We're looking at Colossians chapter three. I'm only going to have time to go through Versus 18 through 21 and this will be the last in the series on Colossians That we're going to look at. There's only really one more passage that I wanted to preach about and I'll preach about it Sometime in the future. I always have days when I'm trying to in between series and on top of that I just wanted to end things on a non-controversial Just smooth note for everybody So if you would hear the word of God Wives Submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord Husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them Children obey your parents and everything for this. Please is the Lord Father's do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged Let us pray Father I pray that this morning as we look at this passage that it wouldn't it wouldn't be controversial at all But in fact, it would be a reminder of the gospel of Jesus and I pray that you would make that clear That to those who believe and to those who are yet to believe I pray that you'd open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the death I pray that you be in my head and in my thinking in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking in Christ Name we pray these things. Amen and Amen What is interesting? You've ever wondered why I preach through books of the Bible. It's passages like that Because if I wasn't committed to going through books of the Bible I would probably would skip that frankly be a lot easier on me later on this week. I guarantee you So I figured if you're going to look at a controversial topic or subject You know, I figured I wanted to like loosen the crowd up a little bit You know, it was sort of grease the skids and I was thinking of some games that we play as a family Whenever we have time as the kids get older it's harder, but we still try and have a family game night every now and then Where we'll play, you know, Pictionary or Baldur Das or imagine if those kind of things and one of my favorites lately is The game called would you rather if you heard of that one? I mean the game the questions are so fun We just quit playing the game and we'll just sit around and ask each other these questions Because basically what it does is it'll ask you a question I'll say would you rather and then it'll give you two things basically that are completely different than each other neither one of which are pleasant More often than not and you have to make the case why you would want one unpleasant thing versus another unpleasant thing Where every now and then there's a pleasant thing like for I'm going to start with a pleasant one for example Would you rather Have your own personal live-in masseuse or your own personal live-in butler? You don't have to answer You get a little more dicey would you rather have freakishly overdeveloped muscles or Be extremely skinny and wimpy how about this one would you rather be caught outside in a severe hailstorm or in a severe sandstorm?
How about would you rather wake up one day and not recognize your friends or family or Not have your fans and family recognize you see here. How about this one Would you rather have a scandal named after you or a disease named after you? I lost some sleep over that one. Here's one For wives if you're a wife would you rather Submit to a man who loves you to the point of giving up everything or Control a man who can't stand you. I'm not a woman. I don't know if that would be a hard decision. How about this one for men? If you're a husband would you rather would you rather your wife honor and respect you because she's certain of your loving kindness or Submit to you because she doesn't have a choice Huh How about one there's one here for kids? This is actually a real one the last two weren't I'm sure you figured that out Judy and I we were put we're doing this one night and the question came up and we were we were shocked at our children's answer to this question And the question is as children would you rather have parents who are completely strict and unwavering or? Have parents who are completely lax and never paid any attention to you? You know what they said You have to ask them You see when you really begin to delve into to texts like this I'm going to make the case that at the end of the day the really not as controversial as you think Really when you look at them through the lens of the gospel and in a sense when You read this you if you're just reading through your Bible can almost seems like this passage here where it says wife Submit you're like it pops up out of nowhere Because Paul is if you remember the book of Colossians Paul has been making the case or telling them the gospel Basically, we think a pastor said Paul would you read a letter to my church and just tell it what do we need to know and Paul told them a couple things Why first you need to know who you are that you're alienated and separated from God and in and of yourself and you have no hope of salvation On the other hand, you need to know who Jesus is that Jesus came and in him and through him and to him all things were made And he is reconciling all things to himself through the blood of his cross And once you get that that you're a sinner and Jesus saves sinners and you trust him Then you can begin to think about living out the gospel and in chapter three That's what Paul started talking about he said things like that were new creations that were new in Jesus and because of that We need to put off certain behaviors and to put on other behaviors and remember the last time we looked at Colossians another non-controversial topic of worship came up and he's sort of A bigger picture of what it looks like to live out the gospel in the context of the church and then all the sudden He starts talking about wives, husbands, and children In other words, he starts talking about family and what Paul's gonna address today We tend to think that the issue of family is controversial today. The issue of family has been controversial Controversial since the advent of recorded history People have almost never agreed on it In fact, if you if you watch the news, you know, I tend to be a night owl and I flip through the news and depending on which news channel you watch You'll get maybe a different view of family if I if I said okay You've got you've got ten hours to sit in front of the TV flip through channels and at the end of it I'm going to ask you what do you think this channel thinks about the family and what do you think this channel thinks about The family well you might look at watch one of the the news channels and as you're you're watching it You hear all the commentators and pundits and they almost would never mention the issue of family Or if they did mention the issue of family They would say that the only way families are going to be in decent shape as if we first reform the government We take care of things sort of from the top down and if we pass health care and all of these kinds of things if you want healthy families You need to start from the outside in and in other words the traditional family as we know it relatively speaking You would think maybe it's unimportant in the big picture of things on the other hand You might watch some pundits on a different channel and at the end of a few hours of watching if you're just looking for family stuff You might come away thinking that the family is all important That the only thing that matters is family in other words that if you want to reform society and you want good health care And you want everything else what you need to do is you need to start with the family And if you take care of the family and guard the family then in fact all of society will be better You know, that's not true either neither one of those positions are true Let me put it this way neither one of those both those positions might be true to the people who said them But neither one of them is necessarily biblical You see what is what is Christianity say about family? Christianity says that on one hand the family is not unimportant in fact It is rather important on the other hand the gospel would say that Christianity isn't or that the family is not all important Then what is the family? Well the family according to the Bible is it's not unimportant and it's not all important, but in fact the family is simply central Let me put it a different way the family unit whether it's the nuclear family as we know it or the the nuclear family plus the extended family is They probably would have known it including those who served them It is central to the gospel because I liken it to it's almost like a lab In other words, it's like a preaching lab it those of you I know have actually been to seminary and the class that everyone hated the most was preaching lab At least where I went why because preaching lab you sit through preaching classes and you listen to a guy say when you preach You needed preach like this, you know ABCD three points press hearing seminary all whole thing and then you go to a preaching lab And you write a sermon and you're only preaching for your fellow students and then afterward your fellow students get to critique you and the whole time You're thinking you can't preach any better than me and you're critiquing me and yet they do it But the rationale behind the preaching lab is it's a safe place You go you preaching the preaching lab and there you make your mistakes there you learn how to work things out and Before you're actually exposed to the public and the churches is you're turned over to them and so The family is much the same way Paul has gone from sort of greater to more narrow He's actually very logical in his approach That the family is is central in that it is the place much like a preaching lab is where you learn to preach the family Is the place where you learn the gospel and the family's not just the place where you learn the substance of the gospel But it's where you learn the outworking of the gospel and you learn where you fit in the greater family of God and God's Greater household because remember that's what he calls the church as well But even maybe bigger than that as I look at it the family is maybe one of God's greatest Pictures of the gospel to the world When people look at at a family They should in fact see something at least a Christian family family that calls themselves Christians So we're gonna look at three things this morning really We're gonna look at first the first point if you're a note-taker is the submission of Jesus The second thing we're gonna look at is the love of Jesus and the third thing we're gonna look at is the obedience of Jesus so the submission of Jesus the love of Jesus and the obedience of Jesus Let's look first at the the submission of Jesus and let me read to you just verse 18 Paul says wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord Okay, this the verse you know We tend to read this as modern people and we think man This is just sort of eye-popping and you know kept you know I can't believe he just came right out and said that and if it helps you feel any better The original audience would have thought the same thing Because it was not uncommon for ancient writers as they were talking about the family to tell wives to submit to their husbands But they would never tell the wife. They would tell the husband just make or do it And other what Paul is addressing wives at all is huge and not just wives but also children and also slaves and by that very fact that he's addressing them He's in implying inequality there But on the other hand if you think about our culture you could see why this would what when people hear that it would it would Be offensive, right? There's almost two two ends of a continuum when you think of this verse and other ones like it You know one end of the continuum continuum you have Thelma and Louise On the other end of the continuum you have Ralph Cramden and the honeymooners
Right, what do I mean by Thelma and Louise if you remember Thelma and Louise were both Basically two women the move it's a movie that realized they're both being abused by man And they both decided they would rather die than submit to to a man or be in submission to any kind of male leadership And that's basically the movie plays itself out that way They go through through the whole movie not submitting hating men until right to the very end to their death and their looked at as heroes Now on one hand that there's an error there on the other hand You know, I can understand that You know, there's been some some abused women in my family history and if you look at the the US Department of Justice statistics At least and these are just reported 25% of women in the United States suffer some kind of abuse at the hand of a man 25% that's just what's reported and if you go global and look at UN statistics It's at least a third probably much more, but that's just what they know about and so if 25% of women in the church and out of The church have suffered abuse usually some kind of sexual abuse at the hands of men You can understand a little bit where Thelma and Louise are coming from can you not? It makes sense. We you should have some empathy But the issue is is because some submission is bad is all submission bad and the answer of course is no But the the opposite error of Thelma and Louise of course is Ralph Kramden and if you're under 50 or 60 or if you haven't been a TV rat Like I have my whole life. That's right. He's from the Honeymooners Watch it on Hulu today if you if you're you know under 40 and Basically the Honeymooners, you know You had Ralph Kramden and his wife Alice and what he would often say to her when she would sort of get a little bit up It eat was you know Alice I'm the boss and you're nothing
Discussion over Made life a lot simpler for him Until she figured out that wouldn't were the way things are supposed to be and that's sort of how every episode played out But you know from that end of the continuum the issue is if some submission is good then all submission must be good And that's not true either so there are a couple clarifying points I want to make here, but just about this one verse where Paul says wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord First of all what Paul is not saying is that every woman should submit to every man He's not saying that by any stretch of the imagination In fact, there are a lot of places you're biblically speaking where you can make the case where a man should submit to a woman Even later on in the passage where he says slaves obey your masters Well if a husband had passed away and a wife who's in charge of the estate Well the male slaves would have been responsible to be submissive to her The best boss I've ever had in the corporate world was a woman. I gladly submitted myself to her She knew a lot more than I did My sister One of them is a homicide detective and heaven help you if you do not submit to her when she tells you to free I'm serious. So there are cases where a man. So it can't be all women all women are submissive to all men But neither can it be All wives to all Husbands or all wives to every single thing a husband says because those of you who are elders in the church and have been involved in church Discipline you often find out that abusive men will come in and say well You need to tell my wife to come home and just take the abuse because the Bible says that she is supposed to submit And that is a lie from the pit of hell It just is Because what they they never do in my experience they never quote the very next verse which says husbands love your wives However, there are lots of other places where basically if the husband is ordering a wife to do something that is wrong or Ungodly or unlawful or harmful. She is to not do it. She should seek help from her shepherds at the church So that's what Paul is not saying So what is he saying then positively speaking? Well, first of all when he pulses for wives to submit it's very interesting because notice he doesn't say obey He doesn't say wives obey your husband He said wives submit to your husband and that word submission has to do with a voluntary Putting on putting yourself under their leadership voluntarily, which is interesting because every other thing that Paul says here is not voluntary It's commanded And he says submit yourself to your husband because this is fitting in the Lord now Why would Paul say that? Why does that matter? Is it just because you know life is easier that way or because Paul is some is patriarchal in those kinds of things and the answer I think is absolutely not The answer is because if the home is a lab where the world gets to see the gospel at work One of the primary things you notice when you begin to look at the gospel of Jesus is the submission of Jesus And what do I mean by the submission of Jesus? You see all of our creed to say what about Jesus that God the Father Son and Holy Spirit that they're the same in substance Equal in power in glory much like Paul would say that in Christ There's neither June or Greek Gentile or non Gentile circumcised or uncircumcised male or female that men and women are completely and utterly equal as our Jesus and God the Father And yet in order to secure our salvation Jesus submitted himself to the will of the Father You see where they're the same in power equal in substance and glory That's what theologians call the ontological Trinity. There's your word of the day calendar word Ontological that means sort of a base level on the other hand when Jesus who is completely equal with God Submits himself to God. That's what theologians call the economic Trinity or the economy of the Trinity that they all have a role even though they are equal And the reason Jesus submits himself to the Father is that he might secure our salvation God sent his only son that he might give his life for us where he couldn't send him unless the son voluntarily Submitted himself to that and when a a wife submits herself to a loving husband It is the picture of the gospel now. Let me say this. I wish I you know It seems like whenever controversial topics come up. I maybe it's a smiling providence from God I always have half the amount of time, but either way If submission sounds to you like it's it would be hard or it would be onerous If you're a woman sitting here, I Want you to think at least you don't have it as bad as the men Okay, if submit if submission sounds hard and submission sounds oners At least you don't have it as hard as the men do at least in this passage What do I mean by that? Well the answer is just is that there were women in this passage wise rest of voluntarily submit to their husbands Husbands on the other hand are commanded to love their wives and And that's another thing that makes Paul's writing different than any of the other ancient writers if you look back as far as Aristotle Implying and all the Greeks they all wrote about family relationships and One thing that no one wrote until the Apostle Paul they all said wives should be submissive to their husbands They all said slave should obey they all said children should obey, but not one of them said husbands love your wives They might have said husbands keep your wives in line husbands don't let her You know open our mouth they might have said all things, but they never said husbands love your wives And that's what makes it I think more difficult Because on one hand you have submission Okay, I voluntarily put myself under your leadership on the other hand you have love which goes all the way to the bottom You have love which says I'm willing to give up everything for you I'm willing to give up my rights Which would you rather do would you rather submit voluntarily to someone's leadership? Or would you rather be ordered to give up a hundred percent of your rights on behalf of someone else? That's what love is If you want a picture of love You want a picture of what the husband's job is all you have to do is read Hosea chapter three Remember the story of Hosea and Gomer That's a difficult story for me to read a number of levels But remember in that story God goes to the prophet Hosea and orders him to take a wife of adultery He commands him Hosea, I want you to take that woman right there Gomer as a wife And she is going to cheat on you. That's not a threat. That's a promise and she's gonna do it over and over and over again And here's what I want you to do when she cheats on you. I want you to go get her. I want you to pursue her and love her and bring her back So Hosea does it. I imagine he thought yeah, God can't be serious about that And what do you know? Gomer leaves Hosea plebe will God what do you want me to do? I told you of what to do go after her get her She does it again and again and again until finally I can just imagine Hosea going back to God and say God I've had enough. She is actually she is not only gone But she sold herself as a prostitute and she's on the auction block So now to get her it would actually cost me money now. What do you want me to do? What does God say? Go get her but it's gonna cost me money Yeah, you surprised how much that kind of stuff can cost you and when Hosea, you know You it's a reader's digest version, but you get the sense of him going Why would you ask me to do that over and over and over again and the answer that comes back is what? Because that's what I do for you Hosea over and over and over again That's what Jesus does for you as well You see we've we've drifted in the point to the love of Jesus You see husbands are commanded to love their wives and what that means is to living out the love that Jesus has for them And what Jesus does over and over and over again is chase after his wayward bride and I hate that model You know whenever I do weddings I would say you know it seems flippant You know the husband's you're supposed to love your wives and how did Jesus do that? He did it as profit and priest and king and I'm okay with the profit and king part Because the profit is supposed to bring God's word to his sheep and his family and the king is supposed to provide and protect I can do both of those things But what the priest does is the priest is constantly mediating and the priest is the one who constantly pursues Even when he is the offended party In other words husband if your wife has offended you It is your responsibility to pursue reconciliation and husbands if you have offended your wife It is your responsibility to pursue reconciliation. Do you see how I could hate that? Because you never get the picture of Jesus coming home plopping down on his lazy boy and saying you know what when she gets her act together And she wants to come talk to me about all the stuff that she's done wrong to offend me than I'm just sitting here waiting Of course then when she comes to talk you say it's Okay, what were you saying? You never get the idea that Jesus comes home late from work and expects to have a certain this or that for dinner And it's not made and he just gets completely outraged and says you know what if this woman really cared about me She'd make what I like she would have read my mind as I was driving home changed her plans and make what I want but she doesn't So because of that I'm gonna go in the living room and I'm gonna pout and when you're ready to come you be recognized You come find me honey. I love you That's not what the gospel demands What the gospel demands here the gospel demands out of every Christian by the way You see that in the sermon on the mount if your brother has something against you go pursue them But specifically here in the context of the family You see the wife gets to be like Jesus and that she submits Herself to the leadership of her husband the husband gets to be like Jesus in that he loves his wife And I don't mean just romantically. I mean he pursues her all the way to the bottom That's hard And so you see the submission of Jesus you see the love of Jesus But where do you see the obedience of Jesus in the family? Will you see it with children? What does Paul say to them He says children obey your parents and everything for this pleases the Lord Father's and not provoke your children lest they become discouraged now much like wives children if your parents tell you to do something that is wrong or unlawfully you shouldn't do it You should ask for help But in as much as what they're saying is what is right and true you need to obey them And the reason you need to obey them is not not because God will love you more if you do It's pleasing But why is it pleasing to God when you do that because when children obey their parents in the Lord It is a picture to the world of the gospel It is a picture of the complete obedience that Jesus the son has to God the Father Remember it's the book of lipances that Jesus was obedient even to death on a cross You see it's the obedience of Jesus that he even enables us to be obedient If Jesus was not obedient you and I wouldn't even stand a chance That's for children or parents and the question is will you trust the obedience of Jesus on your behalf or will you try and got it out yourself? Let me put it this way would you rather? Would you rather if you knew that you were alienated and separated from God Would you rather receive a free gift of grace from someone who's already done all the work on your behalf Knowing that if you do he promises you he will never fail you or forsake you and he will never kick you out of the house Would you rather have that or would you rather gut it out yourself and see what happens at the end? Think about it. Let me pray for us Father, I prayed this morning that you would come and you would teach us the gospel so much more to say about Family relations about women about men about children And I pray that you would just work these truths into our heart as we have them now And that you'll grow steeper in our relationship with each other in our relationship even with those outside By way of our families the Christ name. We pray these things. Amen