as a wagging bandaged finger up here just wagging at you and telling you what to do or not to do and I honestly, that's okay because I'm gonna say what it says but if you know the first three chapters of Ephesians, it's a lot easier to hear, okay? It puts us in a place of humility before God and he works by illumining his word and allowing us to apply it to our lives. So, I'm going to just say, this is what Paul calls the Ephesians. I believe that he calls all believers.

Share this book, right? With others. So, I'm going to say, instead of reading all three chapters like I did about seven weeks ago, I'm just going to read what he says about you. My assumption for this service for now is that the majority of the people in room claim Christ. You are believers.

Maybe not everybody. Some of y'all are here because mama asked you to come. Some of y'all are here. Yeah, there you go. But most of y'all are believers.

So, this applies to you. Paul starts off and I'm just going to say it like he says it to them. Y'all have the title of saint. Yes, you're sinners saved by grace but a sinner saved by grace is a saint, a holy one. Y'all are described as the faithful in Christ Jesus.

Your greetings are marked by an extension of grace and peace. You are blessed with spiritual blessings. You are chosen by God and pursued by God. You are known from before the very creation of the world. You are holy and blameless because of what Christ has done.

You are holy and blameless in his sight. You are a recipient of the agape love of God. You have been adopted into God's family. You are the beneficiary of Jesus's work on the cross. You are the object of his pleasure.

The recipient of his glorious grace. You have redemption through his blood. You have received forgiveness for your sins. You get to experience the riches of God's grace. You are given what you need to understand what that means.

You are one who delights to show the mystery of God's will. You have been brought into unity with all of his creation under his headship. You're chosen to be an integral part of his plan. You are a source of praise for his glory. You are included in Christ.

You are the recipient of truth that leads to salvation. You are one who believes. If in fact, you are one who believes, right? That's a good distinction. There is the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of marvelous light and through grace, we can be transferred from darkness to light.

Paul says that he is a a marked he's a marked man. We are marked and sealed with the Holy Spirit. You have a guaranteed inheritance. You are his possession and will therefore experience a final act of glorious redemption at his return. Should he tarry at your death, right?

I'm you are known as one who lives by faith. You are known as one who loves others. You are known as being an encouragement to others. You are to be upheld by the prayers of your companions. There's a unity even in chapter one that's forming.

Chapter two and three carry that on out further. You are invited to receive the Holy Spirit's gift of wisdom and insight and knowing God better. You're also invited in to experience a spiritual enlightenment so that you may know the hope that you have in Christ. And hope in the Bible is an absolute certainty that has not yet come to pass. The riches of his glorious grace so that you will know the incomparably great power that is at work within you as a believer.

It is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and sealed him at his place of total authority and that's just from chapter one, okay? We could go on. Chapter two and three, add to that. I'm not going to today because we got little time and a lot to say. So, if you come with all of the blessings that come with knowing Christ and all of the assurance and all the redemptive promises, we get to chapter four and it begins to apply these truths, Theological truth and then the application thereof.

Chapter four says, therefore, I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, urge all of y'all, it's plural, to be walking in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called. Walking worthy with all humility. Does that sound like Jesus? It does. Gentleness, does that sound like Jesus?

It does. Patience. Sounds like God. Sounds like Jesus. Bearing with one another in love.

A double line to one another that I'll lose in there, the one another. This is one of those reciprocal commands of scripture. We're supposed to be bearing with one another. Though I know I'm aggravating. Will you please?

Bear with me. Right? Bearing with one another. You bear with me as I bear with you. Colossians is a parallel passage and it says, be bearing with one another.

Right after a very similar list. Being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. This is something that's very important to Paul. It's very important to God. It's very important to Jesus and his high priestly high priestly prayer in the garden.

In John 17, he said, may they be one just like we are one. He means it. When it says, be diligent to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. The spirit is the one who unifies. You can't create that on your own but you can mess it up.

Okay? Be diligent to keep the unity of the spirit. He's given you this great thing. You can be at peace with others in the spirit but if you insist on staying in the flesh, there will be no peace there. So, he follows that verse three up with verse four is there is one body and one spirit and just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Do you see the repetition there? One one one one one one one and all all all all. It's talking about all of us being one. The unity in the spirit is very important in Ephesians And so I'm going skip the rest of chapter four, go to chapter five. This is the, therefore be imitators or mimics of God.

Be mimicking God as dearly beloved children. So children who spend a lot of time with their parents start to look like their parents. Christians who spend a lot of time with their heavenly father will naturally begin to look more like it. It's saying, be imitators of God. Study him.

Study his attributes. Study his manner and we see that in Jesus as dearly beloved children and be walking in love. How? Just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for all of us and offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. This is Van's passage from two weeks ago.

So, skipping from verse five two. I'm just trying to keep a wet edge. Are y'all are y'all familiar with that? If you're painting, you don't like to let the edge dry before you keep painting. I'm trying to take you back there, wet the edge, make it match, right?

So, I'm skipping from verse two to 15 and Van preached on this wonderfully a couple weeks back. So then, be careful how you walk. There were a lot that the week before there were some negative commands and some positive commands and then the rationale. That's what I preached on. Then, the so then, be careful how you walk.

Not as unwise people but as wise and be making the most of your time because the days are evil. Can I get a witness? Yeah, they're still evil. Therefore, don't be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is and do not get drunk with wine in which there is debauchery but be filled or be being filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and make a melody in your hearts to the Lord. Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and father and subject yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ.

That was his passage from a couple weeks ago. If you didn't see it, go back and look at it. It's good. That's 18 through 24 right there. That's the papyrus 46.

If that matters to you. I want you to look at it and see this. That is the main part of what he preached on. It is be filled or be being filled with the spirit and then it gives five in Greek, participles. Speaking, singing, making melody, giving thanks, and subjecting yourselves are the participles that follow and he was right to finish that out all the way up to there.

Now, be subjecting yourselves to one another is the last of those and there it is. In that papyrus, this goes and just like all Greek text, they don't have punctuation. They don't have in fact, it's kinda hard when you know Greek to look at something like this and actually read it but that is the, I will call it the hinge upon which this whole section of chapter five. It's an instructive or a hortatory section that's trying to instruct us in how we should be walking worthy and so the hinge is hoop hoop of can't say it. Hoopa Totsamanoi.

Hoopa Totsamanoi. It is a verb or verbal form. It's actually a verbal noun. It's like a gerund for the nerds in the room that I love it. I love it.

This is really important. So here it is. It is a present imperative participle. So it is a command. It is the fifth one in that list after be being filled with the spirit which is also a command.

And it is either middle or passive, nominative, masculine, plural. Now, nominative, masculine, plural, you might hear that, you might go, oh, it's just for the men. I don't have to pay any attention to that. But nominative, masculine, plural, anytime that there is a group, a mixed group, it's referred to with the masculine plural. And if it were just men, it would be ambiguous whether it's just men or men and women.

The nominative masculine plural, but it's middle passive that I want to go back and examine. So here it is. Be subjecting yourselves is the middle voice. It's either middle or passive. It's an ambiguous form in the Greek.

Okay? So ambiguous, either it's middle, be subjecting yourselves, or it is be being subjected. That's the passive. God is put has put you in this position and you are to be being subjected to whatever this position is, to one another in this case, in the fear of Christ and fear, there is Phobos. It is fear.

We sometimes will say in reverence for Christ and I think that's fine but there's a certain amount of fear that should be there since we're talking about almighty God and Christ. So, here we go. That's the passive voice. Be being subject to one another. Now, the reason why all this matters and you might see it in your Bibles be being subjected or be being submitted or be being subordinated.

Oh, we love that word. You know, subordinated is very obviously putting yourself below but think about what Jesus did. He left the glories of heaven and he came to live among us. Poor. That's beautiful.

That is be voluntarily. We always say, he gave himself even on the cross. He gave himself. He humbled himself even to death on the cross. He voluntarily and sacrificially.

Now, this is be being subordinated to one another and that's a reciprocal command. Again, that's the that is the reciprocal command. So, it's for everybody. That's in the middle of this text but that word is the hinge upon which the whole section swing. The reason I take the time and I've taken probably too much is to say this, because I want to acknowledge something.

In this church, in the first service and the second service, there are probably 40 something denominations represented backgrounds every week and I am not a denominational list. Y'all y'all y'all know that I'm not. I'm trying to say exactly what it says and I'm trying to give the sense for what it says. I think Ephesians is to be taken at one, the whole book at once. We don't do that anymore, right?

But I want you to hear it. There are folks who are complementarians and there are egalitarians in the first room for sure and probably in the second room right here too and so, the next phrase here in four one says, being diligent to keep the unity, the spirit, and the bond of peace. I have been studying this for weeks and weeks and weeks, not to mention years ago studying it in seminary and kind of tracking down everything. Being diligent to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. I'm going try to say what it says.

Now, complementarians, core beliefs are God created men and women with equal value, of course, but with distinct complementary roles designed to reflect the relationship with between Christ and the church. In leadership, churches that are complementary would say primary leadership and teaching roles such as elders and pastors are restricted to men. Women are encouraged to serve in other vital, non ordained ministries. In the home, the husband's called to hold primary responsibility as the loving head of the family, which is taken from this text, while the wife is called to submit to her husband's leadership. Biblical interpretation.

Male headship is viewed as foundational order and established at creation, not just a cultural construct. They use writings like first we they use writings like first Timothy two and Ephesians five to argue for these permanent distinctions. The egalitarian view is the gospel removes the gender based restrictions. Men and women share the same gifting, purpose, and calling can in church leaderships. There's no gender barrier.

Women can serve in all positions of leadership including pastor, elder, teacher. In the home, marriage is built on mutual submission, shared responsibility rather than a designated hierarchy. And biblical interpretation passages that restrict women are viewed as culturally and historically specific to the early church, while texts like Galatians three twenty eight are usually lifted up to say, hey, but there's no male and female. And so it's completely equal, egalitarian is the name. So that establishes a foundational standard of equality.

I'm acknowledging that that is the fight. Okay? But there are two views here and we just spent four chapters, five chapters saying unity, unity, unity, unity. How are we going to be unified under this? I am of the opinion that studying the historical context and the grammar is very, very helpful.

So I'm trying to say with the grammar what's going on in the passage as a whole. So, before we get in the text, I want to do one more thing. If you look into Bibles and you use just the section heading of your Bible. So, you're flipping through your Bible and it says, like, walk in love. Okay.

Yeah. That's five one. Walk in love. This is chapter five and chapter six. Walk in love and then it says, wives and husbands.

Okay, that's where that is. Children and parents, it's helpful for us to do that but they're not divinely inspired. Those headings are not divinely inspired. They're here for us to get help finding the place. So that's the ESB.

And that wives and husbands break comes in a particular spot between 2122. The new American standard, which is what I almost always use up here from the pulpit, I almost always use it because I am a new American. That's the way I talk, right? So, they split it between verse twenty one and twenty two. If you go to this one, this is the HCSB, the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

Mostly now, it's just called the Christian Standard Bible. It splits it between verse twenty one and twenty two. These tend to take a complementarian position. The NIV, instructions for Christian households splits between twenty and twenty one. Now, I said this verse was a hinge, right?

It went with, it went with Van's passage without any doubt whatsoever and this puts a split between four of those participles and the fifth one, right? So, you might look at that and go, that's not right. Well, it's a hinge. It goes with both of these, I believe, that it goes with both of these. So, it goes between twenty and twenty one.

That's the NIV. If you go and look at the next version, here it is. I think this is the New Living Translation. It splits spirit guided relationships, wives and husband. Then further, it says, out of reverence for Christ, submit to one another.

So, that one splits between twenty and twenty one. This is decidedly egalitarian. Anytime that you translate anything from one language to another, you have to make some editorial decisions unless you decide not to decide. Here we go with a couple more. This one is the King James version and I love it.

It's a great great version of the Bible and this one does not have any title distinctions because they want for you to study this for what it says without them making any determination and I think that's great. It's very political in its makeup because it had people from all different sides translating and trying to say, we're not going to make a distinction. We're going to say what it says. Good translations lasted five hundred years for a reason. This is the Young's Literal Translation.

This one is funny to me. The reason I include it is because after verse 22 or at verse 22 and it's it's literal. It's straight up literal. At 22, it says, wives. With an exclamation point.

He hardly ever gets excited about anything but that one he got excited about. Alright. New King James is the Bible I most often use because that's what I memorize when I was a kid. It splits between twenty one and twenty two which is which is reasonable and good. They're all reasonable good translations but they have decided to make a distinction complementary versus egalitarian.

My my goal here, when I get up and I'm preaching from the New American Standard, if it says brothers and there's nothing in the text that distinguishes it as being all men, I say brothers and sisters. While I'm reading it even though it doesn't say ancestors. That's my decision to do that. Sometimes, you'll hear me inging verbs because I want you to see the progressive nature of the verb because that's what it says and some of y'all are better Greek students than I am and I and I stand to be corrected. Okay, I will trust you with that but here we go.

Ephesians twenty one six through nine. Here it is. I'm going with 21 as being a hinge. So, it fits bands. It finishes the thought but it also introduces this next thought.

So in the ESV and the NIV, here we go. Literary subgenre is household codes. If you were to examine any other household codes from the new from the near ancient Near East nearby this area, they would be absolutely appalling to you in how patriarchal they are. It'd be absolutely appalling to you how they treat slaves in those secular codes. It is my opinion that Paul is lifting up women and he's lifting up slaves.

He's lifting up people and he's admonishing those in authority, whether it be masters or parents, right? So, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ is going to be what I take as sort of the theme under which all of these household codes belong. That's the longest introduction I've ever done to a sermon. Submitting to one another out of reverence of Christ, that is all we're going cover with men and with, no, let me say, with wives and husbands. This is not about men and women.

This is about wives and husbands. What do you do to be a wife? Get married. What do you do to be a husband? Get married.

It's a voluntary thing. When you get married, it's a voluntary thing. It's not about men and women. It's about wives and husbands and that distinction. This is about wives and husbands.

This is about children and parents. And this is about bond servants and masters. So that's what we have to cover. So it's wives and husbands, children and parents, bond servants and masters. And I'll break it down from here and go, wives, without it being wives, okay?

Subject yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ and this is the way that you do it. Now, this is to wives. If you're not a wife, get up, go down the hall, get yourself a cup of coffee. No, that's not really real. I'm not I'm not serious about that.

I will mention that when I was in the seventh grade, I was at a a school and miss Lib, miss Lib Atkinson was the teacher of biology and she called us into the room and she said, now boys and girls, I'm going to teach one class but it's for the boys. And Kay Barnes is going to teach the class for the girls down the hall because this is what we call giggling material. So, she she was not wanting for the boys and the girls to be together when we're discussing giggling material. So, subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ, this is how wives do it. Okay?

Wives, to your own husbands. And I say that, wives to your own husbands as to the Lord. There is some textual there are some textual differences in the papyri. The one that I had up on the screen just says, wives, to your own husbands as to the Lord. If you read the New American Standard, it will say and this is New American Standard, wives, subject yourselves to your own husbands as to the Lord.

Now, the subject yourselves right there comes from verse 21. There's no doubt that it means it but it says it in a subtle way. It's an elided verb which I think is beautiful. I think it it's it's more gentle and it's more instructive and it's more ready to be received, honestly, from Paul. Wives, to your own husbands as to the Lord.

Subject yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ's wives, the way you do it as to your husbands as to the Lord. Now, for the husband is the head of the wife and Christ also is the head of the church. He himself being the savior of the body. Now, tell me this, is the head and the body, if it's a living body, is the head and the body, are they connected? They are.

They are. They're one body. Christ is the head of the church. In the same way, he is connected to the church. Man is connected with wife, husband to wife.

He himself being the savior of the body but as the church is subject to Christ, so also ought the wives be to their husbands and everything. They ought to be again, that is in italics. It helps the flow of the words in English but again, it would be but as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives to their husbands and everything. So, that is not as hard as it often is preached but it is still hard, okay? The next part is this, and this is husbands and there's a lot more there for husbands.

There's a lot more instruction there for husbands than there is for wives. The section is for both together. Husbands, I'll I'll break it down smaller but husbands, I could very easily input because the verb still stands. Subject yourself to one another in the fear of Christ. Husbands, subject yourself in this way.

Love your wives and it says, love them not philos, not eras, agape. That others focus, self effacing type of love. Be loving your wives in that way just as Christ also love the church and gave himself up for her. I I read this in English or in Greek and when I read it, I see an obvious parallel immediately and it is to this. So, if you check out the similarities of five two, which is for everybody, for all believers, right?

It says, y'all be walking in love just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us. This imperative for husbands says, husbands, be walking in love. Actually, it says, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. So, who is her? It's us.

It's the church. So, that is a very high standard but it parallels exactly what all of us are supposed to be doing in walking in love. So, why did he do that? So that he might sanctify her. Having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, does Jesus still do this today?

He does. Does his spirit still illumine scripture today? He does and so, he might sanctify her. God's Jesus's prayer in the garden. Again, he says, lord, sanctify them by your truth.

Your word is truth. If we look at this passage and we say, I want that to say what I want it to say, we're missing the point. If we look at it as a translator, whenever you hit something in translation and there's a difficult reading and there's an easy reading that agrees with you, a good translator will take the more difficult reasons reading. Does that make sense? So, so that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.

Jesus wants the church to be as good as the church can be and he's doing everything in his power to make that so. Now, our humility before him and our bow into his headship could circumvent the whole process. Everything he's doing, it could. Why is he doing that? Why is he cleansing and washing her with the word that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot, no wrinkle, or any such thing but that she would be holy and blameless.

A good husband according to this should be looking out to make sure that he is doing the best that he can to make his wife be as good as he can. Does that make sense? And that's not lording it over. I can see some of your faces. It's not lording it over.

It's doing everything that you can to make her holy, spotless, blameless, given all that you can so that she might be all that she can be in Jesus. So husbands, you ought to be loving your wives as your own body. He who loves his own wife loves himself. It keeps on saying his own, his own. This is not about men and women in general.

It's about husband and wives in specific. For no one ever hated his own flesh. He nourishes it. He cherishes it. Just as Christ also does the church.

Because we are all parts of his body. We should be as a marriage one flesh. We should be as a pair. We should be for each other. Both of it.

Both ways. For this reason, a man says shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. That does not say that about women. It says that the man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife. I don't know exactly why that is.

I know that the best marriages are me and you against me and you baby against the world marriages, right? They're the ones that have decidedly, this is the most important relationship. This is where God does his most profound work. This is where we know that we are together. It is by choice and so, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother, come what may, be joined to his wife, the two shall be one flesh and when I say, I don't know why it doesn't say it the other way, Paul immediately agrees.

He says, this mystery is great. This mystery is great. Now, he's a single guy too. This mystery is great but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church. I'm speaking with reference to Christ in the church.

It's amazing that he loves the way that he does and it is a pleasure to be able to do because he's empowered us to do, right? That's just beautiful. The mystery is great but I'm speaking with reference to Christ in the church and close it off with an admonition for both husband and wife here at the very close of that section. Nevertheless, as for you individually, each husband is to love his own wife the same as himself, not put yourself first. She's right there with you, okay?

You don't subjugate her. You're right there with her to love her as he love himself and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. That brings me the love and respect. There's a book by Emerson Eggerich and two or three of y'all in this room and several in the first have said, that book saved my marriage, you know? Emerson Eric Eggerich has a book that I read and I thought it was most repetitive book I've ever read in my life.

For like 14 chapters, he said, women, love your husbands. I mean, women respect your husbands and wives love your, I mean, how did I do this? Let's look right here. He says that 1,400 times, okay? It says, love your wife and respect your husband.

That's that's Emerson Egretch in a nutshell. I love the that it helped y'all but man, I was ready to put it down after seven times, you know? It's good. Love and respect. Now, it goes immediately from there to children.

Husband and wife are to be the closest relationship, the next closest relationship is parents to children and so it says, children, this is the way for you to subject yourself to one another in the fear of Christ. Obey your parents. Now, I'll highlight obey. Obey is a different verb than submit, subject yourselves. It's a different verb.

It doesn't say, wives, obey. It doesn't say that. It says, children obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. Honor your father, mother which is a restatement of one of the 10 commandments which is the first commandment with a promise so that it may turn out well for you and that you may live long on the earth. Yeah, honor your father and mother.

You do that, don't you, Connor? Yeah. You do. Amen. So that it may turn out well for you and you may live long in the Earth and then it goes immediately to a word for the fathers.

Fathers, don't provoke your children to anger. It may be the way that you are but it is not the way to be. In Christ, submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ. Fathers, the way you do it is not provoking your children to anger but you should be bringing them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Amen.

Don't step aside from the discipline. There's a time for discipline, grammar, logic, rhetoric, learning the rules, and having them established early is good. Being able to understand why is great and then being able to put those things into practice is wonderful. Wonderful. Fathers don't provoke them to anger and immediately to slaves.

Now, it says slaves. The word can be translated bond servants and if I were doing it in our day in this community, I know that slavery still exists in the world. I know it does. But right here, right now, we're not in a place where we see that very often. If it is existing, it's existing below the radar where we don't see it very often.

So I would say if you're trying to apply this one, you could say employees, bond servants, slaves. Be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, your boss, with fear and trembling in the sincerity of your heart just as to Christ because ultimately we're serving Christ. And so if you can, reframe your thinking and say, I'm going to do the best job that I can for the time that I am putting in at my job and I'm going to do it sincerely as if to Christ. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it all for Christ. Not by way of eye service, just when somebody's looking, not as people pleaders trying to gain favor, but as slaves of Christ.

Doing the will of God from the heart. That's the instruction for employees. With goodwill, be rendering your service as to the Lord and not for people. If you're doing the job, you can do the job with joy or you can do it with frustration. He's saying do it out of goodwill, Not just for people but for the Lord.

Knowing that whatever good thing each one does, it is not forgotten. Our God who sees will see and he you will receive back this from the Lord whether you're slave or free. God is keeping up. There's a great saying that I think of a lot in Spanish that is means God will repay and often it said, when you've done something, nobody else notices. I don't have to worry whether anyone else notices because God will repay.

So, knowing that he will receive this back from the Lord whether slave are free and masters, bosses, employers, be doing the same things to them too. Give up the threatening. Give up the threatening. Knowing that both their master and yours is in heaven and there's no partiality with him. He don't care whether you're a slave or a boss.

He don't care. He is expecting each one of us to live out our salvation and all of these blessings which he expresses for three chapters. He's he expects us to be living like he exists and matters in our life. So, I think that's the end of the text that I was planning on covering today. A little past hour here.

Masters be doing the same things. Give up the threat and knowing this. Now, he wrote this into a time where patriarchy was absolutely the rule, no doubt about it, where children were chattel, right? And where slaves could be violated in most anyway or even killed by their master at the will of the master for no reason whatsoever. So when he writes it and he says, take care of one another, subject yourself to one another in the fear of Christ, he means it, right?

And it's individually applied through each of these ways. There are arguments for complementarianism in other places that I see as very valid. There are arguments for egalitarians that are pretty convincing other ways but individually, if we take this to be the harder reading for ourselves, it will help us. Does that make sense to y'all? Okay.

Alright. I want to understand but I really want to be being filled with the spirit. That's what this all goes back to that verb. Be being filled with the spirit by doing these things, to one another, the Psalms and hymns. We did that during the song service.

Singing and make a melody with your hearts to the Lord. Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God the father and be subjecting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ. He has called us into a unity in the body and even if you are completely convinced of your angle, your ism, please be leaning towards someone opposed to you with grace and mercy and love. I think that's it.