SPEAKER_01: Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
SPEAKER_01: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
SPEAKER_01: In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
SPEAKER_01: He who loves his wife loves himself.
SPEAKER_01: For no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.
SPEAKER_01: This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.
SPEAKER_01: However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.
SPEAKER_01: Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.
SPEAKER_01: Honor your father and mother.
SPEAKER_01: This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.
SPEAKER_01: Fathers, do not provoke your children to do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Bond servants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ, not by the way of I service, as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever whatever good anyone does, that he uh this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or free.
SPEAKER_01: Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he is both their master and yours in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.
SPEAKER_01: So reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to you.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you joined us while we were singing, my name is Mark.
SPEAKER_02: I'm the lead pastor here at City Church.
SPEAKER_02: You're very welcome if you're new or visiting with us.
SPEAKER_02: We are uh finishing off a six-week series that we have done through the book of Ephesians, looking at uh the nature of the church uh specifically, and uh we round it out with seeing how the work of Jesus and uh his spirit transforms uh various different relationships in the context of uh of the household.
SPEAKER_02: Uh but the household uh is uh, or rather, Paul says elsewhere that the church is the household of uh of God.
SPEAKER_02: Over the next uh two weeks, there's gonna be a little mini-series just by way of trailer, since we're in a movie theater.
SPEAKER_02: Uh by way of trailer, there's a little mini-series for the next two weeks uh on uh on worship uh that Peter is going to be preaching through because I will be uh traveling for the next two Sundays, uh, not on vacation, uh, uh for uh for work commitments.
SPEAKER_02: I'll be in the US.
SPEAKER_02: And then uh for uh the rest of the calendar year up until Christmas, we're going to be doing a uh a six-week series on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: So that's where we're we're going, and then we'll get into another major book in January.
SPEAKER_02: I want you to be uh begin uh by picturing in your mind's eye, though, a fish swimming uh through through the ocean.
SPEAKER_02: There's water on every side.
SPEAKER_02: That fish lives in the water, it sleeps in the water, it breathes oxygen through the water.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, one day it uh meets up with its fishy friends and says uh to the other fish, you don't believe in water, do you?
SPEAKER_02: Water is what some fish use to control other fish.
SPEAKER_02: Water has nothing to do with my life, it hasn't shaped how I live.
SPEAKER_02: I think that water is utterly irrelevant.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what people think about Christianity a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_02: We swim in the waters of ideas that were laid down two thousand years ago that have shaped us through centuries of Christian influence, and we don't even realize it.
SPEAKER_02: We assume that things like the equality of men and women, the dignity of children, the rights of workers are just obvious truths, that they are so self-evidently natural parts of every human society, but they aren't natural at all.
SPEAKER_02: In the ancient world, none of those convictions or ideas existed.
SPEAKER_02: Wives were considered to be property, not partners.
SPEAKER_02: Children were disposable, with fathers holding absolute power and sway over the household.
SPEAKER_02: Slaves were tools, living possessions, and it is into that world that Paul writes Ephesians 5, 22 to 6.9, our text this morning.
SPEAKER_02: And I would encourage you to have it open in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: Because I know that the first line that Colin read, if you're new here, maybe, or maybe if you're not new here, makes you go, oh, what's Mark going to say about that?
SPEAKER_02: Into that world, Paul has introduced something utterly different, profoundly counter-cultural.
SPEAKER_02: And in this section that Colin read, what Paul offers us are relationship dynamics that are not shaped by power, but shaped by love, by mutual honor under the lordship of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Where differences exist, they are differences of function, not of value, not of status.
SPEAKER_02: And where he addresses those who in the ancient culture are considered to be the powerful ones in Roman society, he calls them to die, to nurture, and to lead with mercy and integrity.
SPEAKER_02: We are so used to swimming in the waters that the New Testament, the Christianity, has created that we barely notice them, we barely notice the effect that it has had on our view of human relationships.
SPEAKER_02: We take in the moral oxygen of Christianity and take it for granted, assuming that, well, this is just how decent people think.
SPEAKER_02: But the truth is that if you remove Jesus, you will eventually lose these values too.
SPEAKER_02: It's part of the reason why you see uh something of a shift in kind of the um the popular atheists, Richard Dawkins, maybe Alex O'Connor as well, where they they actually they like the moral framework of Christianity, the cultural side of Christianity, but they struggle with the Jesus bits.
SPEAKER_02: Where I think that they're missing is that actually if you if you ditch Jesus, you will eventually continue to devolve morally culturally.
SPEAKER_02: And that's part of what we're seeing in our world, that there is a default back to power dynamics and treating others with suspicion because you think that all of our relationship dynamics are ones of power.
SPEAKER_02: And so you're constantly thinking, what's this person, what's this group of people trying to get over on me?
SPEAKER_02: That's what we default back to as human beings.
SPEAKER_02: Because we have we are losing our appreciation for the cultural waters that Christianity has allowed us to swim in for the last 2,000 years.
SPEAKER_02: Our world, humanity, does not drift towards equality, it does not drift towards compassion or human dignity.
SPEAKER_02: Those currents flow from Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul speaks in this passage of a radically different vision of human relationships than would have been true in ancient Rome or true today.
SPEAKER_02: In the verses just above that we haven't had time in this series to look at, he says in verse 18, be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 21, submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ.
SPEAKER_02: And then he goes on to give these three examples.
SPEAKER_02: These three examples are what it means for Christians, you and I, if you're followers, if you're a follower of Jesus here this morning, what it means for you to live a spirit-filled life in the world in the various relationship dynamics that you find yourself in.
SPEAKER_02: It is what it means to mutually submit to one another out of love for Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And when Christ rules, his love replaces power.
SPEAKER_02: Every relationship becomes a place where his goodness shines.
SPEAKER_02: So Paul gives us these three ordinary spaces, ordinary spaces where the extraordinary grace of Jesus is meant to be seen.
SPEAKER_02: Marriage, family, work.
SPEAKER_02: Let's walk through each of them.
SPEAKER_02: First point.
SPEAKER_02: Let Christ's love shape your marriage.
SPEAKER_02: And if you're not yet married, can I can can I encourage you not to uh tune out until I get to points two and three?
SPEAKER_02: Because one of the things that we'll see is that marriage points beyond itself to what Jesus uh is doing in the context of the church and how he relates to his church.
SPEAKER_02: So even if this is not immediately uh relevant, you might think it actually is.
SPEAKER_02: Now, as I've already alluded to, we read verse 22, and you can almost hear the eyes rolling in the room because what we think is that Paul is picking on wives by addressing them first.
SPEAKER_02: We mistakenly think that Paul is speaking to the quote-unquote lesser party, right, first.
SPEAKER_02: But in each of these couplets, he is doing something quite subversive.
SPEAKER_02: In addressing wives, children, and servants or slaves first, he is doing two things.
SPEAKER_02: First thing that he's doing, he's elevating their status, right?
SPEAKER_02: He's not just talking to the men and going, here's how you need to keep your wives, your children, and your slaves in line.
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
SPEAKER_02: He elevates their status, says, wives, let's have a conversation, right?
SPEAKER_02: Children, let's talk.
SPEAKER_02: Bondservants, I have things to say to you.
SPEAKER_02: He is elevating their status by addressing them first.
SPEAKER_02: That's the first thing you need to see.
SPEAKER_02: Second thing that you need to see is he is treating those groups of people as people who have moral agency, as people who have the ability to act of their own right and volition.
SPEAKER_02: Again, a remarkable idea in the ancient world that you sit here and go, well, of course a wife has moral agency.
SPEAKER_02: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_02: The reason why you think that is because you grew up in the waters of 2,000 years of Christian Pauline thought.
SPEAKER_02: When he says wives submit to your husbands, Paul is not making a value distinction between men and women or calling for all women to be subject to all men.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, he is inviting women who are the equal of men in status, being, value, worth, dignity, honor.
SPEAKER_02: He is inviting women to voluntarily enter into the God-given, God-ingrained design and order that there is within creation.
SPEAKER_02: Where submission does not mean inferiority, and where authority does not mean tyranny.
SPEAKER_02: And we will unpack that a little bit more.
SPEAKER_02: But before we do, I want you to note that much more time in this passage is given to the role of the husband.
SPEAKER_02: Did you notice that?
SPEAKER_02: That much more time is given spent addressing how the husband should act.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because the husband's more important, so he gets more words.
SPEAKER_02: Is he worthy of that?
SPEAKER_02: No, that is not what is going on.
SPEAKER_02: It is because, if anything, what Paul is saying to husbands requires more of a paradigm shift.
SPEAKER_02: And so it requires more unpacking.
SPEAKER_02: Husbands, by nature, tend towards one of two extremes.
SPEAKER_02: They can tend towards dominance or abdication.
SPEAKER_02: Dominance seeks to exercise power over those around them, removing agency from their wives.
SPEAKER_02: Abdication is checking out.
SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what Adam said in Genesis 3.
SPEAKER_02: Those are his words.
SPEAKER_02: The snake said to Adam, What do you think, Adam?
SPEAKER_02: And Adam said, Well, happy wife, happy life.
SPEAKER_02: She wants the apple.
SPEAKER_02: Pretty sure that's in my verse.
SPEAKER_02: Is that not one in yours?
SPEAKER_02: Adam abdicates responsibility.
SPEAKER_02: He checks out, he goes for the path of least resistance.
SPEAKER_02: And that is something that we tend towards.
SPEAKER_02: We are sons of Adam in that regard.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says that husbands are to love their wives as Christ has loved the church.
SPEAKER_02: How is it that Christ loved the church?
SPEAKER_02: He gave himself up for her.
SPEAKER_02: He laid down his life.
SPEAKER_02: Voluntary self-sacrifice.
SPEAKER_02: That is not dominance, nor is that abdication.
SPEAKER_02: Does that mean that what Paul is saying is that husbands are equal to Jesus in the marriage dynamic?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: Paul is essentially saying, husbands, guys, if Jesus can lay down his life for his bride who is not his equal, how much more can you die daily for your wife who is your equal?
SPEAKER_02: Technically, it's called an argument from the greater to the lesser.
SPEAKER_02: If Jesus can do this for his church, you can do it for your wife, who is your equal, right?
SPEAKER_02: Husbands, be careful here.
SPEAKER_02: There is a difference between you being the leader of your home and seeing yourself as the Lord's anointed in your home.
SPEAKER_02: Nevertheless, the kind of loves that the kind of love that husbands are to have is Christ-like, self-sacrificial, self-forgetting, other person-centered.
SPEAKER_02: A love that pursues the good, flourishing holiness of his wife.
SPEAKER_02: That means, dear brothers, that there is no room for dominance.
SPEAKER_02: In a culture where wives were property, Paul calls husbands to die for their wives for the pursuit of their good.
SPEAKER_02: But also, dear brothers, there is no room for abdication.
SPEAKER_02: Paul uses this analogy of caring for our own body.
SPEAKER_02: And you're saying here that when it comes to our own body, we don't tend to abdicate care of it, though we can do from time to time.
SPEAKER_02: But by and large, the point holds.
SPEAKER_02: We feed ourselves, we wash ourselves, usually, we tend to our needs.
SPEAKER_02: And so your care of your wife is to be like that.
SPEAKER_02: It needs time, it needs attention, it needs service and care.
SPEAKER_02: To love our wives in this Christ-like way is to nourish and care for ourselves.
SPEAKER_02: And so it is in the context of these two equals where one is called to die every day for the other, encouraged to pursue the holiness of the other, where Paul writes to wives and says, wives, submit to your husbands.
SPEAKER_02: Follow their lead.
SPEAKER_02: This submission is not subjugation, but a voluntary yielding flowing from being filled with the Spirit of Christ, who yielded himself to his father's will, who yielded himself in obedience.
SPEAKER_02: They voluntarily yield to help and to encourage, to labor alongside.
SPEAKER_02: Why was Eve taken and made from a rib?
SPEAKER_02: Well, because wives are not supposed to be back here in subjugation, nor out here in uh in dominance, but alongside.
SPEAKER_02: In partnership.
SPEAKER_02: Asymmetrical, different in role, equal in dignity, partnership.
SPEAKER_02: Because together this dynamic of loving service and faith-filled love points beyond itself.
SPEAKER_02: It points like a photograph points to reality.
SPEAKER_02: Marriage is the photograph that points to the true reality of Christ's relationship with his church.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus pursued her good.
SPEAKER_02: He served her by dying to redeem her.
SPEAKER_02: He loves her still and is loyal to her.
SPEAKER_02: This is the fundamental reality that all of us, whether married or single, Participate in.
SPEAKER_02: It is the essential relationships, essential relationship to which all marriages point to.
SPEAKER_02: And so there is great dignity in us all together, whether married or not yet married, in knowing that we participate in this grand eternal relationship.
SPEAKER_02: Husbands are not, you are not called to rule your wife.
SPEAKER_02: You are called to reflect Christ to your wife.
SPEAKER_02: How does your leadership look like Jesus' love?
SPEAKER_02: Is it patient?
SPEAKER_02: Is it self-sacrificial?
SPEAKER_02: Is it nourishing?
SPEAKER_02: Wives, you are not submitting to male superiority.
SPEAKER_02: No, you are trusting Christ's wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: How might your trust encourage and help your husband as he seeks your good?
SPEAKER_02: As he seeks your spiritual flourishing and your holiness.
SPEAKER_02: You see, when Christ rules our marriages, love looks like sacrifice instead of control.
SPEAKER_02: Next, Paul turns to the relationship between parents and children.
SPEAKER_02: Another place where power once ruled, grace now reigns.
SPEAKER_02: And so, secondly, let Christ's grace shape your family life.
SPEAKER_02: One of the joys of growing up as a church is that there's a growing number of children around us.
SPEAKER_02: More of us are becoming parents for the first time, second time, in some of us for the third time.
SPEAKER_02: And with more children and entering into that season of parenthood, there is no end of one, the advice towards how we should act, and two, the anxiety and second guessing, thinking that we're messing our children up.
SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, many of us are still of an age where our parents are still living.
SPEAKER_02: And so there's the issue of how we ought to relate to our parents now that now that we're all grown up and becoming parents ourselves, and perhaps for some of us, our parents aren't believers, and what does it mean to honor them?
SPEAKER_02: Lots of questions.
SPEAKER_02: Again, Paul's statement is surprising in a number of ways.
SPEAKER_02: He treats children as people with responsibility, as moral agency, as people who have a responsibility to Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: You see that?
SPEAKER_02: Children obey your parents in the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: But the reason why our children obey us is not because I am Lord of my little domain over in Castle Knight, but because my children are followers of Jesus and that they have an obligation, a responsibility to confer to him.
SPEAKER_02: It's an opportunity for discipleship, not just an opportunity for them to pick up the Lego off the floor.
SPEAKER_02: Just as an example that immediately comes to mind.
SPEAKER_02: Now, obviously, this is different at different stages of our child's development and growth, where obedience is encouraged as an act of discipleship, not just simply a demand for a quieter day or a tidier house.
SPEAKER_02: Paul then quotes the commandment: honor your father and mother.
SPEAKER_02: As we grow older and become adults, our obedience as children may fade, but our honor of them does not.
SPEAKER_02: Even if our parents don't share our faith, we should prayerfully seek the wisdom to know how best to honor them.
SPEAKER_02: In some cases where obedience to Jesus demands that we must sadly go against their wishes, out of obedience to Christ, we do so cautiously, reverently, with a desire, with tone in our mouths that seek to honor.
SPEAKER_02: Then he adds the promise.
SPEAKER_02: See that in 6 verse 2, honor your father and mother, brackets.
SPEAKER_02: This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you, and you may live long in the land.
SPEAKER_02: What does he mean by that?
SPEAKER_02: Well, he's incentivizing obedience.
SPEAKER_02: He's encouraging us because often what we can think is that Christian obedience is a case of merely doing your duty.
SPEAKER_02: Paul wonderfully here reminds us that God's laws are good for us.
SPEAKER_02: God's ordering of his world is a good thing, whether actually or not you believe in the God who made them.
SPEAKER_02: To live under his good rule is good for you.
SPEAKER_02: And so Paul is saying that it's not just a case of just doing your duty, it is in fact a doorway to blessing.
SPEAKER_02: Of course, there's still suffering and pain that we all face in this world.
SPEAKER_02: But to live consciously under God's good rule leads, by and large, to our flourishing.
SPEAKER_02: Now he addresses parents.
SPEAKER_02: I did not enjoy writing this section.
SPEAKER_02: He addresses parents with a negative command and a positive encouragement.
SPEAKER_02: And together they paint a picture of a father or father and mother that are self-controlled and patient guides of their children.
SPEAKER_02: The command to fathers in verse 4, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger is a command.
SPEAKER_02: Another translation says, Do not lead your children into settled resentment.
SPEAKER_02: Where they end up just resenting you and your faith.
SPEAKER_02: They end up resenting Jesus because of how you have acted.
SPEAKER_02: How might we do that?
SPEAKER_02: Those of us who are parents.
SPEAKER_02: It says much more, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: About it says much more about where I'm at than where my kids are at.
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Or with ridicule, mockery, shaming.
SPEAKER_02: This communicates to our children not that they did something wrong, but that they are something wrong.
SPEAKER_02: Children who experience only harshness often learn to fear authority rather than to trust it.
SPEAKER_02: A Christ-like parent corrects firmly but tenderly, remembering that our Heavenly Father's discipline is indeed kind to us.
SPEAKER_02: Another way that we can exasperate our child children is through inconsistency, hypocrisy, or injustice.
SPEAKER_02: The parents who say, Do as I say, not as I do.
SPEAKER_02: It erodes credibility, doesn't it, over time?
SPEAKER_02: Inconsistent boundaries confuse our children.
SPEAKER_02: One day harsh, the next day permissive because you just can't be bothered.
SPEAKER_02: Hypocrisy breeds cynicism in the hearts of our children.
SPEAKER_02: And that cynicism easily hardens into anger.
SPEAKER_02: We can exasperate or create resentment in our children through control.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes control can look like over-protection.
SPEAKER_02: Micromanaging every decision, never allowing independence.
SPEAKER_02: All of it sends the message of I don't really trust you.
SPEAKER_02: You see, you can you can either prepare the path for your children, or you can prepare your children for the path.
SPEAKER_02: Lots of parents out of fear and anxiety want to remove all of the obstacles out of the way.
SPEAKER_02: They're preparing the path rather than preparing the child.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: You think, well, it's because I love it.
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I understand.
SPEAKER_02: But that overprotection that is born of fear can stifle the maturity that making mistakes and learning from them creates.
SPEAKER_02: And it can lead to rebellion.
SPEAKER_02: Even when it is a protection that is smothered in love.
SPEAKER_02: Our Heavenly Father gives us freedom within boundaries.
SPEAKER_02: Parents mirror, excuse me, parents mirror his heart when they gradually, sensibly, wisely, prayerfully, entrust responsibility, training their child to walk by faith, to let go of our hand and to take Jesus' hand.
SPEAKER_02: We can exasperate our children through neglect, through absence as much as aggression.
SPEAKER_02: The parent who is too busy, too distracted, too unavailable leaves the child hungry for care, for affirmation.
SPEAKER_02: Presence matters, affirmation matters.
SPEAKER_02: Tell your children that you are proud of them, not just because they have done something to merit your pride, but because of who they are.
SPEAKER_02: I actually quite hate it when I say to my middle child, I'm proud of you, bud.
SPEAKER_02: And he goes, but why?
SPEAKER_02: Because he thinks that my pride in him should come from something that he has done.
SPEAKER_02: Not by the fact that he is my son and I delight in him.
SPEAKER_02: Think of Jesus' baptism.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is there in the waters of baptism, and heaven is ripped open.
SPEAKER_02: And the father speaks from heaven, and what does he say?
SPEAKER_02: He says, You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is baptized at the start of his earthly ministry.
SPEAKER_02: In terms of his earthly ministry, he hasn't done anything.
SPEAKER_02: And the father says, You are the son that I love.
SPEAKER_02: I delight in you eternally.
SPEAKER_02: I really need to pick it up.
SPEAKER_02: We can exasperate our children through unrealistic expectations or perfectionism.
SPEAKER_02: Comparison with siblings or impossible standards wear a child down, it teaches them that they that they're that your love must be earned.
SPEAKER_02: This is the opposite of the gospel of grace.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel liberates families from performance-based love.
SPEAKER_02: Our children should feel that they can fail in our house and still be embraced because that's what grace feels like.
SPEAKER_02: As I said at the start of this, I do not write this in any sense of judgment.
SPEAKER_02: I feel desperately convicted by some of the things that I have written.
SPEAKER_02: But do you know what?
SPEAKER_02: One of the most powerful discipleship tools that we have as parenting is not perfection, but repentance.
SPEAKER_02: When a parent says, I was wrong, I shouldn't have said that, or in that way, or I am sorry that I got so angry.
SPEAKER_02: Please forgive me.
SPEAKER_02: This is where the gospel becomes visible at home.
SPEAKER_02: And then Paul gives the positive contrast.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Bring them up.
SPEAKER_02: Literally nourish them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Discipline and instruction is training, guiding, correcting.
SPEAKER_02: You need to train our children means to give structure, boundaries, teach wisdom, not control.
SPEAKER_02: To instruct them means to give them truth, words that reveal Christ's heart, that help them to see more of Him, to see the world through His eyes.
SPEAKER_02: To guide them means giving them your presence as a follower of Jesus, to walk alongside them so that they can see that the gospel is something that is lived, not just something that is preached.
SPEAKER_02: And then finally, with the few minutes that we have left, he turns to slaves and masters, workers and employees, or sorry, employees and bosses, and he says, Let Christ's lordship shape your work.
SPEAKER_02: Bond servants in the ancient world came from every walk of life.
SPEAKER_02: I would encourage you not quite to think of um the kind of North American slave trade.
SPEAKER_02: Slaves uh were um oftentimes uh better treated in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_02: It was a uh it was sometimes a temporary state, and oftentimes bondservants, slaves were educated people, like doctors.
SPEAKER_02: Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke in the book of Acts, was likely a bondservant and a trained medical doctor.
SPEAKER_02: Nonetheless, they were considered to be property, they could be inherited or bought.
SPEAKER_02: And here again, Paul dignifies them as workers.
SPEAKER_02: Where the ancient world addressed them as property, he addressed them as moral agents, and that their service, however humble, is sacred and is to be done for the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that that teaches us, friends, whatever your work is, is that Christ's Lordship, if you're a follower of Jesus, Christ's Lordship makes your work holy.
SPEAKER_02: Every task, however mundane, becomes a stage for worship.
SPEAKER_02: Paul says to uh obey your uh earthly masters with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_02: And again, that's another thing that, oh, what does he mean by by that?
SPEAKER_02: But it isn't anxiety, but rather a reverent seriousness, an awareness that Christ, not their master, not your boss, is the true Lord.
SPEAKER_02: So we are to work with diligence and with integrity and with excellence.
SPEAKER_02: And then he says, whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: What great reassurance for the bondservant of the ancient world to say to them that Christ sees and every unseen act by your earthly masters is seen by him and will in the end be rewarded by him.
SPEAKER_02: So work for the audience of one.
SPEAKER_02: Work for the glory of the Lord Jesus, work with integrity and joy, as though you are serving Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_02: And so the spreadsheet that awaits you tomorrow morning, or the classroom, the patient, the customer who walks in and they're a regular, and you just know that they've come to complain.
SPEAKER_02: All our opportunities for worship.
SPEAKER_02: Tomorrow's workplace is your altar.
SPEAKER_02: Amazingly, he then turns to masters and he says, You do the same.
SPEAKER_02: You're an equal to your bondservant, to your slave, to your employee.
SPEAKER_02: Because you have a master too who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: Masters' bosses are to do good, to be managers with integrity and with justice, to lead without threatening.
SPEAKER_02: See, he says, stop your threatening.
SPEAKER_02: Same as fathers and husbands, differences of position, differences of authority and role, but all are no excuse for abuses of power or of threats for employers, managers, leaders of teams amongst us.
SPEAKER_02: We treat the people who we work alongside as image bearers, not instruments.
SPEAKER_02: We see employees as people to serve, and to serve alongside rather simply as tools to use.
SPEAKER_02: We are to lead with gentleness, fairness, accountability, remembering that we too have a master who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: We must ask ourselves as we walk in to tomorrow's team meeting.
SPEAKER_02: Would those who work under me say that my lordship reflects the kindness of Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: Replace intimidation with inspiration.
SPEAKER_02: Offer praise publicly and correction privately, be quick to thank, slow to criticize.
SPEAKER_02: For the Christian leader, the question isn't so much how much power do I have, but how can I use the power that I have in a way that Jesus did to lift others up.
SPEAKER_02: You see, brothers and sisters, when Christ rules our life, when we are filled with the Spirit, everything changes.
SPEAKER_02: Every relationship is transformed.
SPEAKER_02: Love replaces power, grace replaces fear, work becomes a place of worship.
SPEAKER_02: The gospel doesn't erase our differences, it redeems them.
SPEAKER_02: Husbands and wives learn to serve instead of compete.
SPEAKER_02: Parents and children learn grace instead of control.
SPEAKER_02: Leaders and workers learn reverence instead of rivalry.
SPEAKER_02: And it's all because of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: The bridegroom, the son, the master, who loved us when we were unlovely, who obeyed perfectly when we were far from home, who served us even unto death on a cross.
SPEAKER_02: And now he is risen and he fills all people with his spirit, so that the ordinary spaces of the kitchen table or the break room in work become living parables of his redeeming love.
SPEAKER_02: And so as you go this morning and as you go into another week, as you relate in your home with your children, or in your workplace with your colleagues, love as you have been loved.
SPEAKER_02: Serve as you have been served.
SPEAKER_02: Seek to honor Him in every relationship until the day where every household finds its home in him.
SPEAKER_00: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.