Who's the Boss?

Welcome

Tales & Treats review - we had the opportunity to share truth with children and parents last night.

We do these events this time of year, not to celebrate a holiday of darkness. We do this to shine a light of truth in the darkness.

Our world is dark year-round and we must shine the light of the kingdom of God and the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ whenever and wherever we have the opportunity.

Christian Life & Witness Course - training provided by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association on Thursday, November 9 at 6pm - FBC Pharr is hosting our community for this training.

We continue this morning in our series on the Book of Colossians.

As a review, we have been talking about putting off the old man or woman—leaving behind our old selves that are ruled by the flesh and our sinful nature. We were given the power to overcome that nature at the point of our salvation. Whenever we continue to act in the flesh and give into our sinful nature, we are doing so by choice, not because we have some instinct or some compulsion to do evil and sinful things.

Certainly there are addictions and habits that can take us and control us, but we always have the power to leave those addictions behind or get the help necessary to give ourselves a better chance at leaving those addictions behind.

We were given the power of the Spirit and the character of Christ at our salvation. Yet, we must practice and gain the habit of the new man/woman, the saved person. We talked about the characteristics of compassion, kindness, goodness, humility, peace, patience and self- control.

I have told you for several weeks that this is the work of our lives to put the old person behind us and put on the new person, the saved person, who acts with the power of the Spirit and develops this character of Christ.

We talked in our Wednesday night discussion group about all these positive characteristics of Christ: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, but we said that the characteristic that rules them all is LOVE...

Colossians 3:14 CSB

14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Another thing that we noticed was that each of these characteristics requires an adjustment in our view of self, as well as the view of others.

Philippians 2:3–4 CSB

3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.

Paul turns from the theoretical to the practical in this next section. Only instead of looking at this from a personal, internal perspective, he looks at relationships. Specifically he looks at relationships of authority and submission.

As a warning, you may find this text challenging. I urge you to approach this with a bit of grace. We all must have a bit of grace with ourselves and with others.

Let’s read this passage at the end of Colossians 3...

Colossians 3:18–4:1 CSB

18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they won’t become discouraged. 22 Slaves, obey your human masters in everything. Don’t work only while being watched, as people-pleasers, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, 24 knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism. 1 Masters, deal with your slaves justly and fairly, since you know that you too have a Master in heaven.

[pray]

In this text, we have three sections based on relationships. We’ll take each in turn, but in general, we see advice relating to how husbands and wives should relate to each other. Next we can see parents and children, and finally we have bosses and employees.

For each of these relationships to thrive in a healthy state, they require an adjustment in perspective—that is an adjustment in the way that we see ourselves and others.

AND we have to remember that love is the key to unity...

Colossians 3:14 CSB

14 Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

As a caveat, I don’t intend to step on anyone’s toes this morning or to meddle in your personal affairs. I simply follow the text where it goes. And I’ll remind you that the text speaks in the language of the time. I have seen many of these words taken out of context and applied to relationships in hurtful and harmful ways.

One way to avoid this problem is to avoid approaching this text from the context of obligating others to adhere to these suggestions without doing any work on your own self and your own ways. A mentor of mine used to say, “Let’s tend our own gardens.”

I know husbands that blame their wives for not submitting and wives that blame their husbands for not loving them. This way of thinking always leads to bitterness and broken relationships.

I know children that chafe against the heavy-handed authority of their parents and parents that cannot stand the disobedience of their children.

The same goes for slaves and masters… Except in today’s context, we must talk of employees and their bosses. Lazy and disobedient employees vex their bosses and overbearing and unjust bosses will struggle to gain the respect and loyalty of their employees.

I. Wives & Husbands - Love & Submission

Let’s look first at the relationship between husbands and wives...

Colossians 3:18–19 CSB

18 Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them.

Husbands and wives are two sides of the same coin. Often we treat this relationship as a classic struggle for dominance and submission.

It is not at all uncommon for an unloving husband to come with his wife with this verse to force her into submission. “Submit to me woman!” But when you ask him what scripture forces her to submit to him when he is unloving, he rarely has an answer.

I have known many women that have lived with an unloving husband. Many of these women seem to be existing in their own form of hell on earth.

At the same time, there are women who have been hurt by fathers, brothers, and male friends throughout the course of their lives. It can be truly difficult for these women to learn submission, because of the negative experiences of their lives.

This word submit, in the Greek ὑποτάσσω (hupotassō), is not a word meaning “slavery” or “subjugation” which are both about domination and control. It does not say “Wives, allow yourselves to be oppressed and dominated and never stand up for yourselves, because this is what the Lord wants.” Submission is a willingness to follow the direction or guidance of others—and in this context, the other should be loving and caring, always looking out for the best interests of those who are under their care.

Additionally, husbands, it is your job here to be loving and not hold onto bitterness and unforgiveness.

In fact, Paul’s admonishment here is rather simplistic. He went into greater detail in his letter, that we call the book of Ephesians...

Ephesians 5:22–33 CSB

22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of the body. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives are to submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her with the washing of water by the word. 27 He did this to present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and blameless. 28 In the same way, husbands are to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own flesh but provides and cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, 30 since we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32 This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

That seems to be a much higher standard for husbands to uphold, right?

Some of you guys are saying “Pastor! Don’t throw me under the bus like that!”

That last verse is very revealing.

Ephesians 5:33 CSB

33 To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.

I don’t have time to expound on it today, but Paul’s claim here is that women crave love and men crave respect.

This requires a change in the way that we treat each other. It requires that we put others before ourselves and our own needs.

Going back to Colossians 3, Paul reminds husbands to not be bitter against their wives.

Colossians 3:19 CSB

19 Husbands, love your wives and don’t be bitter toward them.

Bitterness can poison a marriage relationship and give the enemy a way to attack the marriage and destroy it. Paul warns against letting bitterness and anger take control (Eph 4:31) and James reminds that a root of bitterness can only cause trouble and defile the saint (Heb 12:15).

This passage is about more than husbands and wives, though. It is also about parents and their children...

II. Children & Parents - Encouragement & Obedience

Colossians 3:20–21 CSB

20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they won’t become discouraged.

It would be really easy to just quote verse 20 without including verse 21...

Colossians 3:20 CSB

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

And some parents do this, especially when they say “Do what I say, not what I do.”

As parents we often want our children to obey us without question. However, as they grow in stature and begin to seek their independence, often our children shrug off our advice and seek to go their own way.

In this moment, it is easy for us to begin to treat them like the little children that we remember and not like the adults that they are growing to be.

Paul puts it simply when he says...

Colossians 3:21 CSB

21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they won’t become discouraged.

Children born into a Christian home can expect and deserve to be reared “in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4).

The son or daughter that refuses to obey his parents will struggle to grow up into the obedience of any authority. He will defy his teachers in school. He will flout the law. He will chafe under the oversight of an employer. He will never be at ease under any who have authority over him.

At the same token a father or mother who cannot love and encourage their children can expect them to buck under their heavy hand of authority.

We are called to be encouraging and patient with our children, rather than discouraging and oppressive.

[that being said, it is easier said than done, in my own experience]

III. Employees and Bosses - Honesty & Loyalty

Just like we can see positions of authority in submission in the marriage relationship and the parent/child relationship, there is an authority that we find in the workplace as well.

During the time the Bible was written, slavery was a normal way of life. That has changed dramatically in our time. In our day, we can easily apply the principles represented here to our employment. Some of us are bosses and others are employees. And some of us are even both. We may have employees under us, but we report higher up the corporate chain to our own bosses.

Colossians 3:22–25 CSB

22 Slaves, obey your human masters in everything. Don’t work only while being watched, as people-pleasers, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, 24 knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism.

Colossians 4:1 CSB

1 Masters, deal with your slaves justly and fairly, since you know that you too have a Master in heaven.

A Christian worker should be the best and most reliable and loyal employee in the organization.

We should always do the very best job that we are able with the tools we are given.

We should obey our authorities and not argue.

We should give an honest day of labor for an honest wage.

We should be employees of high integrity.

By the same token the Christian employer should be the most trustworthy boss who is honest and fair and worthy of the loyalty he expects of his employees.

Conclusion

We must find ways to treat each other with Love and Respect.

We have to remember that the lead position is not about dictatorship or lordship. It is about leadership. One thing that sometimes surprises couples is when they learn that there is a mutual submission to God as well as to each other that causes a marriage relationship to thrive.

The husband that truly loves his wife is not seeking to dominate or subjugate this wife, but seeks her best interest and would never try to harm her.

The wife who knows that her husband loves her would be foolish to refuse to submit in mutual agreement, because she has a trust in him that he would not harm her.

A woman that knows that her husband loves her feels safe to respect him. And a husband that knows that his wife respects him feels safe to love her.

This is like being lifted up together in a rising tide. It is not one being lifted up to be exalted over the other, but both to work together in ways that are fitting and right for the marriage relationship.

Sacrifice and submission are partner characteristics that can often be found in a happy and healthy home.

The same might be said about the parent/child relationship. When a child knows that their mother or father is always seeking out their best, then it is not hard to be obedient to their rules.

The Preeminence of Christ

How do we see the preeminence of Christ in these relationships? Why is this section included in scripture?

Christ should change us in the roles that we play in the world.

Whether we are a husband or wife, a child or a parent, whether we are an employee or an employer, we should do those things and live that life as holy and set apart ambassadors of Jesus Christ in this world.

How has Christ changed you? How has he changed you at home? How has he changed your marriage? How has he changed you with your parents or with your children? How has he changed you at your work or in your business?

How has Christ changed you?

Colossians 3:17 CSB

17 And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

If Christ is preeminent in us—if he has the first place in our lives—we should be loving to each other and submit where we need to submit and we should be caring where we need to be caring. We should live lives of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. These things become evident in the way that we interact with others around us.

When people look at us, they should see Christ in us and they should be able to glimpse his love, above all and over all and through everything that we do and say.