Hello My Name is Servant

Jab 1

Let’s make a deal

What if… you were holding a suitcase with a thousand dollars, or maybe a new Hyundai…or think of the thing you value in your life. Your career, children, guitar,

Jesus stands there in Monte Hall’s space and asks you to give up what you hold for what’s behind door number 1.

In the game show that’s a gamble, but what about with Jesus?

Jab 3

Transition (5:21)

In the beginning of this series we discussed how we all bring a variety of “identities” with us. Our jobs, families, skills, and more are identities we carry along for the ride. As evidence, look to the athlete who loses his career to an injury. You can tell really quickly if athletics was an identity or a career.

Throughout this series in have been making the case that in Christ we have a new identity which supersedes all the others. We are loved, adopted, citizens of a new kingdom, and because of those truths we now carry the identity of a minister (one who gives we have to aid those without) to a lost world.

But what happens to those old identities? Going back to Jesus as a game show host, what happens when we trade the one for the other? Now that your old identity has been taken, what happens?

Today’s text shows us two things.

1. It shows us how to live the right way.

2. It shows us an amazing truth. When we give up those other things as identities…God gives them back. But he gives them back complete and in their right place.

Paul gives us three pairs of examples of identities which once surrendered to Christ, come back better than they were, complete. and in their right place.

Ephesians 5:21 ESV

submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

eph 5:21

That was where we left it last week. As we imitate God like dearly loved children, we are called to submit to one another out of reverence to Christ.

Submit. That’s a tough word.

It’s easier to swallow when connected with Paul’s explanation.

If we take “Submit to one another” at face value, does that mean I do whatever my child tells me to? Does it mean I receive poor treatment without addressing it? Does it mean I don’t stand up for my needs and safety? No.

Paul using specific roles to explain his point, helps us to recognize the fullness and beauty of submission.

2 things to keep in mind.

It’s still hard

The other person will not always appreciate it or even see it as submission

Text

Ephesians 5:22–6:9 ESV

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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. 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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-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 good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

-9

Complete Wife

Ephesians 5:22–24 ESV

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. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Eph 5:22-

Complete Husband

Ephesians 5:25–33 ESV

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. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Eph 5:25-

Complete Children

Ephesians 6:1–3 ESV

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

Eph 6:1-

Complete Father

Ephesians 6:4 ESV

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Eph 6:

Complete Worker

Ephesians 6:5–8 ESV

Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-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 good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.

Eph 6:5

Complete Boss

Ephesians 6:9 ESV

Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

EPh 6:9

Complete Submission (conclusion)

Ephesians 5:21 ESV

submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

I’ve traded my identities. I’ve given Christ my role as husband, father, pastor, geek, bald guy…all of it. He has given me in return all of the truths we have discussed through this series. My identity is first of all one who is “In Christ”. Now all of those things come back to me in their correct space, completed. Now I am a father in Christ. I am a husband in Christ. I am a geek, in Christ.

Questions

What are identities you carry apart from Christ? Why are those important to you?

Which identity means the most to you? How would losing any of that identity impact you?

Imagine you could ask Paul to write a section specifically about the identity you described. How do you think he would write about that identity in submission to Christ?

Take time to pray for one another.