Colossians 3:20-4:1

Children: your parents are a gift from God, YES EVEN YOUR PARENTS, and whether you like them or not, you have been charged by God to obey them while you are a child.

Let me get out in front of the objections and say you don’t have to obey physical abuse, or anything that would hinder your obedience to God – if you are old enough to have committed yourself to Christ in baptism, and your parents tell you not to go to church, or not to pray, or anything that God tells you TO do, or vice versa, you should not obey.

Well them not letting me date until I am 16 IS abuse – Naomi cant date until I’m dead

The girl I dated my junior and senior years of high school, I had to wait to date her until she was 16, and then once we were dating, her father’s rule was we could not be alone together, and she had to be home by 9, and I thought – O the suffering and injustice

Years later, when I was 23 and married, brain further developed, I went back to him and told him how thankful I was for his boundaries and apologized for ever being frustrated by them.

Additionally, parents, from 13 years in youth ministry, there is NOTHING that has the power to take your child away from Christ more quickly and effectively than a boyfriend or girlfriend – you SHOULD have your hand all over their dating life.

Well my parents wont let me have snapchat so that I can take and receive pictures from anyone thatll be deleted in 60 seconds or Instagram so that I can scroll endlessly and feel bad enough about myself that I post questionable pictures of myself just hunting for someone online to like me like they like them – Youre kidding wont let you . . . hold on let me get DHR on the line

I can’t tell you how many times in youth ministry, one of the young people would come to me and say something like, “you wont believe what my parent wont let me do or did or whatever…” and I would listen patiently and then at the end tell them that they had awesome parents.

It would be FAR EASIER to not discipline and not be on top of your kids stuff, our house would be much more peaceful, our kids would like me and Ariel all the time which we happen to enjoy, but we would not be loving them or fulfilling what God has called us to by giving them to us.

Children, as crazy as they may seem, they love you more than you’ve ever loved anything, and its because of that that God has given them authority over you.

Biblical Authority Reminder

Parents, do not Provoke

Colossians 3:21 ESV

Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

As always in the Bible, both parties are spoken to – Fathers, a word that can refer to both parents, but likely has a nod to the fathers family headship we talked about last week – do not provoke your children – isn’t the sort of authority given for your good, but for the good of your child.

Your child should know that you love them without end, more than anything else in the world does, your child should run To you instead of Away from you when they fail, your child should also know that you care deeply about them growing and being the man or woman that God intends, that you care deeply about their battle against sin.

Colossians 3:20 ESV

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

THIS IS A WAY TO PLEASE THE LORD OF THE HEAVENS

How Old does this OBEY charge go?

Well you should honor your parents forever, but this obedience command I think can reasonably be placed here as to one in the household – household codes

Maybe this can get some of the 30 yr olds out of the home finally – average age leaving home is 26

Turns out the “As long as youre living under my roof” thing is biblical lol

Want to stop obeying, go get your own mortgage and refrigerator lol, until then, they command, you obey

Slaves Obey Masters

Colossians 3:22 ESV

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.

In Everything

Aside about Slavery

Why doesn’t Paul just condemn slavery outright!

1. Not the same kind of slavery – nothing to do with race

Anyone could be a slave, all you had to do was lose in a battle or fall into debt

Literally you could be a nobleman on a steed one minute and the next minute be a slave at the bottom of the totem pole.

It wasn’t a statement of your value as a human.

Slavery was the way things got done in the first century, it was the workforce. Scholars estimate that as many as 1/3 of the people in Colossae were slaves!

It is not a 1-1 comparison, but it is more like a employer/employment relationship

It was common place for a slave to be offered their freedom and the slave to deny it and prefer to stay under the care of their master

2. If all of a sudden slavery ended, and you have hundreds of thousands of people out of work, unemployed, without land, on the loose, that’s very dangerous for the community and for the slaves – this was the way they cared for their family and put food on the table. So getting rid of it wouldn’t have freed them it would have doomed them, AT LEAST to homelessness

3. Instead, Paul insists that slaves are treated as fully human will full value and even as brothers and sisters – in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek neither slave nor free neither male nor female – doesn’t mean those distinctions disappear, but that they have nothing to do with value or our standing in front of Christ.

We see this here in our passage

Colossians 3:22–24 ESV

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.

Paul chooses to address slaves at all, implying not only that they are assembled with the other Christians of the Colossian church to hear the letter being read but that they are responsible people who need to choose a certain kind of behavior.

“Earthly Masters”

Masters, treat them justly and fairly

Colossians 4:1 ESV

Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

Paul’s admonition is remarkable, in comparison with secular parallels, for its concern with the kindness and “other-regard” with which the duties of household management are to be carried out. Specifically, Paul calls on the masters to provide your slaves with what is right and fair.

There is no favoritism – Masters over slaves

Additionally, the sort of social activism that is proposed here was hardly realistic in Rome at the time and more importantly, wasn’t the main thing on the mind of Christians. They were focusing on their spiritual realities that transcended their circumstances.

We run the danger when discussing this issue of elevating “freedom” to a level of moral supremacy that was not recognized in first-century society—or in the Bible for that matter—and which reflects our own modern prejudice.

Closest application for us today is about the workplace, as this is largely what is in mind here. Employers, be just and be fair, honor the Lord by the way you lead. Employees, serve as if you are serving Christ, not a boss you may or may not find likeable or competent.

Obey Sincerely Knowing You are Serving the Lord

Colossians 3:22–25 ESV

Children, Parents, Masters, Slaves, Husbands, Wives, obey what the Lord is calling you to, and obey sincerely, not only when the parent or the boss is looking, but from the heart, with your very soul, knowing that in doing so, you are serving the Lord.

“The Christian at work must be a whole person, totally given to the task in hand, not merely doing the minimum required to avoid rebuke, with a show of effort when one is being observed. That attitude shows no reverence for the Lord who has called all his people to full, single-hearted human living.”

In the things you are called to do on a given day, you are serving the Lord! How cool is that, how wonderful! What were the things they were doing that he was talking about as serving the Lord? Preaching? Leading Bible Study? SLAVE WORK, CHILD WORK . . .

In Everything, “you are serving the Lord Christ” – off to work as an accountant – “going to serve the Lord today”, rising early to feed and dress the children “rising to serve the Lord today”

That should change the way you live, work, love, serve, you are serving the Lord Christ when you do that thing you don’t want to do. When an interruption comes, when your to do list is interrupted, you are serving the Lord Christ.

Serving the Lord means an inheritance is coming. There will be plenty of times on earth when you work or give of yourself and you don’t get back as much as you gave, you don’t get the payment that should have been coming to you. This language ASSUMES that much of your work appears to be in vain, much of your work isn’t getting what it deserves, WORK HARD ANYWAY à KNOWING THAT THE ULTIMATE PAYMENT IS COMING, inheritance is coming.

Adding poignancy to this language by the way is the fact that most slaves in the Roman Empire would have had little hope of any earthly inheritance.

That doesn’t just mean that your work will be compensated, but it also means that the wrongdoer will be paid back justly as well.

You can have peace because you need not be the final arbiter of fairness and justice, and making sure that everyone gets their just desserts, mainly you of course.