Sermons – Paradox Consulting

Our text in Acts 2:1-13 describes something entirely new and amazing. And yet what we read should not come as a complete surprise. We might compare the Pentecost event to having a birthday. You know that your birthday is coming and that someone who loves you has a present for you. You are not sure exactly what the present is, but they’ve told you that you will really like it, and you don’t know exactly when you will receive it. You know it is something good, and that it is coming soon. 

The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is like the birthday party for the church. They have been waiting for this surprise party knowing that the Father and Jesus had a gift for them that was going to be incredible.  

As we approach Luke’s description of the Pentecost event, we should do so fully aware that those who experienced it had been prepared for its arrival, even though they did not know exactly what it would be like. Remember back to Luke’s gospel and how he recorded John speaking about the Baptism that Jesus would use versus his own? Luke 3:16:

John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

John contrasts his baptism with that of Jesus. John baptized with water, but Jesus would baptize with the Spirit and with fire. Jesus will reinforce these words, and it is clear that the message is that the baptism of Jesus is vastly superior to that of John, just as Jesus is vastly superior to John.

Also, just a few verses after this, we see Jesus’ Baptism with the voice out of the cloud “This is my Son with whom I am well pleased,” and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. This is the time when our Lord was filled with power from the Holy Spirit to carry out His earthly ministry. Remember, it was immediately after His baptism that Jesus faced Satan in the wilderness and then commenced His ministry.

You might be saying, “Why are we talking about the Baptism of Jesus? We’re supposed to be talking about Pentecost. What do these two things have to do with each other?” And I think that is a great question and we’ll get to it in just a few minutes. 

For now, let us also remember that Jesus taught his disciples to pray for the Holy Spirit with the assurance that their prayers would be answered: Luke 11:13

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

And remember just a few weeks ago we saw Jesus in his final instructions before his ascension. He tells His disciples that their mission is to be witnesses to His resurrection and to the good news of the gospel. They are to take the gospel to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. But he also tells them to wait in Jerusalem until they are clothed with power from on high. That’s Jesus reminding them that the Birthday present is coming and it is going to be great. Today, they are going to get that present at Pentecost.

Setting the Scene for Pentecost

Acts 2:1-2, “Now when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like a violent wind blowing came from heaven and filled the entire house where they were sitting.”

Alright, the first question you should be asking when you come to this text is “What is Pentecost?” This was a traditional Jewish festival celebrated 7 weeks and one day after Passover. Can my math whizzes tell me what 7 weeks plus one day is? Fifty. Any guesses what Pentecost means? Fifty that’s right. This was a holy celebration for the Jews going all the way back to Exodus and Leviticus. 

It was not a coincidence that Jesus’ sacrifice occurred on Passover and it is not a coincidence that the coming of the Spirit occurs at Pentecost. There is a great connection between the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost and the Old Testament Feast. But like the connection with Jesus’ baptism, I will get to it in just a few minutes.

The setting Luke describes is very basic. He tells us simply that “they were all together in one place.”

I think from this, we are supposed to understand that they did not bring God down by their actions; God came down upon them unexpectedly. God is not a vending machine, and he doesn’t want us to get the impression that if we simply push the same buttons that the disciples did then we can have the same experience. This was a once in an eon event, not to be repeated and it was all God’s doing.

To emphasize this point, let’s look at two words in verse 2. Notice the word suddenly at the beginning of verse 2.

The Spirit did not come after some agonizing effort on the part of the believers in Jerusalem; He came suddenly, surprisingly, unexpectedly. Second, Luke informs us that the Spirit came while they were “sitting.” Now why would he bother to include such a detail as this? Perhaps it was because one usually sits when he is inactive or at rest. If they were sitting, the inference may be that they were not doing anything to induce the Spirit to come. Let’s continue reading.

The Spirit Arrives

Acts 2:3-4 “And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Nothing like this has ever happened before. While a few incidents are described later in the Book of Acts that remind the believers of Pentecost, only here do we read of the “sound of a violent wind” and the appearance of something like tongues of fire being distributed on those present. Only here is there a large gathering of devout Jews from various parts of the world. Only here do those looking on hear the praises of God in their own mother tongue.

In an age before the wonders of the moving picture or sound systems, God is putting on a show. An auditory and a visual spectacle accompany the filling of the Spirit. This awesome sound drew people from all over the city of Jerusalem. 

This isn’t in the text, but I have to wonder who could see the tongues of fire. If they stayed there all day, I think we would have some reference from those in the crowd about this. So it was probably only seen by the disciples who were present. Perhaps, this frightened them and they ran out of the place they were gathered and into the street where the crowds began to gather to find out what all the commotion was about.

If you are a good reader, you might be asking yourself, “Why wind and fire? What do these phenomena symbolize?” (I thought about making an Earth, Wind, and Fire joke but after my ADD bomb, I decided not to.) I should begin by pointing out that in both Hebrew and Greek (the languages in which most of the Old and New Testaments were written) the word for “spirit” is the same as the word for “wind.” Rhema in Hebrew, Pneuma in Greek and wind is often a symbol associated with the Spirit of God.

We see the Holy Spirit in Ezekiel and the Valley of Dry Bones as a breath and a wind. But the most striking reference is in Jesus’ words in John 3:5-8 as he was speaking to Nicodemus:

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

It would seem, therefore, that the sound like a violent wind signaled the descent of the Spirit in a mighty way. Luke is careful to inform us that the sound like a mighty rushing wind came from heaven. All of this is to make it very plain that what is happening has originated with God.

Second, fire is frequently a symbol of God’s presence. We see it when Moses encounters the burning bush in Exodus 3. We see it again with the fire at Mount Sinai in Exodus 19:18. We see it in the pillar of fire that accompanied the Israelites. And from the account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, we see that fire is also a means of divine judgment. If we jump back to Jesus’ baptism again, we can see that John the Baptist associated the baptism of fire with judgment.

Luke 3:17, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Also, apart from divine intervention, the human tongue as described in James 3 is a destructive fire, but once the heart is renewed and the Spirit empowers the tongue, it becomes an instrument of salvation? Thus, tongues of fire seem to symbolize the tongues of the apostles, empowered by the Spirit, which speak of the glory of God, and this leads to the conversion of thousands.

Speaking of the tongues of the apostles, let’s talk about the languages that they spoke. The words that they spoke were in languages unknown to the speakers, but which are the native languages of the hearers. 

I have tried to mentally picture what must have taken place at Pentecost. The awesome noise (like a violent wind) attracted the crowds. They heard those who were empowered by the Spirit speaking in various foreign languages. I can imagine individuals hearing their own native tongue somewhere in the crowd, and after a search, finding the speaker. I can likewise imagine the speaker, wondering what he is saying. Since they could communicate in a common tongue (Aramaic or Greek?), they could discuss what was being said, and thus the hearer could inform the speaker about what he was saying, and even the language in which it was spoken. What a wonder that must have been for both speaker and hearer.

Audience Response

Acts 2:5-13, “Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Where did all these “devout Jews” come from? Where were these many “devout Jews” in the Gospels? Why did they not protest when Jesus was on trial? And yet Luke writes that there were devout Jews from every nation staying in Jerusalem at this time. Where were they before this? 

Some of them were probably Jews who made their way from distant lands to come to Jerusalem to observe the Feast of Pentecost (see Acts 20:16). I suppose that some might have come for Passover and stayed on until Pentecost. We know that many did make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the feasts, especially the three mandatory feasts of Passover, Firstfruits, and Pentecost.

Passover and the following weeks were a time of impressive celebration. Jews had been scattered all over the world and this was an occasion for them to return to the holy temple and worship and celebrate the harvest. From all over the Mediterranean world, Jews who had settled or foreigners who had embraced the Jewish religion came to celebrate. Nobody knows exactly how many came. Most estimates say that Jerusalem swelled from its normal 30,000 residents to over 2 million at this time of year. The city itself couldn’t hold everyone, and they filled the surrounding villages and set up tent villages outside the city walls. It would have been a sight to behold.

I also don’t think that it is beyond the realm of possibility that God had increased the turnout for this particular year. This was the fullness of time, the display of the long-awaited messiah to the world. I can see God speaking to his people all over the Mediterranean reminding them to make plans to go to Jerusalem this year, getting their finances in order, opening their calendar. God was putting on a show and he wanted an audience present. Because not only did these people come and see, but afterward they would go home and tell of what they saw. 

Think, too, of the things which had taken place in recent times. Surely word must have gotten out about the birth of Jesus and about the magi who came from afar to worship Him (Matthew 2:1ff.). Then John the Baptist came, promising that Messiah would soon appear (Matthew 3:1-2). He drew crowds, even in the wilderness. Jesus then commences His public ministry, which is authenticated by many miracles (Matthew 4:23-25). For three years, His ministry continues. His appearances in Jerusalem created a considerable stir. 

Then Jesus is crucified just seven weeks before this, and a number of very unusual things occurred, things which could not be quickly and easily explained away: the temple curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom. There was a great earthquake, Tombs were opened and dead saints came back to life and went into the city and appeared to many people.

All of these things would have put a buzz in the air and probably drawn a lot of curious onlookers. Messianic expectation was at an all-time high. Word about Jesus had spread abroad. Surely the “devout Jews” heard of such things, and just as surely, they would have made every effort to relocate to Jerusalem, hoping to be on hand when the kingdom of God was inaugurated.

Here, as before, the response of the audience was mixed. The “devout Jews” sensed that there was spiritual significance to these events, and they sought to know what it was: “What does this mean” (verse 12)? But others dismissed these miraculous events as the babblings of those who were drunk: “They are drunk on new wine!” (verse 13)

What does Pentecost Mean?

Let us consider what Pentecost means. In the coming verses of Acts 2, Peter will explain the meaning of Pentecost for those who witnessed it. These were folks who needed to place their trust in Jesus as the promised Messiah. But Luke wrote the Book of Acts for folks like us, many of whom have trusted in Jesus. What is the meaning of Pentecost for us? 

I will attempt to explore the meaning of Pentecost for us by examining from three dimensions:

(1) Its similarities to the baptism of our Lord by John.

(2) Its relationship to the Feast of Pentecost.

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 

Consider the similarities between our Lord’s baptism by John and the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. 

In Luke 3, the Spirit comes upon Jesus after He has been baptized by John and while He is praying. In Acts, the apostles and others have also been praying, and the Spirit comes upon them. 

In Luke, a voice (the voice of God the Father) comes from heaven; in Acts 2, a great noise comes from heaven. 

In Luke, the Spirit comes in the form of a dove and rests upon Jesus. In Acts 2, the Spirit’s coming is seen in the likeness of tongues of fire, which come upon all those gathered together. 

The coming of the Spirit upon Jesus in Luke 3 is the event that preceded the commencement of our Lord’s ministry, a ministry which was marked by manifestations of power. In Acts 2, Pentecost is the event that preceded the going forth of the apostles in power, as they proclaimed the gospel.

The baptism of our Lord in Luke 3 is essential and foundational to our understanding Pentecost. In our Lord’s baptism, we see God identifying Himself (Father and Spirit) with the Son, and with His ministry. We see that it is from this point on that Jesus is endowed with power from on high to conduct His earthly ministry. When we come to Pentecost in Acts 2, we see a similar event taking place with our Lord’s earthly body, the church. At Pentecost, God identifies Himself with the church, the body of Christ. Just as Jesus did not begin His public ministry until the Father identified Himself with Him by bestowing His Spirit on Him, so the apostles were told to wait until He identified Himself with them at Pentecost.

From Pentecost on, God has come to dwell in His people, God now identifies Himself with His people in a most intimate way more than we ever find in the Old Testament. This is only possible because our sins have been dealt with on the cross of Calvary. Pentecost can come because our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.

THE FEAST OF PENTECOST

In addition to Jesus’ Baptism, we can also see a lot of significance to the events of Pentecost based on our understanding of the Jewish Feast of Pentecost. It is a fulfillment of the Old Testament feast. Paul calls attention to this relationship between Old Testament institutions and New Testament realities in Colossians 2:16.

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

The writer to the Hebrews says the same thing in Hebrews 10:1.

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

Let’s read one of the Old Testament Texts that speaks of Pentecost or as it was more commonly known, the Feast of Weeks. There are several in Exodus 34, Leviticus 23, and Deuteronomy 16. Let’s read Deuteronomy 16:9-12.

You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.

The Jewish feasts are observed according to the Jewish calendar. As many know, the Jewish calendar is very different from our own. The first spring holiday is that of Passover. Passover commemorates God’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage at the exodus. Passover recalls the ten plagues, the observance of the first Passover meal (by means of which the firstborn males were spared), and the crossing of the Red Sea. Passover begins on the 14th day of the first month of Abib, which falls in our months of March or April. 

The day after Passover, the 15th day of the month, was the beginning of a one-week celebration of the “Feast of Unleavened Bread.” All leaven was to be removed for a period of one week. One of the seven days of the “Feast of Unleavened Bread” would naturally be a Sabbath or Saturday. 

The day following this Sabbath there was to be the celebration of the beginning of the harvest. They would bring the first sheaf of the spring barley crop to the priest who would wave the offering before the Lord. Just a little note that I realized while studying for this sermon, that this offering of firstfruits would have been given on the Sunday morning when Jesus rose from the dead.

Jesus died on Passover as our sacrificial Lamb and rose on the day of firstfruits to show that he was the firstfruit of the resurrection of the dead, the beginning of God’s harvest of souls.

The Feast of Pentecost (or, more commonly in Old Testament terms, the “Feast of Weeks”) was to be celebrated 50 days after the offering of the first fruits. It occurs in the third month of the Jewish calendar, which would be during the months of May or June on our calendar.

There are several things I believe to be significant about this holiday which serve to foreshadow the Pentecost of Acts 2. First of all, Pentecost was the celebration of the completion of the barley harvest and the transition to the wheat harvest. This could be used to symbolize that God was not transitioning from the Old Covenant of dealing with the Jews to establishing his church. 

But more likely, Pentecost had come to be celebrated by the Jews as a commemoration of the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt. Sinai and the coming of the Holy Spirit shows the fulfillment of the New Covenant where God will write the law on our hearts instead of tablets of stone. 

Passover clearly anticipated the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and His saving work on the cross of Calvary. He is our Passover Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7). The Feast of Unleavened Bread follows Passover, and all leaven must be removed. The death of our Lord Jesus at Calvary removes the guilt of our sins, and thus we must come to hate sin and desire that it be put far from us.

Fifty days later, it was the time when God identified Himself with the church, the time when He endowed the saints with power so that they could carry out the Great Commission. It was the time when God came to indwell His saints in a way that was more intimate than any saint had ever experienced it. It was the time, thanks to the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, when God could now indwell those who were not yet free from sin and its corrupting influences. God dwells among and in His people, sinful though they will be, because of the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.

Matthew’s Gospel began by telling us that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. When the Gospel of Matthew ends with the Great Commission, we find Jesus reassuring His disciples that He will be with them always, to the end of the age. 

Now in Acts 2, Pentecost tells us how our Lord is now present with His church – through the Holy Spirit, whom He has sent. Pentecost assures us that God is present with His people, even though we are not yet sinless. We are forgiven sinners, who will one day be freed from the suffering and groaning that is the result of sin. But through the atoning work of Christ and the abiding of the Spirit, God is with us in a way that no Old Testament saint ever knew. He is with us, not only to teach, comfort, and guide us, but also to empower us to carry out the Great Commission. This is good news and a good reminder for us today.

Today, we will be wrapping up Chapter 1 of Acts, which means we are a 28th of the way through the book. If that is any indication of how long we are going to be in Acts then we should finish Acts around Zoe’s 16th birthday. Not to worry though, there is plenty of gold to be mined from this mountain. 

Today we’ll be looking at an interesting event in the life of the early church; the choosing of a replacement for Judas Iscariot. This is not without controversy, and we’ll discuss that, but I want to pull out 4 principles used by the disciples to help them in the decision-making process.

Before we get too far, let’s ask God to help us as we study his word. Let’s pray.

Decisions Introduction

Decisions, we make them all the time, every day, and you can tell a lot about a person from the decisions that he makes and especially how he makes them. 

Absurdist philosopher Albert Camus would go so far as to say that “Life is a sum of all our choices.” I wouldn’t quite go that far, but I think C.S. Lewis was right when he said, “Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you, the part that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all of your innumerable decisions, you are turning the central thing either into a heavenly creature, or into a hellish creature by simply making the decisions that you make.”

When we wake up, what we will wear, the first thing we will do with our time, what to eat, what to drive, where to work, how we work, where we live, what stuff we buy, how we entertain ourselves, who we associate with, and on and on it goes. Life is a continual series of forks in the road and each decision whether small or large at the moment can have a big impact down the line. Therefore, it is very important that the framework we use to make decisions glorifies God and enables us to make wise decisions. 

Let’s read our passage together and see what we can glean from these early followers of Jesus about making decisions. Acts 1:15, “In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120)”

Peter Takes the Lead

As the disciples were waiting in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit, on one occasion a large group of them were together. The text mentions that in those days the company was about 120 people in total. There’s nothing in the text that suggests that all 120 were present here for these events. They could have been, but at the beginning of chapter two it explicitly states that they were all together in one place on the day of Pentecost. It serves to reason that if they were all together at this time then it wouldn’t have said that he stood up among “the brothers.” 

Regardless of how many were there, Peter took a stand. This is not an uncommon position for him. In lists of the disciples or Apostles, he is always listed first without exception. The risen Lord Jesus himself spoke to Peter and gave him the express instructions to tend to his flock of followers. However, there are those who would claim that he went to Rome and established a church there and that leadership of that church has been handed down in an unbroken succession for nearly 2000 years. 

Peter is not the Pope, the vicar of Christ. He is not the rock upon which Christ will build his church. Peter himself tells us who he is in his letters. He is an apostle, a “fellow elder,” and a “bondservant of Christ.” I could say more about the papacy but now is not the time. Let me just say that I believe many Catholics love Jesus and worship him as true believers, but they are having man-made barriers placed in their way.

The Judas Issue

Peter stood up here as a leader among equals and he makes the argument that a decision must be made. Let me lay out his reasoning for you. Jesus chose 12 disciples during his earthly ministry. There were others that followed him and were present for the ministry, but these 12 were handpicked by Jesus himself. The number 12 corresponds to the 12 tribes of Israel. In Matthew 19:27, Peter asked Jesus what they would receive since they had left everything to follow Jesus. He said, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” One of those thrones was vacated by the apostasy of Judas. 

We get a reminder in Acts 1:18-19 of what Judas did. “Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.”

He betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees and religious leaders. He could have had lots of different motives for this, but the most likely is that he was trying to force Jesus hand in much the same way that Satan tried during his 40 days of temptation by telling him to jump off the top of the temple. If Judas could force Jesus into a corner with the religious leaders maybe he would reveal who he really was and would take his rightful place on David’s throne and cast out the Roman oppressors.

All of this was foretold by the Prophets. Specifically, Zechariah 11:12-13, “Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord, to the potter.”

And Jesus knew all of it was happening while it was going on. This was the plan of God to have one of Jesus’ close friends betray him for 30 pieces of silver. So since God planned it that way does that mean that Judas was innocent? Wasn’t he just doing God’s will? 

This is one of those foundational paradoxes of understanding God. He knows and plans everything. Nothing is a surprise to him and nothing can thwart his will. But this foreknowledge and predestination does not let man off the hook. God’s sovereignty and man’s freedom sit side by side. 

Judas' decisions were not made apart from his own will. Even though God ordained that Judas would be the one of the Twelve who would betray Christ, it was not separated from the desire of Judas. Judas was no robot. Our Lord did not simply allocate to an unwilling Judas the part of the villain in the crucifixion. Quite the opposite, throughout the gospels we see Jesus extending grace and calling Judas to repentance, time and time again, with His love, His pleas, and His rebukes, yet at every point he turned it down until the point at the last supper when Satan entered him and Jesus told him that it was time to do what he had determined to do. 

So although Judas's treachery fit into the plan of God, God did not design him as a treacherous man. He became a traitor to Christ by his own choice. God merely designed his treachery into the divine plan. He took Judas, wretched as he was, and fit him into His plan. Judas meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Judas is a good example of what C.S. Lewis was talking about when he said that our choices are fitting us to become either heavenly or hellish creatures. Judas made some bad decisions and it ended up hellish for him.

4 Steps to Wise Decision Making

It was at this point that the decision was before the church and they had to weigh the information before them to decide whether Judas’ place should be given to another and if so, to whom. From here, we see them take 4 steps, and I think this is a good model for us to use even to this day. 

Seek Biblical Counsel (16-17, 20)

First, looking at the situation through the lens of the word of God, Peter saw that the events of Judas’ departure (to put it nicely) was more than simple happenstance. Peter had been processing the events of the past couple of months with Jesus personally. He got to ask him questions about why things had happened the way they did. And Jesus taught the disciples how the Hebrew Scriptures pointed to Him as their ultimate fulfillment. Armed with this knowledge and understanding, Peter recognized that Judas did what he did (as despicable as it was) to fulfill Scripture. 

Acts 1:16-17; 20, “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.” 20 “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “‘May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’;  and “‘Let another take his office.’”

First, note the level of honor that he gives to the divine inspiration of Scripture. He doesn’t simply ascribe its writing to the human author David, but to the Holy Spirit. 

Second, look at the two prophecies that he quotes.  The first one, Psalm 69:25, predicts that Judas’ place would be vacated; “may his camp” - his place – “become desolate.” And then the second prophecy, Psalm 109:8, “Let another take his office.” Let another take his episkopon in Greek. If you listen carefully to it you might hear the same root that we get Episcopal from. It means the office of judgement or oversight. It is a leadership position. 

Now, you might think, this is unfair. Peter and the disciples have a decision to make that is in the most important time in history, of course the Bible is going to have something to say. They have prophecy to help interpret what is going on. But I don’t think there is any prophecy concerning whether I should take one job or another or whether I should play sports or do drama or both or neither. So, what help can the Bible provide with my everyday decisions?  

While the Scripture does not specifically answer every conceivable question we might have, it does provide help to us in finding the right, and even best, answers. Romans 12:2 calls this being, “transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The point of such renewal being that you can “discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” 

It is very easy to let reason take the driver’s seat in our decision-making, but a mind saturated with the Word of God is going to see different principles to follow when making decisions. Reason alone might tell us to take that new job because it means a pay increase and benefits. Those are nice things, but the principles that we gain from remaining close to God in his word might tell us that the additional workload and travel that comes with that job will create strain on your marriage and family. 

The beautiful thing is that now, unlike Peter and the disciples at this point, we do have the Holy Spirit and although I don’t fully understand how he does it, as we weigh our decisions before him and stay close to the word of God, things become clearer and there is peace where there otherwise shouldn’t be. 

When we give the word of God the degree of importance that it deserves in our lives, then all of our thoughts, decisions and activities will be influenced by the desire to please the Lord first. This is what *Augustine called rightly ordered loves. Citing Psalm 73:28, he writes:

“[The Psalmist] did not say, ‘for me the good is the possession of abundant wealth,’ or, ‘to enjoy the distinction of the purple robe and the glory of the sceptre or crown; nor (as some philosophers have not blushed to say) ‘my good is bodily pleasure’; nor…’my good is the virtue of my soul.’ What he said was ‘As for me, my true good is to cling to God.'”

Staying in God’s word helps us to keep God first on the list, and to help sort out the good stuff that isn’t God himself. Augustine continues his thoughts not by creating a complete list ranking life’s objects and pursuits. He knew that those would change along with the seasons of life, but rather he suggests a correct way to think about them.

For instance, he says there is nothing inherently wrong with gold. But when a man loves gold so much that abandons justice then that has become greed. 

In essence, everything, he says, can either be loved rightly, or wrongly. Loving rightly keeps us free from idolatry helps us stay close to God through his revealed word and prayer. 

I think this is obvious, but you know that I don’t just mean randomly opening your Bible looking for nuggets of gold for the moment. This is where regular Bible reading plays such a great role. It is important to not just go to the Bible looking for answers to your problems. It certainly provides some good answers, but without an understanding of the overall story of scripture and the overarching message of God’s gracious love in sending Jesus to redeem fallen mankind to himself, it is very easy to take things out of context, or just to pick and choose what we want to hear. 

Set Boundaries (21-23)

At this point, they didn’t take nominations or start collecting resumes of people they thought would make good apostles. They didn’t form an apostle search committee. Those can all be good things, but what they did to start was simply to set some boundaries, some guidelines. Without some good common sense guidelines, making a decision becomes infinitely harder. 

We see this happen at the grocery store, every single product has dozens of variations. Take notice the next time you walk down the shampoo aisle. There are forty different brands with different purposes, branding, ingredients, and scents all there to clean your hair. With all these options, how do you know what the best choice is?

You might think that having 200 different shampoos to choose from might make you happier, but psychologists are finding that actually, the more options you have, the less happy you are in making a decision. There was a study done in 2000 where they saw the negative effects of having too many options.

They randomly assigned individuals to either a group in which they could choose from 30 types of chocolate or a group in which they could choose from six types of chocolate. Win win right? You get chocolate either way. As you might expect, subjects initially reported liking having the choice of 30 different chocolates, but in the end, they were more dissatisfied and regretful of the choices they made over those who only had six to choose from.

The more choices you have the more difficult it is to know you’re making the best choice. Am I missing out on something? Did I remember that rightly? Is that really the best option? You make a choice, but you’re dissatisfied and regretful. Too many options can also result in decision paralysis. 

I’ve had to learn this in marriage. If I ask Teresa what she wants to eat for dinner, the possibilities are endless in her mind. She’s got hundreds of recipes saved on her Pinterest which we could cook, but that takes time and ingredients that we may or may not have. We could hop in the car and go pick something up from any of the restaurants in town, or we could all go out to eat and any of the dozens of types of restaurants in either Gainesville, Ocala, Dunnellon, or beyond. It’s too much, and sometimes the answer when faced with so many choices would simply be “I don’t care. You pick.” 

So instead, I will look at the menu and say, we’ve got fish on the menu and I don’t really want to smell it tonight, let’s do something else. Do you want to cook breakfast here or do you want me to go get hamburgers from McDonalds? That can still be a hard decision at times, but it is definitely narrowed from the endless flood of possibilities. 

Let’s go back to the shampoo aisle. If you have determined some guidelines like knowing your hair-type (or lack of hair type in my case) If you have color-treated frizzy hair then you want a shampoo made for you. Maybe you set a price point in your head so you can be a good steward, and finally, you are hoping for a shampoo that is organic and hasn’t been tested on animals. With that framework, the aisle is significantly reduced and we are able to more effectively choose our shampoo. But then we have to talk about deodorant. Just kidding. 

So let’s look at the guidelines that they formed by looking at their existing group and see how it helped them determine the replacement. 

Acts 1:20-23, “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias.”

Setting some boundaries reduced their options from 120 down to just two. Let’s see how they got there. First, it had to be one of the men. The women were present and were vitally important to the early church, but there would have been no thought of a female apostle in those days. Why, because they were sexist bigots? No. 

What was the purpose of this person that they were identifying? They needed to identify the person best qualified to be a witness to the resurrection. Unfortunately, a woman was not considered a reliable witness in a Jewish court in those days. So despite Jesus and the disciples having much respect for and fellowship with godly women, when it came time to choose a witness, they couldn’t do it because of effectiveness. 

Finally, they needed someone who had been with Jesus and the group of disciples for roughly the same amount of time as the other apostles. Specifically, it says “from the time of the baptism of John through the ascension.” 

What did Peter mean by the Baptism of John? If you read it quickly and don’t think about it you may think that he is talking about the baptism of Jesus by John. But if we take that as a criteria then most of Jesus’ existing disciples wouldn’t have qualified. I think that Peter is saying that it should be someone who had been with them since before John the Baptist was arrested and killed. They joined the fellowship while John was still baptizing. 

This narrowed them down to two people who could be considered. We know nothing from scripture about these two candidates, Joseph “Justus” Barsabbas and Matthias. They were both equals and met the qualifications and were considered to be good candidates by the apostles. Interestingly enough, although they choose Matthias in the end, we never hear his name mentioned again in scripture, but we think that Barsabbas shows up later in Acts 15 when they were looking for people to join Paul on his 2nd missionary journey. 

Because of this silence, many people have said that the apostles jumped the gun here by choosing and they think that they should have waited for God to fill the final spot with Paul. However, I do not agree with them. We see no rebuke, no consequences, and no regrets about this decision. Also, most of the other disciples aren’t really featured in the rest of the Bible either. We only hear about Peter, John, James, and Phillip. 

If you are going to claim that Peter stepped out of bounds here in calling for this decision then I think you need some evidence and something more than human reasoning and “it just doesn’t feel right.” To back you up. I guess we will just have to wait and see in heaven. Revelation 21:14 says, “And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.” It will be interesting to see whose name is written there, Matthias, Paul, or even Judas. But even in all eternity, I don’t think I’ll remember to look. I’ll have more important things to do. 

Pray, Pray, Pray (24-25)

Once they had narrowed the field down to the qualified two candidates then notice what they did. The same thing they had been doing for the days leading up to this decision. Prayer. That is one of the main reasons that I feel like Peter even made this motion that Judas position needed to be filled. Jesus himself could have told him to do it, but even if he didn’t he’s bathed in prayer and he’s rooted in scripture. Let’s read what they prayed, Acts 1:24-25, “And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” 

Pretty simple prayer right? Prayer doesn’t have to be long and drawn out. We don’t have to try to impress God with many words. Some of the greatest prayer warriors I have known have continuously lifted up simple prayers in faith. God cares about your heart and even if words are not spoken, the heart can be lifted up in submission. 

That is ultimately what these men are doing. They have done the work of staying close to Jesus in his word, they have used some sanctified common sense to narrow down the options, and now they pray that God would shine his light to make the final decision. They did not want to be like Judas who made his own decisions and had gone astray. They wanted to be faithful and obedient. We often treat prayer like it is a god-shaped pinata that we can hit to get stuff we want, but prayer is really an act of submission. Bringing ourselves under his authority. 

Trust God (26)

Finally, let’s look at the way they made their decision. I asked on the Facebook page for input asking which is more important, your decision-making process or your decisions themselves and I was happy to see that most people said the process. I would agree with that. We see it here as the disciples humbled themselves in this process, submitted to God who knows the hearts of men, and then left the results up to him. Acts 1:26 says, “And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.”

What does it mean to cast lots? In the Old Testament we get some glimpses of this practice. The priest would have two stones called the Urim and Thummim and he would assign one to each option then he would but the two stones in a pot and pour them out. The first stone out would be the Lord’s decision. 

This was essentially the same as drawing straws, pulling a name out of a hat, or flipping a coin. So the question I have is should we just flip a coin to make decisions? 

Well, this is the last time we see it in the New Testament. Many say that is because we now have the Holy Spirit. That may be the case, but the casting of lots is not forbidden anywhere. In fact, it is one of the ultimate steps of faith. I don’t see any issue with a prayer drenched and biblically informed coin flip. But you better trust that first flip and not go two for three. Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” 

I think what we see from the disciples is that they trusted God with the result. It could have been either man. I don’t think that the Holy Spirit would have changed this decision at all. The use of lots or a coin flip is not the most common method, but in this scenario dealing with an appointment this significant where the options were deadlocked, it was a good idea for them to give God the tie-breaking vote and to trust him for that outcome. 

So in conclusion, when faced with a decision, we should seek godly counsel from the word of God and other people, we should set some boundaries or guidelines that will guide our decision making, we should pray for God’s wisdom and guidance, then we should make the decision, even if it is with a coin toss and trust God to oversee the outcome.

The Ascension

Clouds

Don't Just Stand There...

Do Something!

Worshipful Obedience

Expectant Joy

Thankful Praise

United Fellowship

Devoted Prayer

Part 1: The Presentation of Proof for Preparation.

Jesus Presents Himself for Proof (1:1-2)

Jesus Prepares for the Kingdom (1:3)

Part 2: The Promise of Power for a Purpose with a Plan.

Waiting for the Promise (1:4-5)

Reasons for the wait (1:6-7)

To Organize priorities

To Build faith

To Purify motives

To Increase gratitude

For God’s glory

Power from the Spirit (1:8a)

Purpose and Plan for the Power (1:8b)

Conclusion

What the Spirit’s power supplies to us

Deep Conviction

Self-Denying Boldness

Heavenly Wisdom

The church obediently continues to do and teach what Jesus began by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Welcome back. I hope everyone had a good Easter week. Last time we were together, we wrapped up our study of Colossians. Today, we are going to begin an Old Testament Survey. If you are like me, in your personal Bible reading you have finished Deuteronomy and are moving into Joshua and you might be frustrated with the slow pace and repetition of the Old Testament. You might think, we have Jesus, so why do we need the Old Testament.

That’s the focus of our talk today. Why study the Old Testament? Is it merely to have a literary context for the New Testament? Let me lay out two purposes for studying the Old Testament.

First, the Old Testament reveals the character of God in a way that the New Testament does not. In the New Testament, we have the benefit of great clarity, and the benefit of considering God this side of Christ. But whereas the New Testament was written in a generation, the Old Testament spans thousands of years.

And as we see God’s character manifest through history in the Old Testament, there is a certain depth and richness that we take away. The difference is between a crystal-clear snapshot on the one hand (the snapshot of the New Testament), and a slightly grainy but three-hour-long movie (the Old Testament) on the other.

It’s one thing to read about God’s patience in 2 Peter, for example (“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promises.. but is patient with you...) (3:9). Yet it is quite another to see God’s patience with his rebellious people in the desert of Sinai.

And again in the Promised Land, through the judges, and the monarchy, through exile, and even beyond. Same God. Same promises. Same rebellion. Same patience.

The Old Testament offers a different lens with which to view the character of God. And as we see his character displayed across so much history, there is a depth and richness that we just can’t experience in the New Testament. That’s our first purpose for this study.

Second: the Old Testament tells us about Jesus. And it does that in three ways.

It is the context for the events of the New Testament. Historically, to be sure. But also thematically. From Abraham’s sacrifice on, for example, God spent 2000 years getting us ready for the idea of a substitute sacrifice on our behalf. That’s how we understand what Jesus did on the cross.

The Old Testament is the source of, by one count, 295 references and 600 allusions in the New Testament that help us understand who Jesus is. The New Testament writers clearly expect a working knowledge of the Old Testament.

And, more than just an aid for knowing the New Testament better, Jesus Himself says that the Old Testament teaches about Him. (Luke 24:44)  This was the Jesus who made the astonishing claim that he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (5:17). The Bible, in its entirety, is a book about Jesus.

If I could summarize the entire Old Testament in a simple phrase, it would be “promises made.” We learn of our need for God’s promises—we are sinners, unable to save ourselves and condemned to hell by a just God. But we learn of our promise-making God, who in his mercy promises us what we could never achieve ourselves. Similarly, as we’ll see later in the course, the message of the New Testament is “promises kept.” Particularly in Jesus Christ.

So what does “promises made” look like?  Today, I want to jump up to 10,000 feet so we can see the whole landscape. We’re going to run through the Old Testament from beginning to end.

Not once, not twice, but three times. The first time will be just to set your bearings—introducing you to each book of the Old Testament. And then we’ll step back and run through again, this time looking at our need for God’s promises, the story of his holiness and our sin. And finally, we’ll look at the story of his promise, which ultimately carries us into the ministry of Jesus Christ.

Historical Overview

The Bible begins, on page 1, in Genesis 1:1, with God’s creation of the universe—from nothing. And the crown of his creation, mankind, made in his image, to reflect his character. This is chapters 1 and 2 of the Bible. The foundation is set. Things are good. Then in chapter 3, God’s first humans disobey him and the whole cosmos falls into ruin as a consequence. And God shouts, “This is why we can't have nice things!”

The narrative continues with things going from bad to worse including a worldwide flood leaving only one man and his family as a remnant. But that doesn’t change anything. People are still wicked and disobedient and run from their creator. But God is patient and loving and begins a plan for redemption.

In Genesis 12, God chooses one man out of Noah’s descendants out of an obscure place (not a throne) to be the first of his new people. God leads this man Abraham—and ultimately his family—to his place, the promised land of Canaan. After a series of providential twists, these people end up as slaves in Egypt, yet they also quickly reproduce to become a great nation.

Moses then brings the nation out of Egypt. God gives Israel the law, and covenants with them that if they keep the law, he will be their God and they will be his special people. And he gives them the land he has promised where this special people is to live and display God’s character to the nations. But instead of displaying God’s character, moral and political confusion follows during the rule of leaders called judges.

After some centuries, the people ask for and receive a king in the person of Saul, and then David follows Saul. David’s reign best represents the archetype of a kingdom in which God’s chosen man and God’s Word rule over his people in his chosen place. The kingdom arguably reaches its peak in the time of prosperity and the building of the temple by David’s son, Solomon.

But David is sinful and his descendants are worse; clearly, this is not the fullness of God’s plan. The kingdom divides into two. Both parts of the now-divided nation fall into idolatry until God finally destroys the northern half through the Assyrian empire. A little over a century later, he exiles the southern half to Babylon.

Several generations pass in exile, and then the people return and rebuild the temple and Jerusalem’s wall. And here Old Testament history ends, with the people reduced to a position of utter desperation and dependence on God.

This is the narrative taken up by the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament. You can divide them out by putting the first seventeen books in one category, the narrative from Creation to the return of the exiles from Babylon. The next section of Scripture is called the Writings: Job to Song of Songs. And the last seventeen books are the Prophets: Isaiah to Malachi. I’ll take each in turn.

Narrative Books

Genesis describes how the world and the first humans were made—the perfection of that unspoiled creation, how sin entered the world, and how God initiated his plan of salvation through Abraham. But despite God’s instructions to Abraham to live in the promised land, Genesis closes with these people in Egypt.

Exodus finds Abraham’s descendants as slaves in Egypt, and constitutes God’s grand entry onto the stage of world history as he routes the most powerful nation on earth to bring his people back to their land as his own.

Leviticus presents a digest of God’s laws given to his people in the wilderness. Specifically, as it relates to the priests or Levites this Leviticus. Holiness is the theme of Leviticus.

Numbers mostly tells the story of the people journeying toward the Promised Land, their rebellion, and God’s persevering faithfulness. During this time they kept records of who and how many people were part of the people of God, thus Numbers.

Deuteronomy presents the second giving of the law to the people just before Moses’s death and the entrance to the promised land. Deutero means second, Nomos means law, this Deuteronomy.

Joshua describes the return and conquest of the Promised Land some 400 years after God’s people left to go into Egypt.

Judges is the depressing account of life in the Promised Land: the people continually revert to lawlessness, and the times were well summed up by the phrase, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” (Judges 21:25)

Ruth is a beautiful little story set during the days of the judges, telling the origin story of King David’s Great Grandfather.

1 and 2 Samuel are about the last judge, Samuel; a “false-start” king, Saul; and the first real king, David.

1 and 2 Kings follow David’s royal descendants as they lead the people into idolatry, and eventually into annihilation for the Northern ten tribes and exile for the Southern two.

1 and 2 Chronicles tell that same story. But instead of explaining why the exile happened—the message of Kings—they point ahead to God’s final salvation.

The last three books of history are about the exile and the return from exile:

Ezra describes the return of the Jews from their captivity and the rebuilding of the temple

Nehemiah continues the story by describing the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls, a partial fulfillment of God’s promises of restoration to his people.

Esther is the last book of history: a story of God’s providential deliverance of the Jewish community during the exile.

The Writings

The middle books of the Old Testament are largely collections of wisdom literature, devotional poems, and ceremonial literature from the temple.

Job is a story about a righteous man who is tried by God.

Psalms are poetic prayers of praise, confession, and lament to God.

Proverbs presents the wisdom of Solomon and others concerning practical life issues.

Ecclesiastes, again probably by Solomon, recounts one man’s search for the path to happiness and meaning in this world.

Song of Songs is the collection of love songs between a bridegroom and his bride.

The Prophets

The final collection of books in the Old Testament is the Prophets. These seventeen books present God’s commentary on Israel’s history, particularly Israel’s disobedience.

Isaiah was a prophet in the Southern kingdom, called “Judah.”  The first thirty-nine chapters are prophecies leading up to the captivity. The last chapters point to future restoration and redemption.

Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem during the years the city was besieged. He continued to prophesy for seven years after the city fell in 586 B.C.

Lamentations is Jeremiah’s lament over the destruction of Jerusalem

Ezekiel prophesied in Babylon during this time about the coming fall of Jerusalem and God’s ultimate restoration of his people.

Daniel, part prophecy and part history, chronicles how God showed himself to be the ruler of the world even as his people were in captivity in Babylon.

Hosea prophesied to the northern kingdom (called Israel) at the same time as Isaiah. God used Hosea’s adulterous wife as a living example of Israel’s unfaithfulness.

Joel preached about the coming judgment of God on the southern kingdom—and God’s blessing that would follow their repentance. That’s really the outline for most of these prophets.

Amos, another contemporary of Isaiah, predicted the judgment and restoration of the northern kingdom.

Obadiah uttered his very short prophecy of judgment against one of Judah’s neighbors, Edom.

Jonah, when called to prophesy to the Assyrian city of Nineveh, fled and was swallowed by a great fish. In the belly of the fish, he prayed, repented, was delivered, and obeyed.

Micah prophesied at the same time as Isaiah and Hosea. He spoke to both Israel and Judah.

Nahum, who lived a century after Jonah, proclaimed the coming judgment of God on Nineveh—and a future deliverance for Judah.

Habakkuk asked God why bad things happen to good people, and good things to bad people. God’s response is a call to faith and trust in his promise of restoration.

Zephaniah promised that judgment would come on Judah as he called them to repent.

The last three prophets prophesied after the exile, as Jerusalem was being rebuilt.

Haggai prodded the people to get on with rebuilding the temple.

Zechariah prophesied two months after Haggai and presented a series of wild dreams that attacked the religious lethargy of the people and foresaw the messianic age.

Malachi also attacked religious apathy and promised a coming Messiah. He was the last Old Testament prophet.

Well, that’s the Old Testament from end to end. But what does that grand sweep of history teach us?  The first theme that we see is God’s passion for holiness, and ours for sin.

The Old Testament teaches that all people are sinners in places like 1 Kings 8:46, Psalm 14:3, Proverbs 20:9, and Ecclesiastes 7:20 and the storyline as a whole quickly leads to the conclusion that people are not able to deal with sin themselves.

Adam and Eve sin. So God wipes the slate clean and starts over with Noah. But he and his descendant's sin. God picks one family to bless—but they sin too. And God’s miraculous rescue of Israel from Egypt is followed only by grumbling and rebellion.

Arrival in the promised land finds things getting only worse; the book of Judges suggests that the problem is that they have no king. But even a king as good as David sins, and subsequent kings lead the charge to idolatry. God warns his people and then disciplines them through exile. But when they return from that crucible of chastisement, they go back to their wicked ways. What is needed, we find, is not a second chance but a new heart. We are sinful, and no solution to that problem is achieved in the Old Testament. God must do something new.

That’s a huge problem, because God’s purpose for his people was for them to live lives together that proclaimed the perfection of his holy character to the nations around them. As Ezekiel puts it, the people intended to proclaim God’s name instead profaned it. What is to be done?

This is where references to atonement are significant. The English word means, quite literally, at-one-ment. A number of images are used to describe atonement in the Old Testament, but the most prominent is sacrifice. Sinners could seek to restore their relationship with God through sacrifice. Abel’s sacrifice is the first described explicitly in Scripture. And then Noah’s shows that sacrifice pleases God. Abraham’s sacrifice of a ram instead of Isaac introduced the idea of sacrifice of a substitute—and at the first Passover, a substitute by which God’s wrath was turned aside. And the sacrificial laws on Leviticus introduced the idea not just of a substitute, but of a penal substitute—a substitute who bore the punishment we deserved. A penal substitute who made atonement, as on the Day of Atonement, where punishment was not merely served, but relationship with God was restored.

Do you see how the Old Testament gradually builds up this idea of sacrifice?  Do you see what God was teaching his people? First, he was teaching about his holiness and his passion for holiness. Second, he was teaching that sin is serious—deathly serious!—because it’s such an aberration from his holiness. And third, he was teaching that atonement could be accomplished when an innocent one dies in place of the guilty. In and of themselves, Levitical sacrifices were never the point. Ironically, sacrifices were most appropriate when the person offering the sacrifice realized that the offering was not sufficient to atone for sins. So you have the psalmist saying, “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.” (Ps. 51:4). Sacrifices were not efficacious except by God’s grace.

The ineffective nature of sacrifices can be seen most clearly through the Jewish Day of Atonement. That’s a day on which a special sin offering was made for the whole nation. What’s striking is that this ritual had to be repeated annually. Calendar-driven, not event-driven. Why?  Because the people were in a state of sin, and no animal sacrifice could ultimately remove their guilt. There was no perfect sacrifice. If there had been, the people could have stopped offering them. (Heb 10:1-3)

Instead, these imperfect sacrifices emphasized the fact that God is holy, that sin separates us from God, and that he provides a way of forgiveness. So the Old Testament explores so many different potential solutions to the problem of sin, but ultimately comes up empty-handed. That’s one reason why it is bookended with God’s curse. Think of Genesis 3: because of sin, God curses the serpent, the man, and the woman. And does anyone know the last word of the Old Testament?  

Turn to the last page of Malachi. Referring to the second Elijah, who would be John the Baptist: “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” (4:6)  “Curse” at the beginning. Still under the curse at the end. In the same place as where we began in Genesis 3.

This brings up a question that I would call the “riddle of the Old Testament.”  In Exodus 34, the Lord describes himself to Moses, saying “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex 34:6-7a). Forgiving . . . yet not leaving the guilty unpunished?  How can that be? Perhaps there is still hope?

The Story of the Promise

There is hope, and it is in another story we see in the Old Testament: the story of promise. Yes, the Old Testament ends where we started in Genesis 3. But it also gives us a promise of hope.

How will God forgive, and yet not leave the guilty unpunished?  It all comes down to his promise. And the story of promise begins in the most unlikely of places. It begins in the words of God’s curse after the fall.

Adam and Eve had chosen to disobey God, and so he brought upon them the just punishment for their sin. But in the very sentence of condemnation, God makes a promise: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Gen 3:15). God promises to create division and opposition between his people, the seed of the woman, and Satan’s people, the seed of the serpent. And he promises that one day a son will be born who will defeat Satan and deliver his people from their sin. The promise comes out of the blue. Adam and Eve have done nothing to merit it, yet he makes it.

Notice the promise has two sides: the seed of the serpent will strike at the seed of the woman; yet the seed of the woman will triumph. The story of the Old Testament is the story of that promise being placed in jeopardy again and again—but against impossible odds, God ensures that his promise prevails.

Cain murders Abel—the line of the woman—but God preserves that line through Seth.

Humanity is captured by sin and deserving of God’s judgment, but God’s promise endures and he preserves Noah and his family. Then, to ensure his promise of deliverance is kept, God makes another promise—never again to destroy all humanity by flood.

Centuries pass; people go from bad to worse. But with Abraham, God picks up that eternal promise and begins to flesh it out. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing . . . and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3)

A generation later, rivalry between Isaac’s two sons almost destroys Jacob. But Jacob is the chosen seed, and the Lord preserves him. But once again, God’s promise is challenged by a famine that threatens to destroy the whole family. How can God’s promise prevail if this family of the promise perishes?  

Amazingly, God uses Joseph’s enslavement, imprisonment, and suffering to save his family. He takes what his brothers meant for evil and turns it into salvation and deliverance not just for the chosen family, but for the surrounding nations as well.

Again, the seed of the serpent rears its head as the descendants of Jacob are enslaved in Egypt, and a whole generation of boys is slaughtered at Pharaoh’s command. Again, God is faithful and remembers his covenant with Abraham. He preserves the life of Moses, and then uses him to deliver his people from their slavery.

At Mount Sinai, God makes a covenant with Israel, in much the same way he did with Adam and Eve before the fall. If the people obey, they will stay in the Promised Land. But if they rebel, God will cast them out. Of course, their rebellion begins almost immediately. God judges his people, but he remains faithful to his promise to Abraham and to Adam.

A new generation, led by Joshua, is raised up, and God gives them the land he had promised their forefathers. Against all odds, they conquer the Canaanites. Though the people continue to rebel, and God continues to punish them, he also raises up judges. These are successors to Moses and Joshua who rescue the people and defeat their enemies.

Finally, in an ultimate act of rebellion, the nation of Israel rejects God as their King, and asks for a king like all the other nations (1 Samuel 8). In mercy, God anoints a king after his own heart, David, who will be like a son to him. But the serpent even tries to chase down and destroy David from within Israel itself—first through Saul and later through David’s son Absalom.

Yet God, who is gracious and faithful, makes yet another promise to David. This is a promise that’s really just an extension of his promise to Abraham and that gives further shape to the promise of Genesis 3. God promises David that he will always have a son to rule on his throne, and that son will rule in righteousness (2 Sam. 7:11-16). The promised seed of Genesis 3 and 15 is in fact to be a king who will deliver his people.

At first, it appears that son is Solomon. But it’s not. Solomon proves unfaithful, and judgment follows. Division comes first. The kings in the north are progressively more wicked, until God sends the northern kingdom into an exile from which they will never return. In the south, there are periodic renewals, but the renewals are never complete, and they never last. Finally, God sends Judah into exile, and it seems that his promise has failed.

But even in the context of judgment and exile, God reveals that he has not forgotten and he has not failed. The prophets are given a message of hope, that God will make a new covenant with his people (Jer. 31:31-34). After seventy years in exile, Judah returns to the Promised Land. The walls are restored and the temple is rebuilt—but God never comes back to dwell in that temple. The new covenant has not yet arrived. When will God finally keep his promise?

This is the expectation we are living in when, after four hundred years of silence, God speaks and the New Testament begins.

Conclusion

So do you see how these pieces all fit together?  On the one hand, the Old Testament is a story that moves sideways, never progressing. Solution after solution to our sin is suggested and tried, only to result in failure. So by the end of Malachi, we are no better off than we were in Genesis 3, except that we know for a fact that we cannot save ourselves.

But on another level, the Old Testament is a story of forward motion because it’s the story of promise. God gradually reveals more and more of his perfect plan to redeem a people for himself. And as that promise takes shape, hope is born out of the despair of sin and the stage is set for Jesus Christ.

He would live as the perfect Israel, and die as our substitute, the perfect Passover lamb. Through his death on our behalf and his resurrection from the dead, he would reconcile us to God. As Paul puts it in Romans 3, “[demonstrating God’s justice] at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26). Just and the one who justifies sinners?  Forgiving and the one who does not leave the guilty unpunished? The promises God made through all those centuries find their answer in Jesus—the answer to the riddle of the Old Testament. That is the message of the Hebrew Scriptures.

We are coming to a close here in Colossians. Paul has taken us through what happened cosmically in our salvation as well as in the hearts and lives of the believer, and we have been looking at the new behavior that should develop in a believer as they put off the old self and live new lives of virtue. These virtues spill over into Christian marriages, Christian families, and even Christian workplaces. Today, Paul is going to attempt to tie everything up in a tidy little bow by talking briefly about the importance of prayer for the mission and personal evangelism.

These are two areas of the Christian life that many people struggle mightily with. It’s almost simple in comparison to obey your parents or love your wife because that is concrete and in the end there is very little to lose. However, prayer for a skeptic like me who believes in the sovereignty of God often feels a lot like I’m just mumbling to myself or I feel like the tiny ant seeking guidance from the massive human who is getting ready to stick his finger in my perfectly formed mound.

On the other hand, personal evangelism is where the rubber meets the road. All of these things that we’ve talked about over the last 20+ weeks are great. But if it’s so great then are you just going to hide the good news under a basket? Of course not, we’ve got a moral obligation to get out there and tell people the amazing news that we can have a restored relationship with the God not because of things that we have done, but because of what Jesus Christ has done for us in our place. That doesn’t mean it’s easy or that the social stigmas or awkwardness goes away. But it certainly helps if we keep our hearts and mind focused on the things of the kingdom.

I hope that by the time we are done today, you will sense a refreshing wind blowing through this text. Paul has a remarkably positive and happy angle on personal evangelism. I hope we can see and it and feel it before we are done.

The text (Colossians 4:2–6) falls naturally into two parts: verses 2–4 are the first part, and verse 5 and 6 are the second part. The first part has to do with our indirect involvement in evangelism through prayer for God's specially called spokesmen. The second part has to do with our direct involvement in evangelism through wise conduct and seasoned speech.

Let's focus first on verses 2–4—our indirect involvement in frontline missions and evangelism through prayer.

PRAYER FOR THE GLOBAL MISSION OF GOD

I believe that one of the reasons we feel so weak in our prayer lives is that we have tried to treat prayer like we treat Alexa or our Google Home when it is in reality more like a wartime walkie-talkie. Prayer is not designed to serve the domestic comforts of the saints. It's designed as a walkie-talkie for spiritual battlefields. It's the link between active soldiers and their command headquarters, with its unlimited firepower and air cover and strategic wisdom.

I get much of this idea of war-time Christianity from John Piper. He speaks about it often and I think it is a great way of stepping outside of our 21st century western comforts. Christianity has always flourished in the fire. Knock it down and beat it back and it grows and thrives. If you imagine yourself as a soldier on the battlefield, I think it really helps to bring home the message of the gospel and how we should live as believers.  

This is the picture that I think helps capture the spirit of prayer in Colossians 4:2–4.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

So carrying this wartime analogy, we picture Paul and Timothy (1:1) as well as others in Colossians like Aristarchus (4:10) and Epaphras (4:12) as a unique team of advanced tactical troops in the spiritual battle to recapture the hearts of men for God. They have made a strike at the enemy lines and met a tremendous counterforce. Paul and Aristarchus are prisoners of war. And it beginning to look as though the enemy has achieved a tactical victory.

But Paul has managed to smuggle a message out of the prison camp that is calling for his fellow soldiers stationed to the rear. That's the Colossians specifically and all believers in general. In the letter, he asks them to get on their walkie-talkie, call command headquarters, and ask headquarters to fire a missile that will blast open a door in the prison wall and in the enemy's front line so that Paul and his squad can get on with their mission to release people from the power of Satan and bring them to God.

So the point that we are most interested in here is this: the soldiers to the rear with the walkie-talkie of prayer are very crucial in the frontline successes of evangelism and missions. If they weren't, this text would be pointless.

How to Pray: Three Aspects

Of course, this analogy like all analogies is imperfect. So let's look straight at the text for a few minutes and I think we will see at least three things that tell us how to pray and three things that tell us what to pray in this context of frontline evangelism and missions support.

Persistently

Verse 2: "Continue steadfastly in prayer." Or: "Devote yourselves to prayer."

Here’s another analogy for you. Prayer is like a muscle. Why do we go to the gym and exercise? And I’m using that word we very loosely here. We go to be more healthy and to build muscle. If we sit around all day doing nothing but playing video games, reading, and playing on computers then although there is muscle there, it will lose its strength and not be as powerful as it could be.

Prayer, like a muscle, gains strength and power the more it is exercised, but when you don’t work it, the power begins to drain out of it. It is not an easy or automatic task to regularly get up early and make your protein shake and head off to the gym where you put your muscles under stress for hours. That’s not something that happens automatically or we would all look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.  

In the same way, it is not easy to carve out quiet time to slip away from distractions to lay ourselves bare before the God of the universe in prayer so the communication lines can be strengthened. However, Paul is telling those in his rear guard to be steadfast, diligent. and devoted to building up that muscle of prayer. Forget leg day, don’t skip prayer day.

If you want to have a crucial role in the great spiritual warfare of these days, and not just be passed over as a useless soldier, you need to keep the walkie-talkie with you all day, keep it in the on position and ask again and again for God to give you your bearings and guide you through the mine fields of temptation and make you alert to every opportunity to witness to his promised victory.

Watchfully

Not only do we remain steadfast, praying diligently, but we are also to pray watchfully. Verse 2 continues, "Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it."

We don’t battle with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers and our enemy knows the danger of our ability to communicate with headquarters. There is buzz in the news even today about countries like China, India, and Russia who are boasting of arms with the ability of taking down a country’s satellites.

Our enemy is similar. He will try to sabotage our communications through a couple of different ways. He could jams the airwaves by filling all of the frequencies that we might use with static. Do you ever feel like the atmosphere of your lives is just cluttered with nonessentials, ever feel like your mind is abuzz with all kinds of things but none of them are the actual thing you are trying to communicate. Is it so easy to turn on music or a youtube video to drown out the silence that there is nowhere to be free of the noise.

In addition to jamming the airwaves, he could just steal the transmitter or make us believe that the equipment is broken and defective. If we are deceived into believing that prayer is broken and won’t work then when it comes time to use it, we will just look over it saying there’s no use in even trying this because it is obviously broken.

Finally, the enemy could attack by sabotaging the radio operator. Maybe it is through bombing and shelling all the night before so we couldn’t get any sleep, and now we are so tired we are failing on our watchman duties because our eyes are so heavy. Or maybe he tries to distract us with a giant wooden horse as a gift. Flattery, pleasures, and pride are an easy tool in our enemy’s arsenal to seek to put us out of commission. We get confused over who the enemy really is. The only way to get victory over Satan's devices is to be watchful.

The reason I stress this wartime analogy of the Christian life is because I don't see a better picture to paint to keep the dire need to remain vigilant before us. We must remain alert in our spiritual lives every day. Without watchfulness we are sitting ducks for Satan's constant barrage of flaming darts.

Thankfully

The third answer to how we are to pray is thankfully. "Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving."

In case the wartime analogy gives you the jitters, this word is added to help take them away. Watchfulness and vigilance might signify a lot of nail biting and perspiration and heart thumping. But this would be a big mistake. Sometimes our hearts do thump and the hands get clammy, but that is not supposed to be the normal feeling of the Christian soldier.

If we remain steadfast in prayer, then what we are supposed to feel naturally is a sense that the command headquarters in heaven is in control, progress is being made on all the strategic fronts. That the battle is the Lord's. The decisive engagements of Christ and Satan in the wilderness and in Gethsemane and on the cross and at the empty tomb have all been won by Christ, and he is leading his church in triumph to a great day of worldwide consummation. And so woven through all our walkie-talkie requests for fire cover, are sentences like: "Nice shot, Sir, thank you." "The door blew open wide, Sir, thank you." "We made it through, Sir, thank you." "Aristarchus' arm has healed, Sir, thank you." "Coming now in with 20 happy captives, Sir, thank you."

When Paul says that our praying is to be done with thanksgiving, he means that we should keep our eyes on the victory of God. We do not fight as losers, we are not the underdogs, or even as those who are uncertain. We know God will win. And if we have eyes to see, we will recognize the path of his power again and again.

What to Pray: Three Things

So verse 2 showed us how to pray, now in verses 3 and 4 Paul tells us three things about what to pray in our support of frontline evangelism and missions.

For the Advanced Guard

Pray for the advanced guard. Verse 3: "At the same time, pray also for us."

God has called some people to give most of their time to direct gospel warfare. All Christians are soldiers. All of us have walkie-talkies. That is one of the cool things about the priesthood of believers. We don’t have to find the communications soldier in the middle of the fray to get the message out. Every soldier has a direct link to headquarters. At the same time, there is a differentiation of assignment on the battlefield. Ephesians 4:11 says that God has gifted and trained some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors or teachers. I think that these believers are in essence no different than the average soldier, they have just been tasked with a different mission. They are the advanced guard.

And Paul here is asking his fellow soldiers not to just use the walkie talkies for their own personal interests but to use them for the sake of those in the advanced guard. We should each of us be praying for missionaries and missions work around the world as well as for pastors and evangelists and teachers right here at home that they would be strengthened and protected from the schemes of the evil one.

For Openings for Gospel Opportunities

Second, we should not only be praying for the Advanced guard themselves but we should be praying for their missions. There is no top-secret mission in the Christian life, we all have the same mission to bring the light to the darkness. So, we pray for gospel opportunities to open in the world for those who are part of the advanced guard. We see this in the next phrase of verse 3: "At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word."

Paul knows that there is a difference between regular, ordinary speaking to those he is with, even if he is talking about Christ, and what he would see as a door for the word. These are periodic, extraordinary opportunities for effective proclamation. Paul uses this illustration regularly. In 1 Corinthians 16:9–10, he says, "I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries." And in 2 Corinthians 2:12 he said, "When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, a door was opened for me in the Lord."

This should be our constant request going over the walkie-talkie for the storm troopers here North Florida and among the unreached peoples of the world—"O God, blow the door off the hinges in Albania, Morocco, India, and China as well as Williston, Dunnellon, Gainesville, and Ocala!"

Paul was wise enough to know that the mission didn’t push forward on the strength of his teachings or logical arguments, though those things have their place. God’s mission and the redemption and reconciliation of men back to God is primarily and ultimately a work of God and while we play a part in that work and seek for him to work, at the end of the day, he is the one that opens the doors, not us.

For the Mystery of Christ to Be Made Plain

Third, Paul asked that we would pray for the whole mystery of Christ to be made plain when God opens a door. Let’s read the end of verse 3 and through verse 4: "A door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, as I ought to speak."

Simply put, Paul is saying that the goal of evangelism is to make clear a mystery. The gospel is not a mystery because it is confusing or obscure like a tricky riddle. It's a mystery because no one would ever know it or think of it unless God had made it plain. I say this from my own experience. Even though I was in church for all of my young life and I heard the gospel preached hundreds of times, it wasn’t until God made the simple truth of the gospel clear to me that the mystery was solved.

The good news that we believe has been hidden from the minds of unbelievers. It is incomprehensible nonsense to them. That the Son of God should become man. That he should live a life of poverty and love. That he should die in the place of sinners and bear the curse of the law though he was sinless. That he should rise from the dead and reign in heaven today. That the ungodly should be justified by faith. That Jew and Gentile, red and yellow, black and white should be reconciled in one body to God. And that Christ should dwell in our hearts and seal us for glory.

These are things that even humanity’s greatest storytellers would have never dreamed of. They are the mystery hidden from the ages in God. This mystery was revealed and made plain to believers in Jesus, and the mission of shining light on this mystery is evangelism. That is what we pray would be happening all over the world, and right here.

But notice that while this mystery is the greatest truth the world has ever heard, it is also violently opposed. That’s why Paul says that he’s in prison because of the mystery of Christ. This is the underlying reason why so many people are terrified of evangelism. If you obey God in the mission of bringing the good news to all people you will encounter resistance, ridicule, and possibly violence and injustice.

This is a war. A war for the hearts and minds of men. If we treat it like we are handing out coupons at the mall, people see it as of little value because we are treating it that way. But if we are tactical and vigilant and take risks and reorient our lives around the mission then we will face opposition and like with all wars, some of us might lose our lives. But as Paul says in Romans 8:35-39, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

THE TOOLS AND TASK OF PERSONAL EVANGELISM

I want to turn now to verses 5 and 6 and shift our focus off of our indirect involvement through prayer, to the daily direct involvement in evangelism that every soldier is supposed to have where we live and work and play.

Colossians 4:5-6, “Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer every one.”

I said at the beginning that Paul has a remarkably positive and happy angle on personal evangelism in this text. There is a refreshing wind that blows through these two verses.

These verses answer the question how all of us believers are supposed to relate to the unbelievers in our lives. Paul has in view accomplishing as much spiritual good as we can in these relationships. That's what he means in verse 5 when he says to "make the most of the time." Literally in Greek this could be translated, "Buy up the opportunity."

In other words, life is a series of never to be repeated opportunities for buying up spiritual blessings. This is an exhilarating way to look at life. Every hour of your life brings a new unique situation that can either be bought up for eternity or missed.

Jesus said, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven..." Do you remember the parable that Jesus told about the Kingdom of God where the master went on a long journey and gave money to each of his servants to deal with while he was away? What are we to do? Buy up the opportunities of life for eternity. There is never a dull or insignificant moment for the Christian who is radically devoted to shrewd purchasing of life's moments for eternity.

How Can We Buy Up Every Opportunity?

So the question Paul answers in these two verses is how can we buy up every opportunity as we relate to the unbelievers in our lives? He gives three answers. Wise behavior, salty speech, and individual attention.

Wise Behavior

Verse 5: "Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders." Wisdom is knowing what to do for the glory of God when the rule book runs out. It's knowing how to become all things to all men without compromising holiness and truth. It is creativity and tact and thoughtfulness. It's having a feel for the moment, and having an eye for what people need and want. In order to buy up opportunities for God, we have to be wise in our behavior.

We stand before a watching world and while we cannot change their hearts to make them know and love Jesus without the help of the Holy Spirit, we certainly can, if we are not wise and upright soil the good name of Jesus and cause their hearts to be hardened as they look at our hypocrisy.

We must be wise in our behavior and find this wisdom in three basic ways:

By meditating on the Scriptures as we see in Psalm 19:7, "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple."

By keeping open the lines of communication in Prayer: James 1:5, "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God."

Seeking out and listening to wise counselors. Much of this is what the books of wisdom are all about, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, etc. We have these books preserved in scripture because they show us the lives and struggles of real people as they wrestled with their faith and lived lives that were not perfect. The other place for wise counsel is from other believers, particularly those who have gone before. Like we looked at William Wilberforce last week.

Gracious, Salty Speech

The second answer to how we buy up opportunities for eternity is salty speech. Verse 6: "Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt."

I take this to mean that what we say about Christ and about the Christian life should be made as appetizing as possible. When food is not salted, its taste is bland. People don't want to eat it. It's unappetizing. Our speech is not supposed to be like that.

This is one of the most refreshing things I have ever heard anyone say about personal evangelism. Think about it for a moment. How can you develop the ability to speak about Christ so that there is an appetizing flavor to it? How do you learn to talk about Christ in a way that makes people's mouth water?

I think the answer is simply to spend time every day reminding yourself from Scripture why the gospel tastes good to you. Some of us who have been Christians for a long time begin to neglect the crucial business of enjoying Christ. Then an opportunity comes along to commend him to someone and we realize that all the reasons he is wonderful have been neglected and the keenness of our own taste buds has grown very dull. It's hard to salt your speech with the deliciousness of Jesus when you haven't been enjoying the taste yourself.

So the wonderful thing about Paul's advice here is that the best way to prepare to be an advertisement for the satisfying taste of Jesus is to enjoy him yourself. Every day we should go to the Bible and look for reasons why knowing Christ is the greatest thing in the world. And when we get up off our knees with our hearts happy in him, we will be in the best position to make our speech appetizing for Christ.

You want an example? Look to Jesus when he was speaking to the woman at the well in John 4:13-14, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” She responded with her mouth watering and said, “Sir, give me this water!”

When you talk about Jesus do you make him sound appealing? Have you tasted and seen yourself that the Lord is good?

Individual Attention

The final answer to the question how to buy up every opportunity for God is that a person should get individual attention. We see this in the end of Verse 6: "... so that you may know how you ought to answer every one."

The point is simple: each person is different and each situation is different. The gospel is the same, and Christ is the same, but there are countless ways to serve the meal. Canned, pat answers to questions are rarely satisfying and they feel rehearsed and impersonal. One of the best ways to buy up opportunities for the gospel is by loving people and caring for them as people. Not as notches on your belt. I’ve never liked the statistical side of evangelicalism whereby churches compare numbers of baptisms or conversions.

I’m also not a big fan of just handing someone a tract and considering my job done. That can be a tool that we use, but we should be seeking out ways to bring the gospel to each person so that it is seen as wisdom, instead of foolishness, appetizing instead of appalling, and personal instead of pre-rehearsed.

So in conclusion, let's pick up the walkie-talkie of prayer and support the advanced guard with persistence and watchfulness and confident gratitude. And let's buy up every opportunity for eternity with wise conduct and salty speech and individual attention.

Under all of this, let's set our eyes on Christ in the gospel until we taste how appetizing and satisfying he is for our own souls. "I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst."

As always, we must set the scene. Christians are those who have been raised up with Jesus Christ. Dead to sin and alive to righteousness. We’ve seen that true Christians put their flesh to death and live lives of virtue. We’ve seen that marriages look different for believers and families look different for believers. Today, we come to a third group and see how Christian faith makes a difference in the common relationships of our day.

Let’s read our verses together and we’ll get started. Colossians 3:22-4:1, “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”

Teresa would tell you that I am a skeptic, sometimes even a cynic. I’ve never really been one to take someone else’s word for something. Maybe it is because I naturally do it, but I see questioning and doubting as beneficial and healthy spiritual characteristics.

I see myself a lot in the character of Gideon in Judges. You know, God tells him to do something and he says that’s great. If this is really God talking then prove it by making the fleece wet while everything else is dry. Then God does it and he says, that was too easy, how about you make everything else wet and keep the fleece dry. I do that with God and I do it intellectually as well when I watch a movie or read a news story. I want to see things from other perspectives. I want to be well informed.

When I bring my skepticism to this passage, I see that many teachers will just pass over the first word hoping that no one will notice and they just start talking about employee/employer relations. While there are principles which can cross the gap of time and culture, we need to deal with what is present right in front of us.

I know that many people see this passage talking about slavery and the skeptic in them immediately pushes back and says this is a reason why I can’t trust the Bible. How can I trust a document that doesn’t condemn slavery as deplorable and unethical? Well, let me say that I appreciate your questions and I never want to gloss over them.

Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor was a skeptic like me and she pushed against the sentimentality of Christianity, that desire to turn your faith into a comfortable blanket. Instead, she focused on the cross and believed that Christian skepticism kept us looking at the reality of what’s wrong with the world around us rather than glossing over it in the search for comfort. This is simply seeing things as they are and not how we would prefer them to be.

O’Connor said that the cultivation of Christian skepticism is a sacred obligation because it keeps us asking questions. And questions keep you free, not free to do anything you please, but free to be formed by something larger than your own intellect or the intellects of those around you.

I love the idea that God welcomes questions and doubts. God has never struck anyone down for questioning his words. He is patient to show himself to them. I have questioned God and I have doubted my faith. But I have found that even when I am faithless, he is faithful. He is strong enough to stand up to my doubts. Because of this, I have come to trust God’s word more than I trust anything.

So let’s ask this question, Why didn’t Paul condemn slavery here and tell the slaves to revolt? I think it’s interesting to see in 1 Corinthians 7:21 that he tells them to leave if given the opportunity. Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11, There is no slave or free… you are all one in Christ Jesus. Even Paul’s chosen title for himself was not church planter, or preacher, or apostle. But he introduced himself and others as Slaves of Christ.

In the Greek world, people saw the gods as these harsh masters who they were forced to serve, but Christianity answers that by showing God not as a capricious task-master but as a loving father. We have a God who frees from slavery. Remember Exodus? That was God hearing the cries of his people in oppressive slavery and coming to deliver them with his mighty hand. We have a God who hears the slave and the free equally. We have a God who himself emptied himself and took the form of a servant so that he might free those who were captive to sin.  

But, let me be as honest as I can. Nowhere in the Scriptures does the Bible universally condemn slavery. There is not one verse in all of the Bible that says, “Slavery is evil and should not be practiced.” If you start looking, you will look forever. It’s not there.

Not only is there not a blanket condemnation of slavery, but human beings are considered to be property. This is found in Exodus 12:44, Exodus 21:20-21 and Leviticus 22. Slaves within Israel were used to produce offspring for their infertile owners. You’ll see that in Genesis 16, Genesis 30 and also in Genesis 35.

There is definitely the presence of a system that we would call unjust and unequal. Slave owners were permitted to beat their slaves without any penalty, provided that the slave survived. That’s in the Bible, Exodus 21. Biblical legislation contains inequality in the value placed on a slave’s life compared to a free man’s life. In the spirit of skepticism and honesty, I don't want to gloss over that. All those things are in the Bible, every one of them.

As we talk about slavery, it’s important that we read this with 1st-century eyes, not antebellum eyes. When we see reference to slavery in the words of Jesus, Paul, Peter, or other New Testament writers, they were referring to Greco-Roman and Jewish Slavery, not the slavery of the pre-civil war American South, and there are some major differences.

For you and me, our idea of slavery is built around European colonialism. What we think of when we think of slavery is the Africans being abducted or traded for in Africa and then brought over to work the cotton fields where they were mistreated and oppressed and beaten. That is our framework for slavery. It is accurate. But historically, the British were the last ones to get involved in the slave trade. And even when they did, they knew it was shameful.

At no point did slavery really take root in England. It’s always distant from them. It’s easy to enjoy the sugar for your tea and your cakes and candies when you don’t take a moment to realize that the slave trade as we know it was built on shipping Africans to the Caribbean to grow sugar. The same Brits who enjoyed the sugar in their tea colonized the new world and realized that they needed cheap labor to grow and harvest the cotton and tobacco that would bring them economic prosperity. So they began to really build up the New World with slaves.

That’s our mental framework for the word slavery. The problem is that this doesn’t help us at all with how slavery was viewed in the Scriptures. So let me just give you a couple of differences between colonial slavery and what the Scriptures are speaking to when they address slaves. And I acknowledge out of the gate that the Bible is clear that one human being can own another human being. But there are some pieces that help us process this and watch the line of redemption.

So let’s go. An enslaved person generally could not be identified by clothing, ethnicity or socioeconomic background, whereas in colonial America, the slaves were Africans, they were blacks. If you saw a black in South Carolina in the 1700’s, he wasn’t in business. He was a slave. Slavery was marked by an ethnic group. That is not the case in the ancient Near East. Anybody could be a slave. You’ll see that more as we work through.

Also, in the ancient Near East, the education of slaves was seen as a smart business practice. So slaves were educated by their masters, most times to the point where they are smarter than and more educated than their owners. Let me give you two examples of where this plays out in the Bible itself. Joseph was a slave who ended up being second in power to Pharaoh in Egypt. Daniel was a slave who ended up second in power to Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. These were slaves who were so educated and so trained and so smart in how they did things that there was an acknowledgment among their owners that, “This is an extremely gifted individual. Let’s let him rise all the way up to the top if they can.” You’re not going to see that in colonial America. There is no black man who is a congressman in the 1700’s. But in the ancient Near East, it’s not uncommon to see a slave rise to an unbelievable amount of power to be able to own land himself and even have slaves that work for him. You had the ability to save your own money, purchase yourself out from slavery and then run the business with the slaves that you had purchased, whom you are educating.

Because slaves were owned by persons across a range of economic levels, they developed no conscious awareness of being a class or a group of people. So in colonial America, they are almost exclusively black men and women who were dressed similarly, began to develop their own culture, began to develop their own class and began to look around and go, “We are an oppressed people.” Like Israel in Egypt, they began to sense the heavy hand of their master as a group. That is not the case in the ancient Near East, because you could be doing very well and have a slave as your neighbor living in a house nicer than yours and not even be able to tell by how they dressed, where they lived, how they walked or how they talked that they were a slave. This is because of my last difference.

In the Ancient Near East, people often sold themselves into slavery to pay a debt or to avoid poverty. If they owed debts, they would offer up themselves to work off those debts. They weren’t kidnapped from another land and forced into labor. They sold themselves into slavery to cover debt or to learn a trade and make a better life for themselves. No African did that. No African went, “I’d like to try to survive a long six weeks at sea in the hopes that I would be forced into an ungodly amount of labor until I died. I would like that as opposed to running free in my homeland.” I don’t know that there is any historical record of an African going, “I’ll take slavery in the New World.”

So, now that we can see that there is a difference between the default picture that comes to our minds when we use the word slavery and what Paul would have been thinking when he wrote the word doulos here in this passage, which gets translated all over the New Testament as either slave, servant, or bondservant, let me just go through a couple of biblical insights for you regarding slavery. Hopefully this will help you to see God’s overarching design to eliminate injustice and oppression once and for all particularly when one ethnicity suppresses and relegates another as lesser.

First, holidays for festivals and the weekly Sabbath rest were extended to slaves in Israel. That was not true in other cultures. If you’ll remember the passages in Leviticus that begin to unpack the Sabbath and the New Moon Festivals and the Festivals of New Grain and Wine, it was commanded in all those festivals that the Israelites weren’t allowed to shut it down and party while the slaves continued to work. He said, “Everybody parties or I kill everybody.” So on the Sabbath, the slave gets off too. On the New Moon, the slave is off too. In the Grain and Wine Festival, they’re shutting down the field, they’re putting down the oxen and nobody works. They all celebrate. There were other areas in which they were treated differently, but as for holiday and festival observation allowances were made to ensure their inclusion.

Second, you might have heard that Jews were not allowed to charge usury or interest on loans. This was an effort on God’s part to reduce the amount of slave debt and make it easier to pay back your financial obligations and earn your freedom. So, if I owed you $100 grand and I came and said, “I can’t pay $100 grand. Please don’t send me to prison. Please don’t have me arrested. Let me work off my debt,” you could not biblically go, “Okay, but at 20% interest per year.” You were not allowed to put interest on my debt if I put myself into slavery under you to work off a debt. That was also not the normal way of doing things in the ancient Near East.

Third, maybe the coolest of all laws relating to slaves and debt were the time limitations and the year of jubilee. Hebrew debt-slaves were released in the 7th year and this seems unique. And all other slaves were freed in the year of Jubilee. If you go look at some old negro spirituals, they would sing about the year of Jubilee, because biblically the year of Jubilee was the year when everyone was set free. If you were a Hebrew slave, you were set free from someone else’s ownership of you. In addition to that, in Deuteronomy 15, the owner of that slave, upon setting him free, was required by God to give material assistance to the man or woman that he was releasing so the man didn’t go right back into slavery. So once again, this is vastly different.

Fourth, limitations were placed upon the severity of beatings, and freedom was granted to any slave who was permanently damaged. So if you snapped and beat your slave to the point where he didn’t heal, walked with a limp or you hurt him in a way that he or she did not recover, then they were free and material assistance would be required of you. You would have to enable them, help them begin a new life.

There’s one last distinction that I want to mention here. Israel was a safe zone for runaway slaves. So if you escaped Gaza, if you escaped Tyre, if you escaped any of the neighboring countries and made it into Israel, Israel had non-extradition treaties with any of those countries. If you made it into Israel, you were a free man or woman. They would not send you back to your master, and they would not enslave you when you got in.

What you’ll see over and over again in the Old and New Testaments is the command put on God’s people to serve, to feed, to love and to embrace the alien stranger and sojourner. This is the slave that escapes oppression and lands in Israel. I love the picture that paints of our own redemption. Think of the redemptive themes when God says, “If you make it into Israel, you’re free. If you make it into My people, you are free.” This is a shadow of what is to come.

So although there is no text in the Bible that universally condemns slavery as a whole, the colonial slavery that we picture and the modern day sex slavery that is going on is explicitly condemned by the Scriptures repeatedly. But there are some people who will use the fact that the Bible does not specifically condemn slavery as an excuse to not submit their lives to Jesus.

The ironic thing is that as history progresses, we find that it is largely the influence of godly, ferocious men who, at great peril to their own lives and personal safety, preached the truths of Scripture, to not only end slavery altogether, but end segregation, to end oppression and begin to create an environment in which equality under the gospel of Jesus Christ is a norm and not an exception.

In Britain, you had Christian men like William Wilberforce and John Newton who fought the system that has been created because they recognize that it is deplorable. Wilberforce specifically fought for fifty years against the slave trade. It cost him money, energy, political power and persuasion, but he saw it through to the end and died just 3 days after the law had been passed ending Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.

So, with all that in mind, knowing full well that this passage is referring to the proper relationship between Christian slaves and their Christian masters, if we cross the years from Paul’s time to ours and change the setting from the Ancient Near East to America. Then we can see that much of the relationship between slave and master is echoed in our employer/employee relationship. And these same principles can be applied to the student/teacher relationship. There are obviously some key differences. Namely, that if I cannot serve in the way that God commands me to, I have the ability to leave a job and find another.

So, what principles are there in the text for employees to follow?

Be Obedient with Integrity and Sincerity

Let’s re-read Colossians 3:22, “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.”

First, Notice that Paul says “obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.” This is a reminder that while obeying the boss here on earth is important, there is another obedience that takes higher priority. We also have a master that is not of this world, that is not according to the flesh. Our allegiance is to the Lord God first and foremost. We cannot violate His commands regardless of what earthly authority figures including our employer’s demand from us.

But as long as you are not asked to violate any of God’s commands, you obey your boss. How your employer treats you or how you feel about what you are asked to do is not an issue. 1 Peter 2:18-20 makes it clear that this is to be true even if they are unreasonable, “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.”

We are not only to be obedient, but Paul gets into attitude again. Our obedience needs to be marked with both integrity and sincerity. Because the purpose of the Christian’s life is different from other people, the true believer can behave differently.

If your boss wants you to do something that you do not think is best, then certainly appeal to them and ask them if they would consider something different, but leave the matter in their hands and make sure they know you will do it whatever way they decide. Don’t argue, don’t get mad, don’t sulk, don’t talk behind their back, don’t be disrespectful in anyway. Our quest is to demonstrate Christ honoring behavior regardless of any short term consequences to ourselves.

It has become common for employees and students to give eye service as people pleasers. These are people that give the appearance of being a good worker, but the truth is that they shirk their work. They are the mice that play when the cat is away. The minimal work they do is a facade giving a false impression. You know the type. They use their company computer for personal purposes and to play games. I have noticed in the past that some computer games have a key that will quickly kill the game screen in an emergency such as the supervisor comes in. Interestingly this is often called the “boss key.”

Christians are to approach their work differently. They are to be gracious even to an irritating employer and give the same diligence in following the boss’ directions and toward the work whether the boss is present or absent, good or bad. Why? Because the Christian works with sincerity of heart in fear the Lord. This not the crippling fear of fright, dread and panic. This is the motivating fear of respect that strives to honor and please. The next verse explains further.

Work Like Jesus is your Boss

In Colossians 3:23, Paul expands the net from just slaves to all believers and all types of work when he says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.”

Christians are always to do their best because everything we do is to be service to the Lord. There are no sacred professions. Being a pastor is no more God honoring than being a godly accountant, lawyer, politician, or plumber. God instills in you your temperament, gives you spiritual gifts, allows you to be trained and equipped and by His sovereign providence places you where you are working and serving Him. The truth that you need to understand is that regardless of whatever you do to earn your paycheck, it is just as sacred and can potentially be of more service to the Lord than being a full time minister.

What impression does your conduct and character make on unbelievers concerning Jesus Christ? Sadly, there are many professing Christians that bring shame upon the name of Christ because they act like everyone else and are men-pleasers.

Consider as well that because it is the Lord that we serve, then He is our true boss and therefore we should do all our work heartily. What kind of job would you do if the product you were making was to going to be given to God? How would you treat your customer if it was Jesus Himself? What kind of work would you do if it would be the Lord that would grade your paper? How would you use your time on the job if Christ was your supervisor? If your labor would change in anyway in answer to these questions, then you need to change it now because the Lord is all those things to you.

The Christian is to be a God pleaser, not a man-pleaser. You are to strive to do the will of God heartily, that is, from your innermost being – your heart, your soul. Everything you do is to be done as if it were unto the Lord for the reality is that you work for Him regardless of who signs the paycheck. Every Christian is a slave of God and righteousness (Romans 6:18-22) for we have been bought with the price of Jesus’ blood (1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Peter 1:18). The standard of what other people do is never good enough for the Christian for other people are neither our benchmark nor our motivation. We go beyond the common to do the extraordinary because we are the Lord’s and He is our benchmark and motivation. We work for Him, not just mere men.

Work for the Reward

Colossians 3:24, “Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

The Lord is a better boss in all respects which includes His faithfulness to reward us for our work. I love the addition that Ephesians 6:8 adds, “knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.” This helps to even the playing field as we will see when Paul speaks to the masters about the fact that they have a master in heaven as well.

It was very seldom that slaves would receive compensation for their labors much less just compensation, and it would seem that workers have always found something to complain about regarding their pay. In general, workers rarely think they are paid enough and employers often think they are paying too much. But the Christian is to work heartily as for the Lord because he knows that he will receive a proper reward from the Lord at the proper time.

In other words, the compensation package should not be the biggest factor in choosing to take or keep a job. Jesus has already promised to meet the needs of His followers. We do not need to fret about the things we need for life. As Paul pointed out in 1 Timothy 6:8, “if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.” Contentment removes us from the temptations and snares that come with the greedy quest to become rich.

This is possible because Christians should be living with an eternal purpose in view, not just a temporal one. We are working toward and living for eternity’s reward, not just what occurs in the here and now. According to Jesus’ teaching, we are seeking to lay up incorruptible treasures in heaven, not on earth where they can be destroyed or stolen (Matthew 6:19-21). We understand that there is no profit in gaining even the whole world at the cost of your soul (Matthew 16:26). We do all for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31) including our work knowing that is the Lord that we serve and at the proper time we shall receive from Him the promised inheritance.

God’s Justice is for Everyone

As Paul transitions to speaking to Masters, he quickly expresses the idea that God doesn’t care whether you are rich or poor, slave or free, black or white, Israeli or Palestinian. Colossians 3:25 says, “For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.”

Paul’s warning here is not in reference to our salvation in Jesus Christ, for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Jesus suffered the consequences of all the sins the Christian has committed when He died on the cross of Calvary as the price of our redemption that delivered us from the domain of darkness and reconciled us with God.

This is a warning to workers who would do wrong without thinking about the consequences of such actions. Do not allow yourself to be tempted to do your work the same way everyone else does it. They will compromise moral practices in order to gain short term profit and advantage. They will eventually reap the consequences of the wrong they do both here on earth and in eternity. You are to work for the Lord from whom you will receive a better reward of an eternal inheritance.

This warning is also for Masters, employers, and teachers. God is not a respecter of persons. If you are a harsh taskmaster and you mistreat or beat your subjects, then God will repay the wrong you have done.

Masters are Servants too

Paul’s final word on this matter is to Masters as a reminder. Colossians 4:1 says, “Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”

And employer’s attitude toward their work is to be the same as we have already seen for employees. They are to be respectful and run their business and direct their employees according to God’s standards of righteousness, truth and honesty. Their first priority is also to be doing everything as unto the Lord seeking His will above their own.

The employer is not to let his authority go to his head and feed his pride. He is to care personally about his employees and their welfare understanding that the business is for their benefit as much as it is for his own. The employer is to lead his workers without threatening them.

I love that the word for fairly in Colossians 4:1 is sometimes translated equality. The employer may own the business, sign the checks and have the responsibilities, power and authority over what happens in the business, but they are equal with their employees in that they are also accountable to one who holds all power and authority – the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the case whether you have a Christian boss or not. Ultimately, there is no partiality with the Lord. He plays no favorites. He will judge all with righteousness and justice. The non-Christian employer should obey God’s commands out of fear of that. Christian employers should recognize that they too are slaves of Christ and they should oversee their employees accordingly because their purpose and goal is to please the Lord Jesus Christ in all that they do including their business.

We all have the same Master. Let us be sure that we do all our work for Him, whether employer or employee, so that He is glorified.

Last week, we examined the roles that God gave to the wife and to the husband. As I pointed out last week, the ability of the husband and wife to fulfill their roles will be dependent upon their walk with the Lord. What Paul commands in Colossians 3:18-19 is dependent on what he has said in the previous seventeen verses. If we live as those who have been raised up with Christ, which includes putting to death the old man of the flesh and putting on the new practices and attitudes that are in keeping with walking with Christ, we can fulfill our roles in marriage and bring glory to God.

Today, we are going to look at a related subject, the relationship between children and parents (specifically fathers as the head of the household). Let me read through Colossians 3:20-21 to lay the groundwork for this message. “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.”

God has placed the husband as the head of the family which means he has the responsibility of leadership. He is commanded to love His wife in the sacrificial manner that Christ loves the church and cherish her the same way he cherishes his own body. This love includes being her provider and protector.

The wife has equal value before God as a representative of his image, but God has given her different gifts, abilities and responsibilities. Submission is an act of her will and not something coerced or forced. Her submission demonstrates her love and trust of God through her service to her husband. Her submission is first to God and then because of that she secondarily submits to her husband.

As we come to the role of the children, I will say that it is easier for children to fulfill their role if they know the Lord and are walking with Him by the Holy Spirit, but Paul does not place that expectation upon them since even the children born to Christian parents come into the world as unsaved sinners. Until the child comes to personal faith in the person and work of the Lord Jesus, they cannot live as one who has been raised up with Christ, for that has not yet happened.

The role given to the children is actually very simple. Paul says here, Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. In Ephesians 6:1-3 he adds to a similar statement the Old Testament command and promise that goes with it. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.”

Purposes of Children

Children are to obey their parents. Whenever my parents used to tell me to do something, one of my favorite questions was why. The response usually came back, because I said so, and that should have been enough. But I’ve always had a desire to know how things work, so if I can see the reasoning behind something, I have an easier time obeying. With that in mind, I want to look at a handful of purposes which form the basis for the role of children.

1) Continuation of mankind. In Genesis 1:28 God told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth . . .”. Mankind is always just one generation away from extinction.

2) Continuation of the knowledge of God. Deuteronomy 6:4-7, a famous passage called the Shema commands Israel to pass their knowledge of God from one generation unto the next, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.”

Of course we know that parents aren’t the only people who speak the truth into Children’s lives, and it is completely possible to come to know and love Jesus even if you don’t come from a Christian home, however, Christian parents have a particularly special mission field and their own children should be their priority in evangelism and disciple making.

3) to be a blessing. Psalm 127:3-5, “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord; The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They shall not be ashamed, When they speak with their enemies in the gate.”

Children are a blessing from God. They bring so much into our lives. Certainly there are the heartaches and tough parts of raising kids, but they also bring such joy. Their love for life, wonder at the world around them, and happiness over simple pleasures. But more importantly from the eternal perspective, they teach us a lot about trusting the Lord and walking with Him. They prod us to think less of ourselves and learn to love sacrificially. They reflect us and we see both the good and bad in ourselves which prods us on to greater holiness. Their very presence causes us to be more careful how we act, what we say and even how we think. Children are a great blessing from God to us.

The Role of Children

What these purposes in mind, then what is the role of children within the family? To put it simply, they are there to learn. The parents’ responsibility is to teach them and theirs is to learn. Children are not the center of the family and neither are they somewhere on the outskirts. They are part of the family. Husband and wife became a family when they were married. A family of just two people, but a family nonetheless. When your first child came along your family simply expanded to three and with each child your family circle simply got larger. Each new life added to your family is another soul for you to guide and direct into holiness.

Paul has already commanded husbands to lead their wives in sanctification so that they might be holy and blameless. The same is true for their children. Their role is to learn from both their mother and father who God is, what He is like, and how to have a personal relationship with Him. Your role is to teach and their role is to learn and learning begins with obedience.

Obedience

Obedience is the chisel used by God to shape a child’s behavior, character and belief system. Proper obedience leads to freedom. Freedom to live out of a love for righteousness instead of fear of consequences.

Children, listen up. Your first and foremost responsibility in the family is to obey your parents. God’s commandment to all children is “obey your father and mother,” and our text adds that this is to be “in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord.” Ephesians 6:1 says, “for this is right.” Children, it is right and it is pleasing to the Lord for you to obey your parents in all things.

The word “obey” here literally means, “to hear under,” and so includes the idea of hearing and responding positively. Attitude as well as action is important in obedience. If you grumble or whine about what you asked to do, you are not obeying even if you do what you were told.

As the Proverbs 6:20 states it; “My son, observe the commandment of your father, And do not forsake the teaching of your mother.” This is not some conspiracy against you so that your life will be miserable, but rather this is God’s commandment so that there will be order in the home and your life will be filled with blessings. Learning obedience to your parents is the first step toward learning both self-control and obedience to the Lord.

Self-Control

Self-control is the foundational skill for all learning. This is both mental and physical. Without mental self-control you will not be able to focus your attention to read, study, or analyze and solve problems. Every subject you will ever study takes concentration – math, history, language, art, science and understanding your Bible. The better your mental self-control, the better you will do in all your studies regardless of your IQ.

Without physical self-control you will never gain the skills needed to perform any kind of job. It takes a lot of practice to learn to control your fingers so that you can color between the lines or nimbly use a keyboard to operate a computer. If you cannot control your hands you cannot drive a nail and you would be dangerous with a power saw. Even the ability to speak requires precise control of your vocal cords, tongue and lips. Clear communication requires the addition of a controlled mind otherwise what you say will not make sense.

Obey God

Obedience to your parents is also the place where you start to learn obedience to God Himself. It is from your parents that you learn your first lessons in consequences. Children, when you disobey your parents you have also broken God’s commandment to you and that is sin. Parents, when you let your child get away with disobedience to you, then you are training that child to sin. That means you are also in sin. Disobedience brings punishment while obedience brings blessings.

A child that will not learn to obey simple instructions from a parent who is physically present will not later obey more complex commands from a God they cannot physically see and touch. It is better to learn this lesson when the consequences are at worst a spanking or removal of privileges rather than the wrath of a holy and just God. The eternal consequence of disobedience is separation from God and eternity in Hell.

Obviously, the statement here to obey them in “all things” is not without qualification. As with all authority there is a hierarchy that starts with God and then descends from there. For children, as with all people, God is to be obeyed first and above anyone else. After God, children are to obey their parents next, and then any other sources of authority as is fitting to the particular situation – government officials, teachers, coaches, etc.

Paul is not saying here that children should obey parents to the point of lying for them or stealing for them. You cannot assist them in committing sin. Like the early disciples who said judge for yourself whether it is right for us to follow God or man. You should respectfully decline to obey in those circumstances and suffer any punishment they give you, and in doing so you are like the apostles and prophets who also suffered for righteousness sake (Matthew 5:10-12).

The tragedy is that parents do ask children to lie and steal for them sometimes without really even thinking about what they are doing. You might not send your child into the store with the intention of stealing something, but what about if you tell children your children to lie about their age so that they can get a discount? That is stealing.  Children you are to obey your parents, but you obey them in the Lord. You have to obey God first, and then your parents. This is what God declares is right and just before Him.

Honoring

One final thought to the kids about honoring your parents. The command to obey your parents arises out of the commandment in Exodus 20:12 to honor your father and mother. Paul expresses that in Ephesians 6:3-4 and adds that honoring your father and mother brings the promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. There are blessings in obeying your parents and the Lord.

What then does it mean to honor your parents? Primarily it means “to place value upon” them. It is demonstrated in respect and consideration. This is something that all of us are to do regardless of age. Young children honor their parents through their obedience to them. Older children honor through submission which is willingly following the instruction and advice of their parents.

When you become an adult and live independently of your parents you are no longer under their authority. The obedience and submission are no longer required because the authority structure has changed. Men, you are to leave your father and mother and cleave to your wife (Ephesians 5:31). Ladies, your husband is now your head and not your father (Ephesians 5:23). But even so, as adults we are still to give honor to our parents. This is done by showing them respect. If the parents have done their job properly and the children are walking with the Lord, this arises out of the love of devotion. It will be joyful to show respect and appreciation, ask advice, and care for them as needed.

But some parents have been bad. Their children suffered at their hands. The past is full of pain, trust has been broken and the current relationship is strained at best. But regardless of the past, you are still responsible before God to honor them. At minimum this means not speaking evil of them, slandering them, letting them go hungry or ignoring them in time of need, for at worst they are still your neighbor which we have been commanded to love as ourselves (Mark 12:31). What will be missing will be the joy. Honoring them will a difficult duty instead of a joyful devotion. Even so, you can still honor them out of your love for Jesus Christ and desire to be obedient to Him.

Prohibitions on Parents

Moving onto the second part of our discussion for today, Colossians 3:21 says, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children, that they may not lose heart.” This command is simply a specific instruction to parents (Fathers in particular) that assumes they will already be fulfilling the commands given in the 20 previous verses. Ephesians 6:4 makes a similar statement, “fathers, do not provoke your children to anger.”

But why these specific prohibitions? The answer lies in the abuse that can easily arise from being in the superior position. The children have just been commanded to obey their parents, and if the parent is not careful they can easily become authoritarian without the proper thought in what is being taught to the child and the difficulties the commands place on the child. All of us are too prone to selfishness to not need this warning.

The idea of being provoked is to stir up or stimulate. This is a response to something that is happening. Such a stirring up could be good or bad depending on what is being stirred up, but in this case it is bad. The father is provoking the child to a response of being discouraged or disheartened.

This paints an interesting picture because when I picture the word provoked, I see it leading to an emotion or an action. You are stirred up to do something, but in this case it does the opposite. The child is provoked to give up. Why is this?

Think of it like learning to play the guitar. At first, the fingers which are holding down the strings get raw and may even bleed, but if you keep practicing and playing then eventually the skin builds up a layer of callous and it no longer hurts. So it also is with children. Negative stimulation will at first cause anger or other kinds of pain, but eventually it discourages and disheartens creating indifference or even despondency.

There are many things parents can do to provoke their children to an angry response which when continued could eventually lead to discouragement and giving up. Let me suggest a few things we need to be careful about, but let me be clear that we are not to parent based on the response of our children.

There are some who seek to parent openly with very few boundaries and this this leads to spoiled children who do not respect any kind of authority figure because they are used to being the center of the universe. Carrying this attitude into a relationship with God will lead the child to see God as their servant who must give them all good things and when any boundaries are placed or desires are withheld they see it as an attack on their person because they are really worshipping self, not God.

Then other parents treat children as inconveniences that shouldn’t get in the way and seek to keep the children confined in their little cage. This leads to children who are timid and afraid to be children and express themselves. They have been pushed so far to the boundaries of the family that they are afraid if they step out of line they might just be cast out all together. Carrying this type of attitude towards your parents will infect your relationship with God and lead to legalism.

One newer way to blend these two extremes that is also detrimental is through controlling every aspect of a child’s life through helicopter or vicarious parenting. These parents try to fight all their children’s battles for them and protect their children from any kind of discomfort. This can lead to children who have their identities stolen. Because Mom and Dad have taken complete ownership of their child’s life and are often using their lives as an opportunity to relive their own childhood. These kids can end up resentful in their relationship to God because he allows trials to come along to strengthen us and he doesn’t give us precise directions about what to do. He doesn’t force us into a mold but rather wants us to be unique and incredible according to his design.

So we are looking for a balance of freedom, identity, and boundaries. In the end as parents, so much of what we do is not going to make our kids happy in the moment. Kids will get angry when they do not get their way. But we don’t stop what we’re doing just because they get angry. Instead, it means giving careful consideration to why they are angry and then proceeding with godly wisdom to parent according to the principles of God’s word.

Here are a few obvious ways to provoke children that parents should avoid:

1) Abuse

Physical and verbal. Generally, those who abuse, whether physically or verbally, are those who cannot control their own anger, and such anger only breeds more anger. This kind of anger is never godly and it cannot produce godly results. James 1:20 tells us that “the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.” Parents should never take out their anger on their children. Even if you have suffered at the hands of someone else, you need to remember that revenge belongs to God, not you.

Such abuse only produces anger in the child as they respond by lashing out at you or others, or they may internalize it out of fear you. If it goes on long enough, the child can become despondent and severely depressed, or that anger may burn internally as resentment waiting for the time when it can be expressed.

2) Inconsistency

If the rules of the home change according to your whim, then you are going to provoke your children to some form of anger. Consider it from the child’s perspective. One day mom says to do something five or six times before she actually gets serious, the next day she says it once and then comes in with a paddle. One meal you play with your food and dad laughs, at the next meal dad is angry with you for doing the same thing. The child is confused and is uncertain of what is expected, and children will gamble when you are inconsistent being optimistic they can get away with it. This is one of the reasons that first time obedience is so important. Children know what is expected when parents are consistent and so it is easier on both of them.

Inconsistency causes frustration which in turn leads to anger. If such inconsistency is continued long enough, even an optimistic child can become pessimistic and quit trying out of fear they will do the wrong thing no matter what they try to do. Aren’t you glad that the Lord is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8)? He is consistent so that His commands remain the same and you can trust His promises.

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3) Parental Selfishness

The degree of selfishness will vary, but for these parents the world revolves around themselves and children are an intrusion. The result is that they do not take the time needed to really know their children and what is on their hearts. While this may be more common among dads since their work usually takes them away from the house and the children to begin with, it also occurs among moms. The parent may even be physically present, but their mind is somewhere else and only rarely on the children, and then only enough to keep them out of their way.

As they get older, this will develop into an anger, resentment or indifference because there was not practical demonstration the parent cared about them. The old song “Cats in the Cradle” illustrates this last point well. The son wanted to be with his dad, but dad never had the time. When the dad became old and wanted to be with his son, the son did not have the time. As the song writer put it, “My boy was just like me.” The selfish indifference had been passed to the next generation.

4) Favoritism

This is a danger for every family with multiple children. Each child is different and will need different amounts and types of attention. Add to it that you might just like the personality of one of them more than the others. If you allow yourself to favor one and are not fair to the others, you are showing both favoritism and your own selfishness. You will be the cause of increased sibling rivalry and it will result in anger and resentment.

Think about the story of Jacob and Esau. The anger and rivalry that existed between them was directly caused by their parents favoritism. Rebekah favored Jacob and Isaac favored Esau. Jacob followed his parental example and his obnoxious favoritism of Joseph caused all sorts of problems for Joseph, for Jacob himself and for his other eleven sons.

5) Excessive Expectations and Discouragement

I lumped these two together because they are so often associated with each other. This is the parent that continually demands more of their child than they are capable of and then berates them when they fail. Such parents usually fail to make allowance for childishness. This is the simple fact that the child does not yet have the skills to do certain things. It takes practice to learn to hold a cup without spilling it, to color between the lines, to be purposefully organized and tidy, to drive a car, to be responsible with money, etc.

In addition, the reality is that we are neither born with nor develop with equal ability. Every child will be different. Some will have great intellectual capacity, others will not. Some will have great physical ability and others will not. Don’t compare your children to others including siblings either way. The proper expectation and requirement is that your children do their best, whatever that may be.

If your child is advanced, there is nothing wrong with complimenting them on their achievements. However, do not brag on them about how superior they are or you will feed their pride to their detriment. As Proverbs 16:18 warns, “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.” You also want to make sure they are doing their best and do not fall into the trap of slacking off because they are ahead of others their age. A parent’s goal is to train their children’s character. That means that grades in academic lessons and excelling in particular skills come secondary to character development.

If your child is behind the other children in their skills, abilities, and achievements, then you still compliment them on what they are able to do while encouraging them to press on to do their best even if it is not as good as others. This allows you to train their character, which has nothing to do with how many academic lessons or skills can be mastered within a particular time frame.

Complaining or make disparaging remarks about the areas that they are lacking will discourage them. Comparing them to others, especially siblings, will foster resentment. Be very careful of put downs and sarcasm. Ephesians 4:29 is clear that we are to speak in ways that will encourage and build up, giving grace according to the need of the moment. Don’t let your parental pride become a detriment to your child through excessive expectations and discouragement.

6) Using affection to manipulate.

The final pitfall to avoid is making your affection conditional. This is an easy way to destroy a child. Remember that God loved us even when we were yet sinners. Certainly, when children disobey there is a strain in the relationship the same way there is in our relationship with God when we sin, but He still loves us and tells us so.

We need to do the same with our children. They need to know that when they have done wrong, the correction and chastening they receive is because you do love and care for them. You are not rejecting them, but only striving to train them for their own good. You are to always stand ready to forgive and reconcile with them.

Trying to manipulate the child’s behavior by making your love conditional upon it will not only distort their understanding of love, but it will bring upon them frustration and discouragement. Why? Because there will always be another area in which they fail to meet the standard. Winning love becomes achievable only in the short term and so there is never security in it. The insecurity of not feeling loved is only relieved temporarily before it returns with the next failure and its frustrations. The goal becomes unreachable resulting in discouragement.

Parents have a great responsibility. The reality is that I can see myself in nearly all of those different prohibitions. We will all fail at points and this should lead to confession of your failures and the seeking of forgiveness and reconciliation with them. This should be done as quickly as possible, but it is never too late to confess and seek God’s forgiveness and it is not too late to confess and seek their forgiveness too. That lays a foundation for either reconciliation or a closer relationship than you might have thought possible.

Prescriptions for Parents

Although our passage here in Colossians concludes with just the avoidance of the negative for parents, I want to conclude with a couple of prescriptions for parents that we find elsewhere in Scripture. Specifically, we’ll look at the conclusion of Ephesians 6:4, which says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

Paul speaks bringing up a child in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Discipline

This is discipline in sense of training. The word used here is also translated as chastening, nurture, instruction, discipline and training. There is a tendency to think of discipline, from the negative side. This would be teaching them lots of things that they are not supposed to do and then bringing on the appropriate consequences of violating them. Certainly that negative training is included, but there should be healthy amounts of positive training as well.

Instruction

This positive training is the instruction of the child in all aspects – morally and spiritually as well as about the world and society. It includes giving examples, reading, making observations, and providing opportunities for discovery. Remember that that purpose and role of a child is to be a learner. This should be formal and informal, and it should occur throughout the day in every circumstance. I think again of the Shema in Deuteronomy 6:7, “teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” That’s all the time.

Of The Lord

It is your responsibility to teach your children about God and the principles by which they are to live. This is hard work and involves pointing out and explaining things over and over in many different situations. The goal is that they will both understand and have many examples to transfer to their own situations. Our children are to understand who the Lord is, what He has done for them and what it means to love Him.

Parents who fail to do this have failed regardless of how much time and money they have spent on their children. Too many dads think they are successful if they can purchase lots of stuff for their kids. Too many moms think they are successful if they give lots of time to their kids. However, if time and materials are not used to help your child understand God, what He has done and how to love Him, then it was all wasted.

This is no easy task. Children are a gift from God, but raising them is an awesome responsibility. There is no responsibility or privilege you will ever have that will be greater than raising your children. No parent has it all together, which is why we are to be humble and always looking to the Lord in our own life so that we can succeed by both following His instructions, and relying on His mercy and grace upon our children to bring them to maturity despite our own failings.

Commit yourself to bringing your children up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord while avoiding provoking them to anger and causing them to lose heart. If you do so, your children will have a much easier time obeying and by God’s grace will become a blessing to both you and others, which is the real mark of successful parenting.

“Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.”

Have you ever seen a kid taking aim at a wasp’s nest with a squirt gun? Then you have seen a pastor try to tackle a passage about wives submitting to their husbands. I joke, but this is the uncomfortable part of addressing the whole counsel of God’s word as we march through a book of the Bible. Many a pastor would see this sermon coming and strategically plan a vacation so he could hand off the wives submit to your husbands sermon to an associate pastor. I’ll be honest, I might have done that if I had the option.

We live in a culture in which this thinking is not popular. In fact, it almost gets branded as hate speech. So we’re going to navigate this carefully and I’m just glad that I’m not writing this material out of my own head. As always, it is my goal to be the mailman. When the mailman delivers a hefty bill, you don't get mad at the mailman, because he didn't create the mail and he didn't even edit the mail. He just delivers the mail. That’s what I’m here to do today. I just want to deliver the mail and I really hope it is something you desire and have been looking forward to and not a painful message.

Before I go anywhere else, I want to remind you of what John said in 1 John 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” God gives us commands because he loves us and even commands that are hard are good for us. As I wrestled with my emotions, this week, I came to realize that I was experiencing this apprehension because these commands have been massively distorted and have been used by some to try to put God’s approval on all manner of sin including abuse. I hope it will be clear by the end of this that those are distortions of God’s plan and that His true plan is for your good and his glory.

Let’s pray and then we’ll get started: “Lord, I pray that you would keep me true to your word. Help me be a faithful mailman and guard my lips that I would not say anything on this controversial issue that isn’t purely guided by your word. My desire is to show that your commands are given out of love and are not given to put a heavy burden around anyone’s neck. Help us to see that you’re our ultimate authority which we embrace in love. Amen.”

New Character Lives in Christ-Centered Marriage

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been here in Ephesians 3 discussing how to live out this new life that we have in Christ. We recognized the new life as a reorienting of our minds and hearts towards the kingdom of God, we killed our old man, the flesh, who was dealt the death blow at the cross, and last week we discussed how this new creation leads to a new identity, new community, and new character.

This section will flow from that as we see that this new community will be made up of fallen people that don’t have a clue how to appropriately behave around one another. As Paul tells us that we should be compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient, those attributes need a place to live. And it should be clear from the context coming before and after that Paul is not talking to society at large. He’s talking to believers and he’s telling them why they should be different and how. So Paul will address them in a form that would have been familiar but I think will surprise them with some new information and paradigms because of the work of Jesus.

This is the beginning of a section through 4:1 that we’ll be covering for three weeks could be titled Household Code. This is something that would have been completely understandable to the Greco-Roman world in which Paul was writing. You can find these Household Codes going way back to Aristotle in the 4th century BC as well as Cato, Xenophon, Seneca, Philo, and Josephus. Some have taken that to mean that Paul is just copying what was normal from the time, however we’re going to see over these 3 weeks that what Paul shares to all six groups outlined in this section is contrary to what the prevailing winds of the day were and that it is still contrary to popular thinking.

In those days, the writer would have usually just spoken to the men, and there wouldn’t have been a word spoken to the slaves or children or wives. Men were superior in every way and slaves, children and wives were viewed as no more than property to do with as you please. Paul says, “It’s great that you break things down into these categories, but beyond the categories I pretty much disagree with everything you said.”

Instead of just carrying on what had been taught by non-Christians or even Jews before him, Paul is even going to question man as the ultimate authority and he’s going to tie this household code in with the overarching theme of Colossians which is Christ’s Superiority. I think we’re going to see Paul making the argument that Jesus is the head of the marriage, and the family, and the workplace. Not the man. We’ll get to those other two in the next two weeks, but right now, I want to go straight to the source and see how we got here. So let’s turn to Genesis 1.

A Beautiful Beginning

And while you’re turning there let me speak for just a moment to the singles in this room. I want to encourage you to resist the temptation to shut off your ears or your mind because you are not in a marriage. You may want to get married someday and I hope that this might sit in the back of your mind as you think about fulfilling these roles. Even if you take Paul’s advice and don’t get married then remember that this is written by Paul who didn’t get married. He was able to understand and speak to other Christians in the church about their situation and proper roles as reflected in the person and work of Jesus. Either you will need this to be you one day or you will need to be able to provide guidance to other believers around you.

Alright Genesis 1:26, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””

So from the beginning we see that man and woman are created equally in dignity value and worth. Both are created in the image of God. And both are given the mandate to carry out. And yet they are distinct, they are different. In Genesis 2 we get to zoom in on this creation and look at the particulars of it.

Genesis 2:15-25, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

There was a time before woman was created and God spoke the law to Adam and he has him name the animals.

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

This is the first thing that’s not good. It was not good because it was not complete. Man needed a helper fit for him.

Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

Adam figures out that there is no other creature that looks like him or talks like him. No one was a helper fit for him, God needed to whip up something special for that.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

God presents woman to man as a gift. This is how men should see their wives as a gift from the Lord. Now notice that God didn’t give the man buddies to hang out with. He needed a helper not a bro.

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

Eve was created from Adam which should show that equality and mutuality which we have. Adam rejoices in his wife and God creates the basic family unit. Husband and wife. And it is very good. And we know that it is his plan to establish some plans for the future because he says that man shall leave his father and mother. Did Adam have a father and mother? No, so this is for future generations.

Man is to hold fast to his wife. This is marriage. Man holding fast to his wife, the two becoming one flesh, naked and not ashamed. I wanted to start here, because if we just start with wives submit to your husbands without seeing that from the beginning, God has had a good and perfect plan for men and women to exist in a marriage relationship, equal in dignity but distinct in their roles then the temptation is to see submission as some kind of a condemnation of the woman’s value. But instead, here we are in the perfection of the garden before sin entered the world and there is already this distinction.

A Fallen Relationship

So Genesis 2 is a healthy and beautiful place to be because there is no sin. However, it won’t take long for us to mess up the original plan. Genesis Chapter 3. You all know the story, the serpent targets Eve and tempts her to eat of the tree. Adam is there with her but just stands by and lets this happen. We never see that God reiterates the law to Eve directly. The assumption is that when God gave Eve to Adam as a gift, a partner, a helper, that Adam passes down God’s word to her. And it looks like he did, and he might have even added a little extra to the law because she says that the prohibition is against even touching it, whereas God only forbade eating it.

So then, when she believes the lie that God is withholding something great from her then she takes of the fruit and eats it and gives some to Adam who also eats and we see this paradise collapse.

In that moment, they have sinned against God thinking they were wiser in their own eyes than God. They have not submitted to God’s authority and their eyes are opened and they realize they are naked and they run off and hide because they are ashamed. Now listen to who God asks for when it comes time for reckoning for their sin.

Genesis 3:9, “But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”” God holds each person accountable for their own sin but he seeks answers from Adam because God had placed him in charge. I can hear him saying, “Adam, man I gave you Eve to be a helper who could match with you and you were supposed to protect her and love her and you just stood by and let that serpent deceive her?”

They all play the blame game and pass the buck, Adam to Eve and Eve to the serpent and God is merciful and doesn’t end them right then and there. Instead, he curses them beginning first with the serpent and we get the first Messianic prophecy that one day the offspring of man will come and crush the serpent’s head. Then the woman, then the man. And we’re going to cover the man’s curse in two weeks when we talk about masters and slaves. But I want to focus in on part of the curse for women. We all know that pain in childbearing was part of it, but the second half says this, Genesis 3:16, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

That may sound romantic at first to our ears, but this is not a romantic notion. It’s also been translated that your desire will be against your husband. The idea here is that going forward, though you were created to be a helper to compliment him, in your sin you will long to take your husband’s place of authority and you will begin to manipulate and control him. That is part of the curse. You will be fighting against that all of your days.

“And he shall rule over you,” the idea here is that Adam and all fallen man after him will lead harshly and will exert dominance over you. In other words, God says, I created you Adam to love your wife and to lead her in humility and wisdom but now in your sin, you are going to want to lead in a harsh and selfish way, either aggressively or passively. We’ll talk about that in a minute.

This is the picture of the consequences of the fall. You’re desire shall be to usurp the authority of your husband instead of following his lead, and he shall rule over you feeling like he has to push you where you don’t want to go or pull you along through manipulation. This is the picture of every marriage on this side of Eden. Equal in value and worth, but with different roles distorted by sin so that all husbands and wives now live out their relationships under the weight of this curse.

Wives Submit

So, with that as the backdrop, we finally get to Colossians 3:18-19, only two verses so it’s okay that we did a 20 minute introduction. “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.” These commands are not Paul just falling into line with the social norms of his day, in fact he’s going to go against much of the common thinking of the day and we’ll see that in a moment. It also isn’t Paul just being a rude chauvinist pig who is seeking to demean and discredit the value and competency of women.

This is Paul thinking about the new creation and trying to re-establish this perfect pattern of Eden. Because of Christ breaking the power of sin, Paul says that because you are new kingdom citizens, marriage looks different. The goal is for it to look like it looked in the garden in Genesis 2. We’re always fighting against the fleshly tendency of sin, but there is hope that we can have Christ-centered marriages which don’t succumb to the pattern of the fall. But instead in which husbands and wives seek to follow the Lord together both with equal value and worth but with different God-honoring and Christ centered purposes.

Alright, so with that overview, let’s look at a couple of specific things here in the verses.

Wives… Husbands

Notice that this says wives submit to husbands not women submit to all men. You have one target for this. You don’t have to worry about the rest of mankind, you just have to worry about your husband and what it means to submit to him. So single ladies, be careful about trying to apply this verse to your dating relationships, you don’t have a husband to submit to.

Now in your dating relationships you should be thinking about marriage and you need to make sure that if you are in a relationship, you should be able to see yourself submitting to this guy. Do you respect him? Could you easily submit? Right now you get to choose. Once you are married, you lose the choice and you have a command. So set yourself on a trajectory for that goal, but you are commanded to submit to your husband, not your boyfriend.

Submit

The second word, submit, is a common word that means to voluntarily place yourself under an appropriate authority. There are examples of this word and this action being put into practice. Submission is not just a wife thing. Every Christian, male or female is commanded to submit to someone. This isn’t just a mean word that Paul pulls out to push women down.

In Romans 13, we are commanded to submit to the governmental authorities over us because they have been appointed by God. In Hebrews 13, we are commanded to submit to church leaders or overseers. Because they have been appointed the responsibility of keeping watch over your souls. And finally, in James 4, all Christians are commanded ultimately to submit to God himself. In no case are any of these commands rooted in a distinction in value. It’s about acknowledging and enacting God appointed roles. This is no different within marriage. It has nothing to do with inferiority and we have to resist the temptation to hear it that way. In my mind, the best way to guard against that is to keep in mind the Bible’s greatest example of submission. Jesus Christ.

Jesus submitted himself to the Father. We see this all over the New Testament. In John 5 he said I don’t do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus did not want to die. He asked that if it was possible that God would take the cup away from him, and we see his submission in the statement, “nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.” Jesus didn’t submit to the Father because he is inferior to him or because he lacked value, dignity, or competence, but because it is appropriate and that is the relationship that existed in the Trinity before time began.

Practical Submission

So what does this look like practically? First, what it is not. It is not surrendering your personality. Every wife is not going to obey this command in the same way, not only because the wives are different, but because the husbands are different as well. It doesn’t mean checking your personality at the door and trying to fit some kind of stepford wife mold that you have in your head.

Bold, exuberant, strong willed women can be submissive to God’s glory and quiet, reserved, mousey women can be manipulative to their own destruction. This is not about personality.  

This is also not about just doing whatever your husband says. This is not a blank check for male authority. In fact, we get hung up on the submission part of this command, but in Paul’s day the biggest controversy would have been the limits that Paul places on male authority. The second half of the verse, “as is fitting in the Lord” is a check on male authority.

You don’t just do whatever your husband says, you follow him up to the point that he ceases to follow Jesus. So if you’re in a situation where your husband is leading one way and you know that it is contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture then you go with God. Don’t follow your husband into sin but submit to him as is fitting in the Lord. He puts a cap on male authority and makes it clear that the husband is not the Lord of the Christian household. Christ is.

So what does submission look like? Here’s how I would encourage you to think about it. Submission is a disposition towards honoring your husband’s leadership as helping him as he seeks to lead your family towards being more kingdom-minded and Christ-centered. Notice that I said that it is a disposition or an attitude. Because of the curse, it is possible for the husband to be out front in the Christian home and for the wife to be following behind with an attitude that is nothing like submissiveness. In that case, your position might be under your husband, but your disposition is manipulative, seeking to gain control, and undermining his leadership even if you are doing what he wants to do.

So the position is not always the most important thing. The disposition is the most important. Likewise, there may be instances and certain categories of married life that it is appropriate for the husband to allow his wife to lead and for him to humbly follow her leadership in doing that particular thing or in that area. So long as he’s doing that with a spirit or disposition of leadership and not passivity and she is geared towards honoring and helping him.

It is okay for a husband to allow his wife to lead in an area that she is more gifted or competent. It would be foolish to demand that she submit to his ignorance in something. In the same way, it would not be wise, helpful, or God honoring for a wife to just take a backseat and let her husband run things off the rails because she wants to be quiet and submissive. As his helper, she needs to carefully step in and lovingly guide things back on course. That is tricky because it needs to be done with the right disposition so that she is humbly expressing concern and seeking to help and not seeking to demean or usurp authority. This will look different in different households as the husband and wife fit together with their different giftings.

If you keep Eden in mind with that disposition, that original design and good plan and remember that Jesus is your example of submission then you will do well. Philippians 2:5-7, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant.”

Husbands Love

Alright, let me talk to the guys now about verse 19, “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.” If you are looking at this thinking that you are getting off easy then you don’t understand love, leadership, or the Lord. This is hard. Not because our wives are hard to love but because our tendency is to shirk our responsibility or be harsh and assert our dominance. We need help. Not just from our wives but from the Holy Spirit.

Husbands… Wives

First, I want you to likewise see that the call is to love your wife, not all women in general. You don’t have to figure out all of womankind. Since Love by Paul’s definition is not primarily an emotion, the command is to get to know your wife and understand her. Listen to her, care for her, treat her well, and lead her well.

Love

Love is not the basis for marriage. In Paul’s day when many marriages were arranged or were agreed upon because it was beneficial for the families in some way. The call was husbands love your wives. And I think even more so today when people are so quick to claim that they have fallen out of love. Love is not the basis for marriage. Marriage is the basis for love. Paul says, “Love the wife you’re married to.” Again single guys, this is a valuable reason for taking time in your single life. Make it certain before you get married because there is no excuse afterwards. If you marry crazy, then you better love her because she’s your crazy.

This means that loving your wife is a matter of obedience to God for which you’re responsible. If there’s no love in your marriage, then husband, it’s your fault! “But if you knew how this woman treats me!” “Love your wife!” “But if you had to live with her every day!” “Love your wife!” “But I’ve done so much for her and she never does anything for me!” “Love your wife!” “But ...!” “Love your wife!” Paul yanks the rug out from under all our excuses. Love for my wife is a command which I am responsible to obey. If I blame my wife for the problems in my marriage, Christ puts it back on me. He says, “My church hasn’t always been the most beautiful, obedient, loving, helpful bride, but I still love her with a committed love. That’s how you must love your wife.”

Not Bitter

Second, Paul commands husbands not to be harsh with their wives. That word for harshness, is translated in other versions as embittered. So, Husbands, love your wives and don’t get bitter with them. This bitterness is deep-seated anger which comes from disappointed expectations that are not properly dealt with.

When someone you love hurts or disappoints you—and it is inevitable in the close relationship of marriage—if you don’t deal with it, you begin to build up a reservoir of unsettled anger and hurt feelings. The more that reservoir grows, the more you blame your partner for your unhappiness in the marriage. Both partners become increasingly angry with each other. They snap at each other and fight over trivial things. But the real problem is the reservoir of bitterness stemming from disappointed expectations that they’ve never dealt with.

Maybe you wanted a wife who would be a certain way and when you were dating the woman who is now your wife, you thought she was that way. But after you got married, you discovered that she really is not that way. The more you see how she really is and the more you see other women who seem to be the way you wanted her to be, the angrier you get. You’re embittered against your wife because she disappointed your expectations.

The key to overcoming bitterness is to recognize that your wife is not perfect—and neither are you! She probably has a list of disappointed expectations that you didn’t fulfill! So you have to accept and love the wife you have, not the wife you idealistically wish you had. Focus on her positive qualities and thank God for the wife He gave you.

It is healthy to talk honestly about unfulfilled expectations that you both are dealing with. If you don’t face these disappointed expectations and deal with them God’s way, then can turn into angry demands that will drive you apart. All such anger stems from selfishness, which you’ve got to recognize and confess as sin. Then you can talk through hurt feelings and misunderstandings in a climate of love, not accusation.

It’s always easier to let it go and not talk it through. But that’s like not cleaning out a dirty wound because it hurts too much. A scab forms over it, so you let it go. But then it gets infected and then it’s messy and painful to clean it out. The best thing is to clean it out right away, in spite of the pain. Then it can heal properly.

If it’s causing distance, then the best way to love my wife is by confessing my own sin and controlling my anger as I talk it through with my wife. I always need to view my wife as my own body, so that my goal is to nourish and cherish her, not to wound her (Ephesians 5:28-29). But I need to take the initiative to deal with emotional hurts.

Not Harsh

The problem is that in this fallen relationship we as men have a tendency to deal with this bitterness and anger in two ways. The first is through being overly harsh. Using our authority like a club to force her into submission. This could reveal itself in using emotional, psychological or physical tactics to seek to dominate and intimidate.

This is wicked and sinful and abominable. No wife should endure this kind of abuse especially if you feel that you are in danger. Your command to submit was limited by his leadership being like that of Jesus.

Not Passive

I don’t think most True Christian men have a problem with beating their wives into submission. Rather, they have seen that stereotype and in fear of going anywhere near that, they fall into the same sin that Adam committed in the garden and they just become passive.

Remember the garden. In your bitterness and anger, remember that it is just as unloving to your wife to shrink into the background and fail to provide the leadership that God calls you to. Perhaps it is out of spite, or because you fear confrontation and don’t want to upset the delicate balance that you have worked out in the house, but if you abdicate your leadership position and step aside to let her lead, you are doing the same thing that Adam did in the garden and you are allowing the evil one a doorway into your home.

Jesus is the Example

Just as the wives looked to Jesus as their greatest example of submission, so we look to Christ as the greatest example of loving and sacrificial leadership. In Paul’s teaching to the Ephesians on this topic, Paul tells the husbands to love their wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. So a husband’s call to lead is a call to die to himself. Our home is not our castle it is our cross. I don’t mean that home should be a place of suffering. Rather, it is a place of self-denial.

So when I walk in the house at the end of a long day, my first thought shouldn’t be that I have done my part and now it’s time for me to put my feet up and be served. Instead, my question should be who can I serve now and how? Does my wife need a break? Do the kids need help with homework? Can I make dinner or clean up the kitchen? This is the self-denial of the upper room. As Jesus began washing his disciples feet, there was no question who the Lord was at that moment. He came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Very few people will ever experience the reality of laying down their physical life for their wives, but that is what we are called to do spiritually and emotionally and with self-sacrifice every day in love.

I think the reason why it can be difficult to talk about submission and why it causes so many women to bristle up is because they have never seen or experienced loving leadership like Jesus shows us. We as men need to own that. I believe that if husbands would get the loving leadership right that most Christian wives would gladly submit and be the helpers that they are called to be.

But as believers, both of these commands are in effect now. The command for wives to submit is not predicated on your husband loving you rightly. Paul is saying that when you submit, as is fitting in the Lord, you will please God and will create an environment where he can lead and love well. And guys, even if she does not submit to your leadership, your call is to love her sacrificially and to lead her in the Lord so that the soil will be enriched for her to submit gladly.