Grace Greeley Teaching

Hebrews 4:14-15

Colossians 3:20

A Question and Answer time with Pastor Travis Allen on the sermon he preached from Colossians 3:18-19, “Husbands and Wives“

Colossians 3:18-19

We are in Colossians 3:18 to 19 today, so you can turn there in your Bibles, Colossians 3:18 to 19. If you’re a husband, if you are a wife, well, these two verses are directly relevant to you. And if you are not a husband or you’re not a wife, these two verses are still instructive for you, but in an indirect way as they involve principles that pertain to the nature of men and women, all according to God’s design.

 In fact, these verses are relevant for all of us, no matter our age or status, male or female, because they pertain to very general, broad principles of authority and submission, but also a specific principle as we were identifying some of those specific principles last time.

But here as a very specific principle, the principle of loving fellowship. Loving fellowship that animates the most fundamental social unit, which is marriage. But it’s also something loving fellowship that we learn by observing godly Christian marriages and their loving fellowship as we observe them. We all learn about that precious gift of loving fellowship and learn how to grow in it. If you found your way to Colossians 3:18 follow along as I read these two verses on Paul’s marital instructions.

“Wives, be subject to your husband’s as is fitting in the Lord.” And then verse 19, “Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.” That instruction is brilliant in its simplicity and its concision. And if we would just practice that consistently, if we would do what it says according to its meaning and its intent, there’d never again be marital disharmony.

No cross words between spouses, no sins committed, no hurt, no sadness, but nothing, but pure marital bliss, delightful joy of loving fellowship. We smile and chuckle a little bit because we know that, man, that’s not always my lived reality. But it is the intention of God, and it is the intention of Christ for you, and it is the intention of the Apostle Paul.

We know we are pursuing obedience in a hostile context, a highly psychologized age, a thoroughly feminized culture. We live in a time that’s kind of characterized in the public square by victim language, opposition to authority. There is out there, no doubt about it, an Antichrist culture; Christ rejecting Bible hating system that really tries to pit us against one another, not just husbands and wives, but parents and children, slaves and masters or workers and bosses.

It is a a time of great disunity and acrimony. We get that. We understand the world we live in very well. We live in it. We see it all around us. We can’t get away from it. It comes to us through our media as we try to just catch up on Daily News. It’s out there. But as we, as Christians, by virtue of our setting out to follow Christ as Lord, we have to recognize that we are already on a counter cultural collision course. That’s what we signed up for.

So we expect resistance and we’re not surprised by opposition that we face, and we are to actually use that opposition and that resistance to drive us closer together, not to drive us apart, but to bring us together in partnership and in fellowship. And most certainly that should be happening within the Christian home.

So as Christian husbands, as Christian wives, let’s try to endeavor to encourage one another and to do that daily. Sometimes we need to do that hour by hour, don’t we? And as Peter says, let us encourage each other as the fellow heirs of the grace of life, in a world that is trying to destroy marriage and tear it apart and is actually destroying many marriages as they continue to come apart.

And people are just saying, I’m not even going to choose marriage. I’m just going to cohabitate and do that serially throughout my life to avoid hurt and pain and all that. Listen, as Christians, let’s rejoice in our marriages. Let’s uphold God’s goodness in marriage. Let’s do this together as men and women, as husbands and wives.

Let’s do this as families so that we become the champions of this first, most blessed institution that God created for our good and for his glory. He brings glory to himself through the Christian marriage, because this is a picture, a living picture of Christ in his relationship to his bride, the church.

So for this morning, we’re addressing two roles. So there’s a two-point outline: first fitting submission and then loving affection. Fitting submission and loving affection. And Paul sets for us a most chivalrous course and pattern.

So we start with ladies first. Number one: The fitting submission of the wife. Point number one: The fitting submission of the wife. “Wives be subject to your husband as is fitting in the Lord,” the addressee there, wives; the commanded instruction “be subject to your husband”. That’s followed by a reason for the command, “as is fitting in the Lord.”

 So the addressee, the command and the reason for the command, which giving a reason for the command is to inspire and motivate obedience to it. The address is to wives, that is, to adult married women. In other words, not all women are under the injunction here, which means that it is not the case that all women are to submit to all men. That’s not the principle that Paul is giving here.

Paul is explicit about this in Ephesians 5:22. He adds an adjective there. “Submit to your own husbands” makes it very clear. So if you are a wife, if you chose to enter marriage by covenant before God, you’ve taken matrimonial vows that you are to honor before your God. You acknowledge his authority.

You acknowledge the authority of Christ. You acknowledge the authority that he has chosen to delegate to your own husband. If God takes your covenant seriously, and he does, then so should you. The command “be subject to your husbands” The verb there, be subject, is hypotasso. Subject, subordinate, even bring under firm control in the active voice. That’s how it sounds.

There’s an element there of compulsion. In the active voice, to make someone subject, to subordinate him, but it’s not in the active voice, here in this verse. If it were, it would read husbands subject your wives or even if you want to address the wives, that would say, wives, in the passive voice, be subjected to your husbands. That is, let the outward force compel you and subject you. It’s not what it says.

This is in the middle voice and there’s a reflexive idea here that is wives are doing this of their own volition. Wives subject yourselves. This is to be self-imposed, voluntary submission, which is offered by wives to their own husbands as an act of devotion to the Lord.

This is the conscious decision of a wife, as hypotasso says, and it’s quite literally, to line up under, to line up under the authority that God has placed over her. The command is present tense. Present tense deals not with time, but more aspect of the command. So it indicates an ongoing habit, a continual practice for the wife.

 It’s not only a conscious decision then, it’s a daily decision. And it implies that wives are to have on their mind, they should have on their minds. Most Christian wives do have on their minds, a daily consideration, a thought as to the will, the plans, ambitions, goals, the work of their husbands.

They are to take an intentional interest in what God has designed their husbands to do, called their husbands to do, sent their husbands to do. It’s what really, women by their design, by God’s good design, take delight in, rejoice in. So, wives, it’s your responsibility and it’s your daily duty, and by understanding the true sense of this wonderful word, hypotasso, you will come to understand how to obey the command and to do so cheerfully, with great delight, with great joy.

First of all, just to clear this up, submit does not mean obey. Submit and obey are not synonyms. It involves obedience, certainly, but mere obedience falls very far short of the mark. To obey is a different word. It’s the word hypakouo, as in Colossians 3:20. Children obey your parents, that is, do what you’re told, and if the kid doesn’t understand, no matter, do it anyway.

It’s the idea of the military; when I say jump, you say how high on the way up. What position do you want me in, sir, as you salute on the way up? Wives, you are not children. You’re adults. It is not some unthinking obedience that God requires of you. And that is not what any thinking husband wants. It’s not what any family needs.

True submission is the thoughtful, well-reasoned practice of a biblical wisdom, a wisdom that is worked out in the context of a marital partnership, a wisdom of a thoughtful wisdom, well-reasoned wisdom, in the enjoyment of a loving fellowship of a partnership called marriage. Very specific partnership.

It is the basic fundamental building block of all society. It’s the most intimate partnership. And to understand the concept here about this submission, let’s take this vertical, which is what Paul does over in the parallel text, Ephesians 5:22 to 24. He says there, “Wives be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is head of the Church, He himself being the Savior of the body. But as the Church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything.”

 So if Christ merely wanted slavish, unthinking obedience from his church, why is it that Christ Jesus spent three years with his people, walking with them, living with them, talking with them, healing them, teaching them, loving them, and caring for them? Why bother if all he wants for his people is that we do whatever he says that had any understanding at all?

Why would he bother teaching us, instructing us, and explaining anything to us? Jesus told his disciples in John 15:15. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master’s doing.”

So the fitting word for slaves. Colossians 3:22, “Slaves in all things obey your masters.” Hypakouo, do what you’re told, no arguments, no rebellion, just do it. Jesus says it’s not like that with us, you and me, Lord–disciples, it’s not like that. “No longer do I call you slaves, but I’ve called you friends.”

 Slaves do not know what their master is doing. Why? Because slaves, they were considered, at that time to be nothing more than living tools, animate tools, functional. They’re used for functional purposes, not relational purposes. There’s no need for a tool to have a brain and have a mind and think.

Jesus says, look, it’s different with you, as you can see by what I have done, by how I’ve treated you. “All things that I’ve heard from my Father I’ve made known to you.” John 15:15. Why does Jesus make known to his disciples all things he’s heard from his Father? Because he wants not merely, hypakouo, do what you’re told; although that’s the end result, isn’t it?

We want to do what we’re told by God, because is there anyone wiser? Is there anyone more perfect? Is there anyone more fit and appropriate to direct our lives and command our consciences? No. So we want to do what we’re told. But he doesn’t say that. He says I want hypotasso.

I want you to know the father’s will and understand it like a friend of God. Yes, a slave of God; of course we’re slaves of God. Paul calls himself a slave of Christ, but we’re more than just slaves. We’re friends. He wants us to know his father’s will, to understand it, to see its wisdom, its goodness.

He wants, from the heart, for us to get on board with the program, get busy doing our part to make the father’s will happen. What Jesus wants for us, for his disciples, for his church, his bride, is an act of submission, active submission, one that’s thoughtful, conscious, intelligent, a well-reasoned participation in the outworking of the father’s will that’s revealed in Jesus Christ.

That’s true biblical submission, and it is the most ennobling endeavor to be drawn up by God, to enter into his counsel, to know his mind, to understand him and then partner in doing his will.

And so here in Colossians 3:18, what Jesus wants for his adult female married disciples is this, that the way they serve the father, the way they follow his will, the way they serve Christ in the work of the gospel, is first and foremost by submission, active submission, thoughtful, intelligent, conscientious, well-reasoned participation, in the outworking of the will, plans and ambitions, and goals of their own husbands.

Continuing with a vertical concept here in view, wives, in the same way that you have the blessed privileged duty to read and study and learn God’s revealed will from Scripture, so that you can faithfully do what it says, you can learn to do the father’s will, you take that same mindset and transfer it into your marriage on a horizontal level in your submission to your husband.

Yes, I know it’s great when your husband is just a really good talker, just the best, most wonderful communicator, giving you clear, concise, well thought out, well-reasoned instructions for your daily work, helping you see all the good reasons for every point on his careful, considerate To Do List.

The perfect husband, whether he is that or whether he falls far short of that, which he will, your job is to figure him out. That’s your duty. And as you take it up, you’ll find it’s your great joy as well. I’m always shocked when I hear a married woman, and even more so when she has children and she speaks with such an apparent disregard for her husband and his wishes.

Or she speaks with indifference, or worse, with some kind of arrogant flippancy toward him. Whether she says it out loud or she just kind of lives her life that way. It’s, it’s as if I don’t care or he doesn’t care what I do, what I spend, where I go, so why bother? Or I don’t like doing this or that, so I’m not going to. Or I can’t do that, which is really code for I won’t do that.

That kind of impudence may earn uncomfortable smiles from other women in your friend’s circle, but it’s not cute and it’s not funny. It’s shameful. And so if that’s you, stop being mouthy. Grow up and become a mature, dignified Christian woman who is worthy of imitation. Be a woman who is commendable in your actions, your behavior.

And if it’s going to be in your actions, behavior, in your speech, it’s going to go down into your heart and your thought life and your honoring attitude toward God, his authority, and toward your husband and his authority. I realize that there are exceptions to this, but my observation is that for the most part, the Christian husbands that I know and see, that man loves you. He cares for you. He’s working hard to provide for you, and he will fight to protect you.

He puts his life on the line every day and in many ways so that you’re comfortable, housed, well fed, well clothed. He sees that you can attend to things of beauty, whether it’s personal beauty, but also beauty in the home and home making and funds your activities and your hobbies and how you spend on the kids. It’s his heart’s desire to provide and protect for you. So stop finding fault with your husband. Stop complaining about your situation and your circumstances. Stop ruing the lack of resources at your disposal.

Ask God to give you wisdom. Ask Christ to give you grace. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide and direct you according to the Word that he revealed and you use the intellect that God gave you, so that you read, study, and learn the husband that God gave you so that you know and understand him, because that’s the gift that God gave you, not another. That’s your main job.

 Wives, even before that of being a mom to your children, becoming a mother does not take priority and precedent over being a wife to your husband. That’s what came first. Being a wife, relationship to your husband is prior to the relationship with the children, which gives it the right of place. It’s of higher priority. It’s of greater importance.

I can already hear the protest in the heart. What about his responsibility to figure me out? You leave that between your husband and the Lord. If he’s getting you wrong, I guarantee he will at times, but it may be less than you think. Then you make that a matter for prayer.

Don’t barrage him with your complaints. Don’t hen Peck him. Don’t criticize or scold him. Instead, silence your mouth and open your heart in prayer. You pray for him even if he’s doing wrong. Study 1 Peter 3:1 to 6, make that your practice so that any of your husbands are disobedient to the Word. It’s a pretty big category.

Could be an occasional disobedience, a momentary disobedience, some sin, or it could be that man’s not even a believer, so that if any are disobedient to the word, “he may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives.” You make that you; “let your beauty be the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God.”

Let’s uphold God’s goodness in marriage. Let’s do this together as men and women, as husbands and wives.” Travis Allen

And you pour yourself into prayer. You put your hope in God, and then as you pray for him in faith, in trusting in God’s timing and his direction and his provision, you just watch to see what God does with your husband. I am, as imperfect as I am, but in my growth, my sanctification, I am the product of my wife’s prayers for me.

She’s seen plenty of flaws over the years. She’s made her errors, obviously both of us have. But her greatest triumph is in how she’s prayed for me and how she’s made me useful to you. Pray, women, pray. Your main job, your assigned role, is to be the most fitting helper to him.

So what the word helpmeet means, by the way, a meet or fit, fitting helper, partner, friend, lover, companion, that’s your role and it’s a joyful privilege, brings us to the reason for the command.

We’ve seen the addressee, all you wives, adult married women, the command subject yourselves to your husbands, which is to line up under their authority and to do so intentionally, consciously, thoughtfully, intelligently with biblical wisdom and speak into their lives and speak into their decisions. Help them. What’s the reason? Paul puts it simply this way, as is fitting in the Lord: Fitting.

Principle of fittingness here refers to what’s suitable, what is right, appropriate, proper. Paul has boiled this down here for brevity, but knowing that the Colossians would soon read the Ephesian letter, as for Colossians 4:16, so what he summarizes here as being fitting in the Lord, he actually expanded in Ephesians 5:23.

What makes wifely submission to husband something fitting? Paul says, “Because Christ also is the head of the church.” He himself being savior of the body, and you are submissive to him, right? In other words, we as Christians, we submit willingly, eagerly, cheerfully to Christ because we recognize his headship.

We understand and acknowledge his Lordship, since it was he, after all, and not we ourselves, who has saved us. And how did he do that? He died for us on a cross. It is to that one, to that one who demonstrated such great love for us that we owe absolutely everything and the least of which, that we can give is our joyful submission, our best service, our loyal devotion.

 So when that one who is the savior of the body, when your savior speaks tenderly to you, wives saying, listen, wife, I want you to practice your submission to me in your own homes. I want you to submit yourself to your own husband. Is that not a most gracious, most pleasant command? He lets you submit in the context of a romantic partnership, a friendship.

Jesus isolates your submission to himself, giving you a clear line of sight, focusing you, making it exceedingly easy for you to please him in this. And Paul sets the priority for service to Christ, saying, you wives, you go home and “you be subject to your own husbands,” Ephesians 5:22, “as to the Lord.”

So if a wife does not submit to her husband, she doesn’t submit to her Lord either. If a wife does not submit well to her husband and doesn’t grow in submission to her husband, well, she’s not submitting well to the Lord either, and she’s not growing in her submission to him either. No submission or sloppy submission or lazy submission or mediocre submission; the one affects the other. They’re inextricably linked.

We can illustrate with the language of 1 John 4:20 and the principle that’s there. The woman who doesn’t submit to her husband, whom she has seen, cannot submit to her God, whom she has not seen. Submission to God, submission to the husband, the two inform one another, strengthen one another, reinforce each other, but the focus for the wife is with her husband, for it is most fitting in the Lord.

 Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:3, “I want you to understand Christ is the head of every man, the man is the head of the woman,” which in the context refers to the husband’s authority over his wife, “and God is the head of Christ.” So it’s fitting, most becoming for a Christian wife to submit to the authority of her husband, and not merely because she’s doing it before a watching world, because her marriage is a testimony of Christ in his relationship with the church.

 It’s not merely about that, but most immediately and most importantly, her testimony is to her watching children, to her daughters who will one day be married to husbands. How do you want them to treat their husbands? Or to her sons who are men in training, and they’re watching to see how Mom treats Dad, how she speaks to Dad, how she speaks about Dad, when he’s not around. How she withholds rolling her eyes at Dad, as she refuses to say any unkind word about Dad. It’s so important.

We’re investing in the next generation. A wife’s submission provides a daily example to others, even beyond the marital relationship, and it’s so instructive on the vertical level, as well; as others, learn from a wife’s godly example how submission works, how she uses her time, talents, gifts, intellect, time, energy to learn about the husband that God gave her and then to advance his goals and his aims and realize his ambitions, hopes, dreams, make him the best husband, the best worker, the best man, called to whatever God’s called him to, that she can in the world.

She just wants to benefit and bless him, take her place at his side with the encouragement and practical help that she is designed by God to give and provide with an intelligent, thoughtful, conscientious submission. Way more that can be said about that, but we need to turn our attention to husbands. And by the way, I’ll just add that, you know, it’s impossible in the time we have, half an hour that I’ve gone on wives and I’m going to go another half hour on husbands.

But it’s impossible in this kind of a time and this kind of a setting to cover all the contingencies and all the different issues. I’ve got to speak in generalities that speak to most situations, most, you know, generalities about women, generalities about men. I’ve got to speak that way. And that is the benefit and the blessing of proclaimed preaching, proclaimed word.

It’s actually the strength of proclamation. Is it kind of just levels everything, right? And that’s why there are times like what we’re going to do tonight, where Q&A’s are appropriate to interact with your pastor, with your elders, to ask various issues that come to your mind and different things that were addressed. Or when something troubles the heart to say, well, but then in my situation, how do I work this out? Totally appropriate.

We want to satisfy that need tonight if that will serve you well. So second, number two, point number two: the loving affection of the husband, the loving affection of the husband. We look at the text again, and this is Colossians 3:19. “Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.”

Anyone who’s familiar with the parallel over in Ephesians 5:25 and following, you’re probably thinking, man, that is way too brief. And the wives are thinking Amen, is way too brief. Listen, on the other hand, there’s a great brilliance here, knowing what men are like, giving us brief instructions that are simple, concise and easy to remember. That’s not all bad.

In fact, make your husband a T-shirt; just put Colossians 3:19 on it. Let him go to work like that. But again, Paul knows that this Colossian letter is going to be shared with the church in Laodicea. The church, the letter that’s coming to Laodicea, which is probably Ephesians, it’s going to come through Laodicea to come to them.

So no husband in the Colossian congregation or in the whole Lychus Valley is going to miss out on the fuller instruction that Paul provides in Ephesians 5. He knows that. And we have a completed Canon in front of us. So we can flip a few pages back and go read the fuller instruction as well. And I encourage you to do that.

But we see in what verse 18 and verse 19 have in common, we notice both of them identify an addressee, wives and then husbands, respectively. Both issue a command, but Paul does not give husbands a reason to obey as he did to the wives. Instead, he gives them a second command, a prohibition. And we could joke around and say it’s because husbands are more hard-hearted than women, but that’s not the reason.

It has to do with Christ’s tenderness to those who are under authority. He gives them reasons to obey. He encourages them. Christ, as I read from 1 Corinthians 11:3, he’s under the authority of his father. You know what his father did in sending him out into the world? Revealed his entire mind to him.

So he’s lived this out. In his submission to his father, he’s lived out knowing the father’s will, having reasons to obey. It’s encouraged his obedience. He passes the same pattern on to the people under obedience in Colossians 3:18 to 4:1. So it’s instructive, husbands to you, how the Lord, her Lord and your Lord, how he speaks so tenderly to your wife.

The Lord sees fit to induce your wife to obedience, which means he’s got her burden in mind. He’s sympathetic to what she faces in submitting to a fallible man like you, and that’s no slight on you. We are fallible. We make mistakes, we get things wrong, we don’t see things clearly. We’re all in stages of growth. I hope I’m a better husband than I was 30 years ago.

So if he wants to make it easier for her to submit to you, you need to get on his wavelength and in your leadership, you need to make it as easy as you can for her to submit to you and follow you trust you. Husbands, you’ve got some help in this because you see the pattern set before you about how the Lord speaks to your wife.

Notice first, he speaks to your wife. He uses words. He didn’t grunt at her. He didn’t motion, he didn’t assume. Gives her words to consider. If you fancy yourself the strong, silent type, John Wayne, stop it. Stop it. Don’t learn about manhood from movies.

If the Lord speaks to her and he is the perfect man, you follow his example and you engage your wife in conversation. That is her joy and right as a wife with you is to have a relational intimacy with you. You give it to her. Notice that when the Lord instructs her, he goes further to give her the reason why. And I realize that in the flow of life that’s not always practical.

But when you recognize what the Lord is commanding her to do, that is to practice an intelligent and wise and informed submission to your will, your plans, your ambitions, your desires, you need to help her out by bringing her into your thinking and how do you do that, if you do not talk to her or if you talk very little with each other?

If you’re not intentional about planning times to talk with each other? Husbands, don’t be insecure in your leadership. Expose what you think by talking about it, and let your wife, she is, after all, God’s gift to you, Proverbs 18:22, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” Do we believe that? Then let your wife into your mind. Let her ask you questions, let her interact with you, give you input, test your thoughts, test your plans with her inquisitiveness, which is natural to her and native to her. That’s a good tool.

God put her there to help you. It’s her desire to be helpful to you. She’s a fitting, a meet helper for you. Do not be a fool by shutting her down. Don’t be lazy or insecure, refusing to try, retreating into silence, running off to work, getting involved in other things, otherwise not engaging with her and more to the point, don’t you dare disobey the Lord who delegated his authority to you, because you’re assigned role in this marriage covenant to love your wife.

 And to love your wife, it means it’s the end of you. It is a self-sacrificing love that God demands in Christ, to your husband, to you husbands now to pursue obedience to a role. We got to talk about what love is, got to define the term, and then see how the second command here in Colossians 3:19. This prohibition expands on how we understand the first.

So when he says, love your wives, how does he define the word love? Does he have an American definition? No, he does not. I’ll answer that for you; sharply, no! There are four Greek words for love, which I’ll just mention only for the sake of contrast. There’s this word agape. Agapao is the verb. Agapao is the word here.

Another word, second word, is philia. Phileo is the word you’ve heard. Hear that in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, Philia and adelphos. Philia is friendship love, and the Greeks actually saw philia and phileo, as the most virtuous of all loves. And we can at times see in the Bible where agape and philia, those two nouns are kind of synonymous. We can see that in Scripture at times.

Eros is another word for love, which is speaking of romantic love or sensual desire. We get the word erotic from that word. And then there’s the word storge. Storge refers to natural affection. It’s kind of exemplified in parental love, or a mother’s love for her infant child.

Of all of these four words, the Greeks thought very little of that first word, the agape kind of love. They kind of viewed that as this idealistic, pie in the sky, unrealistic ambition and aim. And so it kind of fell into disuse.

The word agape had very little purchase in Greek literature, very little grip on the cultural imagination. That is, until Christ came, until Christ was proclaimed, until it was demonstrated in the proclamation of the gospel, the unconditional love of God in Christ, when he sent his Son to die on the cross as a substitute for our sins. Well, now that’s something different.

This is the word that the Christians then took and injected with Christian meaning and used that to capture the imagination of the Greeks as they preach the gospel to them and communicate the concept of God’s unconditional love. Christ’s sacrificial love to the point of death, a love that was not based on any merit or lack of merit in the object of his love, and the love was directed always for the good of the object receiving the love.

This agape love, unlike all the other loves, isn’t determined by attraction, internal or external, but by a decision. It’s why when you hear people who are getting divorced and they say, well, we fell out of love with each other. Okay, whatever you fell into wasn’t true agape Christian love. You fell into something else. No surprise you’re falling out of it again, if it’s subject only to your feelings and emotions, that rise and fall. That’s not agape love. That’s not the love that holds a marriage together.

Love is a decision of a will. It’s a decision for the glory of God to do what is best and what is good for the object or recipient of that love. Harold Honer did a word study in the verb agapao, which is the verbal cognate for the noun agape. But he says, “That in the classical period,” that’s, you know, the 500 years of Greek before Christ, “agapao had the idea of showing or treating with affection, and it was a free, uncoerced, unselfish choice to do so. The subject chooses to love its object and to keep doing so as a conscious act of concern, and to do so no matter what.”

 So while those other loves like eros and philia, they draw men and women into marriage. They’re useful because of physical or relational attraction. The marriage covenant itself is an expression of commitment. The marriage covenant is a decision of individual free choice, a covenant sealed by vows, taking a marital oath before God.

 So the covenant of marriage, a commitment to agape love, vowing “to have and to hold, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and to love and cherish till death do they part,” and may God help them. That’s how they vow to each other. And this gets real, when after the wedding and after the honeymoon, things get worse and not better.

When tested by getting poorer not richer, when there’s more sickness than health, when circumstances get harder and not easier. These are times when love is put to the test, when the decision to love the other must not draw from personal reserves. It can’t depend on or look to any human resource that is left to seek the help of God and God alone, and to make it the hourly, daily withdrawal from that infinite supply of the heavenly treasury where, there alone is found the love of God.

The love that binds and unites the husband to the wife and the wife to the husband is the duty-bound love commanded by God that we husbands show to our wives and that comes not from ourselves, it’s not based on attraction or personal interest, that can only come from the only source of such a love, God alone. God alone is the source of agape love, since he himself is that love.

He demonstrated that love for us not when we were attractive, but why we were yet sinners, when we were the most unattractive, when we were wretched and hideous in our sin, when we were not on his side, but we were enemies of his. We were waging a hostile war against him and hating him with all of our being, that’s when he loved us, that’s when God sent his own son to die for us.

It was a free choice of his will, uncoerced and unselfish, because it was a decree from before time began. Its love granted to us by his grace for our ultimate good. It’s a corrective love, an instructive love, a confronting love, that didn’t leave us in our sins, but actually exposed them, brought them to the surface so we could deal with them honestly, righteously before him.

 It’s a kind of love that really everyone longs for, because we know in our hearts, we have bad in us. We have sin in us, and were all that exposed to the watching world, people would flee in horror at what they see. But God, who sees all things and on his omniscient gaze, he searches us and knows us and loves us still. That’s the love that we long for, that we need most.

 And that’s the love that husbands are to show to their wives; not on their best day, on date night when she’s all dolled up, it’s what we show to our wives at their very worst moments, moments when she’d prefer no one sees that and no one knows that, it’s a covering love. It’s kind of love every wife longs for from her husband.

And apart from God, even a husband can’t give this kind of love on his own. He has to go to God, but a wife longs for it so much. It’s what the Shulamite woman expresses to Solomon. The Shulamite woman says to Solomon, her bridegroom, “Put me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm.” In other words, cherish me. Keep me close to you. Make me precious to you.

Men, you’re charged with the highest, most holy responsibility, which is the blessed duty of loving your wife with the unconditional love of God.” Travis Allen

More, those seals were for financial transactions. Make me more precious to you than your financial transactions, than your money, than your authority, than your power, than your influence. And then, very insightfully, she identifies the only kind of love that’s going to bind them together for life and keep her close to him as being powerful, eternally mortal, spiritual, she says. “For love is as strong as death and jealousy as severe as sheol.”

In other words, it’s powerful, she says, its, “its flashes” are flashes of fire, the very flame of Yah,” shortened version of Yahweh. In other words, that love is eternal. It’s powerful, it’s eternal, she says, “Many waters can’t quench love, nor will rivers overflow it.” It’s immortal, this love, indestructible.

“If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, he’d be utterly despised.” That is to say, you can’t buy this love. You can’t buy people off for not giving this love. This love is immaterial and spiritual in nature.

Husbands, you’re charged to love like that. You’re charged with the highest, most holy responsibility, which is the blessed duty of loving your wife with the unconditional love of God. You are to be the conduit of God’s love, his divine love to come through you, the channel to this precious creature who is now your wife.

Loving your wife does not mean giving her whatever she wants, though that’s a good instinct, is to always cultivate a generous spirit, a giving instinct for her. You should have it in your heart to never want to say no to your wife, but always be able to say yes, yes, yes.

Loving your wife doesn’t mean you never contradict her, never correct her. In fact, that’s not love, that’s self-centeredness. She needs your tender correction, she needs your kind instruction, needs your loving direction, but it’s got to be gentle and tender.

If you want to know how to love your wife, look to the Scripture and see how God loves us. See how God has loved you. Specifically, look to Christ and see his loving kindness and study it. Learn to imitate it. Think again about yourself. Think about his patient forbearance with you, you knucklehead. Think about how forgiving he is with you.

Husbands, if you love your wives as an act of your will, based on what’s best for her, not what’s best or easiest for you, not what avoids upsetting her? What avoids creating more work for you? You make it easier for her to submit to you. Trust your intentions, follow your leadership.

You want to know how such love communicates most clearly to a woman, to the heart of a woman, it’s that you can correct her and love her, care for her, provide for her, protect her and you never get mad at her. You never get upset at her. You never raise your voice at her. In Paul’s words, “Husbands love your wives and do not be embittered against her.” What’s he addressing in this prohibition?

How does this second command augment the first? Well, it’s instructive on how this commitment to love our wives is practiced. It’s practiced in a tender affection toward her, not an embitterment. It’s the opposite of embitterment. The verb here is pikraino. Pikros is literally, kind of sounds that way. Bitter, get it out of my mouth.

Pikros refers to making water bitter, like as in poisonous, as to be undrinkable. And when a bitter thing does enter into the stomach, that stomach turns sour, painful. So pikraino, a very vivid word, and it’s supposed to evoke a visceral feeling about this relational embitterment that we feel when we’re embittered or angry or impatient. We feel it kind of in the gut, don’t we? Paul says, that’s a good warning sign that you may be teetering on the brink of resentment or anger.

Now, why would any husband who freely, knowingly, without any coercion, walked to the altar and took vows before God to love this beautiful creature, his wife, all dressed in white? Why would he ever have reason to be embittered toward his wife?

What makes this prohibition necessary? I have three suggestions. First, in our fallen condition, differences between men and women can be difficult to appreciate or rejoice in. We just, we have fallen habits of thinking, fallen habits of feeling, fallen, fallen habits of reaction, that we kind of grew up with, that we learned. But they become opportunities for bitterness, if we’re not watchful.

We got to mortify those things in us, we’ve got to practice Colossians 3:1 through 17, really, and then use that sanctified nature to love our wives and not be embittered against her. It’s no secret that women in general are more emotionally volatile than men, more relationally sensitive than men, more nurturing. They tend, instinctively, to feelings of compassion for the underdog.

They don’t appreciate sometimes the risk-taking competitive nature of men, but they can be a check on male aggressiveness, that nature of theirs, a check on their risk-taking initiative, a check on their competitiveness. And when husbands resent this caution from their wives and not see it as a blessing, but a hindrance, they might be missing out on and appreciating this complimentary gift that God has given to them in their wives.

We could see this illustrated poignantly in the cautionary wisdom that Abigail used to influence this impetuous, impulsive, indignant King David. When his men were offended, when his offers of protection to Nabal were rejected and he was actually scorned in return. David was marching to take that man’s head off and destroy his whole family, but because of Abigail, David did not take his own personal vengeance out on Nabal. Because of her, he kept his conscience clear before God, and he was further elevated in the eyes of his men for listening to her wisdom.

But men and women, husbands and wives, when they tend toward sinful habits of thinking, they’re at odds with each other, we’ve got to mortify those things. Second, why do men become embittered? Or can they be tempted toward that? Because in our natural weakness, exacerbated by effects of the fall on the body, husbands are not always patient with female fragility, not always kind and understanding with their physical weakness.

This is what Peter tells husbands in 1 Peter 3:7. He says, “Live with your wives in an understanding way, as with a weaker vessel, since she’s a woman.” Weaker vessel there, is talking about the physical and emotional constitution of a woman, all the hormonal changes that affect the body of a woman from when she’s a young girl, on to the end, in menstruation, gestation, childbirth, later in life and during menopause.

These things are really radically changing in a woman. They perplex men. Seems like the woman that you knew last week isn’t the same one this week. And then she, something else took her place the next week. And it’s like, I understand what that whole multiple personality disorder thing they talked about in the 90s.

 You know what? She didn’t like it either. She didn’t like the instability and changes and she didn’t quite understand it herself. She needs you to be understanding and kind with her gentle, tender. So husbands, you’re to, Peter says, “Live with your wives in an understanding way.” Know them. Would it hurt you to read a an article describing medical things, changes.

You’d, you’d devour sports stuff. Take just, take a few minutes, let her put a good article in your hands and know your wife well enough to get what’s going on with her physically. Patient to listen to what may be troubling her emotionally, may be upsetting her relationally.

And you know the old adage? You know when she starts talking, that’s not a signal for you to fix something. It’s often a signal for you just to sit, listen. You can even take notes and maybe pray. Add that to your prayer list and if she says to you, why are you being so quiet, why don’t you help me, say, oh, oh, this is a fix it conversation. I’m all in!

 Then men, you listen to her, pray with her, pray for her, because God can help her in her soul in ways that you cannot; in ways you were never meant to satisfy her and help her. Her weaker constitution is really for your sake. It’s a ministry to you to provoke your growth in tenderness and compassion, kindness and affection. It’s meant to strengthen your prayer life, force you to grow in patience, understanding, gentleness, tenderness.

 All these challenges can turn into real strengths for us, can’t they? It’s a third suggestion I have about why men might become embittered against their wives. It’s in close connection to the previous two, but husbands can tend to under appreciate the power of temptations that their wives face. They themselves living in the world and they face temptations from the world, the flesh, and the devil. All kinds of pressures coming on all of us, but women in particular and especially today. We’ve been talking about that.

 Husbands and wives, parents, you are, I would say, sinning if you have no idea what your kids are consuming in social media and entertainment and if you just hand them a cell phone and an Internet connected phone or an Internet connected game box or whatever the tool is these days; you are negligent in your leadership and in your parenting, if you have no idea what’s going on, because there are people out there prowling after your kids to disciple them and to take them away from you and turn them against you.

In a similar way, wives can be under the influence of things outside of your home. They come into your home. They don’t have to come through the front door. You standing there with a gun doesn’t help, but she’s in the bedroom on her cell phone. You need to know what’s influencing your family, husbands; especially in these days of social media and viewing online entertainment.

These portable electronic devices can divide marriages and intrude into bedrooms and separate husbands and wives with their individual viewing preferences. Remember, you need to love your wife, not worry about who wins the ballgame. Far more important is that you love her by being attentive to what’s influencing her, thoughtful about what she’s thinking about, watchful about what may be tempting her and troubling her.

I’m not suggesting you snoop around and spy on her. No need for that. You want to know what she’s into, just ask her. A Christian wife will tell you. In fact, she’s eager to talk, happy to have a conversation with you, to have a loving, interested husband looking out for her. Good.

Just as married men, ignored by their wives can become vulnerable to temptations, married women also in other ways. When their husbands ignore them or are ignorant, or are indifferent or aren’t vigilant or attentive, wives can become vulnerable to temptations too. Relational influences, sins of the tongue, gossip, slander, being too nice, valuing superficial harmony and pleasant feelings over confronting and dealing with sins and with problems. Especially so, because women tend to be more relational than men, as a general principle, general rule, they can sometimes overlook what they ought not to overlook in other people.

Read an article recently written by a young woman who describes herself this way. She says, “anyone in my life can tell you I’m a highly disagreeable 24-year-old. I’m ashamed to say it, and I’m actively working on my sass and argumentativeness, but it’s the truth and I’m quite conservative.”

She writes candidly about herself and about the issues that women face and feminine things and all that. She speaks rather humorously about female tendencies and female problems, and she describes men, quote, “as less censorious and more willing to let the other side speak than women.” And then she continues with this. “None of this means women are bad. We simply have higher empathy, higher threat sensitivity, preference for social harmony over open confrontation, which sounds at odds with my earlier confession. Online, we screech. In person we smile. We’re a confusing sex.

“We keep small circles of cohesion and tolerate little deviation. Step out of line or offend one of us and we’ll nurse a grudge into the next decade. Our new found enemy may never know it, or at the very least we won’t express our hostility to her face. Instead, we serve passive aggressive kindness and then complain to our family’s friends and boyfriends and the sisters.”

 By that she means her friends. “And the sisters nod along, adopting a shiny new disdain for your fresh enemy who is now their foe to. And the boyfriend offers advice. Why don’t you just tell her how you feel? To which you answer no, no, I could never do that. I’ll just pretend everything is fine.” And then she ends with this, “It’s not fine.”

 Husbands, if this 24-year-old was your wife, you need to recognize that you’re not in her life to be one of the sisters. You’re not in her life to be the boyfriend. As the husband, you’re charged by God to lovingly confront and correct these tendencies. Address her hard attitudes, her patterns of speech, her behavior. You need to help her.

These days and in this, as we’ve talked about this highly feminized cultural milieu, the pressure is against anyone noticing feminine forms of sin. No one, it seems, and especially men, especially husbands, it seems, are allowed to notice. Or if they notice, they’re not permitted to say anything. We’re expected to pretend that all is well, even when we know full well all is not well and that our wives and our daughters are misbehaving.

Through the years of ministry, every now and again I’ve seen small uprisings in churches here and elsewhere, as groups of immature women find each other, gossip together, tear down male leadership, male leadership in the church, in the home and then they aim their husbands, who are usually the passive type.

They aim their husbands at the elders to pass along the message that you guys are oppressive and overbearing in your leadership and after much prayer, we’re leaving to go find another church. In every case, it’s a domineering wife who’s got a collar on her husband. She’s not been well led by her husband. He’s been passive, ignorant, deeply unloving in ignoring his wife’s sins.

She’s being led around by her emotions, nursing her offenses, stirred into a frenzy by likeminded friends, and she is not at peace in her soul. Wives, you don’t want to remain in the same sass and argumentativeness as you were when you’re in the early 20s. You don’t want to have the same grudge nursing petty passive aggressiveness admitted to by that author, do you? Of course you don’t.

By the way, that 24-year-old and the author in the article, she don’t want to either. She’s conservative in her politics. She’s not Christian. Husbands, they don’t need girlfriends to affirm them, stroke their egos, tell them they’re right. They don’t need boyfriends who merely suggest things to them.

Our wives need godly husbands, men who honor their covenant of marriage, men who take their God-given duty of loving affection seriously. Husbands are to love their wives, doing and speaking what is to their ultimate good, and to do with a patient and tender and kind and gentle manner, and with a friendly partnering demeanor, always prayerful, ever ready to help lift burdens for their wife.

So, Christian wives, will you be receptive to this love? Can you receive your husband’s loving correction? Can you get help from a man, even a fallible man, but a man who’s willing to love you like that? If the answer is yes, then make it easy on your husbands. Encourage them to do what God’s called them to do. Not letting things go. Not letting you ask like an immature teenage girl.

Husbands, it’s not your responsibility to make your wife obey to a coercer, cajoler, manipulator. Just like any other human relationship, when someone sins against us, we’re not allowed to sin in return. We’re not even allowed to sin in our hearts, our thoughts, our attitudes, certainly not in our speech. Each of us is responsible to walk righteously before God and conduct ourselves in a manner well pleasing to God.

 On the other hand, it doesn’t mean, a wife and it doesn’t mean, a husband, that you’re not allowed to bring it up when your spouse is being disobedient to the Lord. Female submission doesn’t overlook male sin, and male love toward their wives doesn’t mean we overlook female sin either. It’s as it is in any other human relationship when someone sins.

To let sin go is unloving. Indifference is hatred. I’ll caution you though, be very careful, especially in a marriage relationship where things are so intimate and so tender. Sins committed in the context of marriage are felt very intimately and personally and can hurt and cut more deeply than in any other relationship. And that means our motive to help our spouse to see and correct a sin. We need to realize it can be fraught with self-interest, can’t it?

I didn’t say it always is fraught with self-interest or filled with self-interest, just that it can be, doesn’t need to be. So how you handle that sin with your spouse is the make or break issue. So how do you handle it? How do you communicate? How do you convey interest in the other? That is a non self-interested concern for the good of your spouse.

Wife when confronting your husband before the Lord, is it coming from a heart of wifely submission, as is fitting in the Lord? Or is it coming from wifely rebellion and hurt and complaint? Be very careful how you handle yourself, how you deal with your heart.

Husband when you confront your wife before the Lord is it coming from a heart of love or impatient irritation rooted in self-centeredness, because you just want to watch the game. Be careful how you speak. See to it that you’re not only loving, but you’re affectionate too.

And then do not become embittered, angry or impatient with your wife. Those things hurt, cut deep, and last a long, long time. She’s intuitively wired to detect in your voice, your looks, your body posture, everything, if you are at all impatient with her, irritated with her, that’s a gift to you. If you’ll receive it that way, to allow yourself to be corrected by this loving wife that God has given you.

Wives, show fitting submission to your husbands, and you husbands, show loving affection to your wives. And by God’s grace, we’ll partner together in this great gift of Christian marriage in loving fellowship for his glory. Let’s pray.

Our Father, we love you so much, and we see all that has been revealed and all that we’ve learned as such a gracious gift from you. And we ask Father that you would grant us, command what you will, but give what you command. Just provide for us. Help us to grow and learn and never to be intimidated by the by the great high Holy commands that you give us.

Sometimes when we face up to these commands and realize what you’re asking us to do and learn, we could be intimidated by it. It feels like we’re being commanded to climb Mount Everest without arms or legs. And really, in a human sense, that’s what all your commands are, because to obey from the heart, to do your will the way you require, it depends on no human strength. We put faith in you, and you provide for what you command.

 We pray you encourage us and strengthen us and help us to look at our spouses in a whole different way as a result of hearing what you’ve taught us this morning from Colossians 3:18 and 3:19. Encourage our hearts, strengthen us, and help us to rejoice in God honoring marriages. For your glory, we pray. Amen.

1 John 5:1-5

Well, thank you for that beginning to our fellowship tonight and the worship of our Lord. That song prepares us well for our text tonight. Heir of salvation, purchase of God born of his Spirit, washed in his blood. It also holds an arm out to where we’ve just been in Hebrews. All is at rest. I and my Savior, am happy and blessed.

When you’re asked to preach and you’re not in a sequential exposition of a book of the Bible, we can present quite a decision dilemma for you. We have a blank canvas and you don’t know what to choose. You have 66 books and 66 minutes. I think to bring something as worship to God and to feed his people and it’s not for one of options, but as to ask the question, what will be fitting for tonight? And I often think, what does the body need? What does my soul need? What season are we in? What are we going through?

And I had a peek at the calendar and noticed that the next time we’ll be together, Lord willing, is next Lord’s day at 9:00 AM. And we’ll be witnessing some baptisms, hearing a number of people testify to God’s work in their lives, speaking of a time when they were born again, reborn, regenerated and given new life, made a new creation, and they’ve seen their life be transformed by grace and through faith.

This is a good opportunity then to ponder what the new birth is and what it looks like in a life, how it manifests. And I pray that this will be an encouragement to every believer here. It will be a preparation for us to rejoice next week and that our hearts will be primed to praise our God for his immense goodness and kindness to save sinners like you and me.

By the way, if you are here tonight and you’re getting baptized next week and sharing your testimony, you just need to know that on this side of the room, when we’re, as we’re sitting there, our hearts are listening and bursting in agreement that that was us too and we can relate. We were lost. We were dead in sin, unable to please God. And like in quicksand, the harder we tried, the more we sank. And we were like you, helpless to save ourselves.

But God being rich, being abundant, having endless storehouses of mercy, because of his great love, he saved us by his grace and he made us alive. And that’s where all God’s people were. But because of the grace and mercy of God, we can say with the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:11, that we “were washed”, we “were sanctified”, we were “justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”

So, baptism services, listening to testimony after testimony of God’s grace. It is celebratory for certain. And Luke tells us that, that there is great joy in heaven, great joy when a Sinner repents and when we recount that story, but it’s also a time to remember from where we have fallen.

So Revelation 2 would come to mind, right? Revelation 2:5. And to rekindle that love for him that we had at first, which through time and trial and trouble can wane and diminish. So, in this John says in Revelation, in this rekindling of your love, he says in Revelation that you prove to be one who overcomes the world, who overcomes the world.

Which is a good segue into our text for tonight. It’s the same writer of Scripture, the apostle John, but not in Revelation, rather in 1 John, the epistle of 1 John, which is a tender and pastoral letter, tender but, but not soft and sentimental. It’s as it is pastoral, it is polemical.

He protects the flock from confronting error that threatens their joy and assurance. And John has come a long way from his son of thunder nickname, likely due to his fiery and impulsive personality with his brother James, the dynamic duo. I mean, that’s what the word does over time, doesn’t it? It softens hard hearts. It completes what is lacking over time.

And John is writing to churches in Asia Minor, and he has advanced in years and addresses his readers as little children, which is not a condescending term, but rather a tender and affectionate term of spiritual authority and pastoral and shepherding care for them. And so, we’re going to look at a small portion of his letter, 1 John chapter 5.

If you’re not there, chapter 5 and verses 1 through 5, 1 John 5:1 to 5. Let’s read from verse 1, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the One who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments.

“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For everything that has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the overcoming that has overcome the world-our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

Packed into these five verses is a lot of what John has already covered in the first four chapters of his letter. But here he has a new string to his bow and that is to describe the Christian as one who overcomes the world, who overcomes. And it’s a great name for the Christian and overcomer because it sums up a lot in one word, and it distinguishes the saved from the unsaved, the believing from the unbelieving, and even what we once were which was defeated with what we are now, we are victors; once slaves, now free, once a slave to sin, now free to righteousness.

And if you draw your eyes to verse 13 of chapter 5, you’ll see there, John’s purpose in writing. And he writes to believers. “You who believe”, he writes to believers. And he’s writing so that they would not be drowning in a sea of doubt. He writes so that they would know, know that they have eternal life and that know that they are an overcomer, know that they’re in Christ and that they truly belong to him. This is not a, an aloof question. This is something you can know.

So, this letter is to encourage and clarify, not to muddy and confuse. John is endeavoring to assure believers, but in doing that he will inevitably unsettle unbelievers who at times might look similar. They might sound similar, but eventually they prove they are on the outside of the sheepfold, looking in, looking into what they don’t have.

And if that is you, you’ve got to look in, but taste and see and come and eat and drink so that you will never be hungry again, never thirst again, because you’ve embraced the Lord Jesus Christ. So primarily this is to bring assurance, to bring a confidence, not to question and doubt.

Now to know that you have eternal life, you must have been what? There’s something critical at the beginning. You must have been born again. You need new birth to satisfy the purpose statement of 1 John 5:13. We need to know that we have been born again or we cannot know that we have eternal life. We need to know if God has performed the invisible work of the new birth or regeneration, so that we can know that he has granted the eternal gift of everlasting life in him.

This is not about checking to see if you have acquired eternal life. It’s never that. It’s about being assured that God in his abundant kindness, condescension, generosity, grace, love, mercy has in the pre-temporal realm has determined to make you a true worshipper and a child of the living God. In other words, if you just don’t want eternal consequences, you, you might be missing the Savior because eternal life is with and in and for and about the eternal God, not just avoiding wrath. You got to want him to be with him.

So back to John’s point, to know that you have eternal life, you need to know that you’ve been reborn, that you are his. And this is the beauty of the name Renee, which means to be reborn. And it’s from the Latin verb renascor, which is to be reborn or to be born again. And it has a special place in my family, which I can tell you afterwards if you care to know.

But we need to know if we had been born again, because regeneration, being born again, is done on the inside. The Holy Spirit, through the pen of John, helps us in this very passage to know for sure that rebirth has actually happened, and if it has happened, that we can be confident, joyful, and bursting with gratitude in the fact that we have received eternal life.

Amazing reality, amazing; incomprehensible, truly. God doesn’t want us to suffer in constant questioning, constant questioning of what our eternal state will be. He wants us to know. And I know that as I say that with Lord willing, some simplicity and some straightforwardness, there could be a number of hearts here that will be thinking about things.

What about this? What about that? Yeah but, kind of protests in, in your minds. But just stay with me to the end and Lord willing, at the end, by the end you’ll be helped and equipped and settled because that’s what John wants and that’s what the Holy Spirit wants; it’s clarity, not confusion.

So, John is solving the most important question for us in this text. And, and hear that that this is the most important question. Am I born again? Do I have eternal life? Will I be with Christ forever? And look at verse 1, the first half of that verse, we need to just take some special care at the beginning just to settle something that’s going to make the rest of it all make sense.

So verse 1, I’ll read that again, at least the first half. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” And the Greek verb tenses are well reflected here in the English, but it’s so critical that we need to still take some time to highlight these. So believes there; he who believes, everyone who believes in verse 1, this is a present active participle.

Has been born again, is a perfect passive verb and this is most important because if you are presently believing, then something has happened for this to be a reality, that is, that you have been born again. So the perfect passive verb tells us that this past action and then something that is done to you. But it is a past action which has results continuing into the present, namely for one that you believe.

So, we can say then that being born again is a prerequisite to believing, that regeneration precedes faith. God as the initiator in salvation is even more emphatic in the Greek here where, where the of God, as in that initial phrase “has been born of God”, where it says of God, of God is front ended to literally read everyone who is presently believing that Jesus is the Christ, out of God he has been born. And that’s where our assurance starts. It starts right here; out of God he has been born, and if you have been born of God, there are certain results that paint a picture of a person so that you can know that out of God you have been born. Born from above.

The understanding that the new birth begets believing regeneration, preceding believing, regeneration precedes faith is an important order in redemption. It’s important to get this right the the order of salvation known as the Ordo Salutis, and I’m not going to unpack this thoroughly tonight because it’s not John’s primary goal, but I need to state it at the very least.

So, there are eight components of that and you have one component that is pre-temporal. So that is the foreknowledge, predestination, and election. So that’s the pre-temporal component. And then you have four components that have no perceivable time gap, but there is a logical order to them. And this all happens when someone becomes a Christian.

So these four things are the effectual call and regeneration, which is the new birth. And then you have conversion, which is repentance and faith, and then justification, which is a right legal standing. And then adoption being made heirs and made sons. And then you have the rest of your life as a believer. And that those two components are sanctification, perseverance. And then the final process of redemption is completed with glorification at the return of Christ.

So, the part that appears in this verb tense in our text and verse 1 has been born of God, is regeneration. So of those four things that happened at the same time, but in a logical order with no chronological gap. So regeneration and faith happened in the same instant. But the question is, which is the cause and which is the effect? Scripture is clear: the spiritually dead are made alive. Then the alive, the reborn ones, they believe, they love, they obey, they overcome. And that’s what we’re going to see tonight.

But in Ephesians 2, verses 1 and 5 state this clearly. “You were dead in sin”, and “even when you were dead”, God made you alive. And John 3:3 just before the passage that was read earlier. “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” So faith has not unlocked the new birth. The new birth is the cause that results in faith, and in the new birth it is God alone who acts. It is a monergistic work. Then the regenerate person cooperates in in his believing, and even that is a gift, right?

In Ephesians 2:8 and 9 says that even that is a gift. Even the faith we have as a gift. So the order that the new birth precedes faith has profound implications. And here’s a few of those that I’ve found number one, the glory goes to God, critical, the glory goes to God. No one can say I was wiser, more spiritually sensitive, more willing to embrace Christ. It produces humility and worship. So that’s number one, and the glory goes to God.

We need to know that we have been born again or we cannot know that we have eternal life” Reuben Pickering

Number two, it changes how we think about assurance, changes how we think about assurance. The picture of the Christian is evidence of the new birth, not conditions that we must keep performing to stay born again. If it starts with us, we have to maintain it. But if it starts with God, we get to enjoy it and walk in the wonderful fruits, the wonderful results of our regeneration.

Number three, it changes how we evangelize. Unbelief is not a problem of a lack of effort or will to believe. It’s not about convincing the intellect, only. The core to believe is legitimate and vital, and the power to believe is God’s work alone.

 Number four, it implicates sanctification and justification. It implicates sanctification and justification. The same life in the new birth that produces faith, which justifies, is the same life that now produces sanctification. You would know this from the Philippians 1:6 that the work God began, he “will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus”. So, it implicates sanctification along with justification.

Number five, it destroys moralism, destroys moralism. The proceeding of regeneration means that you can’t try harder, be better, or slowly reform yourself, become more morally aligned. That produces usually nice people. But you can’t make yourself a Christian by cleaning yourself up on the outside.

You can’t become a child of God by working on the outside. God must do the work on the inside first. And if God does regenerate you, you will believe, and you will love, and you will obey, and you will overcome. And the first indication I said is worth repeating again, that the glory goes to God. It leaves us in awe of God. It produces the fear of the Lord. It produces wonder of the Lord and worship of him.

That which I could not do on my own, he did, and he determined to do so before I had even a heartbeat to pray. This never becomes old, never becomes routine or stale news for us, but that we would be as thankful and joyful as the day when it all began. I pray that the Lord softens our hearts with this glorious truth.

And to sum it all up, we can see that the new birth is the starting point. For the assured Christian, the new birth happened in the past and it has continuing results or fruit in the present. And this fruit will keep on being apparent until the Lord calls us home or until he returns. The one reborn cannot be unborn, so it has continuing results, which gives us great confidence doesn’t it?

So to answer the question, how can we know that I have eternal life, we need to understand that regeneration is the beginning. If we get that order wrong, what comes next can start to look like to do’s things we have to do rather than evidences or results of what has been done.

So, for the time that remains, we’re going to look at four results of regeneration, four results that give true Christians assurance. Four fruits that flow from the new birth that present a picture of a true Christian, and these all result from being born again.

So the true Christian is number one, born to believe, number two born to love, number three born to obey, and number four born to overcome. And these are all interconnected, interlocking. Something is off if one fruit is missing. And forgive me that all my points sound like a stereotypical tattoo on your bicep: born to believe, born to love, born to overcome. But maybe that’ll make them more memorable. I’m not condoning getting those tattoos, but that would be better than what’s probably out there.

Anyway, if we see these fruits, these results, present in our lives, but not perfectly, but present, increasing in our lives, we could have settled joy. Like John says in, in verse 13. We can know that we have eternal life, and this is the evidence that we need to know, the first evidence, that one has been born of God.

The first result that the new birth has happened is that we are number one, born to believe. And we see this in verse 1a and also in verse 5. So let’s look at those two verses real quick, verse 1a and verse 5. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ.” And then the rhetorical question in verse five, “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

Here we go from total inability to saving ability to believe that Jesus, in Jesus because we are born again. Believing here is certainly focused on the object of our belief, that is Jesus Christ, and it must be the right Christ. It’s not that you have to be a scholar, but your belief must be accurate.

It must be orthodox, it must be doctrinally faithful, that you believe in the historical Jesus of Scripture, the promised seed from Genesis 3:15, the foretold suffering servant from Isaiah 53. And he said, “He would be despised and forsaken of men,” and he was, for he came to his own, and “His own did not receive Him.” He said Jesus would be, “A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;” and he was. And Isaiah said he would not be esteemed, and he was right.

And so, you must believe in this Jesus, the Jesus of Nazareth, the one born of a Virgin Mary in Bethlehem, the one who left the realms of glory and humbled himself, taking the form of his own creation. A man in human flesh to be the perfect expression of the love of God to the world, that he would love to the point of death, even death on a cross. The one that John the Baptist paved the way for and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29.

This Jesus is the teacher of teachers. They marveled at his wisdom that he is the miracle worker, the one who raised Lazarus from the dead. And he was the one who was betrayed, outed for 30 pieces of silver. He was the one who wept for his people, and he sweat drops of blood in the garden, agonizing before the cup of wrath that he was about to drink on behalf of sinners.

This Jesus is the one who hung on the tree like a criminal, though he was the perfect and sinless spotless lamb, he took the crucifixion and the eternal wrath of his father that was due to all of those who would believe on his name. Acts 4:12, “There is salvation in no one else”. Luke is talking about Jesus Christ the Nazarene specifically in that text.”

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” How can we be saved by this Jesus? Because when he gave up his spirit and breathed his last on the cross, he was placed in the grave. But evidently the grave could not hold him in John 10:18 says that Jesus had the authority to lay his life down and to take it up again.

And so, he arose with a mighty triumph, a victor from the dark domain, and he lives forever. And he ascended to heaven and he reigns, and he is now the mediator between God and man. And he is coming back again to set up his kingdom to reign on earth and be with his people forever.

And there’s so much more, so much more that you could say about this Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. And we love to hear about him. Don’t we? Love to hear about this, our Savior. And this is why we love going through Colossians and going through Hebrews right now, because we see Christ exalted and supreme above all.

And Peter got it right with his confession, Matthew 16:16. He said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Which is the same confession here essentially in 1 John 5, that he is the Christ, which is his title of the Davidic line, the anointed king, and then that he is the Son of God, which is his title of eternality and deity.

And you can get it all right, but it’s not a formula to recite. You can get the right Jesus. You must get the right Jesus. But the rest of the picture that John paints, if this isn’t you, that you love God and his children, that you freely obey his commands, and that you overcome the world, then all of this knowledge would be empty knowledge about Jesus Christ.

It would not be a trusting faith in him, knowledge that didn’t save you, but it’s just proof that you rejected the real Jesus when you lie in the grave. Proof that in your heart you wanted your own glory rather than submit to the one who is all glorious.

So, the testimony of Scriptures, don’t miss him. The born-again Christian was born again to believe and to believe trustingly and savingly because that led to love and obedience and overcoming. And one Scottish pastor from the 1800s said to you who do believe, he says this, and I’ve really shortened up this quote, trust me.

But he says this, “To you who do believe. Keep on believing. Believe more and more. Unbelief in you who have believed is aggravated disobedience. And as such, it is especially displeasing to God. It is his pleasure that his Son should be known and trusted and worshipped, loved and honored as he himself would be honored.”

And he continues, “Do not deceive yourselves by imagining that there may be something rather gracious in your doubts and fears, your unsettled and unassured frame of mind, as if it be tokened humility and a low esteem of yourselves. Beware lest God see in it only a low esteem of his Son Jesus Christ.”

When I read that, I was a little taken aback. That’s a take on wavering belief that I wasn’t expecting. He’s saying there is such a person that questions and doubts and thinks they’re ever pondering, humming and hawing is a noble and humble position. When it really could be unbelief and a displeasing to God, low estimation of Christ, the Christ they profess to believe. Put away doubts and fears. Put them away.

The born-again believer was born to believe and to believe boldly, and he perseveringly believes, presently believes, and eternally believes. But if there is a weakness, and sometimes there is there, sometimes there is a weakness of faith or a flakiness of faith. If that is the case, stay close to the body of Christ. Take heart. Keep warm by the fire. We spur one another on, don’t we? That’s what we do when we among each other.

Speaking of the body, the second evidence that one has been born of God, the second result of a new birth is that we are number two, born to love. We are born to love. I see this in verse 1b, second-half of verse 1. It says there, look at it. “And everyone who loves the One who gives new birth loves also the one who has been born of Him.”

So how do we know if we’ve been born again? How do we know if we believe all that internal work starts to appear on the outside? The father who gave us new births articulated in Ephesians 2:1 to 5. We love him because he gave us the greatest gift. And if you say you love the father, then the logic is that love will show up in love for his other children.

You love them because they belong to God. They belong to your father. They received the gift of new life that you didn’t deserve and they don’t deserve. So as recipients of the same grace, as children born into the same family, we love one another.

1 John 4, the previous chapter, you can flip back there if you want to. 1 John 4:11 says, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” And verse 19, “We love, because He first loved us.” Verse 20, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; but the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love the God whom he has not seen. And this is the commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.”

It seems straightforward, doesn’t it? How could we not love others? How could we not extend to others what we have so bountifully received? And it’s not always easy, but the one born of God will prove to love God’s children even when it’s hard, even when it costs you something, even when it humbles you.

If we say we love the begetter, one way we show that is by loving the ones begotten of him. And this is tested often. It’s tested when there is conflict, when there is personal offense, when feelings are paramount and righteousness is disregarded. When someone corrects you, this is tested, but they’re correcting you to bring you closer to God in his ways.

And you got to ask yourself, what is your heart doing in that moment? Does it say, what right does so and so have to think he can come and say that to me? Or is it thankful? Thankful that your brother loves you enough to say the hard things?

How is love for God’s people shown? It speaks the truth, it meets needs, it lifts burdens, it shows the love of God shown in Christ, which is humble and thinks of others as more important than self. The one born of God loves the God who gave new birth, loves the people who also received the new birth.

And John 13:35 says this as well, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” And the link in the chain is tightened here with the next result of the new birth. Because someone might ask, well, how do I really know that I love God’s children?

God’s children are generally nice, so they’re kind of typically easy to love. But how do I really know? And it’s inextricably linked to love for God shown through obedience. Obedience is, is the key.

So, verses 2 and 3 give us this. The third evidence that one has been born of God. The third result that the new birth has taken place, number three is that we’re born to obey, born to obey. Look at verse 2 says, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments.” This is the key, “Are not burdensome.”

We can say then that being born again is a prerequisite to believing, that regeneration precedes faith. God as the initiator in salvation.” Reuben Pickering

If you are born again, you prove that not by your legalistic permissions or prohibitions, either self-imposed or otherwise, but by a newly found love to obey and a newly found power and ability to obey. Obeying is now seen as a privilege and, and, and something to enjoy. It’s a relief, a joy for you, something that is personally preferred to you, to obey.

You don’t seek satisfaction in worldly ways. It’s your trajectory to walk in obedience. Your direction is obedience. And Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” We must keep them, but we will keep them if we have been born again. John 14:15 says that. I don’t think it’s lost on people that the one who loves God shows that by doing what he says.

We perceive that even in our parenting. If you want to show love, you show that in obedience. It’s a repeated refrain in our household. And I remember my mom said something like that around her birthday one year. I would ask her, what would you want for your birthday? And one particular year, I remember the response, she wasn’t interested in any gift. She said just for one day love me by doing what I say, which is a little bit of a reflection on how I was younger, which is kind of tough. It’ll be a lot easier just to go out and buy a gift.

It’s easier to say something, offer a quick transactional thing, but the real test is the unseen, unpraised walk of obedience, the consistent walk. That’s the, that’s the real expression of love. True affections result in true holy living, a transformed life. And I think this is the real heart of the matter here in this sense that it reveals the heart.

What what reveals the true love, true belief, true regeneration is this, that to the one born again, his commands, the Lord’s commands are not burdensome to us. They’re not burdensome. They’re not a burden, they’re not irritating, they’re not frustrating, they’re not restrictive in that we don’t like them, then they’re not impossible.

And this does not mean that we always do them. There’s a way that you’re called to live and there’s a way that you’re called to refrain from living. And, and the narrow way is good for us. We love it, though we don’t walk it perfectly. We love it, but when convicted of sin, we repent, we turn, we delight to walk in the commandments of the Lord because we love them and they are not a burden.

To the believer who finds rest in God alone, his ultimate burden has been lifted and removed. So, the Lord’s commandments become light to him now. Compared to the Pharisees piling on rules, Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” And it’s not that his commandments are weakened or softened or change at all.

 But the one born of God has power over sin through Christ and Spirit powered ability to walk in God’s ways. And on your own time, you need to read Romans 8:1 to 17 about this. It talks about the indwelling Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son. And if you have him by him, you put to death the practices of the body. And so you have life.

You have life. Verse 14, “For as many as are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” Verse 16 therefore, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,” not a mystery. He testifies to us we can know. Galatians 5 tells us to “walk by the Spirit”.

 Ezekiel 36 demonstrates the Spirit’s work to a yet future Israel where he removes the heart of stone and gives them the heart of flesh, and God puts his Spirit in them and causes them to walk in his ways. If that was for Israel, but it is a characteristic understanding of the new covenant, the work of the Spirit in our lives. The Spirit causes us to walk in his ways.

Philippians 2:12 and 13 tells us to work out our salvation, for God is at work in us, to will and to work for his good pleasure. And what is pleasing to God, that we walk in his ways. We walk in his ways. That’s what’s pleasing to him and satisfying to us. And for some reason you might have Colossians 3:18 to 4:1 on your mind. Those commands are not a burden to the born again.

 They are good, as we heard this morning. They’re good. So they’re not a burden, not a taskmaster, but a joy, a relief, a satisfaction, a preference of the one who was born again. And we don’t live them out perfectly, but it sure is a relief and a joy and a satisfaction when we do.

And the psalmist expresses his delight in the Lord, the Lord. And this is not only a respect for the authoritative word that that it is right there. He, he has affection for it. He loves the wisdom, the beauty of it, the precision of righteousness. He loves that.

And the psalmist loves what God says in his word, not the fact that it’s right there. He loves what he says. That if we say we love the word that is shown in doing the word, we can’t have empty words.

The commands of the Lord are not a burden to the born-again believer. He loves to do them. He loves to keep them, loves to observe them, loves to obey them. Not perfection, but a consistent trend of walking in the truth. And why do I keep making that necessary caveat? It’s not to excuse sin, far from it.

But on the heels of a life of faith in Hebrews 11, the pastor assumes there will be stumbling. And you can see that in Hebrews 12 verse 1, while we’re running the race, we had to what? “Lay aside every weight and sin which so easily entangles us.” So, there’s an admission that there will be stumbling, but we’ve got to be trending upwards over the long haul.

The result of the new birth is that we are free to and love to obey. A transformed and transforming life should be apparent. It should be visible. His commands are good and they are life for us and if we stray from them, it is painful because we, we chose what is against our new nature and it does not satisfy. In fact, it breaks your heart and we need to test our heart and ask ourselves and self-examine.

We need to get to a final point here. The fourth evidence of one who was born again, born of God. The fourth result of the new birth is that we are number four, born to overcome, born to overcome. Look at verse 4, “For everything that has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the overcoming that has overcome the world – our faith”.

This verse further explains why the commands of God are not burdensome, for everything that has been born of God overcomes the world and the world being the sum of everything that opposes God. John helps us in chapter 2 verse 16, he says this, that is “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life,” all that is in the world.

And the Christian can be assured that he is born to overcome, born again to have victory, to conquer, this word can mean; to have success over the evil world system and all its lies, all its temptations, all its enticements. You are not a slave to that anymore.

You are not under its grip or its dominion, where you could choose nothing else. You can choose a right way to obey the Lord, and you have been born again to walk a different way. You can walk that different way. Where it says in verse 4, “this is the overcoming”, which could be said, this is the present victory.

And then it says, that has overcome, which is the aorist tense, completed action, that has overcome the world. This is the past victory and the faith there, that is ours is what ties it all together. And it’s applied to us by the Spirit, this victory. By faith we are united with Christ in death, raised with him in newness of life, and in him we have conquered all things.

The one who was born again is united with Christ through faith and shares in his once for all victory over sin and death, which is the second-half of verse 4, has overcome, and also continually shares in daily present overcoming victory, which is the first-half of verse 4. We presently overcome the world.

Life is hard, right? Life is hard, but we are not a defeated people. John 16:33 Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble,” but whatever trouble trial entrenches you’re in right now, Jesus words are for you. He says “take heart” what, “I have overcome the world,” it’s done. The ultimate foe has been conquered. Sin and death and the evil one have been conquered.

By faith that victory, by work of the Spirit is applied to you. You have that victory, it is yours, and the daily battles are able to be won as we rest in the victory that Christ won. We battle from a victorious position, not for a victory, but from a victory.

 And we got to let this be wind in our sails. If you are weary in the battle tonight, let this eternal confidence be a present confidence and a comfort that in Christ we have overcome the world and therefore we can walk in daily victory. John says when you see this in your life, when you see this overcoming and you walk in it, you can know that you have been born again and you can know that you have eternal life. What a gift that God doesn’t leave us guessing.

This is not a comfort nor an assurance for everyone. Some know not the victory. Some feel frustrated, straitjacketed by God’s commands. Some don’t want to love, and it’s not in them to love. Some prove this by, that they don’t have belief and trust in Christ that saves, they, they prove this by their walk. Therefore, their regeneration is genuinely a question mark.

And if that’s you, if you’re aware of that, don’t sit quietly on that. Come to the light so you can be free. Embrace the true Christ and forsake yourself. Free yourself to walk in his ways, to have your burden lifted, your burden of sin gone. You can stand righteous before God.

 Seek him, as Isaiah 55 says, “Seek Yahweh while He may be found; Call upon Him” while you have time. Be desperate. Turn to him, forsake your ways, he says, and he will have compassion, he will have mercy, he will abundantly, utterly, completely pardon.

And when he changes your heart, 1 John 5 is what you will be. You will believe, you will love, you will obey, and you will overcome. To the truly born again, but sometimes faint of heart, tending towards fears and doubts, at times perhaps, foolishly dabbling in the sins of the old self, and wondering if you will again walk what you profess.

Hear this from Jesus. He spoke these words to Peter. But by principle and by the reality of Christ’s constant intercession for his own, you can receive them for yourself. To Luke 22:32, he says, “I have prayed earnestly for you, that your faith may not fail; and once you return, strengthen your brothers”, be effective.

There’s a song that captures some of this says, there’s a, “There’s peace that outlasts darkness, Hope that’s in the blood There’s future grace that’s mine today That Jesus Christ has won So I can face tomorrow For tomorrow’s in your hands All I need, you will provide Just like you always have.” And it says in the chorus, “I’m fighting a battle that You’ve already won No matter what comes my way I will overcome I don’t know what you’re doing” and often we don’t. “I know what you have done And I’m fighting a battle that You’ve already won.”

It was said this morning about a pillow. There’s a pillow that you can lay your head on. You can rest in the finished work of Christ, enjoy the results of the new birth, and worship him because he did it all and he wants you to know and to be assured of that reality, that internal reality.

Let’s pray together. Our Father, we are in awe of the wonder of your salvation that you would cause even some of us to be born again. And there are many hearts here, Father. There are many situations, many varied experiences. I ask that Your Spirit would work wonders among us with precision and power that only he can.

And we thank you, Father, for the new birth. Help us to go from here, walking in step with your Spirit. We pray from a position of victory that we have in Christ by faith that we would live lives this week for your glory. Empower us to this end. We pray in Christ’s name, Amen.

Colossians 3:18-4:1

We’ve been studying Colossians throughout this year, starting in January of this year. We’ve been rolling our way through Colossians, and it had been my intent to finish Colossians by the end of the year. That ain’t going to happen. But we are really enjoying the study, and what we’re learning from the Apostle Paul has just been so, so rich.

We come to, this morning in our study, the first set of relationships in the household code, which is the marital relationship, relationship between husband and wife.

And before we get into the details of that relationship, we will again consider all those household relationships in Colossians 3:18 to 4:1, and this morning cite several general principles that inform them all, cite a specific principle at work in each relationship and then identify what it is that’s undermining the pursuit of husbands and wives in their marital relationship in our own day. What trouble do we face? What temptations are unique to our time, though common to all times? That’s what we’ll spend the latter half of the sermon understanding and covering today.

Let me start by reading the text again, Colossians 3:18 through chapter 4, verse 1. Paul says, “Wives, be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart.

“Slaves in all things obey those who are your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice as men-pleasers, but with integrity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. Serve the Lord Christ, for he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. Masters, show to your slaves what is right and fair, knowing that you too have a master in heaven.”

At the end of the hour last week, you may remember that I asked about the relevance of this household code in our own time. We’re all Christians, so none of us is going to say that these commands are outdated, outmoded, obsolete.

But if we’re honest, and if we look closely at our marriages and consider our lives, our families, our work life, we need to ask a question, and that’s this: Does the way we live belie what we say we believe? Are we more worldly than godly?

Is our faith in Christ, is our recognition, as we’ve been learning throughout Colossians, about the absolute supremacy of Christ, his majesty, his glory, his greatness? Is our rejoicing in the sovereignty of Christ in his Lordship? Are these things matters of daily thought and practice for us, or are they only part of our formal confession?

Another way to ask the question is, do we welcome his Lordship into every one of our relationships, private and public? Do we welcome what some might consider to be an intrusion into our private life, our thoughts, our plans? Or do we embrace that, welcome it, invite it?

In asking the question, we can kind of hear the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ echoing down throughout history. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?” It’s a haunting question, isn’t it?

Something that will strengthen us to do as we say we believe is to understand, really, what Paul is commanding, here, and why he commands it, to understand the good of the command, the wisdom in the command, and then further, in light of the wisdom of God and the goodness of God in his commands, if we know what is at work in our own day, in our own time to undermine our obedience to his commands, we’re going to understand really what are these obstacles the enemy keeps throwing up to thwart our faithfulness and what makes practical obedience so hard, why we keep getting off track.

So I’ve got three points for what is ahead in this hour, starting with the general and moving to the specific. So first couple points: God uses authority to bless us, and God uses authority to train us. He uses authority to bless us and to train us.

And the first two are going to have three sub-points each; and the last main point, which will take most of our time, is this, that Satan opposes authority to destroy us. Satan opposes authority to destroy us.

So first of all, number one, God uses authority to bless us. He uses authority to bless us. And it’s another way of saying God, he is authoritative. He is the creator of all things, after all. And so he is authoritative. What he says goes. How he created the universe, the heavens and the earth, invisible, metaphysical, things that are created, and physical things as well. He created all the laws and the rules that govern all things, physical and metaphysical, material and spiritual, creates all things, and so he is in authority.

But we could see even in the creation of the heavens and the earth that he used that authority to bless the heavens and the earth, to provision it, to form it and fill it, to fill it with all of his goodness.

So three general principles, sub-points underneath this heading that God uses authority to bless us. We’ll start with the first principle: authority and submission, that’s God’s idea, and it’s good. Authority and submission is God’s idea, and it’s good. The concept is good; it can be no other way. By virtue of the creator-creature distinction, God is always in authority over us. We’re always in submission to his authority, full-stop.

But God goes further, and he inserts the principle of authority and submission into the created order. It’s how creation is structured, set up, organized, designed. In the three sets of household relationships, the principle that runs through each set is the outworking of a divinely delegated authority and then a submitting to and obeying the one in charge, the one who is in fact, in each case, a fallible human being.

By God’s good design, though, by his predetermined plan and good intentions of the world, God intended authority to be exercised among us for his glory and for the blessing and benefit. Some have actually used the word flourishing. It’s a good word, too. But this authority brings glory to God, and it brings good to us.

Let me be quick to add this: God’s good purposes in choosing to create and command a hierarchical structure of authority in human relationships, his good purposes are realized and enjoyed if and only if we choose to live in submission to that. Submit and rejoice; rebel and suffer. Those are the choices before us.

Because to defy his order is like defying gravity. You can do it, but it’s going to hurt. Same thing in the relational realm as well. So authority and submission is God’s idea. It’s God’s concept, and it’s a good concept.

Here’s a second principle: Everyone in the world lives under authority. Everyone. Every individual submits. I think that’s beyond dispute, isn’t it? Some people live as if it’s not, but everyone must submit to someone. Everyone must obey someone, live under law and order at some level.

And that is clear in these three sets of relationships. The man who is married, though he has authority over his wife in marriage, presumably he is outside the home of his own father. And while not under the stricture to obey father and mother any longer because he has his own family to tend to, he still has a duty to honor his parents. It’s a lifelong duty. It’s a blessed duty, but it is a lifelong authority over him.

And so if he’s the one in authority in the first set, the marital relationship, even if he has authority in the second set, the parental relationship, he’s also under obligation to the parents who are over him.

We come to the third set of household relationships. And when we do, that’s a set of relationships, there, it’s economical in nature. Even in Paul’s day, most of the men in the church, most of the men reading Colossians 3:18 and 19, they did not hold position of master in the household. Many in the church of that day, they were slaves. Some of them manumitted slaves, some of them hired servants or freed-men, but in the employ of another.

So we all live under authority. Even the people in this passage live under authority. But let’s press the question just a little bit further for the sake of a hypothetical, okay, to consider the relationships in this list.

It is conceivable that one man could be in a place of authority in each relational set. That is if to say, if a man is a husband and a father and a master, then we need to ask the question, does he never have to submit to anyone, but does he only walk around through life with quite a swagger, exercising authority, wielding power? Is he the oppressor in every relationship?

Even that we can say that, no, even if a man is a husband and a father and a master, that he, too, must live under the authority of the state. He’s submissive to governmental authority as Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 and elsewhere describe.

Jesus set forth the principle, it’s repeated in Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17, Luke 20, verse 25; and that principle is “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar and unto God, the thing that are God’s.” So even the husband, the father, the master, must pay his taxes, that is, live under Caesar’s authority.

So the terrifying prospect that there might be some man somewhere under no submission whatsoever, but only wields authority, only issues commands, swaggers through the world with unmitigated power like some emperor, conqueror, suppressor, enslaver, that’s really a bit of a myth.

Okay, let’s scroll this back even further. What about Caesar? Okay, there’s, there’s a man who, husband, father, master, ruler of the known world, what about him? Even Caesar must render unto God the things that are God’s, right?

Jesus set forth the principle to govern all, including the very few on earth like Caesar throughout history. Luke 12:48 says, “‘From everyone who has been given much, much will be required.’” Even Caesar has an account to give, and that’s, I’m setting aside issues of Roman senate and all those issues of history. But even Caesar had to submit. After all, he had a wife to account to as well, didn’t he?

But he’s been given much. If Caesar’s been given, that means he’s received. If he’s received, he’s in a position of submission, dependency. He is not God, and therefore he has an account to give for the stewardship of all that God has given him.

Hard to see, isn’t it, how monarchs, kings, emperors, dictators are able to sleep at night? So as Shakespeare said through King Henry the IV, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Robs him of sleep. Authority and submission, we need to realize, are good. The concept of authority and submission are a good gift of God.

And then, secondly, everyone lives under authority. Everyone. Every single human being lives under authority, even Caesar. Yes, even Donald Trump, even though he finds his ways around. Everybody lives under authority.

Third principle: God delegates authority to us, and he requires us, when I say “us,” I mean humanity, human beings, he requires us to submit to delegated authority, and he does this to reveal things about himself to us and to teach us to trust his authority over us.

I’ll repeat that in case you’re scrawling it down as fast as you can. God delegates authority to us, to human beings, and he requires us to submit to authority that’s delegated to human beings. Yes, we have to submit to fallible human beings. That’s all that there is, fallible human beings. But God delegated this authority and requires submission. So he reveals things about himself to us, and so that we learn from the instruction of that, that we trust his authority over us.

God’s delegation of authority among humanity is neither arbitrary nor oppressive, nor is it, theologically speaking, a response to the Fall, as if the unruliness of human beings in their sins had to come under the firm control of authoritarian hierarchies. So authority and submission wouldn’t be a part of this world if it weren’t for the fall into sin. And so woe is us. Now that we are under sin, we’re also under authoritarian hierarchy of power and authority, and we have to submit to that.

That is not the way God set up the world. Authority and submission to authority are in the original blueprint prior to the Fall. The structure ensures God’s very good created order not only continues to bless his image-bearers, but also inculcates trust in God and his authority for generations of human beings to come. There’s a structure that’s set up and an authority and submission hierarchy so that we’re all learning about God bringing his blessing to us for the future.

And each set of these household relationships has something crucial to teach us about God’s authority, his exercise of sovereign authority. It’s by the exercise of his authority that he communicates blessings of his goodness and love to us, which are first and foremost relational in nature. His blessings and his goodness are not about the stuff that we get from him, but his blessings and his goodness are because of his love for us that’s known in a relationship with him.

And that’s what Satan attacked at the very start. He went after the most vulnerable of the human pair, the woman. Not because she’s less intelligent than Adam, not because she was unequal to Adam, but because she was created second, not first. She was created after Adam had received all the commands verbally from God, and she’s placed into a position to trust even further.

So she’s in this vulnerable position, and Satan goes after the woman to disrupt her trust in God, to drive a wedge between her and her God. We can see in Genesis chapter 3 that Eve took part in the very first gossip session, entertaining devilish slanders against God and his character. She listened to the devil. In fact, the Greek word diabolos means slanderer.

So she’s listening to the devil, which means she’s listening to one who is inherently slanderous. She’s receiving slander. She’s entertaining it. Women, don’t listen to gossip, don’t listen to slanderers, don’t do what Eve did. Eve started to doubt God’s motives, questioned his agenda, began to suspect he isn’t good, but he’s selfish. The modern term is, He’s a narcissist.

So she rebelled against God’s authority. She led her husband into her rebellion as well. By the way, Adam is no victim in this. He is morally responsible, and he, because of his failure, led to the entire race of humanity falling. It’s his responsibility to correct this situation, but he did not. He turned and followed her into sin.

So what is the way back? Is it a constant war between men and women, each one pointing the finger? No, that happened at the very beginning. After God confronted them, they pointed the finger at each other. That is not the way back. The way back is by faith, by trust, salvation by grace through faith in God, by faith in the Christ of God to see the love that God demonstrated toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

That’s the way back, and we continue to walk in that saving faith when we go back to the original design of God and live in the relationships of authority and submission that God set forth in the very beginning.

We can, as those who are saved by God’s grace, as those who have a new nature, who are regenerate, born again, born from above, who have a new spirit within us and the Holy Spirit living within us, by the guidance of God, by his Word, by the leadership of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can and we do live in this pattern.

And as we live according to the pattern that he designed from the very beginning, we rediscover God’s goodness. We receive his blessings. We become, then, conduits. As we learn and receive, we become conduits of his blessing and his goodness and his love to our families. Through our families, our families become conduits of goodness, blessing, and love to many, many others. So what do we do? We “trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey,” right?

So to restate those three general principles: authority is a good gift from God; number two, everyone lives under authority; and number three, God delegates his authority to us. He requires submission to authority to teach us to trust him, to train us to obey him and thereby receive his blessing.

God uses authority to bless us, and God uses authority to train us.” Travis Allen

Now, having established those three general principles, let’s see how they inform the specific principles at work in each set of relationships in the household. Here’s where we come to our second main point: God uses authority to train us. God uses authority to train us.

Keep in mind that each of these human relationships, you might call these horizontally oriented relationships, okay, horizontally because we’re looking at men and women around us. You take children-parents, older-younger, men and women, and just put them all on the same level because that’s horizontal, or humanity interacting with humanity.

And yet in those horizontally oriented relationships, there is a hierarchical rank among human beings. That rank does not imply inequality; it doesn’t imply better or worse. It just implies difference: different rank structures, different roles.

Each one of these, though, and the ones just outlined here, intend to teach us something about God. They’re used to point us upward to our vertically oriented relationship, which is with God and God alone.

Just to state it again, everything on a horizontal level is instructive, is training us to learn about this relationship on the vertical level. And everything we learn and appreciate and love on a vertical level filters down to inform how we treat each other on a horizontal level, too.

So in the first place, Colossians 3:18-19, in the husband-wife relationship, the practice of authority and submission is for the purpose of fellowship. Just write that word fellowship down. That fellowship is fueled by conveying and responding to love. Love is the principle that informs this fellowship.

What’s the purpose? Well, we know from our Bibles that God was portrayed, and he portrayed himself, as husband to Israel. We know from our Bibles Christ is portrayed as the bridegroom of his church, his church who is his bride.

In either case, we see that God has drawn us into fellowship with him for the partnership of exercising a dominion in creation. We are his image-bearers. We exercise dominion in his name, spreading his glory.

So marital relationships, so important, they’re meant to train us to give and receive love, to love and respond to love, to share in a deep and intimate privilege of a loving fellowship.

Secondly, in the parent-child relationship, verses 20 to 21, the practice of authority and submission trains us in discipleship, in discipleship; write down the word discipleship. This is the giving and receiving of instruction and practicing a principle of imitation.

Since God is the Father of us all, we are all his children, and so there is a parental relationship on a horizontal level that trains us to learn about a parental relationship on the vertical level, to learn from God, to heed his teaching, to obey his instructions, to imitate his character and his ways.

And in this practice of discipleship of parent to child, teacher to student, there’s an affection that grows, isn’t there, between student and teacher, a deep affection fostered between children and parents. So little girls love their mothers, little boys love their fathers, look up to them, think fathers and mothers can do no wrong until they become adults themselves, and then they’re like, “Look how you ruined me with all your sin.”

And then they get through that stage, and they realize, when they have children of their own, they learn to be gracious, merciful. They learn to understand that there are no perfect homes, perfect families. The dysfunction began in the Garden, and it’s continued.

Even all of that is intended by a good sovereign God, who decrees all things, so that everything that comes to pass is an out-working of his perfect will. Even in our difficulties, in our homes, all of it is instructive, all of it is teaching us to love and honor, respect, regard, cherish. It’s all instructive in the vertical relationship, isn’t it, teaching us to appreciate a God in whom there is no fault, sin, foolishness at all. He is our Father.

Thirdly, in the master-slave relationship, Colossians 3:22 through 4:1, the practice of authority and submission is for the purpose of a good and noble, productive, fruitful stewardship. So in the first case, fellowship; in the second case discipleship. Here the word is stewardship, so that not just individually but together and in cooperation with each other, we live out a good stewardship before God.

As we learn in our horizontal relationships, we learn about a vertically oriented relationship with God, that God is the master of the household and we are his slaves. Christ is the King of the Kingdom, and we are his citizens. Christ is, you could also say, the commander of the heavenly host, and we are his soldiers, submitting to all of his commands.

The practice of stewardship and the partnership of masters and slaves, governors and citizens, when we pursue our roles within that hierarchy and that structure of authority and submission, we pursue each with a heart to fear the Lord and to please the Lord, to hope to receive his reward and not a paycheck. This trains us to live our lives as a stewardship before God.

Every one of these relationships practiced on the horizontal level teaches us about the vertical level. As we learn to worship and love and appreciate our God on the vertical level, that translates into what we do on the horizontal level. They feed each other. You see that?

So we’re learning a specific principle in each set of household relationships. In the marriage relationship, it’s the principle of loving fellowship. In the parental relationship, it’s the principle of intimate discipleship. And in the economical relationship, it’s that of a productive stewardship.

This has been God’s design for us as his image-bearers since the very beginning, to draw us into loving fellowship and to teach us through an intimate discipleship, to deploy us and send us out to exercise dominion in a productive stewardship.

And at each step God is glorified. And as he’s glorified, we enjoy the blessing of his goodness; and the chief communicable attribute of God, which is his love, is conveyed through us to spread his glory throughout all creation.

That’s been the plan from the start. It’s not changed because of sin. That plan remains. That blueprint is still in place; and now in Christ, God intends to see it through.

And that is why, as we come to this final point, number three, Satan opposes authority to destroy us. That’s why Satan’s attacking the home. His attacks throughout history on Christianity have been to go after the home, to destroy the husband-wife relationship, which then destroys the parental relationship, which then unravels all of society and all of its economy and all of its wealth and all of its prosperity.

Since God uses authority to bless us, to train us, it’s no mystery that Satan is going to do everything he can to oppose and undermine God’s authority, and to try to make principles of authority and submission look utterly ridiculous, or to so pervert them out of shape that they turn into tyranny and seem unreasonable, oppressive, even harmful and dangerous.

When Satan insinuates a suspicion into the husband and wife relationship, when he undermines principles of authority and submission by distorting, subverting, inverting them, he’s attacking the heart of the home, the marriage.

And after that, the other dominoes of human relationship fall one right after the other, disrupt a loving fellowship between a husband and wife, or better, turn them against each other in a perpetual hostility that’s sometimes open warfare, sometimes a cold war. Each generation engages in its own way in the battle of the sexes. And with that loving relationship disrupted by suspicion, destroyed by divorce, the intimate discipleship and the productive stewardship become casualties of war, as we see all around us today.

It’s been going on since the beginning of time, ever since Adam followed after his wife in silence rather than leading his wife by love, by speaking to her, by telling her things, by having a relationship with her, using his words, by engaging with her, loving her, giving her the instruction she needs and the correction she needed.

Instead, Adam kept quiet, followed her, and the rest is history. When God confronted them both, Adam blamed his wife rather than taking personal responsibility for his sins. Eve wasn’t better than Adam. She blamed the serpent, but at least she didn’t throw her husband under the bus.

But that tendency of women bucking authority and yet covering for feckless, disobedient husbands, that tendency of men to passively acquiesce to their wives, the female resistance to authority, and then blaming women when inevitably things go off the rails, that pattern keeps on repeating itself over and over and over.

You can find a biblical example of this, kind of a humorous example, in Esther, the book of Esther, set in the Persian kingdom. The Persian King Ahasuerus wanted to parade his wife Vashti to show off her beauty to his people and his princes. She refused to be gawked at. She didn’t come when she was summoned.

And so foreseeing the implications of her actions, one of his wise men advised the king, “Look, you can’t let that go. Better do something,” “for this day,” in Esther chapter 1, it says, “This day the noble ladies of Persia and Medea who have heard of the Queen’s conduct, they’ll speak in the same way to all the king’s princes, and there will be plenty of contempt and anger.” Another translation says “spite and indignation” or “no end of disrespect and discord.”

You know what they didn’t have in their day that we have in our day that makes this little scenario really, really difficult? Social media. Pull out her phone: Queen Vashti, Hey, ladies.

Strategic, isn’t it, of Satan? Turn the king and queen against each other, turn the nobles and the nobles’ wives against each other; sows no end of disrespect and discord in all of Medea and Persia, that great empire. He creates spite and indignation between the sexes, destroys marriages with contempt and anger. Satan knows that as go the marriages, so go the homes; and as go the homes, so goes the entire kingdom. Well, it’s the same thing, history repeating itself in our own time, is it not?

So instead of following that same pattern of destruction, God tells us through the Apostle Paul, “Wives, be subject to your husbands.” It’s passive voice in its structure, but it’s a reflexive idea, kind of in the middle voice: “Submit yourselves to your husbands.”

In other words, it’s not for you, oh husband, to enforce the submission of your wife with authoritarian dominance. That command is delivered to her by her God. You pray for her, and you make it easy for her to submit to your authority.

Wives, be subject. You submit yourselves to your husband “as is fitting in the Lord.” We’ll talk about that more, what it means to be “fitting in the Lord.” Why would she, why is that fitting?

Verse 19, “Husbands, love your wives.” You want to make it easy for them to cement to your leadership and your authority? Love them. Love them and “do not be embittered against them.” Be patient toward them, kind, gentle. There’s to be loving fellowship, the pursuit of intimate partnership, not hostility, contempt, anger.

In our time, in this modern era, here where we live in the Western world, a social revolution has been underway for about a hundred years now. Some would say longer, but it’s something that has now been identified as what’s called the Great Feminization.

And the thesis of the Great Feminization is about the increasing representation of women throughout all institutions of society. Women have not only achieved parity with men in higher education and academia, but in many white-collar professional fields as well.

And they’ve not only achieved parity, but they have excelled, either to take over many of those fields, or they’re on track to do so in the next decade. It’s an unprecedented moment in Western history, which is acknowledged everywhere, now, sometimes celebrated, sometimes mourned. And the pivot toward female authority and a feminine ethos throughout all the institutions of society is very unlikely to be reversed.

None of this would have happened or could have happened apart from large-scale advances in industry and in technology. So when Rosie the Riveter went to work in the factory in support of the war effort in World War II and used her strong arm and her keen mind to help the Allies win World War II, women learn something from that.

They learned that they can build tanks, airplanes, ships, guns, bombs just as well as men, as they roll through the assembly line. In fact, they learned that they could shoot those guns, drop those bombs, fly those planes, drive those tanks because the technology was an equalizer. It didn’t take great strength to pull a trigger. In fact, I’ll wager that I’ve seen some women way better shots than men.

They also said in those factories and on those assembly lines, they said, You know what? That guy who’s in charge, he’s kind of an idiot. I think I can do the job better. And if it takes more training and more education to make that job my job, I’m going to take advantage of the opportunity.

Feminist voices came alongside them and said, You know what, you can do that and you can make a lot of money, and you don’t have to be saddled any longer with children pulling at your apron strings, holding you back. You can get out there and you can go after it and get it for yourself. Let somebody else take care of the kids. You’ve got a world to conquer.

I want you to know up front, and even though I’m going to say some things that sound hard to hear, this is no screed against women. I love women. I’m married to one. I have two of them in my home or raised in my home. I actually was born from a woman. She’s right over there.

This is no screed. It’s just an acknowledgement of the kind of challenges that we face in trying to put God’s Word into practice in our own time, in our own day. And so I say this with sympathy and a tenderness of heart. You need to understand, do not hear me in any way as demeaning the fairer sex because women are every bit as competent and intelligent and skilled and gifted as men are.

The difference that God wants to make and the distinction he wants to make, he did so by giving men stronger, bigger bone structures and greater strength, and giving women wombs, and giving men more of an aggressive, conquering, truth-seeking, combative spirit; and women more of a nurturing, kind, gentle, compassionate, merciful spirit.

On the whole, in general, he made distinctions among us, and he called it “good.” And the more we see his goodness in our design, the more we rejoice with that goodness and do not demean one another: one sex pointing the finger at the other, one sex fighting against the other. All of us appreciate one another.

But we need to see that the Great Feminization could not have happened without technological advancement because technology is a democratizing force in society; and for all of its practical benefits, there are social costs as well. They’ve shown up in the family. New challenges face us; there’s no going back.

Today’s changes in women’s involvement in the institutions of society, just keep in mind that’s not happening really in the trades, in the blue collar jobs, which remain male-dominated. You don’t see a women’s movement wanting to go dig ditches and saying, Hey, give us our equal rights in the ditch. No, they’ll leave that to the men, happily.

It’s the white-collar jobs, academia, law, law courts, social sciences like sociology, psychology, medicine, journalism, these are all professions that exert the most influence at a top-down level on society, institutions with the most power to enculturate coming generations.

The demographics have shifted quite dramatically in the last fifty years. Numbers of women attending colleges, universities, graduate schools, earning undergraduate and graduate degrees; women are excelling in higher ed. Why is that? Is it because they’re not smart, because they’re being favored?

Everyone in the world lives under authority. Everyone. Every individual submits.” Travis Allen

No. They’re intelligent. To illustrate, in 1970, women earned less than 10% of doctoral degrees in this country, and that number has been steadily rising, finally reaching parity with men in 2005, and then from then on surpassing men in more women receiving doctoral degrees in this country than men. Same phenomenon has been incurring in other Western countries as well.

So these women, gifted, educated with degrees conferred on them, are stepping into the faculty positions now being vacated by the predominantly male members of the baby-boomer generation. As that generation times out, ages out, women step in. Whereas in 1987 less than one-third of higher education faculty were women, today that number is more than 50% and rising.

So from elementary education and secondary education and all the way through university graduate-level education, the numbers of women in education have been on the rise since the 1970s, far outpacing men. In fact, many men are retracting from education all together.

So what’s the problem, you ask, with more women having more opportunity and taking greater advantage? First answer to that question is, well, nothing per se, as long as female advancement in these fields is fair, which is often not, and not a socially engineered advancement of women in these white-collar fields, which it often is.

New York Times journalist Ross Douthat suggested in an interview that women are just out-performing men. And he said to the man he was interviewing, his male guest, he said, “Maybe you should just suck it up and actually compete with women on the ground that we have in the 21st century in America.” Fair.

Helen Andrews, though, in her article on the same subject, noted that suggestion from Ross Douthat and then wrote this:“This is what feminists think happened, but they’re wrong. Feminization is not an organic result of women out-competing men. It is an artificial result of social engineering. And if we take our thumb off the scale, it will collapse within a generation.” End quote.

Affirmative action policies for higher education along with DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion policies, hiring policies in the workplace, enforcing feminine ideals and ethos in the workplace, have all tipped the scales in favor of women, and now institutions of higher learning are predominantly female and so are an increasing number of workplaces.

Affirmative action laws and policies go back to the civil rights campaigns in our recent history. Obviously, much of this started well. Who would argue that the emancipation of slaves is not a good thing? It is a good thing. Women’s suffrage. Desegregation.

But leftist academics, social activists, took advantage of women, weaponizing their compassion to pass family labor laws that sent more women into the workplace in increasing numbers, by securing childcare for them, releasing them of burdens of family, giving employer-funded very generous maternity leave, fighting for the right to abortion, to kill kids that would get in front of their career, to then enforce affirmative action, and then to further weaponize women’s compassion toward gay rights, now trans rights. And the list goes on.

So the second answer to the question, what’s wrong with having more women having more opportunity in white-collar professional fields, considering the implications of increasingly female dominated workplaces, journalism, law, courts, politics, homes, marriages, now churches?

Well, a lot is wrong with that. Again, it’s Helen Andrews who points out that anti-discrimination law requires that every workplace be feminized. She writes this: “Women can sue their bosses for running a workplace that feels like a fraternity house, but men can’t sue when their workplace feels like a Montessori kindergarten. Naturally, employers err on the side of making the office softer.”

That is just an economic and a practical solution on the part of employers because no man, no HR director wants to be responsible for a lawsuit worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or higher against his company. So he caves, or in many cases, an HR director, she caves.

Softer, making the office softer, that doesn’t necessarily mean nicer, more just, fairer, kinder, better. What happens when conflicts arise within the workplace, as they often do? Hard decisions have to be made in the workplace.

Women want decisions to be made collaboratively, rather than the cut-and-thrust of debating ideas, dealing with cold hard facts, stoic analysis. Women would rather there’s a collaborative environment, with everything, every hard truth being encased in a compliment sandwich so that everybody feels affirmed going into the very hard thing and then affirmed coming out of it, protecting feelings, wanting to mitigate risk, avoid any harm, avoid any hurt feelings.

And so if a woman’s feelings get hurt in the workplace, in fact, I see this really everywhere; I’m not saying all women are like this, but this is a tendency. If a woman’s feelings are hurt, she can say that it’s really somebody else’s fault. If I’m hurt, there’s a problem with you. If I feel emotionally disturbed, somebody must have done something.

So in many cases, this woman who’s hurt in the workplace will avoid direct confrontation. She’ll avoid a hard conversation with a co-worker. Instead, she’ll take an indirect approach to her conflict, expressing her anger in gossip, slander, character assassination. She may even file an HR complaint, and get that rival fired. Often that, if it’s a man, often that man is replaced, you guessed it, by one of the growing number of qualified, well-educated female applicants.

And so it continues. The more women in the workplace, the more women in positions of political, journalistic influence, the more feminine traits, tendencies, preferences, priorities set the tone, not only in society writ large, but that filters into schools and all the workplaces, into homes and, yeah, into churches, too.

What are these feminine traits, preferences, tendencies, priorities that set the tone? Sometimes it’s a resistance to plain, direct speech. It could be taking a victim posture: hurt feelings in me mean there’s something to blame in you; resistance to any authority that is non-collaborative or resistance to authority that is direct and truth-seeking, solution oriented, shortest line from point A to point B is a straight line; a bias toward one who seems weaker, who seems marginalized, wanting to pull that person in, make him part of the process.

For example, authors Corey Clark and Bo Winegard cite evidence of how the increased presence of women in higher education changes the entire culture in the academy. Women and men weigh relevance of issues very differently, they say.

They write this: “A 2017 YouGov survey of 2,300 US adults on issues related to free speech and tolerance on college campuses found that,” I’ll give you several things here, “56% of men said that colleges should not protect students from offensive ideas. 64% of women said that they should.

“College campuses are usually the place for putting forth those ideas and then dealing with them through debate. Men say ‘Don’t protect students, teach them.’ Women say, ‘Cover their ears. Cover that person’s mouth.’”

“When presented with a variety of controversial claims made by speakers, for example, ‘Men are better at math,’ ‘All white people are racist,’ ‘Police are justified stopping African Americans at higher rates,’ when presented with a variety of controversial claims made by speakers, a majority of men supported nine of the eleven speakers’ right to speak on campus. A majority of women opposed all eleven speakers’ right to do so. ‘Shut them up. Don’t let them speak.’”

The risk-averse, harm-averse, is that bad? It’s nature, and it’s nature that is really, really good in the home. It’s really good when parenting. It’s really good when a mom has five kids and one is popping off at the mouth, and she says, “Be quiet” and he says, “Why?” and she says, “Because I said so.”

She has shopping to do. She has kids to care for. She has things to take care of. She doesn’t have time to mess around. That kind of silencing is good when those kids are young in the home to learn, to respect mom.

You take it in the workplace, onto the college campus, it’s a different story. Fifty-one percent of men said colleges should not disinvite speakers if students threaten violent protest; 67% of women said they should.

These authors cite survey after survey, study after study. I’m not going to take you through it all, just one more. A 2018 Knight Foundation survey of 4,407 full-time college students, on issues related to free expression on campuses and diversity and inclusion found that 71% of men reported that protecting free speech is more important than promoting an inclusive society; 59% of women said promoting an inclusive society is more important than protecting free speech. It’s getting up at like two-thirds of women saying free speech is less important than inclusion.

Fifty-eight percent of men said it’s never acceptable to shout down speakers, try to prevent them from delivering their remarks; 58% of women said sometimes it’s always acceptable to do that.

Look, that’s enough to illustrate the point. There is a revolution afoot, one that explains really the rise of woke-ism and collectivism and socialism and even Marxist ideas; one that provides evidence that Satan is alive and well in dividing the sexes, which means he’s attacking marriages and dividing homes.

With a greater number of men and women mixing in the workplace, think about that. More wives spending more time away from their husbands: Is it any wonder at rates of adultery are always on the rise, women thinking of their income as theirs, children watching working moms leave the home, wives having other authorities making demands on them, their time, their energy. All the authority of husbands is weakened, attenuated, put in ranking structure with others who command their conscience.

How then do we think that men today are responding to all this? Well, men from the baby-boomer generation already gave up the fight long ago. They didn’t probably even see it coming. They acquiesced, abdicated their authority, and went on passively with the Great Feminization.

And that’s true of the next generation as well, my generation, Gen-Xers, who failed to see the danger. The Gen-Y or millennial generation is now feeling this strain as these women, unbelieving women out there, are flouting their independence.

They’re walking away from domestic duty. They party, vacation with their girlfriends, go dancing at bars and restaurants after work, go out to concerts. They live their best life now away from their husband. Used to be the partying man at the office with all his office buddies. That’s been flipped. Gen-Y men are at home, changing diapers, cooking meals, running kids to and from sports practices, helping kids with homework, putting them to bed at night. It’s a tragic set of affairs. It’s wrecking marriages everywhere.

Gen-Zers have taken notice. An increasing number of Gen-Z men are now growing resentful toward women; and sadly, this bitterness, which is a seething anger, has even entered into the hearts of some young men who enter into Christian churches, including our church, beloved.

Some academics are watching the unfolding of the Great Feminization; they predict that we are going to decline as a society, whether it’s steadily or suddenly, maybe catastrophically, because a female-dominated nation can’t stand up against a China or a Russia or significant Islamic threat that are not female-dominated but are male-dominated.

Others predict an uprising of angry young men tired of women scolding them, ostracizing them, suing them, wagging their finger in their faces, clutching their pearls. And the pendulum seems to, many times these days, be swinging toward a coarser, more caustic, more combative form of manhood that is not only tolerated but is even, by many young men, preferred because at least those men are standing up and doing something and saying something.

All that is happening out there. We as elders, when we see that kind of stuff coming into the church, we guard; we do not want that kind of a spirit infecting the church.

But all that is happening on the horizontal plane. The devil’s tactics are on the horizontal plane, but his strategic aim is vertical, to separate us from our God. If he can turn us against each other on the horizontal level and disrupt the principle of loving fellowship that we practice as among husbands and wives, thwarting our partnership of intimate discipleship with our children, undermining our stewardship together, well, he retards our growth in fellowship and discipleship and stewardship before God. That’s what’s at stake.

Paul says throughout Colossians, “Put your eyes on Christ.” He is supreme over all, and he has power over all. He has power over this cultural moment and every moment that’s passed. He remains Lord, and he remains our Savior. He’s the one who died for all of our sins, cultural things we’ve sinned in, male and female sins.

Whether you have male-oriented sins, female-oriented sins, whatever they are, he died to reconcile you to God. He has given you of his Spirit and his Word so that you can, so that you must, repent of your sins and give yourself to Christ, give yourself to his church, give yourself to one another.

When you “set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on the earth,” you mortify that internal drive towards sin. You put off the old nature and all its sins, and you put on a new man, and you’re being renewed in his image with new hearts and renewing hearts of compassion and kindness and humility and gentleness and patience, as Paul has talked about in Colossians 3, here.

You bear with one another; you graciously forgive one another. You put on love, the perfect bond of unity, and that love is the bond that cements the fellowship of marriage. So in that loving fellowship, you wives “be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” And you husbands, you “love your wives and do not be embittered against them.”

Want to know more about how to do that? Come back next week, and we’ll find out together, shall we? Let’s pray.

Our Father, what can we say but “Help us”? And we know and confess that you have helped us. You have never hidden the truth from us, but you’ve revealed it. You’ve actually printed it in black and white, so we can go and study it and see the grand design, see the blueprints, see the reasoning behind it, see your wisdom and your goodness.

And now we plead for your power. And we ask that you, by the power of the Spirit, by the power of the Word, to shape us, to change us, to renew our minds and transform our lives and transform our homes; that we, Father, would bring glory and honor to you, that husbands and wives would work out that loving fellowship with one another, that they together return and, and exercise that, that intimate discipleship with their kids, raising them in the fear and admonition of the Lord together; and that that family, as it goes out into the world, would execute a productive, fruitful stewardship to your glory and to all human good and flourishing.

We pray, Father, that you would help us and give us great wisdom because we know that we’re fighting against cultural winds. We’re swimming upstream, and we are going to be branded as misogynist and anti-woman and all that stuff. And it’s, we’re going to be very unpopular when we live the way we do and when we speak the way we do.

Brace us for impact. Help us to grow an extra layer or two of skin so that we can stand against the persecutions that we face. And inasmuch as we do receive blowback from the world, let us rejoice because we suffer for your name’s sake.

We pray that you would give us strength to push back and to push forward, not to engage and go out there to fight the cultural battles, but actually to do it right in the heart of the home, where we can affect change, starting with ourselves. Help us, we pray; in Christ’s name, for your glory we pray. Amen.

Hebrews 4:11-13

Hebrews 4:11 to 13, and this comes after that section on entering into his rest. And then he says this, “Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall into the same example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we have an account to give.”

It’s interesting the way a believer and an unbeliever will take the same passage. For a believer, for those who are wanting this exposure to God in his word, this is a comfort. In fact, believers often quote Hebrews 4:12 and 13 as a source of great comfort that God knows us. His word opens us up, reveals everything, and we’re so happy about that. But those who have something to hide, they don’t like this at all.

I had a friend, but I’m teaching him about the omniscience of God and how God knows every thought, every motive, every imagination, everything that he’s thinking. He told me he’s like, yeah, I don’t like that. I don’t like that about God at all. He proved to not be a believer, but at the time he was a professing believer, and he did not like this doctrine of God’s omniscience, that God can see all things, knows all things. He knows your thoughts before you think them. He didn’t like that at all. It made him uncomfortable.

I think there’s a dividing line, and that’s really what this sword does, is it draws a line in the sand. Let’s go through this passage then, because this is how the pastor’s using this whole picture about the piercing gaze of God. Because of the excellence of this rest, we have to be especially careful and mindful and watchful not only about our own lives, but for one another as well. We need to have a loving concern for each other, and we need to be careful, mindful, and watchful. So careful to respect God’s rest, mindful to revere his word, watchful to regard his gaze, his penetrating gaze.

Those are three outline points that I’ll go through them again, but it’s the pastor here trying to call his congregation, his church, to be mindful and careful and watchful. So, number one, be careful to respect God’s rest. Be careful to respect God’s rest. And that’s verse 11. It says, “Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall into the same example of disobedience.”

 So, it’s a restatement of what he wrote in verse 1. He’s recapitulating what he said in verse 1. Therefore, let us fear, lest, we fall short of his rest. And then everything between verse 1 and verse 11 is all about this rest, that there is a present rest for the people of God. As long as it’s called today, get in there, go after it. And so, he comes to the end of that argument and that explanation and he’s saying enter it, be diligent to enter it, make haste to enter it in.

And in both verses, it’s interesting that the pastor includes himself using the first-person plural. He includes himself in the warning. He’s cautioning not just his church, but himself. He’s calling himself to account as well, but also fellow Christians, also any who may be adrift, which is it’s, it’s those people that he’s watching be disturbed and leave the church and go back to the synagogue to avoid persecution or trouble.

It’s those people that are kind of the occasion for what he’s writing. But as he thinks about them, he thinks about himself, thinks about his own heart. He says, you know, what’s in their hearts and what’s filling their hearts with anxiety and the fear that they feel. He’s like, man, I feel that too. I got to admit that what is in them and what’s driving them, there are remnants of that in me too. And so, he includes himself.

He says, therefore let us be diligent, all of us, me too. So, he’s concerned about himself, fellow Christians, but anybody who’s maybe drifting, maybe they’re drifting due to temporary disobedience. Maybe it’s a deeper problem for them that they truly are in a state of unbelief, still. They have a heart of unbelief, a heart of apostasy that is falling away from the living God. So, the pastor encourages one and all to include himself, to be diligent.

The verb there is spoudazō, to make haste. It’s a word that can mean hurry, make haste. But also, it can be used more figuratively to make a really strong effort to be eager, zealous, urgent, and make every possible effort. In his mind, as a pastor and familiar with the Scripture, the record of history for him is exceedingly clear about what happens to those who follow that same pattern of disobedience.

The word pattern there can also be translated as example or model, but used here, used in this negative sense, it refers to something that has to be avoided. It’s an example here of warning, which is to direct personal moral behavior, moral decision making, take moral responsibility and make a change. So be repentant, be thoughtful, be careful.

So as a loving pastor, as I said, his concern isn’t just for himself. It’s, it’s for anyone under his influence. It’s for anyone who would read this letter. And I’m so thankful it’s included in Scripture because this reaches us too, calls us to account.

He wants all of them to hear him, to listen to him, to heed the warnings so that they all move together and enter into the promise of God’s rest together. That’s the heart of a true shepherd, really. He wants to keep the flock together. He wants to hold the whole group together and he says, so we’re going to do this together.

You’re only as fast as your slowest man. And so, we’re going to make sure that if there’s a wounded, we’re going to put them on a litter and put them on a stretcher and you guys carry them, and we’re going to move forward together. But when he sees people peeling off and peeling off and peeling off, he’s concerned, gravely concerned. And he’s trying to convey the same sense of concern to his whole church.

And I hope you are getting that sense too. I hope the word of the living God is penetrating into your hearts so that you don’t just think about me, myself and I. You don’t think about just you and your best religious life now, but you think in terms of my brothers, my sister, the man, the woman to the right, to the left of me. We’re doing this together and we’re going to hold everybody together.

Since he knows people, how people think, informed as he is by all of Scripture, perhaps he knows from the Psalms where like it says Psalm 14, one the “fool says in his heart there is no God.” He understands from the Psalms that there are those who disregard, even though they’re religious on the outside, even though they’re part of the community, but they say in the heart there’s no God to give an account to.

Or Psalm 12, verse 4, “who is Lord over us?” Who’s Lord over my lips, my tongue, the things I say? I’m the master of my fate, captain of my soul. He knows through the study of humanity, by observation, but also through Scripture, that there are some who may be on the way out, and they may be tempted to believe that God can’t see them in the hustle and bustle of the busy city of Rome.

Maybe that God does see things, but he kind of sees things their way. God’s on their side, he understands the pressures that they face and he’s sympathetic and he’s not going to make them continue to meet with this Christian community. After all, it’s hard. And God wants them to earn a good living and have a good family life and keep the family intact and all together.

So, God gets it. There’s an ad campaign, right? He gets us. So, to that mindset, the pastor enters into verses 12 and 13 and he says, second, number two, be mindful to revere God’s word. And you notice verse 12 begins with the word, for, and for means, he’s giving a reason. He’s explaining a reason for making haste, for being diligent to enter God’s rest. Don’t delay for or because. And then it goes into it. “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as a division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

He continues in verse 13, which syntactically or grammatically these two verses are joined together. It’s all of a piece. “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him to whom we have an account to give.”

So, the reason to be diligent, the reason to be careful to respect God’s rest, to repent of any disobedience in order to enter into that rest, what he’s saying here, the reason I want you to be diligent, the reason I want you to be careful and mindful and diligent is because God is going to bring everything to account before the bar of his justice.

That’s what these verses are saying. That’s what this wonderful memory verse that we’ve all memorized from when we were young, Hebrews 4:12. That’s what this memory verse is for, is to make us mindful and aware that God’s word is going to be there at the bar of his justice.

In this verse, verse 12, the pastor is encouraging repentance among his people by focusing on the penetrating power of God’s word. And in verse 13, then he goes on to focus on the piercing scrutiny of God’s gaze. So first his word, what he speaks, and then his gaze, what he sees.

We need to have a loving concern for each other, and we need to be careful, mindful, and watchful.” Travis Allen

Two, you know, anthropomorphic views of how God is speaking, gazing, seeing. But it really refers to the power of God’s word and the omniscience of God’s sight. The verses are connected. They make a single point, but we’ll take them one at a time, starting with the penetrating power of God’s word at verse 12, and we’ll break that verse down into 5 sub-points. Letters A through E. You can see it in your Bibles. This just follows the adjectives that are there.

So, the word of God, letter A, is living. It’s living. That is to say, it is no dead word. It is as alive as the God who speaks it. The word of God sees as he sees. It’s like it’s portrayed here as if it has its own will and life and mind thinking. It’s acting on its own, but it really is him. That’s why it’s living. It sees as he sees. It hears as he hears. It knows as he knows it, as is the word of God. It is as alive as he is because it has life in itself.

In fact, this quality of livingness belongs to God and God alone. God has life in himself. It’s an attribute of his being. It is his essence to exist and to live. And so, the attribute of God’s word as a living word means, it is as God is always existent, immutable, unchanging, spiritual, eternal, infinite, all the rest. Okay, that’s the idea here, that in living it is no dead word. It is as alive as God is.

Letter B, the word of God is bustling, bustling, which is to say it’s active, it’s effective, it’s causative, Since it’s living, the sign of its inherent life is that it moves, it acts, it produces. The sign of its life is that it doesn’t sit still. It kind of reminds me of like in Genesis 1, verse 2, where the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters.

That picture of the Spirit of God hovering is like a mother that’s bustling and hovering over her chicks and taking care of her brood. So that’s the word that’s used in that context as well. So, it’s always attentive, it’s always active, it’s always effectual and causing. It’s moving active, it’s producing, it’s fruitful. Okay, so that’s the idea. The word of God is living and it’s active.

Letter c, the word of God is cutting. And here the pastor employs a word picture that is very familiar with his folks. Obviously, they live in Rome. They’re seeing Roman soldiers, Roman Legionnaires marching all through the city. So, he pictures the word of God as a blade. It’s cutting. It is like the Roman short sword, but it is not a single sided short sword. It is a one with a double edge. So, it’s a more expensive sword and it’s perfect for combat. This Roman short sword was a close quarters weapon. The word here is máchaira.

There’s another word for a sword in scripture in in the Greek New Testament called rhomphaia, A rhomphaia. It’s a big heavy broadsword. And that sword, the rhomphaia, was used by the Roman cavalry to chop down infantry soldiers on the ground. So, they would ride through on their war horse and they would hack at infantry soldiers with this massive broadsword and just crush them. Even if it didn’t hit him with the blade, if it hit with the broadside, it is still knocking people unconscious.

So that’s the rhomphaia. That’s not this word. In fact, the rhomphaia, that’s the sword that comes out of Christ’s mouth in Revelation 19:15 at the second coming in judgement. It is not a, a surgical weapon for close quarters of combat. It is a punishing, crushing instrument of judgement, so it’s very appropriate that that’s what’s coming out of Christ’s mouth as he comes in the second coming in Revelation 19 to judge his enemies.

This sword, the máchaira, is quick on the draw. It’s shorter, about 18 inches, so it’s something that can be drawn very quickly, very easily. It’s up close and personal, a kind of an intimate killing weapon, swift, speedy, and it’s double edged, so it cuts both ways. Yes, it does have an entry wound and often an exit wound because it goes right through, but it does damage with every slice and with every stroke. That’s how he’s picturing the word of God. It is cutting. It is a two-edged sword.

Letter D, the word of God is then penetrating. Penetrating, and the word here can mean either penetrating or piercing. It’s slicing with the skill of like a surgical scalpel or maybe men who like to fish like a filet knife, something that can slice right through and it can “pierce as far as the division of soul and of spirit, of both joints and marrow.”

Now, at this point, just to clear up something, we’re not to understand soul and spirit as two separate, distinct immaterial parts, nor are we to consider them just merely synonyms, that he’s just talking about synonyms, soul, spirit, spirit, soul. What he’s referring to here are two ways of referring to man’s immaterial nature.

So, the spirit is the immaterial aspect of mankind. You could then contrast that with the material aspect, which is the body. It’s a body and spirit. For us to have a spirit makes us soulish beings. It means we are psuche kind of being, soulish creatures.

The animal kingdom does not have a soul in that sense. Do animals have the breath of life? Yes, they do. But do they have a soul? That is, that they have an immaterial part that perceives the world around them and does its processing and thinking through a spirit, using the body to access the world around them? No, they do not.

Angels, on the other hand, purely spirit, wholly immaterial, invisible. They do not have a body through which they perceive the world. They perceive the world however; angels do that kind of thing. It’s a bit of a mystery to us. We because our spirit inhabits a body, uses the body to access the world and makes us souls.

So, when we speak of the soul, sometimes it can be used as a synonym for spirit, just talking about the immaterial part of us. But often times it’s just referring to what we are. We are unique of all God’s creation, being at the pinnacle of God’s created order as mankind being soulish beings, joining basically the material and the immaterial. Heaven to earth joined in mankind. We are created in his image, after all.

But the best way to understand this verse then is to take each one of these genitive expressions separately and each one governed by the same preposition. So, in the expression piercing, and then it says as far as that’s what it says in my Bible, “piercing as far as”; as far as, is the preposition achri. Achri is often translated, until, when it refers to time, so up to a certain specific time.

But when it’s used figuratively, as here, it expresses extent. So as far as or to the point of piercing, to the point of piercing as far as. Piercing to the extent of is what this preposition says. So, piercing as far as and then there are four terms. They’re paired in twos. Piercing as far as the division of soul, as far as the division of spirit, as far as the division of joints, and as far as the division of marrow.

You see what he’s saying? This doesn’t suggest the double-edged sword pierces to divide soul from spirit, because that’s an ontological impossibility. The sword does not divide joints and marrow. That’s kind of biologically ridiculous since the two are never joined anyway. God’s word is like a double-edged sword that penetrates into impenetrable things like soul, like spirit. It penetrates into hidden things, things like joints and things like the marrow within the bone.

In fact, that second pair of terms there, joints and marrow. It provides an illustration for the readers from ordinary life like meal preparation, preparing your chicken and putting it on the table and you use a sharp knife to go in and start to separate the joints, so that you can cut different pieces and put that onto the plate and serve it to your family.

Also, illustration either from ordinary domestic life, meal preparation or ceremonial life like in sacrifice. Whoever has carved an animal knows that joints and marrow are already separate and distinct from each other, so they don’t need to be separated by a sharp knife. They’re already separate; they’re not even joined. But a sharp knife can pierce beneath flesh to reach those hidden structures and separate hidden joints, and then pierce into a hard bone to penetrate and expose that hidden Marrow. Many people make soup of that hidden marrow or use it for bone broth.

So, we understand his meaning here. In the same way that we ourselves can get to the joints in the marrow with a sharp knife. God’s word is like that. It can penetrate and expose and divide what is hidden in the say, the metaphysical realities of the human being.

So, whether metaphysical realities beyond human reach like soul, spirit, to get to divide the thoughts of a spirit, thoughts of a man, or whether he’s talking about physical realities hidden beneath the surface, things like the joints within us that are hidden from sight or inside the bones, the marrow to expose it.

God’s word has power to get to either, to get to both. Nothing is hidden from his penetrating gaze. His word sees into and even cuts into hidden, inaccessible spiritual realms. It can chop us up into bits, limb by limb, and separate us into little bits and pieces at each and every joint. It can cut into hard bone and nothing is so hard that his word is not able to penetrate it and pierce it and reveal it. That’s what’s going on here.

So don’t get caught up in dichotomy and trichotomy views of man and all that kind of, that’s not what’s going on here. It’s not trying to say that there’s, you know, body, soul and spirit. Somebody’s saying, just saying, that the word of God, it can cut into and discern and penetrate into all the matters of spirit, all the matters of soul, the psychosomatic connection of body and spirit together, the soulish aspects of what we are as human beings that are hard to perceive to us. It can also get into hidden things like joints and cut open into bones and even break open hard things, get into the marrow itself. The meat of it, the word of God, is penetrating.

His gaze, God’s, is scrutinizing as he really prepares for the final judgement of each and every soul.” Travis Allen

 Finally, letter E, the word of God is discriminating, discriminating. It’s able to judge what it finds. It doesn’t just expose it and then lay it out. And somebody else has to assess, take it to the lab, put it under a microscope, see what’s going on. Now the word of God can not only cut into and expose and reveal, we’re going to make judgements about it too. Judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

Thoughts is also can be translated deliberations or reflections of the heart. Then the intentions can be expanded into the thinking or the reasoning or the processing of the heart. Again, these are things that God and God alone can see and know. David said in Psalm 139 verse 4, “Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Yahweh, You know it all.”

 The word judge in verse 12, kritikos. We get the word critical from that, but it refers to somebody not, not somebody just hard to be around, critical cantankerous spirit. But it refers to someone who’s able to discern, someone who’s skilled in evaluating and competent to render judgement. And the word of God is certainly that, has that competency and that skill.

And the pastor in this verse has really just stacked these several descriptions, one on top of the other, to illustrate the power of God’s word. It is living, bustling, it’s cutting, penetrating, discriminating.

And as I asked you at the beginning, what is his point? His point is to put anyone who is tempted to disobey and think that they can hide their motives from God, to put them on notice, to warn anyone who seems willing to depart from the fellowship and unbelief and fall into the same pattern that the Jews of the past historically have fallen into.

 I’ve got to think that this pastor, just before writing this letter or maybe even just writing this section, I got to think that he was kind of mindful or maybe even meditating on Psalm 139 because they’re so strikingly similar. Psalm 139, starting in verse 1, “Yahweh, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you understand my thought from afar.”

So, there it is. He’s able to penetrate into the matters of a spirit, to discern his thoughts, his intentions, his ponderings, his ruminating, his reflection, his reasoning, all that God perceives no matter the distance. “You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, You are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there’s a word on my tongue.

“Behold, O Yahweh, You know it all. You’ve enclosed me behind and before, And You put Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It’s too high, I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You’re there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

“If I lift up the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest parts of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will bruise me,’” Other translations say hide me, “‘And the light around me will be night.’” Well, “Even the darkness is not too dark for You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.”

Same concepts, same thinking we find in Hebrews 4:12, and the same view of God in his penetrating word. David’s point of meditating on those truths, comfort, assurance, sets of safety, a sense of protection, a sense of security. How is the pastor then turning the same concepts to provide a warning? He’s saying, look, reflect on Psalm 139. Don’t think you can get away in the streets of Rome. Don’t think you can tuck yourself away and hide in a synagogue and keep your bad motives hidden from the living word of God.

The warning continues then in verse 13, continuing in verse 13. This is all again, as I said, verses 12 and 13 are both connected, but the third point is to be watchful to regard God’s gaze. As I said, be careful to respect God’s rest, point number one; be mindful to revere God’s word, point number two; and then be watchful to regard God’s gaze after he speaks of special revelation as living and active.

 In verse 12, the pastor continues with his warning, saying there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we have an account to give the word of God, living, bustling, cutting, penetrating, discriminating. His gaze is scrutinizing as he really prepares for the final judgement of each and every soul.

Philip Edgecombe Hughes wrote this. He said, “there is not and cannot be any part of reality which is unknown or incomprehensible to him, who is the source of all being and the fount of all knowledge. Every creaturely covering and pretext is stripped away. There is no recess, no dark depth that is not wide open before him.

“his profound and solemn truth is one that man in his fondness does not like to face. It’s damaging to his self-esteem, it destroys his proud pretensions to wisdom and competence, and it discloses the feudal superficiality of all the elaborate defenses which he seeks to erect against God.

“But God sees all things as men never can, in the ultimate light of their undisguised reality. His gaze penetrates beneath the surface and beyond every spacious facade to the radical heart of our being. The gaze of God is universal. He’s able to watch all persons at all times and all places.”

Most interestingly, the pastor moves from verse 12 to 13. And he moves seamlessly from the word of God, which is a spoken thing, to the sight of God, which is a visual thing, what he sees through his omniscient eyes. And so, he’s using both these pictures to tell us, don’t think you can trifle with God.

Again Philip Hughes, “Indeed, a man’s knowledge, even to his own self as faulty and inadequate, and wisdom begins in his recognition of this fact, and in the prayer that God therefore will search him and know him, and reveal to him the true depths of his depravity, and also the wonders of divine grace.

“The man who acknowledges he is now and will be hereafter naked and exposed to the eyes of the one with whom we have to reckon, that the discernment of God is always without error and his judgement righteous and equitable. That is a man standing on the threshold of divine grace. For it is against a background of human guilt and powerlessness that the grace of God, which in Christ brings forgiveness and victory, is most particularly displayed.”

That’s what he wants for his people, that’s what we want for each other as well. As we want to see no one leave God, the source of all blessing, God the one who provides forgiveness, God who gives his grace and victory in Christ, God who is our salvation. Thinking about these thoughts of God’s view, his penetrating word, his omniscient gaze, we the believing, take a lot of comfort in that. In fact, we want more of it, don’t we? So, we pray along with David and with this pastor. “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.”

Let’s pray. Our Father, we do pray that prayer. That is our prayer. And I know that there is a chorus of believers here who would echo it, who pray it often, and who find, even in Hebrews 4:12 and 13, a passage that is written in its context to be a warning to those who are straying, those who are departing, those who, who may indeed even be unbelievers.

Not just succumbing to a temptation, though believers, but even some of them unbelievers, and demonstrating that by departing and departing for good. And so, while this passage and the way the, the pastor uses it, way he uses these, this theology, these concepts, he does provide a warning for his church. And yet the believing see the same warning. And man, we draw near.

We draw near to you, Father, because we want your searching gaze. Psalm 139 is precious to us. Hebrews 4:12 and 13 are precious to us. We do know that there are as you look at our lives and as you know us thoroughly, as nothing is hidden from your sight, we do realize that there are things in our lives that are not pleasing to you, and we want those things rectified as well.

And so, as the pastor moves into the next section about the high priestly ministry of Christ, we once again take great comfort in the fact that what you see and what you expose, you so mercifully intend to deal with.

Our Lord Jesus Christ sees our sin as a malady that he seeks to get rid of, a cancer to cut out and, and destroy. He does not have an anger toward us. Your anger toward our sin has already been dealt with on the cross because of Jesus Christ and there is no wrath remaining for us.

But there are sins that we want to repent of, turn away from. We want you to purge us and turn the fires up as hot as you need to, to cause the dross to rise to the surface. You may scrape it away, as painful as that may be. Father, we do pray that you would search us and know us and try us and see if there had to be any harmful, hurtful way to us. Get rid of that and lead us into the everlasting way. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Colossians 3:18-4:1

Turn in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3 in a very, very important, very practical section we’re coming into, Colossians 3 verse 18 through chapter 4 verse 1.

I do marvel at the versification spread, here. Why chapter 4 verse 1 wasn’t included as verse 26 of chapter 3, I don’t understand that. But nonetheless, we have a versification issue that I’m not going to solve today, but we are going to do an overview sermon for the entire section we’re entering into.

And in the following weeks, we’re going to look more closely at each of the individual stations in life or the circumstances of temporal life that Paul addresses here in these verses. Let’s just begin by reading that section, starting in Colossians 3 verse 18.

“Wives, be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not exasperate your children so that they will not lose heart.

“Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice as men-pleasers, but with integrity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance.

“Serve the Lord Christ. For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. Masters, show to your slaves what is right and fair, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.”

The formal name that’s been given to that section comes from a term coined by Martin Luther in the 16th century. It’s in his Smaller Catechism of 1529. He calls these instructions Die Haustafel, which means the Table of Duties. These are rules that he provides in his Shorter Catechism to govern social relationships.

So he expands the list, but gathers scriptural evidence and brings it to the fore in his catechisms, governing relationships between pastors and church members, between governors and citizens, individual members of households, workers, young people, widows. And all of it, he concludes, is the outworking of neighbor-love: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the outworking of neighbor-love.

There are three pairs of household relationships that Paul covers, as you see there, starting with the most intimate pair, the husband and the wife, and then moving outward in decreasing degrees of intimacy to the parent-child relationship and also the slave-master relationship.

But all three of these relational pairs, the marital, the parental, the economical, these are relationships of the home. They are conducted within the context of the household. Even slavery, slaves, even though they could be bought and sold in the marketplace, they were still in this time, in the first century and really from millennia before that, they were counted as part of the household. They weren’t treated as free independent agents, workers for hire as in today’s marketplace. Slaves were members of the house, members of the home, members of the household.

So to understand these three sets of relationships in a Christian household, wives and husbands, children and fathers, slaves and masters, if there are any slaves in any of your households, bring that to elder attention. We want to talk about that.

But we do need to understand these three pairs of relationships in the household. We need to understand them, first, in their own context. We need to understand these relationships in New Testament times, as they were in New Testament times, before we boil down the principles and port them over to our own times and start applying them.

But the main observation that we need to make right from the start, we have to take note of the governing relationship that transcends and superintends all of our human relationships. It can’t have escaped your notice as we read, but the governing relationship that transcends and superintends all of our human relationships is that that each one of us has with the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s the Lordship of Christ that governs all of our relationships and all of our relationships.

And that’s what Paul, when he summarized all that came before Colossians 3:17, he drew it to this summary. In that verse he said, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name,” that is according to his will, according to his aims, according to his purpose, by his character, “do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,” Yahweh, Jesus. What follows that injunction in these nine verses are eight clear references to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

So guess who it is that is getting into your business? Guess who’s inserting himself into your home life, meddling with how you parent your kids? Guess who’s in the middle of your marriage, interested in how you treat each other? And he’s able also to see the heart.

You say, does the Lord really care about these things? Well, evidently he does. I mean, if he sustains the minutest stuff of matter in the universe, virtually invisible to the human eye, as are the components of atomic particles, if he sustains those things constantly, then, yeah, he cares about you, too.

And he cares about your relationships as well, and he cares about how you treat other people in your life. He’s concerned about seeing your marriage and your family sustained by his grace as well, and he uses you as an agent of his grace within the family.

In fact, the very parts of your body, including your mouth and your tongue and your mind and your heart are all to be instruments of his grace to minister edification and love and care for other people. His grace is not for you to just swallow up and have good feelings. It’s to pass through you, you being a conduit of his grace to other people.

So nothing is off limits to the concerns of the kyrios, the Lord, including how you spend the money that he allows you to earn, including how you use the time that he gives you, including how you breathe the air that he gives you to breathe.

Everything is given to you as a gift of his grace, and he expects a return for the gifts that he gives. Nothing is hidden from his omniscient gaze, including the way you speak to one another, including the thoughts you have in your hearts toward each other. All things fall into the purview of his comprehensive and universal Lordship.

So by virtue of creating it all, by virtue of sustaining it all, he is Lord of all, and he has every right to intrude into what you may regard as your own private life. When you understand the doctrine of divine omniscience, you realize that nothing is really private.

But as we’re going to hear tonight out of Hebrews 4:13, “all things are naked and laid bare before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Your life is not private to him. What you do, he sees. He knows.

None of us would have the privileges of marriage or family or work apart from the free gifts of his grace. And so we as Christians, we’ve been taught, we’ve learned, and we don’t resent his intrusion at all. We don’t even call it an intrusion. We call it care, providential concern, loving affection for us.

That’s how we treat his visitation. That’s how we treat his gaze upon our life. We warm to his omniscient gaze, his penetrating view into our lives, into our hearts. We long for him to know us, to see us thoroughly. In fact, we say with David, “Search me, know my heart; try me, know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me into the way everlasting.” So we don’t call his intrusion into our lives an intrusion. We welcome his presence, welcome it.

So today that’s how I want to enter into this section, with kind of an introductory overview about the Lordship of Christ over our station in life. I want to enter into this with an introductory overview so we can later look at each of the constituent parts within the larger framework.

And my hope is that you see the relevance of this household code, this Haustafel, that you see the relevance to your daily life, and that you rejoice in the Lordship of Jesus Christ over your station, over your household, and that you truly delight in obeying him because obedience to the Lord’s revealed commands in his Word: pure joy. It’s pure joy for the Christian.

Anybody who recoils at the obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ, you’re either not a Christian, or you are malformed as a Christian, and you need to get your heart right and line up with the good use of his authority in your life.

We’re going to conduct our little overview this morning in four stages. So we see the reason in Scripture for the prevalence of the household code because this comes up a few times in our reading. Earlier in Titus, you probably heard very similar instructions from Paul to Titus to the Cretans.

But we want to see the prevalence of the household code, understand its importance in the eyes of God, its relevance today, the excellence of these instructions. And we want all this to encourage our obedience. So if I give you four key words, you can jot these down, then we’ll revisit them: prevalence, relevance, excellence, and obedience. Prevalence, relevance, excellence, and obedience.

As I said, we’ll come back and fill in the details. We’ll start with this one, number one, the prevalence of the household code, the prevalence of the household code.

If you’ve read through the New Testament, especially maybe many of you being familiar with Paul’s epistles, then you know that Colossians 3:18 through chapter 4 verse 1, that’s not the only place in the Bible that we find instructions like those, okay?

Paul wrote a parallel list of instructions in Ephesians 5:22-33, which is, we all know, fuller, more expansive than this one in Colossians. Just as a side note to that, to explain, Paul knew that the Colossians, that they would be able later on to read and benefit not only from the Colossian letter, but also from the Ephesian letter.

Paul wrote both of these letters, Ephesians and Colossians, at the same time. They’re both prison epistles along with Philemon, which is one of the members of the Colossian church; but also he wrote the book of Philippians, also a prison epistle.

He wrote those during his first Roman imprisonment, in both Colossians and Ephesians, Philemon going to Philemon, but Colossians and Ephesians as general epistles to churches. Those were to be circulated throughout churches in Asia Minor.

In fact, there’s a lot of evidence that the letter to the Ephesians was a circular letter. But according to Colossians 4:16, Paul really intended the Ephesian letter to reach the Lycus valley churches, particularly the one of Laodicea, and to Colossae as well.

But we need to ask, why are these commands of Colossians 3:18-4:1, why are they shorter than we find in the letter to the Ephesians? Why do they come across with this kind of staccato-like, military-sounding voice of command?

Well, Paul knows first of all that the Colossians can fill in the details later, so he’s not worried about their, their needing to expand on what he’s teaching and what he’s instructing right now.

For now, though, his most pressing need in writing the Colossian letter is to confront the false teachers and their false teaching that is destabilizing the church. And so he gets right to the point.

But back to our larger concern about the prevalence of the household code in Scripture. It’s due to the practicality of all true religion. That is to say that orthodoxy is not known only by our grand doctrines, our summaries, our creeds, our confessions. Otherwise, why wouldn’t God just send an angel to recite creeds from the skies, just shout down doctrines, doctrinal truths, propositional truths?

Those things are important. The doctrines are beautiful. There’s a beauty in the theological explanation and understanding, a satisfaction to our mind and our hearts, to understand fully what the Bible teaches in what it says.

But in its effects, in how it affects the mundane affairs of its people, orthodoxy has to be manifest in a transformed life. That is to say, all of theology, if it’s true theology, all theology is practical, all theology is to be put into use.

So Paul intends the household code to take this high Christology, the supremacy of Christ, to take these doctrines into the home and into the home; first, take it into the family, into the marriage, into the economy of the household. Theology, yes, it’s glorious on its own, and yet God is pleased to glorify himself when truth governs the church and is practiced by his people, starting first and foremost in the home.

When Paul instructed his apostolic delegate Titus about how to address the unruliness of the Cretans, an unruliness in a character that was legendary in the ancient world, I mean, that’s pretty bad. I can tell you, though, that when I have travelled to other countries, the sins of our own country are also legendary in the same way. Hollywood has seen fit to broadcast our sins everywhere.

Nonetheless, the Cretans, legendary in their own time, Paul needed to command Titus to establish order in the churches by speaking the things which are proper for sound doctrine. And you heard over and over, he said, “Exhort them, reprove them.” In fact, “Reprove them strongly, severely.” Very bold charge to this young pastor to go in and deal with Cretan disobedience.

As you heard in Titus chapter 2 verses 1 to 10, he set forth commands that were very specific to every demographic in the church: older men, older women, younger women, younger men, slaves. All of them were to be commanded according to their station.

But these household codes are not unique just to Paul, as if this were just his axe to grind. Peter, too, also in a rather long section of his first epistle, chapter 2 verse 13 through chapter 3 verse 7, Peter commands Christians to keep their conduct excellent among the Gentiles, and his intent in their excellent conduct is to pre-empt any unjust slander because it’s overcome with good works.

He also wants their conduct to be excellent in good works as a testimony on Judgment Day, a testimony that will cause believers on Judgment Day to rejoice and glorify God because of what they have seen produced in them, but also is going to provide prosecutorial evidence to condemn unbelievers because they saw those good works, too, and did not repent.

Your day-to-day, your thought life, how you live, what you speak, what you do with your time, how you spend your money, how you, how you conduct yourself in your home and in your workplace, you know what, beloved? It matters. It really does. It matters.

What you listen to, what you watch, what you entertain yourself with, how you pass the time, what you choose to prioritize in your life: it matters. It’s being watched by God, yes, but also by the holy angels, who see your life; by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not only your great substitutionary atoning sacrifice, but he’s also your great high priest. Don’t grieve him by the way you live, by how you think. “Grieve not the Holy Spirit,” Paul says in Ephesians chapter 5. Don’t grieve him, either.

But you know who else is watching your life apart from the holy Trinity, the holy angels? Believers are watching your life. Is your life an encouragement to them? What about those believers who are most intimate to you, maybe who are married to you? Those believers who are your offspring, what about them? What do they see? What about the believers in the church, who are encouraged by your presence or discouraged by your absence?

What about the unbelieving in your life, whether they’re unbelieving in your home or in your extended family, or those who are your friends or coworkers? What do they see? “Keep your conduct excellent among the Gentiles,” he says.

God’s concern begins with domestic excellence, and his concern for this domestic excellence in the behavior of his people, it’s not only a New Testament concern. As we know, it spans the entirety of Scripture.

As far back as the earliest chapters of Genesis, we see the first institution God created was the family. It started with the progenitors of every human family, Adam and Eve. He could have just made one and then hatched everybody else. He didn’t. He made two, male and female, brought them together, had them procreate and bring out the offspring of the human race.

What was his design? To create the very first unit, the most fundamental, foundational unit of social structure: the family. And that’s been the case ever since, even in our world that tries to deny the importance of the family and the husband-wife relationship and tries to redefine male, female, redefine mother, father, deny that those things exist. Still, it takes a male and a female to produce another offspring. They can never get away from ontology and biology.

Nevertheless, we come to Adam and Eve, and we see the guilt of Adam’s sin, called original sin, imputed to all of Adam’s seed. And so the members of Adam’s race are all born in sin. But even so, even in the curse, going back to Genesis 3, we see the consequence of sin. God cursed Adam, cursed Eve, and also cursed the serpent.

And it’s in the curse on the serpent that God’s interest in the family shows up yet again. Genesis 3:15, God says, “‘I will put enmity between you and the woman.’” He’s saying this to the serpent, who is the devil himself. “‘And I’ll put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.’”

What is that, but again an interest in family and seeing and predicting a conflict that would exist perpetually between two different kinds of families on the earth.

The consequence of the rebellion of our first parents has affected every individual and family, and most immediately and tragically, starting with Adam and Eve’s own family, as Cain murdered his brother Abel.

It’s the Lordship of Christ that governs all of our relationships and all of our relationships.” Travis Allen

Hope was restored. God granted Adam and Eve, Seth, “gift of God.” And in Seth’s line, “Men began to call on the name of Yahweh.” That is, they became worshippers. They were believers. They heard Adam and Eve’s gospel, a gospel that they heard from God in the curse on the serpent in Genesis 3:15.

The consequence of that rebellion is severe, stark, and it’s manifest all through the pages of Scripture. But if we scroll ahead to the Exodus, we see again God’s interest in the family as Israel eats the Passover meal in Egypt, sacrificing one lamb per household; in the Law of Moses through the instructions that are passed from generation to generation through the household.

Moses’ final sermon in Deuteronomy makes it very clear what has to be at the heart of every home; and you know this. Deuteronomy chapter 6, “Hear, O Israel, Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one.” That term for, one, ehad, has to do with an essence; not an essence that’s divided and made up of parts, but an essence that is singular. And thus he is spiritual and invisible. His existence is of himself, and it is his essence to exist. He is the living and true God. There is so much in that proposition, “Yahweh is one.”

But immediately, that’s to be lived out. How is it to be lived out? Moses says, “‘You shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.’” Pretty comprehensive. No other loves are to rival the love you have for God.

“‘These words which I’m commanding you today shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them,’” here it is, “‘you shall teach them diligently to your household, to your sons, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up.

“‘Bind them as a sign on your hand. They should be as phylacteries between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.’” Your individual houses, but collectively in the gates of your town and your city, let your town be known by my Word.

I’m not going to take you through every single passage, but there’s a very real sense in which the rise and fall of Israel and the entire history of Israel with all its successes, all of its failures, it has to do with the devotion of Israel’s households, the lack of devotion to the love of God, obedience to God, faith in God.

After God established Israel in the Promised Land, after he established the Davidic dynasty, there was a tragic fall of Israel as we see portrayed in Scripture, recorded in Scripture, their fall into unbelief and idolatry and rebellion, swallowed by this predicted exile, not just predictable because of the consequences of sin, but because God actually sent his prophets to tell them. He’s predicting, unless you repent, I’m driving you out of this land. Even in the predicted exile, God promised restoration, gave them hope even in the midst of words of judgment.

But what had happened to the people? In no small measure, the household wasn’t attended to. Those who were to lead in the household, they didn’t do their job. And if they didn’t do their job as leaders in their own households, well, you know where else they failed to lead? In the tribe and in the nation, in the kingdom itself.

Want to see where a nation goes? Look at the households, look at the land. How are kids being raised? How are they being reared? How are they being brought up? Is it to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength? Is it to guard and revere his Word? Is it to be attentive with their time and their energy, to listen to his Word, to take it in, to learn it, to grow and change?

We get insight into the sad state of affairs in Israel, the abysmally low ebb of spirituality, which was barely left at a flicker of fidelity to the truth, when we come to the final prophetic word of God in the Old Testament, which is found in Malachi, in fact, the very last verses of Malachi’s prophecy.

It’s got hope, but it also demonstrates once again the prevalence of concern for domestic affairs. Remember Malachi 4 verse 4, “Remember the law of Moses, my servant, even the statutes and the judgments which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel.”

You say, Oh, you’re preaching law; you’re preaching legalism. What’d I just read? “Love the Lord your God.” What does love indicate? It indicates a heart that’s rightly aligned to God, which demands grace, doesn’t it?

“Remember the law of Moses, my servant, even the statutes, the judgments, like I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel.” Those are good commandments, good statutes, filled with wisdom, joy in rejoicing in the obedience and the practice of them.

And when that blessing falls from on high because God loves you and loves your life, and you’ve been walking according to his Word, and he’s pleased with all those who fear the Lord, you know what comes then? Gratitude. And that gratitude leads to even deeper affection and joy and love that you pass on to your family.

So Malachi says, “Behold, I’m going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of Yahweh, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land, devoting it to destruction.”

After that, the light of divine prophecy goes dark for four hundred years. And the message? Listen to my prophets, return to Moses. Heed God’s prevailing concern for domestic affairs, household fidelity, fathers turning to their children; their sons, their daughters and children turning to their fathers for honor, respect, regard, learning. Believe God, trust him, worship him in the obedience of the faith.

But it begins first in the family. When Christ arrived on the scene, we know the story, he didn’t beam down from heaven. He didn’t descend on a chariot, riding the shekinah glory of God, and land in Israel and hop off the chariot.

No, he entered by a miraculous conception as the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, caused the Virgin Mary to conceive in her womb in a miraculous way, a miracle that was hidden from sight, that passes by virtually without notice to anyone in the public.

And then he’s born in a natural, normal human way. He’s raised in a normal human family. He’s subjected to the mundane experiences of life in a normal home. You know the final summary of Jesus’ early life before transitioning into his public ministry life? Luke writes this in Luke 2:51, that he went down from the temple with his parents, down from Jerusalem. He went with his parents, “he came to Nazareth and he continued in subjection to them.” “Children, obey your parents” is illustrated in the life of our Lord.

I’m going to skip over much of what we could say, but just suffice it to say that in making the point about God’s concern for the household, you need to understand God would have true religion to be lived out in the intimate setting of the family, in the mundane, common issues of everyday life.

Domestic affairs matter to God, and they should matter to us, too, because this is where true faith is tested. This is where your profession of faith is proven, shown.

Oh, there are many who want to do great things for God, conquer great lands, win everybody in India for the gospel. What they have a real trouble doing is loving their wife every single day and raising their kids in the fear and admonition of the Lord every single day, and a wife showing loving devotion and obedience and submission to her husband, and children honoring father and mother and obeying their commands.

You want to please the Lord? You want to do great things for God? Do it there. Do it there. It is a great joy to live out his commands in the common, in the every day, fidelity in the small things in life, things that only God sees, things that aren’t posted on the Internet, that will not show up on a YouTube page, that will not be the subject of any influencer or anybody who’s going somewhere in life, in politics.

Quiet, humble obedience, day after day, hour after hour, sometimes minute by minute, that’s where it matters. That’s where the Christian faith is lived out.

And so it’s no coincidence, is it, when assigning men to the office of overseer, elder, pastor, a church must examine a man’s home life, his household conduct. 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1 one which we read earlier: “For if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?” Indeed!

The same Apostle who wrote that is simply following the consistent testimony of all of Scripture for all of time: God will have his true religion lived out in the household. He will have it lived out before the watching eyes of the next generation, the impressionable eyes of our children, our grandchildren. What are they seeing? What are they hearing? What do they observe?

This is, incidentally, what connects these verses, this household table, back to Colossians 3 verses 1 and 2. We must “keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” We have to “set our mind on the things above, not the things that are on the earth.”

How do we do that? Day by day in the household, day by day in the domestic affairs of life shared between wives and husbands, children and fathers, slaves and masters.

Now some today think that Paul has borrowed this household code and others like it from Greco-Roman teaching, philosophy, what was common in the culture. And it was common in the culture to talk about these things.

But they think that Paul took these household codes from the culture, and he Christianized it and repurposed it. But essentially, he’s writing this whole section as an accommodation to the culture. And if that is true, we’ve got serious implications for the relevance of this section to our daily life. And in fact, that’s how quite a few, I’d say the majority of professing Christians, treat these passages, as irrelevant to their daily life. I hope that’s not us, right?

But let us consider secondly, number two, the relevance of the household code. The relevance. So we talked about the prevalence of the household code. Now the relevance of the household code.

It is true, you do find these same pairings in Aristotle, in his work on politics. You can find similar household codes in the works of Seneca, Dionysius of Halicarnassus. You find it among Hellenistic Jewish writers like Philo, Josephus.

All of them use the same pairings that you find here in Paul: husband-wife, father-child, master-slave. Why is that? Because that’s the household, because that’s normal. That’s life. It’s not some big surprise.

But as some believe, they believe that similarity means that Paul has borrowed. And they always give preference to the culture around Paul, not to Paul. They don’t say the culture borrowed from Paul. They say Paul borrowed from the culture, and then they proceed to suggest reasons why.

A popular view is that Paul borrowed these forms and follows the same structure as the culture to kind of allay the suspicions of the culture. That is, he needed to assure the culture around him and all these pagan places that he visited, he needed to assure them that Christianity is not a revolutionary movement.

It’s not going to upend society, but it shares the common concern, just as they do, for family, to see family as a stabilizing social force, to reinforce the social fabric, contribute to the civic good. Paul said basic, according to his view, Paul wants to agree with that. He wants his people, his churches to show their agreement to that. And so he writes these instructions.

Now, where would anybody get the idea that Christianity is a revolutionary force in society? Well, unbelieving Jews perpetrated that lie to justify crucifying Jesus. He’s flouting Moses, he’s turning everything upside down. He’s telling people he’s going to destroy the temple. He’s a social revolutionary; we need to put him to death.

Then they continue to perpetrate that lie to justify persecuting the early Christians, continue to propagate the view these Christians would turn the world upside down with their teaching. That’s exactly what the Jews said in Thessalonica, Acts 17 verse 6.

So as some believe, Paul was trying in his letters to tread lightly so he could assure the Gentiles against the accusations of the Jews. He could assure them that this new movement is very pro-family. We vote the right direction. We vote for family values.

Also according to this view is that there is in one of Paul’s earliest epistles, the letter to the Galatians, liberal scholars view the letter to the Galatians as one that represents in Paul the purer, far more primitive form of Christianity. In fact, they believe that Colossians, Ephesians, these are spurious in their authorship, that it’s not known who actually wrote them, and they certainly don’t believe it’s Paul.

But they believe Galatians, far purer, primitive form of Christianity, that Paul indeed had set forth a revolutionary principle, one that promoted such a radical equality, egalitarianism, would upend all the patriarchal structure of the ancient world in order to usher in a far more enlightened religion.

Paul was ahead of his time. It couldn’t be accomplished in those ignorant, dark days. It awaited for, well, the enlightenment, and liberalism after that. What is this radical principle they’re referring to? Well, Galatians 3:28, that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free man, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.”

So they say, reading into the Apostle a kind of their own enlightenment presuppositions and their own modern radical egalitarianism, they see Paul in that verse banishing all social distinctions, erasing all social hierarchies, just erasing it, saying this whole authority structure of authority and submission in the home, that is passé, for “you are all one in Christ.”

So he is advocating, they say, in this pure form of Christianity and in the early epistle, unadulterated by additions from other scribes, that Paul is trying to reorder the home, society, and state in kind of a flattened-out form of a radical egalitarianism and equality. Nobody’s in charge, everybody’s in charge. “We’re all one in Christ.”

Theological, social liberals today, evangelical feminists of today, all see Galatians 3:22 as a paradigmatic text. It’s kind of a new hermeneutical lens through which they are going to compare every other related concept in Scripture. All these household codes are compared and run through the grid of Galatians 3:28. And so they say Paul actually is a revolutionary.

Just to show you how this works, using Galatians 3:28 as their hermeneutical standard, they believe, like what it says in Ephesians 5:21 that’s written just before the household code in Ephesians 5:22-33; but in verse 21 Paul says, “Submit to one another in the fear of Christ,” and remember after that comes wives submission to the husband, husbands love the wives and so on and so forth.

They think that that mutual submission means that sometimes wives submit to their husbands, but also husbands submit to their wives. Sometimes men lead in the home, and sometimes women lead in the home. That’s been taught for fifty years at Fuller Theological Seminary, the flagship evangelical seminary, and many other seminaries as well. So it’s really a free-for-all with leadership and submission.

And so they say when Paul is here addressing these household codes, such as we find in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5, he’s really kind of just being shrewd, wise as a serpent. He’s being calculating.

He just wants to see the Colossians and the Ephesians kind of give no assent to the sensitivities and the sensibilities of the unenlightened dark, pagan culture and pagan mind, basically telling them, Look, listen, church in Colossae, church in Ephesus, guys, look, we know that none of these categories matter any longer because in Christ it’s all the same. We’re all equal. There is no distinction. There is no authority-submission thing. It’s all flattened out, so we all submit to one another, and everybody leads and everybody follows, and it’s all one big happy, chaotic mess.

But lest we make these pagans suspicious, lest we offend their sensibilities and lose a hearing for the gospel, just go with it. Just conduct yourselves within the established social norms for now.

That view leads to the kind of scholarship that promotes what has come to be known as, maybe you’ve heard this term before, a “redemptive hermeneutic,” which kind of sets the course of the culture on a trajectory, they say, toward the end of slavery. Because after all, slavery is written about in the passage we just read. And we’ll talk about what Paul is saying and not saying in this section on slavery.

But they say this redemptive hermeneutic sets a trajectory in the Scripture toward the end of slavery, but also toward the end of male headship in the marriage and the end of female submission in the marriage, and really any restrictions on roles in life and culture and society at all.

By that same logic, using and applying this same redemptive hermeneutic, those who reject the Bible’s ban on homosexuality and promote gay marriage, they have followed that same trajectory, followed that same hermeneutic. Look, if the Bible was wrong on slavery and it was wrong on male-female relationships, it’s probably wrong on marriage too.

So it’s been said Paul is not perpetuating the old male-authority model of an unenlightened culture. Men in charge of households, how barbaric; ruling over wives, children, slaves, as if this white male patriarchy is condoned, ratified by Scripture. No, they say he was shrewd. He knew that the fledgling Christian movement would fail if it was treated with suspicion as some kind of a revolutionary movement.

So according to this view, as a strategy for longevity and even as an evangelistic approach, Paul’s, according to them, saying, Share the gospel but live by the norms of the culture. Even though you don’t agree with it, even though we’ll do away with it one day, leave the emancipation of slaves and women to future generations of more enlightened Christians. That’s the idea.

What do we make all that? What do we make of all that? Is this whole section irrelevant? Should we see the household table is no longer relevant as, as being kind of formally or maybe informally revoked, perhaps outdated, outmoded, rendered to obsolescence?

Now it is true, as I mentioned earlier, that the household codes are found in Greco, Roman, Hellenistic, Jewish sources. However, as important as it is to see the similarities, that there are pairs, wives-husbands, children-parents, slaves-masters, we see those similarities between the codes, it’s far more important, far more relevant, to see the differences between them.

The institution of family as the basic unit of the society. God did that, he made that.” Travis Allen

It’s also true that Jews and pagans alike, they did see Christianity as revolutionary. But the real revolution was not in maintaining these role distinctions. It wasn’t in calling a man a man and calling a woman a woman. It wasn’t, that wasn’t the problem. That wasn’t the revolutionary thing.

The real revolution is, is the gospel itself, that God would send his son to take on human flesh and redeem a people for himself. That’s revolutionary.

Maintaining structures of relationship, authority, submission, that’s not revolutionary, and that’s not what Christianity was doing. That promotes social order by adhering to God’s good design. It’s his institution after all. And whatever is said in the pagan culture to maintain that order, that’s just self-preservation for any culture, any society.

But that idea started with God, the institution of family as the basic unit of the society. God did that, he made that. That’s not new to Aristotle. On that, on the social structure, the good of social order, the good of the family, on that, the world of that time and Christianity shared common ground. How I wish that we would return to that today.

If anyone at that time was promoting revolution, it was the false teachers, who really took bits of Christian truth and syncretized them with their pagan background, pagan error, philosophy.

And they promised everyone to liberate the individual and break away from social norms, even to buck the trends and the traditional roles of male and female and call it Christian. Really, what was in these false teachers was a spirit of self-will and anarchy, and Paul is trying to buttress the church against them.

If anything cast Christianity as revolutionary, it was its radical difference in the household codes and what was driving obedience to the household codes. And by this we see the excellence that was revealed in the biblical household codes over and against all else in culture and society.

So we come to a third point, number three, the excellence of the household code. The excellence of the household code. In trying to discover the origins of the household code and looking into the historical background of the adjacent writings of the ancient world, some do find similarities and interpret those similarities as sameness.

But that’s not true. If you look more closely, and you reason from faith with a view to obey what’s written in Scripture, we see differences that really do demonstrate the excellence of the Christian household, the wisdom of God’s revelation, and how he instructs us, and how he motivates us, how he invites us to participate in the truth, to obey it, to practice it in the most intimate setting, which is the domestic life.

Several points of excellence distinguish the Christian household over the non-Christian household. I’m going to give you five of these. First, we’re motivated to obey by the good governance of the Lord. We’re motivated to obey by the good governance of the Lord.

What is governing us is not what we passively observe in nature, which is what the philosophers were doing. It’s not discovered by natural observation, what’s been reasoned out from nature. That’s what you’re going to find in Aristotle, Seneca, and all those other philosophers.

What governs the Christian is an external authority, but not an impersonal authority like nature is. What governs the Christian, his authority is a personal authority. It’s one with whom we have a relationship, he who is called the Lord. In him we exist, by him we have life, and through him we’re reconciled to God.

And no doubt you noticed when we read the text how many times Paul refers, to the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, the Lord, eight times in nine verses. What’s motivating our obedience is in reference to the Lord Christ, which puts our obedience and our motivation for doing what’s written here on a plane far above any other philosophy and religion ever known to man because it’s revealed by God.

Peter O’Brien says, “The commands are furnished with the motivation in the Lord, and so the readers are admonished as is proper in the Lord, verse 18; and “for this is pleasing in the Lord,” verse 20. Paul reminds them of “the fear of the Lord,” verse 22. Their conduct is regarded as “done for the Lord,” verse 23. References made to the Lord’s judgment, verses 24, 25, chapter 4 verse 1, while they’re admonished to “serve the Lord Christ,” chapter 3 verse 24.

Over and over, everything we do is in reference to the Lord. It’s a vertical thing for us, not a horizontal thing. Paul is appealing to the Lordship of Christ as the motivation for obeying the household code, and the excellence of the personal, omniscient governance over the individual’s behavior within households.

Man, that can’t be overstated. When Mom tells you to clean your room, young person, and then she goes off for a shopping trip or to run some errands, you know what governs your heart in that moment? The fear of the Lord, or the desire to do whatever you want. And it doesn’t change all through your life. That’s always going to be the issue. That far exceeds any written law code, any law written to man. If it’s from the heart, that far exceeds.

Second, we’re motivated to obey by the sovereignty of the Lord, by the sovereignty of the Lord. In the Greco-Roman mind, what motivated the adherence to household codes, it’s kind of just altruistic, what nature reveals and what therefore is most fitting.

F. F. Bruce writes this, he says, “If the Stoic disciple,” which had their own code like this, but “if the Stoic disciple asked why he should behave in a particular way, his teacher would no doubt tell him it was fitting because it was in conformity with nature. When a Christian convert asked the same question, he was told that such behavior was fitting in the Lord.”

We wish people today would abandon their sophisticated form of cultural suicide, and at least return to what nature itself teaches them; that they distinguish between men and women, that they acknowledge the most fitting male-female roles, principles of authority and submission, all that is good and fitting and in comportment with nature itself. We wish that would be the case.

But nature alone, as we see and have evidence all around us, is no sure guide for our ethics or our morality, is it? Rather than submitting to the sovereignty of impersonal forces in nature, lessons we can learn from the world around us, the absurdity in the non-intellect of nature, it’s to command our intellect, governs our wills. There, there is no overt lesson principle from nature that governs the heart.

The Christian is motivated by an intelligent, sovereign Lord. This Lord who is nature’s creator, the one who made the heavens and the earth; this creator is the Lord our Lord. He’s the one who sovereignly determines our station in life.

So if you’re a wife, you’re a woman by the Lord’s choice. You’ve been blessed with the gift of a womb, that life would grow inside of you and produce offspring, bring in the next generations. What a gift. You’re a wife by his choice. You’re a woman by his choice.

If you’re a husband, you’re a man by his choice. You have a wife by his choice. Now, I’m looking around at some of you. You need to be thankful you have the wife that you have by his choice. The fact that she was blind to you: clear evidence of God’s grace and kindness.

But on and on it goes, right, right down the line. Children, don’t complain about your parents, the family you’re born into. Parents, especially you, don’t you dare complain about your kids. They came from you, you know.

But it’s by the Lord’s sovereign choice that we have the relations that we have, that we’re in our various stations in life. Each one of us is going to render to him an account of how we have stewarded the station that he chose for us. He is sovereign. That motivates us to obey.

Third, we’re motivated to obey by the good and wise providence of the Lord, by the good and wise providence of the Lord. We don’t hold to a deistic view of the created order, that the Lord created all things as if he’s a watchmaker and he wound it up and then pulled back and just let it run. That’s deism, that’s not Christianity.

The Lord who sovereignly governs us is the incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ. He created and he sustains all things actively at all times. He’s in it all the way, thoroughly. In fact, he entered the fallen world with us, lived with us, walked among us, indeed took the worst of us, our sins, on himself. He died for us, died in our place.

He couldn’t have become more involved than he did. The Lord Jesus Christ himself, risen from the dead, ascended to the father’s right hand. He keeps watch over us, and he intervenes in the stuff of our daily lives, providentially directing all things, no matter what station we’re in. He sovereignly governs us according to his perfect wisdom for our good, to sanctify us, care for us, love us, shepherd us. It’s his providence, shepherds us safely to his kingdom.

Fourth, we’re motivated to obey by the conscientious care and love of the Lord, by the conscientious care and love of our Lord. It’s notable in the household code that Paul addresses, first, the one under authority, the wives, the children, the slaves; and then he addresses the one in authority in that pair, the husband, the father, and the master.

This is acknowledging, isn’t it, the essential equality of each one, but at the same time, he does not obliterate God-ordained differences among us, choices that he made in our station, the roles he assigns to each one of us. He preserves both: essential equality and distinction and difference in role. Both are good.

But this is, to address the one under authority, according to the ancient world, this is truly revolutionary. None of these Stoic codes, Aristotle, none of the philosophers addressed those under authority, didn’t speak to them. Slaves by Aristotle were called animate tools. What does a tool have to say to anything? A tool just needs to shut up and turn the screw and hammer the nail.

Not Paul. Paul writes to the children, the women, the slaves, as if they had a choice, because they do; as if they have a free will to exercise, as if they have a decision in the matter, because they do.

“First-century household codes were inflexibly patriarchic,” as Douglas Moo says, “reflecting the Roman household pattern, according to which the husband, father, slave-owner, that is, the pater familias, exercised patria potestas, that is, paternal power over the household.”

You know what that means? In extreme cases, this pater familias, the father, he could exercise the power of capital punishment should he so desire. That’s obviously not what the New Testament teaches, not at all, but that’s revolutionary: to address those under authority.

What’s quite remarkable, considering the cultural context Paul addresses, he allows for Christian wives and children and slaves, in due consideration of righteousness, to disobey unrighteous commands from those in authority over them. We’ll cover that as we work through these verses.

When a human authority clearly conflicts with God’s truth, his divine authority, with Christian righteousness, those who are under authority may disobey those who are over them in authority. Be careful with that one. But that’s exactly what Paul has set up, here.

The Lord is loving, kind, calling each of us to submit to his choice of our station in life, and he doesn’t do it by external coercion or heavy-handedness. He does it appealing to an affectionate desire that we have within us, by virtue of the new nature, to submit ourselves to his loving leadership.

On the other hand, the same Lordship that governs the speech and the behavior of the one in authority in the household reminds him of his final accountability. Each one is going to answer to the Lord Jesus Christ one day. He’s going to measure out to each one according to his submission, his stewardship, his work.

This leads to one more mark of excellence, number five, we’re motivated to obey by the command and the protection of the Lord. We’re motivated to obey by the command and the protection of the Lord. This may be obvious for one under authority, who’s nervous about submitting himself or herself to a fallible human being. But for the one who’s given authority, it’s a motivation as well.

Either way, the Lord Jesus is the only one fit to command the conscience, to command the obedience. In its deepest sense, it’s to be a matter of conscience in relationship to Christ. For each one who’s under the authority of another, for wives, children, slaves, submission to authority, obedience is an outwork of a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

This means, for a husband to force the submission of his wife, that’s not true submission. You may get an acquiescence. You’re not getting submission. You’re forcing her into some kind of disobedience by your coercion. It undermines the true fulfillment of the command.

By the same token, when a wife cajoles, demands, complains, manipulates her husband to love her in the way she wants to be loved, calling it his duty, that, too, undermines any sincere fulfillment of the command that is given to the husband for him from the heart to love his wife.

The command of the Lord Jesus is a loving command, and when we line up under his command and do his bidding, we do it for the reasons he gives. His protection is ever-present with us. And so with Augustine we pray, “Command what you will, and give what you command.”

One more point, just a brief, brief point: the obedience to the household code. The obedience to the household code. And this is really where I want to challenge us as we draw this to a close.

We’ve seen the prevalence of God’s concern about domestic affairs throughout Scripture, and it shows us the abiding relevance of these household codes for us today. And when we contrast the way a Christian is to live in the home-life, marriage, family, economy, we find it far excels anything we find in the world, ancient or modern.

We see the excellence of the household code in Scripture. And though we can say that the household code of Colossians 3:18 and following, Ephesians 5:22 and following, Titus, 1 Peter, the entire law and prophets, we can say with confidence that the household code in Scripture, how we conduct ourselves as Christians in our homes, it’s not irrelevant, outmoded, outdated. It’s not made obsolete.

This household code has not been revoked. And so ask yourself this question: Have you, by your own neglect, treated the household code in Scripture as a thing that’s been informally revoked in your own life?

Is it a matter of abiding concern to you, daily concern? Or is it a thing of relative unimportance, a matter of indifference to you, what people see or don’t see in your home life, your marriage, your family, your work ethic, your productivity, your lack thereof? These are all things that either bring glory to Christ or reproach to Christ.

Paul’s writing, here, to the Colossians. He’s addressing them in their own context, but it’s in every context. Showing the Christian religion to have real, practical implications over and against the culture, over and against all false religion; showing Christians to have real power to renew minds, save souls, transform lives; it’s the true testimony of the grace of God.

We don’t want our lives to bear a false testimony, do we? The best that the household codes of any false religion can do is to tell people how to cope with their issues; how to strike compromises with your spouse; how to manipulate your kids into some form of something that resembles obedience so that you can get them to school on time, get them to do their homework, do the chores. It’s all designed to mitigate suffering, promote personal happiness, fulfillment.

The practical implications of Christian religion, that calls sinners to repent, it really does reverse the course of life. It really does change everything. It does radically, revolutionarily upend all that was once normal, comfortable, what used to be natural to us. It reverses all of that as we walk in repentance, turn away from fallen instinct and natural habit and bad examples all around us.

To obey these commands that are revealed in Scripture is to put the practice of Christian religion into good effect and to put it on a collision course with the world that we live in. But it does demonstrate the salvation of God, the reality of his gospel manifest in a life changed, generations growing up to see that changed life from the home and lived out.

When Paul said in Colossians 3:17, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,” small wonder isn’t it, that he started with the home. For it’s here that true religion is put on display, that the power of God is most clearly manifest. In its saving, sanctifying work makes the most difference for generations to come. Bow with me in a word of prayer.

Our Father, we want more than anything to, just in gratitude, in joy before you, we want to see your gospel completely change our lives, reorder everything. We, too, are emerging from an American Cretan culture.

We we don’t want to live that way anymore. We don’t want, we’re just seeing in our time the the shattering of the family as families and marriages are ripped asunder and the consequences are with us to this day and will continue on for decades, because the devil has had his way to rip apart the domestic life.

We also realize that a lot of us have been put into positions, a lot of, many Christians come into Christianity with no examples from the home, with no understanding of right roles, right ordering, of submission and authority. We have so much to learn.

So we pray that you would be gracious to us, show us mercy, and let us, even in this church and every other faithful church, we pray that you would do a good work to order our lives aright in starting with the family life. And the family life starts with each and every heart, that we are ordered under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It’s in his name we pray. Amen.

Hebrews 4:4-10

We’re going to start in Matthew Chapter 11, but we are returning to Hebrews chapter 4, learning about this concept of entering into God’s rest. And I want to begin with this invitation from Jesus out of Matthew 11:28. And this is one of the most familiar, favorite sayings of Jesus, when he extended a gracious invitation to all of us. “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I’m gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

 If you have personally experienced the rest that Jesus offers, then you must have at some point been weary and heavy laden, whether you realize it or not. I hope that you are encouraged to know that the testimony of enjoying rest in the present is also kind of a looking forward to a hope of a future rest.

And that this testimony not only of a present, a rest from your sin, weariness over trying to overcome your sin, be freed from your sin, come out from under the condemnation of sin that’s been dealt with in justification in our sanctification. We continue to struggle with this, continue to have to revisit the gospel to find the rest that he has promised and find our souls at rest.

But it is a fight. But then we keep looking ahead to a future rest where the promise is going to be consummated and we’re going to enter into a time free from the presence of sin forever, when we will rest fully and finally in him. That is the testimony of saving faith. And every true Christian understands this struggle, understands this path of the the past, the present, and the future, and the rest; the ultimate rest that we live with, but then struggle to find rest.

But then that future that I’m banking on that and I will land in that rest and be there forever. And so that’s what we’re going to meditate on even as we’ve just kind of introduced the concepts right now. But if you’re in Hebrews 4, we covered three verses last time, Hebrews 4:1 to 3, and there were three main points there: Implication, proclamation, participation. I’ll just read the verses.

“Therefore, let us fear, lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have fallen short of it.” Now remember, we’re entering in Hebrews 4:1, into an exposition, a targeted exposition, brief exposition, but very focused, of this pastor who’s writing to his congregation during their trial and travail.

And he’s drawing out implications of Psalm 95, which David wrote, when he points to a current rest, as long as it’s called today, don’t harden your hearts, but there’s a rest for the people of God. So that’s what he’s drawing out. And he’s saying while there’s a promise of rest that remains, anyone of you, if you seem to fall in short of it, “let’s fear, lest,” we don’t, “For indeed,” verse 2, if we’ve, “we’ve had good news proclaimed to us, just as they also;” that is the people of the past, also “had good news.”

 They had, they were evangelized, “but the word that they heard did not profit those who were not united with faith among those who heard.” So the word that they heard, the gospel message that they heard, same then as it is now. If you hear, but you don’t believe, it doesn’t profit you at all. You have to hear, believe, obey. And it’s the obedience of faith. And that’s what brings the justification, the rest, the sanctification, the struggle to find rest. That’s what this brings.

So we who have believed, he affirms to his congregation, he says, “we who have believed, including himself, himself and his congregation, we who have believed, we enter that rest, just as He also said, AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST, although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.”

 So the implication of a promise. What’s the implication of a promise? The only way to benefit from a promise verse 1 is to believe it. A promise requires faith. This sets forth faith as the only means of attaining what’s promised. Justification is by faith. So why is that? Because the opposite of rest is working. And just as works contrasts with faith, so also the promise comports with grace and contrasts with the law, contrasts with what’s owed.

If it’s promised, it’s offered. It’s by grace. So if we believe the promise, we enter the rest, just as Paul teaches in Romans chapter 4, verse 5. “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness.” So to be justified by faith is to receive the rest that God has promised. This is why we talked last time.

The second point about the proclamation of the gospel, then and now, verse 2. The hearing of the gospel doesn’t benefit us unless it’s joined with faith. Many, many people hear the gospel. If they don’t believe it, they don’t get the rest. If you as a Christian stop believing or are weak in faith, you also return to the struggle, to the travail, to the weariness, to the burden.

So even as believers, we need to continue believing. The promises don’t do you any good if you turn your ears off to them or stop believing or turn your eyes and attention to something that will not give you rest. Can anybody testify that? Oh yeah, I’ve done that in trial and travail and difficulty I’ve I’ve tried to escape and find rest somewhere else. All it gives you is more weariness and greater burden.

 So apart from faith, the gospel, all its promises lands on deaf ears; there is no rest. But if we hear the gospel and believe it, if we hear the promises and believe them, we cease from all of our works, we do enter into rest as God rested on the seventh day from his works. That’s the point in verse 2.

So then the point in verse 3, on the participation of believers, this is just to say we enter into the same rest today in our time that’s shared by believers of all time since that promise of entering God’s rest remains on offer. In fact, it was put on offer in Genesis chapter 2, verse 2. It’s offered to Adam and Eve, our first parents. It’s offered to the generations of Moses and Joshua and David, this pastor, as well, and our day too.

 So all those and only those who have believed enter into that rest, all those and only those who continue believing in, continue to receive that rest. So let’s keep reading, “Just as He said,” verse 3, “AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has spoken somewhere in this way concerning the seventh day: ‘AND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL OF HIS WORKS’; and again in this passage, ‘THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.’

“Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news proclaimed to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He again determines a certain day, ‘TODAY,’ saying through David after so long a time just has been said before, ‘TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS.’

“For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”

 So the pastor’s exposition here, it’s simple, straightforward. It seems almost like he’s like holding us by the hand, point by point, because it’s actually pretty basic. It’s not hard to figure out his meaning. It’s set on a simple point of application, that if you believe the promise of God, you’ll enter his rest.

There’s promise, there’s fulfillment. And how is the promise fulfilled? It’s fulfilled in those who receive that promise by his grace. We receive it by faith. We believe him, we believe him. How do you know you believe him? Because you obey the Word. You follow his instruction, and that is entering into his rest. That’s taking on what Jesus called the light burden and the easy yoke. Still a yoke, still a burden to bear, but it’s easy, it’s light and it’s pleasant.

Now we’re going to go just a little bit deeper and it’s, it’ll be brief, but we’re going to go deeper and examine the nature of this promised rest, which I hope will encourage all of you. But we’re going to pose two questions. First, what is the nature of this promised rest? And then second, when do we get to enjoy this promised rest? What’s the nature of it? When do we get to enjoy it? Number one: what’s the nature of the promised rest? We said last time, I’ll just raise it again.

There are ten references to rest in the first eleven verses here, and some of them are nouns, some of them are verbs, but most of the nouns and verbs, kind of, are coming from the same root in all but one of them. So nine of the ten are related to the verb katapauo.

As we learned last time, the verb means to cause to stop or to cause to cease. And it’s in a positive sense, not like a smackdown, like a train wreck, you know, that causes you to stop, but it’s much more positively oriented. It’s to make to rest, kind of like a mom who puts her toddler down for a nap. That toddler doesn’t want to rest kicking and screaming, but you know in an hour after that toddler wakes up, so much more pleasant and that mom knows that toddler needs a nap. So the mom is making the toddler take a nap.

Get some rest. Cease from your activity toddler and lay down in this bed. Get some rest. This is what God does for us. It’s to make an activity end and thus to give rest, to bring into a condition or into a state of rest. So the ceasing from some work or activity leads to a state of rest or restfulness.

You have to keep in mind the end of the work is tied directly to the gospel. This rest is tied to the gospel in verse 2 and it’s the result of the gospel. Okay? So you don’t work for your burdens to be lifted on your own. This is not about you fixing yourself. It’s not about you becoming a better you.

It’s not becoming the best version of yourself, which I’m hearing coming out of a lot of pulpits these days, not faithful ones, but ones I hear online pastors using that language. Becoming the best version of yourself; and as if it’s a Christian message. That’s a message of a burden of works, that is works, that is not gospel.

One of the ten references to the word rest is a different word here, and it’s a word in verse 9, sabbatismos. You can hear the Sabbath in that word, sabbatismos. And this is the only use of this word, not only in the Greek New Testament, but in the Greek Old Testament, as well, in the entire Bible. This is a very unique word specific for this context.

According to one lexicographer, Sabbatismos refers to quote, “a perfect Sabbath when man can cease from all his works as God did from his after completing creation, and he calls it a purely heavenly blessing toward which the Pilgrim people of God moves.” End Quote.

I think he’s on to something with that future look. But is that what the pastor’s talking about here is a promise of rest, that is only realized there. It’s purely, as in his terms, purely a heavenly blessing. That is to say, there is no rest realized now.

 The pastor uses the present tense in verse 3. He says we who believed, have believed. Enter, present tense, enter that rest. So it’s present tense. That’s not just future, that’s now, that’s the promise. There is something present about this rest. Even if there is a future element that exists, remains for us, there’s still a present tense, rest.

There’s another lexicographer who says that, “Sabbatismos refers to an already, not yet kind of a rest.” I value this comment here. He says, “here are the rest typified by the Sabbath is seen as the rest of the heart provided in Christ.” He points to Matthew 11:29. So the rest typified by the Sabbath, the Sabbatismos, is seen as the rest of the heart provided in Christ to be realized partially now and fully in the life to come.

I could quibble with that just a little bit, but I’m not going to because I think John Owen actually unpacks this really, really well. But the comment there about this partially now, fully in the life to come, I’d say, even in the faith, the belief in the promise of the gospel, it’s fully now experienced, in fits and starts now, fully consummated later, fully experienced later, but it’s fully realized right now.

So that’s why I’m quibbling just a little bit. But here’s what John Owen says. He says, “The state of sin under the law is a state of all labor and no rest.” He’s talking about us, in a state of sin, prior to any salvation, prior to conversion, prior to regeneration, new birth, prior to putting faith in the promise of the gospel and becoming a Christian. That’s the state of sin under the law.

I hope that you are encouraged to know that the testimony of enjoying rest in the present is also kind of a looking forward to a hope of a future rest.” Travis Allen

 It’s a state of Labor, no rest. I didn’t feel, if you were to talk to my young self in my enslavement to sin, I didn’t feel enslaved. I thought it was free. I was enjoying my life until that meddlesome, troublesome Holy Spirit started to convict me and all of a sudden I felt burdened.

I’m like, what is going on? This is the same kind of sin I was doing yesterday. Why today is this bugging me? And he didn’t let me alone. It kept bugging me and got worse and worse and worse. And I’m kind of an idiot, so it took about eight or nine months for me to finally bow the knee and repent. I had to continue to feel a burden and a great burden.

The more I read the Word of God, the more I felt myself not feeling good or happy, but actually feeling burdened, weighed down, guilty, condemned. I was frightened. I knew if I took a bullet with my name on it, I’m going straight to hell. I was not at rest. But that awareness came to me at a point in time, I didn’t have it much of the time. I wasn’t at rest, I just didn’t know it. I thought that’s just the way life is.

John Owen goes on to say, “The future state of glory is all of rest, all rest. Future state of glory. The present state of believing and obedience is a mixed state, partly of Labor, partly of rest.” Really appreciate the helpful distinctions that he’s making as a scholastic scholar. He’s talking about the distinction between the state of sin under the law, the present state of grace, and the future state of glory.

Owen goes on to elaborate on this mixed state of rest. He says, “On the one hand, we exist in a state of labor in ourselves in the world, against sin, under affliction and persecution.” That’s even now in the state of grace, right? But then on the other hand, he affirms that, “The believer also lives in a state of rest in Christ and in his love and in his worship and his grace.”

 Scripture affirms, all throughout, this mixed state of affairs, that we have now in the state of grace, that is post salvation, living under trial, living under difficulty, temptation, and all those things. According to John Owen, “God intends good from this state of affairs. He uses the labor that we are going through and the difficulty, the trouble, to teach us to appreciate the rest even more, and also to long for more of it and a final consummation of it.”

 He says these things: that is the state of labor and the state of rest. He says, they have a great mutual respect under one another. Our labor makes our rest sweet, and our rest makes our labor easy. And so God is pleased to fill us and exercise us, all to prepare us duly for eternal rest with himself.

He’s training us. He’s preparing us. He’s helping us to share his mind on the matter, so that we can’t wait to shed this place and head there. He’s making this place not our home, but pointing us to that home. So this term, sabbatismos, it really encompasses God’s rest for the believer in every age and in all its fullness.

 And the pastor writes of the present state of rest, of believing in obedience, a mixed state of affairs, which feeds this final longing for a final rest. The future state of glory is all of rest, as Owen says. So there’s also an eschatological component to this, right? It’s going to become clearer, hopefully, as we moved from the what question now to the when question. Okay.

So when do we get to enjoy this promise rest? When do we get to enjoy this promised rest? Answer: now and then. And by that I don’t mean we get to enjoy this promised rest occasionally, but that we get to enjoy this promised rest right now and also then; now and later.

So let’s talk about the rest, first in the state of grace, which is this mixed state of labor and of rest. And then we’ll talk about rest in the state of glory. So first we enjoy gospel rest, now in a state of grace. If I have six little sub-points, I’ll introduce them by saying gospel rest means and then I’ll give you the thing.

Gospel rest means A: An objective peace with God. Well that puts your heart at rest, if you were to recognize that night after night someone is creeping into your house. They’re stealing some bit of stuff. You then wait up one night and you say I’m going to, I’m going to catch this person. You hear the little rustling around. You flip on the lights and you see it is some kind of huge 6 foot 5, stacked with muscle, fully armed to the teeth bandit, that is ready to kill you. That’s a frightening thing to discover.

 I thought it was just some teenage prankster, but it looks like this is a trained bandit warrior. I don’t want anything to do with this. All of a sudden your heart is in your throat and you’re sweating and your adrenaline is shooting; you either to fight or flight. It’s the same thing when you awaken to the true enemy you have as an unbeliever in God, and you recognize that this God, there are images in scripture of him tearing you apart like a bear ripping open your chest.

“It’s a terrifying thing to fall in the hands of a living God.” And when you recognize God is your enemy, there are no better, more welcome words than these, in Romans 5:1, “having been justified by faith, we have abiding possession, peace with God.”

 He’s still as scary. He’s still as frightening and powerful and terrifying as he ever was. But now he stands in front of you, and all the fangs are bared towards your enemies, all the claws come out toward things that trouble you, because you’re behind him and you follow him. He’s for you, not against you.

This objective peace with God, reconciled to God by God, no work that you’ve done. It’s all in Christ and through faith. He reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death, Colossians 1:22. This puts your heart at rest when you realize, the one who was your enemy, and a powerful enemy indeed; it’s not just that he could kill the body, he could kill your body and then cast your entire soul into hell for eternity where you suffer in torment justly, because the sins you’ve committed against him. When you find you have objective peace with God or your heart’s at rest.

Gospel rest means, letter B: A Soul replenishing worship. There’s a soul replenishing worship when you find that this one who was once your enemy and you made yourself his enemy, and now he makes you his friend and he brings you into his family and he lets you call him father.

 He commands you to call him father. What do you want to do but worship him, thank him, give praise and glory to him. John Owen includes this is a very significant aspect of the Sabbatismos, word saying the Christians today we don’t lose this Sabbath day principle of restful worship that Israel enjoyed under the law.

 Are we worse off not allowed to have a day of rest? No, John Owen says no, “we get to worship God in spirit and truth.” We got to replenish our souls week by week in his rest. He calls it the Evangelical Sabbath, observed now in the first day of the week, called the Lord’s Day. That’s what we call it, the Lord’s Day.

I think Sabbatarianism or Evangelical Sabbath is a little confusing for people. That’s why I don’t like to use it. I like the Lord’s Day, but we need to understand it’s the same principle of Sabbath rest for us. And we have an even fuller rest in Christ than Israel did because he fulfilled the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ, and now we have all the images and the foreshadowing and the types and everything points to him, and we rest in that. Our minds are exploding with understanding and depth and it all fits together. So why do we worship? Because God saved us, because he forgave us of our sins. He granted us eternal life.

 Christ has reconciled us to the father, and by the adoption of the Spirit we get to enjoy God. We get to enjoy the author of life itself. He is our eternal reward, so we get to worship him.

 Gospel rest means, letter C: means gospel learning. We come to this thing called church, which is a training center. We come here Sunday after Sunday, and we come into this church to learn the truth, to gain more knowledge, and to gain a deeper understanding every single week so that we can grow in grace and godliness.

This gospel learning leads to gospel living, and that gospel living leads to rest. This is Colossians 3:16 that we’ve covered last week, as the word of Christ dwells richly in us through the teaching and the admonishing and all wisdom of one another. You know, as we teach them on each other, we’re singing with gratitude, gratitude is coming out of our hearts. Elevated language and elevated lyrical excellence accompanied with music leads us into rest, also takes us into another aspect of gospel rest.

Gospel rest means letter D: A subjective peace, a subjective peace. So there’s an objective peace and then worship and then learning, deepening our understanding, and all this leads to a subjective peace. We learned about that in Colossians 3:15, that when the peace of Christ rules in our hearts, there’s a state of objective peace with God that then leads directly to a subjective sense of peace that’s enjoyed in the soul, also known as rest.

Philippians 4:4 through 7, Paul’s talking about this sense of a subjective peace with God. He, Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, he said in Matthew 6:25 and falling don’t worry about your life. Don’t worry about what you eat, what you drink, what you wear. Don’t worry about any of those things. You can be at rest and have a subjective sense of rest and peace, because your father, true objective peace, your father knows what you need.

If you’re in a relationship with him as your father, that means the objective for peace is accomplished. You’re in Christ, you belong to that family. You don’t have to worry about anything. Seek first his kingdom, his righteousness, and that leads to another aspect of gospel rest.

Gospel rest means letter E: Sanctification. Sanctification, peaceful fruit of righteousness, Hebrews 12:11, calls it. If you wrote down Philippians 4:4 to 7, to read, just write down verses 8 and 9. Tack that on because that’s again talking about sanctification. The things you’ve heard and seen and observed in me, you put these into practice and the God of peace will be with you.

 When the God of peace is with you, you’re at rest because you’re growing in sanctification. You’re nearer to him. Now in our present state of faith and obedience, we’re in a mixed state of affairs, and we have to ask that question, is this rest unmitigated? Is it undisturbed? Is it unperturbed? No, we struggle while we live in this world against that triumvirate of trouble: the world and the flesh and the devil. We struggle with that. Paul writes about this in Galatians 5:17.

In fact, while I’m reading this, go ahead and turn back to Joshua. Since the pastor in Hebrews 4 is referred to Joshua, I’d like to mention him. But Paul writes in Galatians 5:17 that the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these two are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things that you please; as a believer, as a justified, declared righteous by God Christian. Do you always act in accordance with that justification? No, you do not. I’ll answer for you, keep you honest.

So you don’t always do the things you please. And Paul unpacks this. If you want to jot this down at Romans 7:14 to 25. That’s that whole passage of the things I want to do, I don’t do, but the things I don’t want to do, these things I do. Why do I do this wretched man that I am, who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, right?

That whole state of affairs that we live in, of this falling in and out of rest, of this trouble that we experience. You can illustrate this when we go back to Joshua’s generation. Consider the history and the nature of the rest that Joshua led Israel into. Though it was unfulfilled, it resulted in rest, yes, but then further struggle, conflict, trouble, and thus it was an incomplete state of affairs. That’s why the author points out if Joshua had given them rest, they would wouldn’t speak of another day promising rest.

 Look at Joshua chapter 21. In Joshua 21 verses 43 and 44, we got a summary statement. Yahweh gave Israel all the land which he had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it, lived in it. Remember the kind of land, it was an inhabited land; not an uninhabited wild land, not one that was overrun with animals.

It was one that was inhabited, cities built. The beds were still warm and they were big king size beds because there was a land of giants, right? So the Israelites could crawl and snuggle up and have plenty of room. So they entered into cities that they didn’t build. They started reaping from crops that they hadn’t planted. They just reaped what was sown.

Christ has reconciled us to the father, and by the adoption of the Spirit we get to enjoy God.” Travis Allen

They entered into a great land of plenty, and God fulfilled it. God gave them, verse 44, Joshua 21, God, Yahweh gave them rest on every side. So not only is there a great provision and ease and comfort, but he protects them. “He gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them.”

 Yahweh gave all their enemies into their hand and not one promise of the good promises which Yahweh had promised to the house of Israel failed. All came to pass. Joshua releases the two and a half tribes, Rubenites, Gadites and the half tribe at Manasseh to go back east of the Jordan to the territory that they wanted to inhabit, where they’d left their wives and children, their flocks and all that.

He released them to go take up their possession and then Joshua issued this charge to the remaining tribes. In Joshua 24, look over chapter 24, verses 14 to 18, Joshua tells these remaining, these tribes that are living in the land, in the land of promise, Canaan. “So now fear Yahweh. Serve Him in integrity and truth. Put away the gods which your fathers serve beyond the river in Egypt and serve Yahweh. Look, if it’s evil in your sight to serve Yahweh, choose for yourself today whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served, which are beyond the river, the gods of the Amorites, and whose land you’re living.”

 I can tell you right now that’s not going to give any rest. It’s going to lead to trouble. “As for me in my house,” he says, “we will serve Yahweh.” You know what the people said? Far be it from us that we should forsake Yahweh to serve other gods. Right answer. There’s a postscript at the end of that chapter that show those words were genuine, I believe genuine expressions of faith at that time.

 Joshua 24:31 says this, “Israel served Yahweh all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua, who knew all the work of Yahweh which he had done for Israel.” While Joshua was alive, while the elders were still alive, they continued on.

 Now look at the first couple chapters in the book of Judges. There’s an initial faithfulness, but then the story starts to change as various tribes start to fail to dispossess the Canaanites. They were commanded to kick out all the Canaanites, and some of them to exterminate them, and some of them they failed. They left them there. So what’s the result? They started worshiping Baal, started worshiping the other Canaanite deities, and so God sent Judges to deliver them.

In chapter 2, end of the chapter, verses 20 to 23, God gives this explanation. “The anger of Yahweh burned against Israel, and He said, because this nation is trespassed against My covenant which I’ve commanded their fathers and has not listened to my voice. I also will no longer dispossessed before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of Yahweh to walk in it as their fathers did or not.”

 And so Yahweh allowed those nations to rest, to stay there, not dispossessing them quickly, and he did not give them into the hand of Joshua. The actual physical temporal situation of Israel in the Promised Land. Perennially struggling to resist idolatry, often failing, perennially fighting battles against remaining Canaanite tribes. That becomes a picture, doesn’t it?

For those who hear the gospel, who believe and embrace the gospel, receive the gospel offer of peace and enter into God’s rest that remains within us. Canaanites running around in our heads, we struggle against this in our remaining sin, don’t we? Pockets of trouble. You understand this perfectly, don’t you? You ought to.

Though we’re delivered from the eternal penalty of sin, having escaped the wrath of God by the substitutionary atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins, we nevertheless we’re continually being delivered from the present power of sin, resisting temptations of the world, the flesh, the devil, always learning to fight these battles.

Just as Israel in their generation had to learn to fight their battles, we have battles to fight too. We need to learn to conquer by faith. So we’re in a sense struggling against and fighting metaphorical Canaanites that remain within, banishing them from our land, exterminating them from our hearts because they are the ruiners of our rest.

We keep on, while we live in this body, in this time, we keep on growing in maturity strength. We increase in our consistency to resist temptation, turn from sin, walk righteously. But it’s never a given, is it? You can’t passively sit and let it happen to you. Doesn’t happen by osmosis. We have to daily wholly depend on the grace of God to deliver us and continue to seek it, to be watchful, on guard, right.

If we try to conquer on our own, or if we walk in the flesh and not in the Spirit, we very quickly discover our weakness. We have to go to him again for rest. This is why we need another benefit of this gospel rest for the comfort, consolation of our souls.

This is the letter F, gospel rest means final one here: An abiding assurance. An abiding assurance which comes to us; we sorely need it, don’t we? Because when we’re troubled, when we fail, when we fall, we need to return to that gospel and find its promises remain true, all based on an objective work and accomplishment of Christ.

His redemption is accomplished, it’s done. She needs to return, believe in it, trust in him. So we have to return to the promises of the gospel. Read earlier Colossians, 1:22. “He reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death.”

Justification happened there. Reconciliation happened. But here’s the hope. Here’s the assurance “in order to present you before him, holy and blameless and beyond reproach.” This gospel rest brings a gospel assurance and abiding assurance because what God started Philippians 1:6 and what did he start, he finishes, “He who began a good work in you will complete it to the day of Christ Jesus.”

 So within this time of labor and travail along our Pilgrim walk of ups and downs, of trials and triumphs; that we sometimes fail to believe well, sometimes our faith is weak, sometimes we enter into temptation, sometimes we submit to its deceptions and we fall into sin, into great trouble for our souls.

This is what makes the high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ so very precious to us, and this is why I think the pastor writes about that ministry in particular in the next verses in Hebrews chapter 4, verses 14 to 16. If you’re not back in Hebrews 4, you can return there.

It’s in our current state of humiliation that we need these assurances of our Lord Jesus Christ to remind us of his atonement and his forgiveness, very softly, tenderly, ever so kindly, patiently, Jesus is pleased to assure us by his Word and by his Spirit, so that we become more consistent to appropriate these gospel promises and find rest. So we’re quicker to “come to the throne of grace, to receive mercy and find grace and to help us in our time of need.”

 So we don’t enter into temptation and fail, but we actually stand strong and stand firm. This ongoing struggle with sin, fight for holiness, can leave us feeling maybe sometimes weak, exhausted, not rested. We long for that glorious day when God delivers us all from the presence of sin forever, for all of eternity. So we’re not only to enjoy the gospel rest now in the state of grace, but also second, we enjoy a gospel rest then, as well, in a state of glory.

Just a few texts in there in Hebrews go to Hebrews Chapter 11, Hebrews Chapter 11, starting with Abraham, who looked for rest, and he was thinking ahead to a state of glory. Hebrews 11:8 to 10. “By faith, Abraham, when he was called, he obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he’s sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. For he was looking,” here it is, “for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

 He’s looking to a heavenly city, isn’t he? Abraham, Sarah, Abel, Noah are all unpacked here. Verses 13 to 16, it says, “All these died in faith without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance.” So there’s an indication that they entered into some kind of rest, but they confess that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

Those who say such things make it clear that they’re seeking a country of their own. They’re in travail. They’re in a mixed state of trouble and travail and labor, but also experiencing some favor and rest and blessing. But they long for a country of their own. It says in verse 14. “Indeed, if they’ve been remembering that country from which they went out, they didn’t have opportunity to return.

“But now they aspire to a better country, that’s a heavenly one. and Therefore God’s unashamed to be called their God, for He’s prepared a city for them.” We understand that. We have joined this company in the hall of faith here in Hebrews 11. On our own pilgrimage, we too seek a heavenly permanent home. We haven’t come to a mountain that can be touched like Sinai, burning torches coming down, thunder, lightning.

The Sinai of old is described in Hebrews 12. But now Hebrews 12 verse 22, you have come to mountain Zion. You come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels, to the festal gathering, the assembly of the firstborn who enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

So yes, we enjoy certain aspects of that gospel rest right now. We struggle now as we await its final consummation, verse 28, since we’re receiving a kingdom which can’t be shaken. So what’s the nature of this rest? God causes us to stop working, to cease striving, so he can give us rest about the state of our souls before him.

He forgives our sin. He declares us righteous. We’re in Christ when we trust him; we’re forgiven, justified, we have eternal life, and we enter into his rest full stop. We enjoy that rest immediately upon believing, and we grow in that rest ever more fully as we progress in our sanctification.

And we anticipate with confident hope the final consummation of that rest in the state of glory. It’s in the state of glory when we’re delivered from the presence of sin forever in his blessed presence with a body fit for that purpose, that rest is fully, finally consummated.

Therefore, just to wrap up this section, verse 1, “let us fear, lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have fallen short of it.” This is a call to teaching and admonishing one another, isn’t it? It’s a call to look out for your brother and your sister to make sure we’re all striving together.

“Let us fear, lest, any one of you may seem to have fallen short because there does remain a Sabbath rest, a Sabbatismos, for the people of God, and he who enters that rest, rest from his works, just as God did from his. Therefore, verse 11, let’s be diligent to enter that rest and avoid falling into the same pattern of disobedience as we have written all through the Scripture. Amen.

Let’s pray. Father, thank you for this time. We’ve had to contemplate this, the nature of this rest, the different stages of it that you provide. But we do know that upon faith, as soon as we believe we have all of it, we don’t have it in piece meal in part. We don’t have just a teaser. It’s not like an hors d’oeuvre and appetizer. No, it’s the full thing right now. And yet, while we’re in this state of grace, we do struggle. And that struggle is has a purpose.

It’s a teaching purpose, a didactic purpose to to teach us to share your heart, to share your thinking. We long for that day when this promise is fulfilled, completely consummated in glory. We ask that you would keep us faithful to the end and then we wouldn’t look out just for ourselves, me, myself and I, but there would be concern for one another to make sure that no one is lagging behind, that we all get there together. Pray that you would shepherd us, Lord Jesus, by your spirit and your word in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Colossians 3:17

Open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 3 this morning, Colossians chapter 3, and we’re going to focus our attention on verse 17, Colossians 3:17, where Paul summarizes everything in the grand design for our lives, grand design for your life and for my life.

He summarizes it all in a single verse, Colossians 3:17. He writes this, “And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

That verse encapsulates and sets forth a paradigm for living life. This paradigm for living life is comprehensively broad. In our study of it, you’ll see it’s deep, penetratingly deep; and it’s also infinitely high, lofty in purpose and in its practice.

For what greater goal is there to aim for? What greater purpose is there to live for? Some live for money, and I wouldn’t say they live for the love of green paper or gold and silver rocks, plastic cards, Bitcoin, whatever form it takes today. They love not what money is, but what it symbolizes to them, what it can do for them.

Money provides the liberating sense of the pursuit of pleasure. Money can be intoxicating in the wielding of power and influence. Money opens doors for people, gives access to the great and the powerful people of the world. Money provides comfort in the safety and the security that it provides or at least promises, mitigating against disaster.

The Bible says, “Do not weary yourself to gain wealth,” Proverbs 23:4. “It certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies to the heavens.” So don’t chase money.

In fact, there’s an even more devious purpose afoot in the love of money. James says that riches rot. The clothing bought by money becomes food for the moths. In the end, the gold and the silver itself rusts.

So those who trust in their wealth will discover, and they’ll discover way too late, on the last day, that their riches were going to betray them. Their riches are going to stand on the side of the prosecution and accuse and testify against those who love riches. Don’t live for money.

Others live for family, family harmony, family unity, family peace, family, family, family, right? They focus on the family. They do whatever it takes to keep family members happy, satisfied, keep coming to the table even if it means compromising righteousness, even if it means betraying others, betraying what is true and right and good.

The Bible is very clear about trusting in man, in flesh, even in the men and the women of family, blood. Jesus makes it very clear that focus on the family is a false religious paradigm when it comes to faithfulness. And he had the same problem in his own day, and he addressed it.

He promised us that faithfulness would mean deciding between himself and family in many cases. He said in Matthew 10:34, “‘I didn’t come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword, and I came to set family members against one another.’” Family members will oppose each other, dividing over the truth. “‘A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’”

I know many of you have experienced that. Lest we mistake Jesus’ meaning, he describes the choice between himself and commitment to himself and commitment to family. He describes it in clear, unmistakable terms. He says, “‘He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.’”

Tough words to swallow, but Christ demands absolute loyalty, the deepest fidelity. And the more we know him, the more we see him clearly in Scripture, the more we realize there’s a reason for that: because he is most glorious. Anybody who will not line up with him deserves to be set aside, passed by, passed over, even if it’s family.

There are many today who are willing to forego wealth. They’re even willing to separate from their families in order to live their lives for something else, to live lives of significance in this world, to be part of something great, to become part of something bigger than themselves. Could be military campaigns, plenty of those going around. It could be political or cultural movements, some sort of activism.

We should really reflect on our recent history in the world, Nazi Germany, Soviet Union. Anybody who tries to find meaning in this world, find significance in great social, cultural, political movements of this age, ideologies, he’s not only going to be disappointed in the end, but that end can become a bloody nightmare, a scourge in the pages of human history, a lesson that we don’t ever want to see repeated.

Got to be careful about that, too, don’t we? Those who want to find significance in what seems to be great in our age, in any age, the great movements, the great people, the great ideologies, even at the highest levels of politics and military service, must remember what God Most High has said in his Word about nations and kings.

Isaiah 40 verse 15, “Behold, nations are like a drop in a bucket. They’re regarded as a speck of dust on the scales.” Nations are like that. Empires are like that to God. God delivers up nations. He says in Isaiah 41:2, “He subdues kings. He turns them into dust with his sword. They’re like wind-driven chaff as he turns them into wind-driven chaff with his bow.”

Take all those vain ambitions and empty pursuits which many people live for, money, family, finding significance in something great, and now join all those worldly, fleshly ambitions to religion, Christian religion, evangelical religion, and you have a very powerful elixir, a deceptive, cunning, subtle, and damning delusion.

There are many today, and I think this hits close to home, far too close, I’m afraid, there are many today who have dipped their idolatrous desires into the liquid to form up from the evangelical faith, reformed faith, even, a coated idol, an idol coated with evangelicalism, Christianity, reformed faith.

It’s just a veneer. It’s just, it’s just on the surface. Jesus would call it the hypocrisy of a mask. Hiding behind it is the pursuit of idolatry. And they are under the illusion that all is well with their souls, doing great things for God, building great movements, erecting big monuments, building big buildings, measuring success in numbers, following voices of apparent influence.

All these pursuits of money, family, significance become baptized in the waters of religion. And when that happens, it only thickens the veil that’s over the eyes and darkens the vision, obfuscates motives, it obscures true godliness, and in the end, it desecrates holiness and leads to damnation.

In Jesus’ day, those who lived thusly, those who lived for such things were called Sadducees and Pharisees. They had educated, scholarly scribes on their sides. They were bankrolled by the wealthy and the influential families of the city and the nation. Money, family, significance: all those worldly motives were hidden behind a religious mask, draped in the shining robes of an apparent but fraudulent righteousness.

Where do the spirits of the Sadducees and the spirits of the Pharisees hide out and haunt today, I wonder. I look in the mirror and have to ask myself that question. And I think it’s a good question for all of us to ask at all times.

I’m not here to confess some form of hypocrisy, okay? I’m not saying that. I’m just saying we must check ourselves. We must look at the pages of Scripture and recognize that could happen here, too. It could happen in our time, and in fact it is happening in our time. We should warn ourselves. We should ask God to examine us and search our hearts and know our thoughts, “see if there’d be any wicked way in us.” Abandon it.

The only pursuit with lasting value is the pursuit of God, who is the everlasting God, Yahweh, the Eternal One. Knowing him, trusting him, believing him, obeying him, that’s all that matters. Your pleasures, your pastimes, you’re frittering away your time. You’re frittering away your stewardship. Don’t live for this world. Don’t live for its pleasures, its pursuits, its vanities, its distractions. It is a lie.

Paul had the same thing in his day. And he tells the Colossians there is only one name to live for, only one purpose that matters, only one source of eternal significance, and only one will be accomplished. He says, “So whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

To live for this purpose, to pursue this goal, you must put to death and mortify in yourself all forms of covetousness and idolatry, and you must, all fleshly desire and ambition has to go, and you must plead with God to make it so, to show you what you have not abandoned.

You have to rid yourself of all the accompanying sins. You see the one list to mortify in Colossians 3:5, all the accompanying sins that cover over or are revealed from a heart like that in Colossians 3 verses 8 and 9.

All that stuff’s got to go, and you must instead outfit yourself with Christian graces and virtues, which are the fruit of the Spirit, which are the result of the ministry of the Word in your life.

You must pursue what others in this world, even religious others in this world, even professing Christian others in this world will disregard as unimportant or demean or assume that they have it in spades, even as they live like the rest of the world does and are no different than their non-Christian moral neighbors.

You have to put on, Colossians 3:12 says, “hearts of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, gentleness, patience.” These are the things that the world around us disregards, but God notices, God sees.

You must work, verse 13 says, to be forbearing, that is, to overlook offenses; to be forgiving, that is to let it go when you’re offended, when you’re hurt, when someone does something unjust to you, when someone speaks slanderously of you. You have to have a forgiving heart and be ready and willing to forgive when they come and ask, every time they ask.

And above all, verse 14 says we’re to put on love. We’re to put on love. It’s a love that we do not have naturally on our own. It comes from God. Love comes from God. It’s defined by God. It’s demonstrated by God. And if we compare any worldly love, any love of family, and love of all those other lesser loves, we compare and contrast them by what the Bible teaches about love, we understand how far short we fall.

We’re to put on love, and it’s a divine love. It’s a love demonstrated in Christ, and that love is the perfect bond of unity. In other words, offenses against you do not matter because what matters to you is unity and harmony and affectionate love shown toward fellow sinners, especially those who are redeemed. You realize that that which so many today disregard, they’re the highest value, they’re the greatest worth.

Having put off and put on, you must partake regularly, deeply, sincerely of these ministries of Christ found in Colossians 3:15, 3:16. First, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,” and then, second, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”

For it’s by these special ministries of Christ that you see, and you see most clearly, those things that are of greatest and lasting value in life. Things like reconciliation with the Father, peace that Christ won for you, to live that out and to live in it and let it rule you and rule your heart.

And then by the message of Scripture that culminates in Christ, that proclaims Christ, broadcasts Christ, teaches about Christ, illumines Christ; by this clarity that you learn by the wisdom of the Spirit what really matters in life. So you set your sight on the great aim in your life.

What is that great aim? By the wisdom of the Spirit, by the teaching of the Word, my prayer for you today is that you will see this great aim in life, which is to live for him, to live for his name.

That is the great aim here in the verse. It’s what culminates this section. It’s what Paul uses to summarize this section, to bring everything together in one salient, concise, clear thought and expression. It’s to live for him, to live for his name. So it behooves us to understand what that is, right?

In this one verse, we’re going to consider several things this morning that encompass what it means to live for Christ. We’ll talk about four things: the scope, the height, the heart, the sphere.

We’re going to expand on those terms, too, adding the words extensity and sublimity and felicity and secularity, not just so I can show off my alliteration, but so I can further elucidate what it means to live for Christ, what it means to live for his name.

So first, number one, let’s talk about the scope. What’s the scope, here? Or you could write down, the scope: the extensity of living for Christ. The extensity.

What is the extent or the scope of living for Christ? How far does this aim and purpose go? It’s comprehensive, utterly comprehensive, and as I said earlier, deeply penetrating because it concerns everything, in word, in deed, everything that comes forth from the heart, everything you want, desire, pursue, live for, all your pastimes, ambitions, what you do passively, what you do actively, everything in word or deed; that is, whatever comes out of the heart.

So when Paul says, “Whatever you do in word or deed,” he is putting the entirety of our lives in view. That’s under the scope. He’s talking about the full spectrum, a massive scale, not only of what we say and do, but also deeper, what we think, what we want, what we pursue.

The combination, here, in the original of these relative terms, kind of heightens the indefiniteness; and by making it less definite, he’s abstracting it to broaden it. The mood of the verb, it’s a subjunctive mood. It kind of embraces the broadest of potentiality that keeps the scope of this as wide, as far, as extensive as possible. So it’s like he’s saying this, And whatever it is, if some one of you, if any one of you should probably, possibly, even potentially do anything, speak anything, accomplish anything.

We also need to see in this verb that Paul directs our attention, here, to understand this using the tense of the verb. He’s using the subjunctive mood, keeping the thought as broad as possible. He’s also using the present tense or the present aspect, which is talking about a kind of action.

And the kind of action he’s talking about is ongoing action, daily action, habitual action, how you continually live. It’s the stuff of life, regular habit of life. Paul’s not interested simply in our contemplation about acting or doing or behaving. He’s interested in that, of course. He has an eye on future actions as well, but he is more concerned to draw our focus to our present behavior.

So it’s always worth asking the question, Right now, right now, what am I thinking? What am I living for? How am I speaking? What am I doing? Think about it: whatever you’re doing, whatever you may be doing or engaged in or planning on doing.

The Bible is very clear about trusting in man, in flesh, even in the men and the women of family, blood.” Travis Allen

Notice further, it’s not merely the outward extensivity of the scope, but inwardly, he’s talking about kind of an intensiveness here. What we are saying, what we are doing, that it all comes from the heart, because the product of our lives, the fruit that we bear, the things that we say and do, these things come from the heart, which is what makes our thoughts manifest. Our intentions, our plans, our purposes and ambitions and aims are known to everybody else by what we say, by what we do, how we live.

Jesus said in Luke 6:45, “‘The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what’s good, and the evil man likewise; he brings forth from the evil treasure, brings forth what is evil.’” His mouth speaks from what, that which fills his heart. So we get this principle: Words are the outflow of the heart. Actions make the intentions, ambitions, desires of the heart manifest, known.

In other words, everything, whatever you do in word or deed, it comes from your heart. It makes manifest what’s in your heart, whether that’s good or whether that’s bad. What comes out, then, is what comes to characterize you either as good in character or bad in character, worthless in character, useless in character. Each tree is known by its fruit.

By God’s grace, those of us who are in Christ because of the work of the Word in our lives, because of the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, because God miraculously grants us a new nature, giving us a whole new way of thinking, new lives, new desires, new ambitions, new ways we want to spend time, what we want to do with our life, the stewardship that we want to offer unto him, all that comes by the work of the Word and the Spirit in our lives, right?

We become known, then, as good trees bearing good fruit. It happens over the course of our lives, and for many, as will become clear at the judgment seat, when Jesus says to the wicked and the goats on his left, and he says, “‘You never came to me in prison. You never, you know, fed me, you never clothed me, never gave me something to drink.’ And they said, ‘Well, when did we see you like that?’”

But to the sheep, he says the same thing, he says, but opposite. He says, “‘You, you came and visited me when I was in prison. When I was sick, you comforted me, healed me. You, you offered me a cup of cold water. You fed me.’” And the godly, too, the sheep, they say, Really? “‘When did we do that?’”

He sees, he knows. Sometimes it’s imperceptibly that fruit is growing in us who are his. And inasmuch as he makes that fruit known to us and lets us see and lets others commend and appreciate and give thanks to God for what he’s producing in us that benefits and blesses others, it’s as the Word of Christ that dwells richly in us, this becomes increasingly true of us that we’re fruitful Christians, and for which we give thanks.

The fruit of our lives is what we say, what we do, how we live and all that, whether common or uncommon, whether ordinary or extraordinary, whether routine or mundane on the one hand, or spontaneous and remarkable on the other.

And we have to just admit that most of our lives: ordinary, routine, mundane, not truly remarkable, uncommon. Moms doing loads of laundry, wiping noses, changing diapers, running errands, running kids to and from school, serving families.

So much, apparently, to the outside world, so much unnoticed work that the women of the world scorn women who live like that and for that, and try to pressure them into doing something, actually something with themselves other than being wives and moms. As if that’s a low goal.

But moms know this. Wives know this. There’s so much that you do for others, but only God sees, and so much that you do from your heart, and only God knows your heart. Whether you do those tasks with a complaining, grumbling heart, or whether you do them with joy because you serve the Lord, God knows. God sees. He’s helping you to grow, to have the right heart in the right work, and the right work in the right heart.

Dads, also, in their daily work, conducting their business, signing the contract, solving problems, conducting reviews, fixing things, building things, managing people, so much that they do and how they do it, known by God and God alone. Also for them, as we’re going to see later in the passage, also for them, doing what they do with the right heart, the right attitude, working as unto the Lord and not unto men.

Kids and young people attending classes, hearing teachers, reading books, learning subjects, doing homework, completing assignments, taking tests, and then home to practice piano, go to sports practice, do chores, care for pets, help with dinners, do dishes, whatever it is that kids are doing at home, that, too, often the stuff of the mundane, the routine, the common, but can be done nobly, as under the Lord.

Older people, empty-nesters, retirees taking care of home, property, they can visit friends, family to minister to them, to minister to others. They’ve got time to, in between doctor appointments, to give of themselves and give of time and money and energy.

They can invest in tomorrow’s generations, serve those in need, make the most of every opportunity to invest just one more time in that stewardship of their lives and their experience and their counsel and their wealth. They know that when they hit the grave, all that stuff is gone. So they need to use it well, now, while they’ve got a mind to do so.

So whether at home or at work or in school or out of school or at church ministering, serving, teaching, learning, admonishing one another with all wisdom, singing with gratitude in our hearts to God in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, caring for facilities and property during the week, visiting those who are in sick or in need; or whether you do it out there or whether it’s alone times, whatever it is you do, whether on the Internet, consuming some form of media, reading some form of media like a book or a Bible daily, quieting the soul for daily times of prayer, giving of thanks, making of requests, petitioning God, pleading with God, the scope of living for Christ is extensive.

It’s utterly comprehensive. It’s an outward-facing thing, but it’s also inward-looking, because it’s concerned not just about the output of the heart, but also the intentions and the thoughts and the motives and the ambitions. All those things coming from the heart result in the words that we speak, the things that we do, the things that we plan, and all of that is that by which we’re known.

What Paul wants us to understand, these matters of our daily lives, many of which seem to us to be mundane, routine, common, ordinary; when we live for Christ, our words and our deeds reach up to sublime heights of importance.

Second point, the height, number two, the height, the sublimity of living for Christ. The sublimity of living for Christ. And this is the next phrase, here. Paul says, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” “In the name of the Lord Jesus.”

Now we all should and do pray in Jesus’ name, right? We often say “in Jesus’ name, amen.” We before eating meals, we give thanks for food and we thank God in Jesus’ name. We pray to God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ, and we do it by the will of the Holy Spirit, in step with the Holy Spirit.

Because the Spirit would glorify Jesus Christ to us, and Jesus Christ would take us to the father. Every time we pray, we ought to be thinking about that. Every time you give thanks for a meal, every time you put your kids to bed, you ought to be thinking about what it is you’re doing when you’re praying.

Because if you do it thoughtlessly and mindlessly, you’re no better than the Gentiles, who repeat meaningless phrases. Even if they’re phrases that actually have in and of themselves meaning, if you do it in a meaningless way, it’s meaningless to you. So be cognizant of the prayers you pray because we’re to be praying in Jesus’ name.

And I do wonder, not only in our prayers, but do we consciously, intentionally, thoughtfully, do we do all that we do, and whatever we do, whether in word or deed, do we really do all in the name of the Lord Jesus?

I would venture to guess that if we’re all going to be honest, here, we’re going to have to answer that with a hard, no. All that we do, whatever we do? You got me there. By using such universal terminology, you got me, pastor. But it’s not me getting you. It’s the Scripture, right? I’m just, I’m just the messenger. But do we do whatever we do, are we thoughtful about that, intentional, conscious about that?

I think sometimes the failure to do all that we do in his name is because it’s a failure to kind of understand even what this means, “do it in the name of Jesus.” We just kind of flippantly say those things, repeat that phraseology and terminology without really reflecting on it. And that’s what Paul is allowing us to do, here. That’s what we’re going to use our time today, for us to reflect on this.

So it kind of boils down to this: How aware are you of the great and magnificent purpose of your life, that your life is not about you doing you and making the most of it right now, living your best life now. It’s not about that. It’s not about checking off everything on your bucket list. It’s not about, he who dies the most toys wins. It’s not about living for pleasure and entertainment. It’s, it’s not about any of that.

So what is it about? We need to understand that. And then we need to ask, how complicit are you? How cooperative are you with the father and the Spirit in this great endeavor to glorify the son? Or how complicit are you and how cooperative and how much do you partner with the son by the Spirit to join in glorifying God? Because that is the great and chief end of man, to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Such an amazing charge, here, from the Apostle Paul because he has done this by the direct authorization of the Holy Spirit, who is the divine author of Scripture, working through Paul. But Paul has clearly modified what is here an extremely familiar phrase, because all the saints of all the ages past before Paul spoke of, in the name of the Lord.

You can find that, in the name of the Lord, all through the Old Testament. In Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, in the name of the Lord, that’s the divine name. So it’s, in the name of the Lord is literally, in the name of Yahweh.

As early as Genesis 4:26, after the tragedy of Cain killing his brother Abel, then the banishment of Cain, then God gave Adam and Eve another child and they named him Seth. It means gift from God, and the text says that “at that time men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” Literally, “They began to call upon the name of Yahweh.” Under Seth and in his line, he taught his family to worship, to live for the name of Yahweh.

Ever since then, all the way through the Old Testament, nearly a hundred times, the name of the Lord referred to God, the Lord God whose name is Yahweh, and the name is all that characterized him.

After the resurrection of Jesus, after his ascension to heaven, after the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell his people in the New Testament church, there’s a new name appended to that expression, the name of the Lord. It’s the name Jesus appended to the expression, the name of the Lord.

Acts 8:16, new converts were baptized “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Ephesian converts, Acts 19 verse 5, “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” When the power of that name became known in the casting out of demons, Acts 19:17 says, “Fear fell upon all,” a deep, deep reverence, and even in the unbelieving, a craven fear of the power of this name, “and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified.”

Early Christians saw the change in the adding of Jesus to in the name of the Lord, in that expression, not as a blasphemous thing, as all the Christ-rejecting Jews saw it. The early Christians saw this as a most proper, fitting amendment to that original formula, that original expression.

To add the name Jesus to that formula, in the name of the Lord, it really honors the one whom God chose to send to save us, Jesus Christ. Paul tells the Corinthians, “Therefore, you were washed and you were sanctified and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Paul makes use of the same expression here in Colossians 3:17, and again, he does it in a most fitting way because he’s addressing the particular error of the false teaching, as we’ve discussed, the false teaching that infiltrated the ranks of the Colossian church.

The false teachers had entered in and were trying to draw people away from this church and away to their own movement. They were saying, Jesus Christ isn’t sufficient. Jesus Christ, he’s good, no, he’s good. He’s great, great for you. He’s a good mediator. He’s just, he’s just a lesser mediator. He’s one among many mediators. He could even be the greatest among the many mediators. But his work does require the assistance of some other divine figures, some other mediators, to get the fullness of God, the pleroma of God.

So it is with divine sanction that Paul writes, here, with the imprimatur of God himself, and by the inspiration and authority of the Holy Spirit, that Paul adds the personal name Jesus to that original, in the name of the Lord, in the name of Yahweh. And by doing that, he made it a most proper, fitting saying: in the name of the Lord Jesus.

I recently spoke with a man who mistakenly thought that the concept of the Trinity is kind of a doctrinal error that’s crept into Christian teaching, and that God is one, strictly one, and that he’s just really known throughout the sweep of history, kind of by three names, or manifest in three different modes. There’s the mode of the Father; then the mode of the Son, which is Jesus; and the mode of the Spirit.

He was a little fuzzier on the third one, but he even quoted back to me a very common illustration, an erroneous illustration, but he used this illustration to explain his view to me. He said the Father, the Son, the Spirit is like the three different forms or modes of water.

You ever heard this? It could be in the form of liquid, solid, solid ice, or invisible vapor. Liquid water, solid water is ice, vapor is water, steam, same substance, he said, three different modes of being.

If you grew up as I did, in an evangelical youth group, especially from the 1970s through the 1990s, you probably heard that same illustration used to explain the Trinity. God’s like water. He’s like H2O. There’s a solid and a liquid and a gas.

That man perceptively realized, Oh, so you mean modalism? God’s just in three different modes. That illustration is totally wrong. It does illustrate modalism, or what was originally called Sabellianism, after its first teacher Sabellius, condemned in the third century and then formally condemned at the councils of Nicaea, 325, and Constantinople in 381. Ancient heresy, ancient misunderstanding.

Other illustrations: The Trinity is an egg, so its visible outer shell, inner shell of golden yoke, invisible egg white surrounds everything. That’s wrong, too, because that’s illustrating tritheism, three different things, not Trinity.

Or the Trinity is a three-leafed clover. You got a branch which, you know, rises to three different leaves: leaves one thing, but three. No, that’s partialism, each leaf making up part of the united whole. That’s not how God is either.

It’s so important to clarify some of these doctrinal errors and confusions because they prevail today, don’t they? And this man I talked to was no scholar. He wasn’t trying to influence me or evangelize me as a member of a cult. Just a common guy, and really neat guy, nice guy, willing to listen to my correction.

So by adding Jesus to the original, in the name of the Lord formula, Paul is not asserting, here, that God is not taking the mode of or appearing in the form of Jesus. That’s not what he’s saying. He is, on the one hand, he is clearly asserting a divine identity for Jesus, that he is none other than the Yahweh of old.

You have to have a forgiving heart and be ready and willing to forgive when they come and ask, every time they ask.” Travis Allen

So it’s not blasphemous at all, but rather entirely fitting, most appropriate, most pleasing in fact, to pray in the name of, and in fact to do everything in the name of Yahweh Jesus.

But on the other hand, notice that Paul is quick to add right after this, very next phrase, “giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Two persons of the Trinity, here, clearly differentiated and distinguished, but one in essence and united in purpose.

Tuck this verse away for the next time you have that encounter with a cultist, whether a Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, or one that’s Pentecostal, that teaches a false view of the Trinity as well, people like T. D. Jakes and his ilk, or any other ignorant, uninformed person who doesn’t understand, and how all these bad teachings and bad analogies have filtered and permeated into the culture. People just think like this now. We’ve got to teach them basic teachings about the Trinity.

As interesting, though, as this verse is for its apologetic value, the main point, here, is to connect the first phrase to the second phrase so that we come to recognize everything we do, whatever we do, word or deed, reaches the sublime heights of an eternal value in the name of the Lord Jesus.

So what does it mean to do, speak, or act in his name? The name of a person, as I mentioned before, it is the symbol of one’s character. It speaks to one’s essential nature or his disposition, his aims, his purposes, his intentions. It kind of just summarizes his life.

You can think of any person in your life and you just say their name, or someone says their name to you, you don’t actually picture a name; you picture a person, a face, you, you remember a character, you remember deeds, you remember conversations, good and bad.

So when we do or speak or act in the name of Yahweh, in the name of the Lord Jesus, we are doing, speaking, acting with his character in mind, with his aims, his purposes, his intentions in view in our hearts.

So that is to say, his will becomes our will. We aim at achieving his ends, not our own selfish ends. We live in the pursuit of pleasing him with our thoughts and our words and our actions, not pleasing ourselves, chasing Christ-less ambitions, doing meaningless things.

Not only that, but when his will becomes our will, when we aim at his ends and pursue his purposes, we’re also concerned about doing his will in his way, to conduct ourselves consciously, thoughtfully, according to his character, so that we think, speak, and act as though we represent him, because we do.

So how can we be sure we’re representing him well, accurately, according to his name and character and will? Well, this is why Colossians 3:16 comes before 3:17. We know that what his name represents, the unmitigated glory, the unparalleled clarity, the unrivaled beauty, the unequalled supremacy, we talked about that last time, when we “let the Word of Christ dwell richly within us,” we know when with all wisdom we are teaching and admonishing one another so that we grow and learn and mature, all that is in his name.

Living for Christ means we live in such a way, thinking, speaking, behaving in such a way that we can be confident from all that we know from Scripture, all that we’re learning from Scripture, all that God has revealed about his Christ, we can be confident in our Lord Jesus when he considers our thoughts, speech, actions.

He would say, Yeah, that one represents me. That one speaks for me. This one acts, lives in keeping with my purposes. He does it according to my character. He does all that he does in my name.

So what does this name, Jesus, represent? Well, it’s all in the name, isn’t it? “Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” When we unpack that further, in the name of the Lord, again, we see this as the name of Yahweh. What does, the name of Jesus, mean? It’s the Greek version of the old Joshua, Yeshua, which means, Yahweh saves. Yahweh saves.

So to “do all in the name of the Lord Jesus” is to “do all in the name of Yahweh,” comma, Yahweh saves. That’s how we live. We’re to be his evangelists. We’re to be proclaiming salvation from God in him and him alone.

Amazing thought, isn’t it, that to act in his name, it sanctifies every activity, every thought, every word, every deed, sacred or secular, holy or profane, common and uncommon, routine or out of the ordinary, mundane or remarkable. Nothing is wasted. Everything turns into an act of worshipful, believing obedience that we get to tell others about him.

Paul said the same thing using different language in his letter to the Romans. He said, “I urge you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, you present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

So you use your bodies, your eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet, brain, brawn, thoughts, imaginations, ambitions, all of it, use those as instruments God gave you of righteousness, to serve God and to serve these interests.

This is the sublimity of living for Christ, that everything in your life becomes an opportunity to please him, to do his will, serve his purposes, to invest in eternity. And you do that by proclaiming God’s salvation. And it’s a salvation that is in the name of Jesus and in his name alone. “There is no other name under heaven by which men must be saved.”

Living life for Christ now elevates everything you do, everything you say, everything you think, everything you plan, imagine, want, desire, all of it. It elevates it to this sublime act of worship to him and leading others into worship of him. So cool, isn’t it?

We’ve seen the comprehensive scope, the sublime height of living for Christ. Third, let’s see the heart, the heart, which is the felicity of living for Christ. The heart is happy living for Christ.

In our soul, at the core of our being, is a deep and ever-deepening heart of joy, contentment, satisfaction; and all that comes out in a spirit of gratitude. “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

All the things that people live for on this earth, chase after, I mentioned money, family, significant great things, when you aim for those things, you lose everything. When you aim for living for Christ, the wealth of heaven is open to you. The family of God is your family, and that is an abiding family that lives forever.

We talk about greatness, significance, purpose, meaning. Is there anything more meaningful than what God is doing on this earth, in his eternal decree and you being a part of it, and you eternally living with him and enjoying him forever? Is there anything better?

The chief act, then, of a felicitous heart, a happy, cheerful, joyful heart, which is the heart of all who truly live for Christ, the chief and defining act of that heart is a heart of thanksgiving, giving thanks, not grumbling, complaining, not whining, not asserting your own preferences, not putting forth your own will. It’s thanksgiving.

A heart of thanksgiving represents a perfect contentment, an abiding peace, total satisfaction, serenity, so that Paul could honestly say, Look, I don’t care if I have everything or nothing. I have Christ. I’m happy. He could be rotting in a jail, as often he was, singing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs of praise to God.

You want to live an untroubled, safe, secure, happy, peaceful, contented, harmonious and happy life? Live it for Christ.

Those who live for the aims and the pursuits I mentioned at the start, money and all that money can buy, comfort of friends and family, significance of involvement in great things, social, political, cultural movements; and even worse, to blend all those kind of fleshly desires with religion; especially offensive to God, I think, has to be blending it with evangelical religion, Christian religion, reformed faith.

People who live their lives in the service of lesser gods are betrayed by false promises. They become disillusioned and bitterly so. They become resentful. They’ve sacrificed all that really matters to gain what they can’t keep, to invest their life’s labor, pouring it into buckets that have holes in the bottom. It all leaks out.

And the dominant attitude of such a heart is complaining and critical-spirited, bitter, resentful, rehearsing grievances, all the injustices and offenses. Such a heart is discontented, always ill at ease, unsatisfied. It always has, looming out in front of it and fears the certain coming judgment just ahead. They know not when, but it is coming, and it is certain when that soul will give its account to God.

On the other hand, the soul in which the peace of Christ rules and reigns, in which the Word of Christ illumines, teaches, admonishes, brings wisdom to see the glory of Christ with crystal clarity, to gaze upon the beauty of Christ in his unequal place of supremacy, that soul is most blessed, contented, satisfied, and joyful.

Being well-taught, instructed in the ways of divine wisdom, that person knows, he, she knows, old, young, that person knows that Christ came for the purpose of reconciling us to God the Father. And how our souls need reconciliation!

That person knows that this entire plan of creation and redemption is for the purpose of glorifying the triune God. That’s what we’re made for, to bring him glory and praise. That’s why we bear his image. You think it’s for own sakes? Yes. I mean, there’s a reciprocal benefit, I should say, of that. But when we reflect his glory, we reflect it to others, we bring glory and honor to him. It’s the greatest thing to live for. It brings all praise and honor and glory to God the father who did all this, planned on this, decreed all this, and he did it in the name of Jesus.

So we give thanks then to God the father, who is our great and our eternal reward. Through Jesus Christ, we give him thanks, and we do so in his most glorious, most blessed name.

We’ve learned from this verse what it means to live for Christ, consider the scope, the height, the heart. The scope is extensive and intensive; it’s comprehensive and deep. The sublime height of living for Christ, everything in our life takes on a significance, has meaning in him. When we live for Christ, all grumbling, complaining is banished from our hearts, shoved out, cast out by this, a radical joy.

Now we see that the role of this verse, Colossians 3:16, is now so tremendously important because Paul uses this verse to pivot from the abstract to the concrete, from the conceptual to the practical, from this more abstract teaching on sanctification that is really the stuff of every individual believing heart, now to the concrete and the practical application of that sanctification in the rest of the chapter here in real life.

So this brings us to a fourth and final point: the sphere, the sphere, the secularity of living for Christ, the secularity of living for Christ. And if you’re having trouble writing down that word secularity because you are, you know, kind of squeamish, and it kind of, react against it, don’t be scared off by the word secular. I don’t mean by it, obviously, godless, anti-Christian, anything of the sort. That’s not how I’m using it.

The word secular comes from the Latin word seculum, which means age or era or generation or lifetime. The concept of this has to do with that which pertains to the temporal world, or the stuff of daily life, the stuff of the age, the stuff of your life.

This is the sphere in which we live our lives for Christ, in which that sanctified life is manifest in our secular living; in the home, first; then in the workplace; and then in the ministry of the gospel.

We start in verses 18 to 21 with the sphere of the home, where we live for Christ and the stuff of daily life. I love this because the immediate beneficiaries of this new life dwelling in us and enriching us and maturing us and bearing fruit in us, those who ought to benefit most are those who are closest to us, those who are nearest to us in relationship.

Shouldn’t they be the beneficiaries of our Christ-centered, thankful heart? Shouldn’t they receive the forgiveness and the forbearance and the love and the affection, gentleness, patience and all the rest? Absolutely, they should.

Out of the local church, which Paul is kind of describing, here in verses 12 through 17, the work of the church and how that works inside the church, and then emerging, then, out of the formative in the shaping and culturating sphere of the home, marriage and family, we move to the public, into the workplace, the stuff of daily life that takes place in our business endeavors, in our work, we find through, in Colossians 3:22 and all the way through the first verse of chapter 4.

And remember, all of this done in the name of the Lord Jesus according to his will, according to his character, by the dictates of his purposes, for his good pleasure, proclaiming God’s salvation in the home, in the workplace, out in public, in the marketplace.

This is what we’re about. This is what it is to live for Christ in the concrete practical realities of the sphere of our daily lives. Again, we’re here working as unto the Lord, doing his will in his way, and we do it in the workplace.

Whether slave or master, whether employee or employer, our chief concern is the glory of God, which means we do what we do in Christ’s name, which means we glorify God’s redemption in Christ.

And when we do his work this way, God will open up opportunities to us. He’ll open doors. He’ll help us to see the opportune time to make most of that opportunity to speak a word for Christ, to lead others to salvation in Christ. So we need to be on the lookout, prayerfully looking, watching, waiting, looking for those opportunities.

And that’s really what we see if you, I’ll just all read this, verse 2 of chapter 4 through verse 6. This is the mentality we’re to have. “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful in it,” again, “with thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well,” Paul says, “that God will open up to us a door for the word, that we may speak the mystery of Christ, for which I’ve also been bound, that I may make it manifest in the way I ought to speak.”

So you guys, as you pray for me, then be, if you’re going to pray that for me, pray it for yourselves. “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, redeeming the time. Let your words always be with grace, seasoned with salt,” that is, “so that you will know how you should answer each person.” That’s how we live for Christ.

We’ve got a lot of good stuff coming up in the text before us, but I pray to God that everything we cover as we go through the role of wives and husbands, parents and children, employers, employees, Christians in the workplace, Christians in the world, Christians out and about, that you will filter all of it through the grid and through the prism of Colossians 3:17, so that “whatever you do in word or in deed, that you do all in the name of the Lord Jesus,” in “the name of Yahweh, Yahweh saves,” that your life is a testimony to that changed life that God produces in Christ, that you demonstrate salvation, you speak about salvation, it is your love to speak and proclaim his name, and you give thanks to God the Father through him. Let’s pray.

Our Father, we thank you so much for this great salvation, that we here who know you, who have been radically saved and changed by your amazing grace, we do pray that you would help us to live more fervently, consistently with this great charge of the Apostle Paul, that you would help us to make it our aim, whether we’re at home or away, to be pleasing to him.

We love you, Father. We thank you for the salvation of Christ. We thank you for the opportunity to live a little bit longer on this earth, not for ourselves, but for you who’s called us with a holy calling. It’s in Jesus’ name that we do pray. Amen.