So for most of his early life, John Newton had absolute
authority over human beings. You see, before he ever wrote
Amazing Grace, Newton was a captain in the transatlantic
slave trade. On his ship, his word was law.
He decided who ate and who starved.
He decided who lived and who died, who was beaten and who was
spared. You see, the people below the
deck had no voice, no leverage, no escape.
Submission wasn't choice. It was forced.
You see, according to his logbook, he bought and
imprisoned roughly about 468 men, women and children. 68 of
those people died under his watch.
Years later, Newton would write that what haunted him most was
not only what he did, but how normal it felt to hold that kind
of power. Authority had been completely
untethered from love. Power had no accountability and
human beings paid the price. You see, eventually God broke
Newton slowly and painfully. His ship was thrown into a
vicious storm and it left him stranded.
And so for over 27 days the crew and Newton fought for their
lives till eventually their ship found land.
But during that time, he came to see Christ not only as Savior,
but as Lord. You see, Lord over his past,
Lord over his power, Lord over authority.
And Newton would later confess, I am a wretched Sinner.
Do with me as you please. She only then did Newton begin
to understand what authority was meant to be.
That's why Amazing Grace that we love to sing doesn't celebrate
power. It mourns blindness.
It it remembers fear. And then it rejoices that grace
can rule where authority once crushed.
This. This was written by a man who
owned slaves, and he writes about his chains being gone and
finding grace in Christ. And so for some of you, the
mention of the word authority tightens your chest.
You didn't choose that reaction most of the time.
I probably came from experience. Maybe it was a coach who used
humiliation as motivation. Maybe it was a parent whose
rules felt unpredictable and whose discipline felt harsh.
Maybe it was a boss who reminded you everyday how replaceable you
were. Maybe it was someone in
spiritual leadership showing that you should have been able
to trust someone that had power and authority who use scripture
to protect themselves rather than care for you.
And even some of you in this room, you can't even name the
moment, but your body feels it. Your trauma feels the weight of
of where authority has been untethered from Christ.
Authority shapes our sense of safety, right?
So when the Bible starts talking about authority and submission,
some of us don't hear it neutrally.
You hear them through memory. You hear it through pain.
You you hear it through mistrust.
And our culture offers a simple solution.
Authority is the problem, and so flatten it.
Reject authority altogether. Question everything or just
seize authority for yourself. In our text this morning, Paul
doesn't do that. Instead, Paul challenges us to
recenter the focus of our authority and submission.
Because the problem is not authority itself, You see.
The problem is an authority untethered from Christ.
And before Paul ever gives a command to a child, to a parent,
to a slave or a master, he gives us the lens everything must be
seen through, Ephesians 521 says submitting to one another out of
reverence for Christ. And so this morning we're going
to, we're going to kind of start a, a, what is known as the
household code, but we're going to do it in a little bit
different order. Now you see, before the ice
storm hit, this was supposed to be the passage I preached on.
It moved us a week back. And so if you came hoping to
hear about husbands and wives come next week, we will, we will
hit on that and that'll be Aaron's duty to do that.
But I'm a bit, I'm going to be talking about children and
parents and then slaves and masters all still within the
household code, as we will see. But that one verse, Ephesians
521 when we left off last week, that is the crucial element to
understanding what comes next in Paul's epistle to Ephesus.
What he's saying is don't read what I'm about to say through
your past as I walk through these areas of of your life
where there's authority and then there's someone that's
subordinate. Don't read it through your past.
Don't read it through your lens, but read it through Christ.
So submit to one another in reverence for Christ, because
when authority is detached from Christ, it wounds, it damages,
it destroys. But when Christ rules authority,
everything changes. Augustine once said where there
is no love, there is no true authority.
Paul is about to show us that authority, what authority looks
like when it's placed back under love because it's placed back
under Christ. And so when we come to Ephesians
6, children and parents, slaves and masters, Paul is not giving
us isolated rules. He is showing us what happens
when Jesus Christ stands over relationships where authority is
unequal. That is the question before us
this morning. How does Christ rule
relationships where authority is unequal if you're not already
there to Ephesians six term with me as we read our text this
morning. Paul says 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. 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 bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the
heart, rendering service with a goodwill 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 bond servant or
is free masters. Do the same to them and stop
your threatening, knowing that He who is both their Master and
yours in it is in heaven, that there is no partiality with Him.
You see, Ephesians is not a book about isolated commands.
It's a book about new creation, life under the reign and rule of
Christ. Paul has already told us in
Ephesians 2 we were dead, but God made us alive.
Later he says Christ has broken down the dividing walls.
There is no longer this division amongst one another and now we
are to walk in a manner worthy of Our Calling.
And so by the time we reach chapter 5, Paul is showing us
what life looks like. It's walking in love, walking as
children of light, walking in wisdom and and wisdom.
Paul says it's not merely knowing what is right, it is
living rightly under the lordship of Christ.
That is wisdom. That's why he says in 521
submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
This is not mutual submission in the sense that roles just
disappear. It's mutual submission in the
sense that everyone is under Christ.
Now, Paul applies that principle where power differences are most
obvious. Again, how does Christ rule in
relationships where authority is unequal?
Paul answers that in three ways by using the example of children
and parents and slaves and masters.
First, what we see is Christ redirects submission upward.
Christ redirects submission upward.
You see in Ephesians 61 children, obey your parents and
the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother.
Then it may go well with you that you may live long in the
land. And then he goes in, in verse 6
and talks or five. They talks about the bond
servants. He begins this passage
intentionally. He doesn't speak first to those
in power. He doesn't speak to those that
are in authority. He speaks to the one that's the
subordinate, one that does not have authority, children,
slaves, or workers. This alone would have gotten the
Church of Ephesus attention. All right.
As mentioned earlier, in order to properly understand what Paul
was saying, you must keep Ephesians 521 in your mind.
Paul fleshes submission out through three different
relationships. He starts first with wives and
husbands, and he goes to children and parents, and then
slave and master. In each relationship, Paul is
going to address the one who is the subordinate first, and then
he admonishes the one with authority.
And so he begins this intentionally, because in the
ancient world household instruction usually went
straight to the head of the house.
But Paul does something different here.
He addresses the ones with least power directly.
As Peter O'Brien noted, he says Paul's concern is not merely to
preserve social order, but to show how the Lordship of Christ
reshapes existing relationships. In other words, Paul is not
rearranging the furniture in the home.
What he's doing is he's changing the center of the room of what
the what the furniture is pointing to what our hearts are
pointing to everything that follows wives and husbands,
children and parents, servants and masters is Paul showing us
what ordinary life looks like under Christ's rule.
And so he begins with the children.
The charge children obey your parents in the Lord for this is
right. See Paul here doesn't soften the
word obey. Authority in the home is real.
Christianity never pretends otherwise.
He says children obey your parents.
But Paul refuses to let obedience just kind of stand on
its own. He anchors it in the Lord.
Those 3 words are not just a a fun decorative that Paul used
even though he loves to use in the Lord in Ephesians, but
they're decisive and commentator pointed out that the phrase in
the Lord places the child's obedience within the sphere of
Christ's authority and not merely under parental control.
That's crucial because what Paul is not saying is obey because
parents are always right. What he's not saying is obey
because parents are ultimate. He's not even saying obey if
your parents are believers. He's saying obey because you
belong to Christ. Throughout Ephesians in Christ
or in the Lord describes A believer's location where their
life is rooted, right. Chosen in Christ, made alive in
Christ, created in Christ for good works and now Paul brings
children fully into that reality.
Andrew Lincoln writes that this command assumes children are
participants in the Christian community where obedience flows
from their relationship to the Lord.
That means obedience is not a pre Christian morality, it's a
Christian discipleship. Children do not step outside of
their faith when they obey their parents.
Their obedience is one of the ways their union with Christ is
lived out, and that's always been the pattern in Scripture.
If you go back to Leviticus 19, as they're establishing the Holy
Code, it says everyone of you shall Revere his mother and
father. I am the Lord your God.
Notice how that command is framed.
He's saying parental authority is real honor and Revere your
father and mother, but it's immediately placed under God's
authority. Paul is doing the same thing
here in Ephesians. He's saying, hey parents, you
have real authority, but you're not the highest authority in the
home. Christ is O'Brien, again is
helpful here. He says that the Paul's wording
relativizes parental authority by placing it explicitly under
the lordship of Christ. You see, that means obedience is
real. Children, students, but it's
never blind. You see, children are not being
asked to trust authority, just in general.
They're being invited to trust Christ as they live under
authority. And that phrase in the Lord,
while it also deals with your relationship with Him, it also
sets the boundary lines for authority.
Paul doesn't spell them out, because Scripture already has.
But what he says is when human authority commands what God
forbids, or what forbid or forbids what God commands, the
hierarchy of allegiance is clear.
As the apostles put it, we must obey God rather than man.
That's right, Paul assumes that framework here.
You are to obey your parents in the Lord so outside of them
asking you to blatantly sin children, students, those that
are still under the authority of your your parents, you are to
obey Paul only gives 1 clear out and that's if they do what is
against what the Lord has told you to do explicitly from
scripture right. That's not the, oh, the Lord
told me to do this and ends up being going out late at night,
right? No, you, you listen to your
parents in that. But if they tell you, hey, you
cannot have a relationship with the Lord, you cannot read your
Bible and, and have partnership with Christ, then you obey God
first. Amen.
So kids, students, teenagers, when you obey, you're not just
doing what mom or dad said, which is a good thing.
What you're doing is you're practicing what it means to live
under Jesus as King. That's right.
John Calvin and his institute said all obedience that we yield
to men must be subordinate to the authority of God.
And then obedience is then further motivated by and based
on the fact that that it's just right and it's just a a common
thing in society that it is right for children to obey it
just that it just makes sense. It is right to do that.
And then Paul doesn't leave the command hanging.
He reaches back into the Old Testament.
He says honor your father and mother, for this is the first
commandment with a promise. This is this is not some random
reference Paul is pulling in the deep structure of God's design.
You see the 5th commandment sits at the center of the 10
commandments. Many believe it.
It's the bridge commandment. It bridges the commands about
loving God and commands about loving others.
As commentators regularly note, it is the first place where
obedience to God is worked out through obedience to a human
authority. You see, God designed the home
to be the first place authority is encountered.
Before a child ever meets governments, before a child ever
meets an institution or an employer, they meet authority in
the home. And so that is why Paul moves
from obey to honor, right? Because obedience describes what
children under the care of their parents should do, right?
And if you're like me, when I was a teenager, I was like, when
do I not have to do that, right? When do I become my own man and
I can do what I want, right? When do when does the obedience
command stop for me? Well, Paul tells us by bringing
up honor. It describes A posture that
lasts a lifetime. You see respect in speech,
humility and posture, gratitude for provision.
When was the last time you thanked your parents for what
they give you? Right?
Children, parents like, yeah. Can I get an Amen, Right.
It's care in later years, right? When they get older.
How you honor them is by taking care of them, returning the
favor. Clinton Arnold notes that Paul
understands the 5th Commandment not merely as a rule for
children, but as a foundational principle for ordered human
relationships. And when Paul highlights the
promise, when he says it's a first command with a promise,
he's not offering prosperity when he says so.
That they may go well with you and that you may live long in
the land. This is not a verse here to say,
well, if I just obey, I'm never going to die.
All is going to be well. Everything is going to be great
for me. What he is doing is he's saying
this command, the promise is wisdom.
Why? Because it as you think about as
a child, I want it when your parents said don't go in the
street and you chose to obey and not go in the street.
You're more likely to survive, right?
You're not going to get hit by a car, right?
When they tell you, hey, don't play with matches, they burn.
When you obey, you're more likely not to burn the house
down and live. I needed to be told that over
and over again in my life. I would light a match and just
watch it burn until it went to my finger and then I'd throw it
and praise the Lord that the house is not burned down.
But see, it's, it's this reality of like, it's, it's just common
sense of if you don't do this, then the likelihood is you're,
you're going to live. But there's more meaning to it
says in the Old Testament, long life in the land meant stability
and flourishing within God's covenant order.
Paul applies that principle to a church no longer tied to the
land. He's saying God has woven
flourishing into ordered life, not because parents are perfect,
not because authority never fails us, but because God uses
authority, especially in the home, to form hearts that know
how to live under Him. Right?
Authority is the in the home is meant to be a signpost, not a
substitute. It's a it's a signpost pointing
children toward a greater authority, right?
So that I tell my, my, my 4 year old and my 2 year old every
night when they fight going to bed is I know this seems silly
to obey dad right now, but one day the Lord is going to ask of
you. And what I am doing is I am
training you and helping you learn what it looks like to
submit to Christ and his Lordship, right.
The better father, the the the the wiser Lord.
And so he tells children, obey your parents and the Lord, and
honor your father and mother. And then he moves to bond
servants in verse 5 and he widens the circle.
You see, this is where meaning often gets lost if we move too
fast. As I was preparing for this, I
found very little people writing sermons on this whole Section 1
through 9. It was like one through 4, 5
through 9. They never did it together.
And I, I was sitting there going, man, how do I, how do I,
how do I make this mesh? Because it sounds very odd, but
when you understand the century and the, the world that Paul is
writing to is, he's not switching topics here, right?
In our modern world, our, our first interpretation goes to the
workplace. Now, that is not a a wrong
application of this, but it's missing the deeper truth in it.
You see, in the ancient world, servants were part of the
household itself. This is still under the
household code. The household was not just a
family unit, it was an economic and social unit.
You see, servants live there, they work there.
They were governed by the same authority.
And so before we move any further, we need to pause for a
moment and name something. Clearly ESV translates it bond
servants. Some of y'all's might be
servants. Some other translations will say
slaves. When Paul speaks to bond
servants here, he is not talking about the slavery as we know it
from modern history. And that is important to note,
right? Because we read this from our
21st century lens, this is not a a bond servant.
That was race based. That was chattel slavery that
defined the Atlantic slave trade.
You see, the system was that system was built on kidnapping,
racial hierarchy, lifelong ownership, generational bondage.
That kind of slavery here me is an evil distortion of God's
design and scripture will never bless it and never does. 1st
century slavery was still broken and still sinful and we'll see
that but it was different. You see in the Roman world
slavery was not race based. There were there were many
people, even doctors that were servants, bond servants of
someone. Many slaves were emancipated
during their lifetime. Most of the time it became age
of 30 was when they finally paid off all their debts.
Many of the servants, they entered it because of debt or or
just economic collapse. They needed to provide and so
they would go under someone's authority and be paid and get
make money and so they could be out of that.
Some were educated, many of them held positions of
responsibility, many lived within a household and could
earn wages or freedom, and many would use it as a way to become
Roman citizens and develop a relationship with their former
masters. That doesn't make it good
though, and Paul is not admonishing and celebrating it.
What he's doing is he's speaking into an existing household
structure, not endorsing oppression as God's ideal.
You see, Paul is not defending the system, he is redeeming
people within it. And notice what he does not say.
He doesn't say this system is just.
Masters are always right. And he doesn't even ground
obedience in the goodness of the structure, he grounds obedience
in Christ. You see, if we miss this, we
miss read Paul. Paul is not giving timeless
approval to slavery, and anyone that would say otherwise is
wrong. He is showing how Christ's
lordship enters broken systems and reshapes how God's people
live within them, and the seeds of that reshaping are already
here. Remember, Paul tells servants
that their obedience is rendered as to Christ, and then tells
masters that they have a master in heaven who shows no
partiality. He is quietly undermining every
claim of absolute human ownership in Christ's Kingdom.
No one ultimately owns another human being.
Christ alone is Lord. And as Lincoln observes, he says
Paul's instructions to slaves are not a new subject, but a
continuation of the household relationships already under
discussion. Paul is not changing subjects.
He's moving, moving deeper into the same household and notice
what he does inside that structure.
He does not minimize the power imbalance.
He does not praise the system, but he absolutely refuses to let
human authority be ultimate. Over and over again in this
section, he says as to Christ, as servants of Christ, doing the
will of God from the heart, as to the Lord and not to man.
Arnold comments that Paul redefines the obedience by
relocating its ultimate reference point where he says
not. He says obey your earthly
masters and he he reframes that ultimate point to Christ.
Your obedience does not end with the person who has power over
you. It rises to Christ.
Which means obedience is no longer just survival.
It's no longer merely keeping your head down.
It becomes worship as you serve and he gives six ways that the
bondservant is to do that with respect and fear sincerity of
heart, right? It resembles first Chronicles
2917 of of David, say in the uprightness of my heart, I have
freely offered these things says obey as they would obey Christ.
Colossians 317 not serving to be seen as people pleasers, right.
You're not doing it to be seen by man, but you're doing it for
the Lord, doing the will of God as servants.
And lastly, with a great attitude, Deuteronomy 10/12 and
now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you?
But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways to love
him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul. And this is where one of my
favorite stories and all of the world hits home and helps us
feel what Paul is saying because it isn't easy for us to
understand because we don't live in this context that Paul's
addressing. There's a man named Brother
Lawrence. If you know his story, he wanted
to be a monk and he wanted to, to, to to work in the monastery,
but there was no opportunity. But they said, hey, we have a
dishwashing position. That's all we have.
And So what Brother Lawrence did is he spent his life doing
unseen, repetitive work in a monastery kitchen.
And yet he famously said he experienced the presence of God
as fully while washing dishes as he as while he prayed.
Because his mentality was, every dish that I wash I will do for
the glory of God as if God was about to use this spoon, and I
will wash every dish for that reason.
This is the attitude. Because yes, this does translate
to the workplace. This is the attitude that we
should take to our work, seeing that we work unto the Lord, not
man, right? Because it is possible for the
homemaker to cook a meal as if Jesus Christ were going to eat
it. It is possible to clean the
house as if Jesus Christ were coming to their house.
It is possible for teachers to educate students, doctors to
treat patients, shop assistants to serve customers as if they
were serving Jesus Christ. Because we do all for the glory
of God. Work is not the effect of the
fall. Work was there in the first
place. Our attitude towards it is what
fell. We started viewing work as as
laboursome. It became hard because of our
because Adam chose to sin, he now has to toil in his work.
That is Paul's point. When obedience is offered to
Christ, ordinary faithfulness is gathered into divine purposes.
You see, Christ sees it. So it's not by the way of eye
service as people pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ,
doing the will of God from the heart, doing all this knowing
that he will receive back from the Lord whether he is a bond
servant or is free. Christ receives it, he remembers
it, and again, he's careful. This is not blind obedience
because obedience is rendered to Christ.
It has limits. Authority is real, but it's
never ultimate. But the ordinary everyday spaces
of life, homes, households, work, we cannot easily escape.
Paul wants believers to know something deeply comforting.
You are not submitting alone. Christ stands between you and
has authority over you. Christ receives what you offer
in faith, and Christ rules even there.
So whether you are a child learning obedience in the home,
or someone living under authority that feels heavy and
unavoidable, or someone whose faithfulness feels unseen,
Christ sees it and he's a good Lord.
That is how Christ rules relationships Where authority is
unequal. He redirects submission upward,
and then he moves on to address the ones in authority.
Christ restrains authority downward.
He restrains authority downward. If in the first movement Paul
showed us how Christ redirects submission upward, here he shows
us something just as necessary. Christ restrains authority
downward. Paul has spoken to those under
authority, and now he turns to those who possess it.
And the tone tightens, not harsh, but serious, because Paul
understands something we often ignore.
Authority, if left unchecked, drifts toward harm.
So Paul speaks directly to parents, and then he speaks to
the masters. Paul begins.
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring
them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Paul addresses fathers not because mothers are
insignificant. Paul addresses fathers because
they represented recognized authority in the home.
Now you've heard the studies, you've heard the statistics of
when the father comes to know the Lord, the family is more
likely to follow and the families that don't.
The father has no relationship with the Lord.
He's speaking to those whose presence, words, and discipline
shaped the emotional climate of the household.
Right. The Christian fathers, Paul was
saying, should look different than the Roman ones who use
their authority to control their kids, to get results.
They they, they use it as fear to obedience.
And Paul starts he does not begin with what children owe
parents. He begins with what parents must
not do. He begins with a negative, says
do not provoke your children to anger.
As Peter O'Brien notes, Paul's first concern is a place is to
place a check on the misuse of parental authority.
In other words, Paul knows authority needs limits.
You see, the word provoke does not describe a single failure or
a bad day. It refers to a pattern authority
exercise in a way that grates, crushes, or discourages.
Another way to say it is you have crushed your child's soul.
And he says, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger,
harshness, unreasonable demands, favoritism, humiliation, or
discipline. That it lacks explanation.
That is what kind of provoking Paul is addressing.
Paul is saying authority that repeatedly frustrates rather
than forms has already stepped outside of Christ's design.
This is Christ's restraining authority, right?
So that I'm learning more and more as a father now with A4
year old and a 2 year old who, yeah, I wish I could just be
obey and do as I say. But as those who have kids, you
laugh because you're like, that ain't happening.
All right, if you have any advice about a 2 year old who
fights for three hours at nap time, please come talk to me.
And if you found a way to do it in a loving way, I would love to
know because I yes, we want our children to obey, but Paul says
do not do it in a way that provokes them to anger.
And he doesn't stop with a prohibition.
Then he gives a positive calling.
So how do we not provoke our children in anger, fathers?
It's by bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of
the Lord. That phrase bring them up is
deeply pastoral. It's the same verb Paul used
earlier in Ephesians 529 to describe how one cares for their
own body by nourishing, by cherishing, by sustaining life.
Not because authority in the home was never meant to
dominate, it was meant to cultivate.
When he says, bring them up in the instruction of the Lord.
You should be cherishing your children, admonishing your
children. They should know how loved they
are by you. And he defines that cultivation
with two words, discipline. This word does not primarily
mean punishment, it means training, a whole life,
formation, habits, love, character.
Andrew Leakin writes that the discipline refers to the total
process of education and formation, not merely corrective
discipline. Right, because correction may be
involved and punishment may be involved.
But if the aim is just to beat them in submission, then you
missed it because then all it is is behavior modification.
They're like, oh, yeah, I just don't want to get a spanking, so
I'm just not going to do that. But you've missed the heart of
that obedience. The aim is always maturity,
never control. It's the same word translated as
chastening in Hebrews 12. So Paul is telling parents, he's
telling us fathers to jealously guard your responsibility as
parent. Yes, we delegate some of that to
church. And if you if you put your kids
in this public system, you delegate that to their teachers.
So you're delegating some of it, but you're never surrendering
it. Parents, your responsibility to
bring them up is a God-given task.
Hear me when I say this parents, no one can replace you and
students, no one can replace your parents.
It's a God-given role that is beautiful, tethered to Christ.
Lloyd Jones observes. If parents but gave as much
thought to the rearing of their children as they do to the
rendering of animals and flowers, the situation of our
world would be very different. A more modern thing is if we
would give more thought to rearing our children than our
sports than our hobbies, than our pleasures and what would
this world look like if us parents, we would rise up and
take our God-given task and say we are to discipline our kids in
the way of the Lord. The second thing he says is
instruct them. This word refers to verbal
guidance, teaching, warning, explaining, appealing to the
conscience. Arnold notes in his commentary
addresses. It addresses the heart and
understanding, not merely outward behavior.
I didn't who in here has been the victim of It's just a
because I said so. Well, yes and Amen.
It doesn't get to the heart of it.
It doesn't instruct them. It doesn't tell them, hey, This
is why we're doing that. This is This is why we ask of
you. That's why we tell Silas at nap
time. We don't hate you because we
want you to sleep. Mommy and Daddy actually love
you and that's why we tell you to go take a nap because you're
cranky and you're mean and you need sleep.
And he'll run around going, no, I don't want to, but it's us
training them that right, Judas, in that stage of asking why,
why, why, why. And as much as I want to say
stop asking me, that is the moment we train them, we teach
them, hey, This is why we do that.
This is why mommy and daddy asked that.
Christian authority does not merely enforce rules.
It forms understanding. It gives them sustenance on why
they are to obey that rule significantly, both training and
admonition or or discipline instruction, whatever your your
your Bible translates in the English to those two words are
used to describe the purpose of Scripture.
Second Timothy 316, First Corinthians 10/11.
What Paul is doing is he says, how do you raise them in this
way? How do you do this?
Raise your children in the Word of God and through the Word of
God and both are governed by the same phrase Paul has already
used of the Lord. Bring them up in the discipline
and instruction of the Lord. Parents are not forming children
according to personal preference, fears, or cultural
pressures, right? They're not just trying to be a
buzzkill and not that you have fun.
They are stewarding lives that belong to Christ, and I have
learned that more and more over the years as I've had kids.
They're not mine. God has graciously given me
Judah and Silas. And until I see that like that,
my authority will be tethered, untethered from Christ.
And it becomes about me, becomes about no.
I want them to respect me. Parents, we have real authority,
but our authority is not ultimate.
Christ is and that's who we should pointing them to.
Paul knows how easily authority turns inward.
Parents can use authority to protect their ego, manage
embarrassment, enforce convenience.
Anybody that has kids knows kids are not convenient.
Demand outcomes without patience.
What does your authority produce in the people under it?
Does it produce fear or does it produce formation in the Word
and in the Lord? So Paul draws A theological
boundary. Christ does not rule by
provoking anger. He rules by forming hearts.
So parents, this passage is not calling you to perfection.
And children hear me, this is not you to look at your parents
and say, why aren't you perfect? It is calling you to
accountability. Paul is not saying children
should never feel frustration. He's saying they should never be
formed by anger. The goal is not compliance.
The goal is formation, right. The goal is for them to realize
their need for a savior and one day come to him and say I need
you and I want to be submitted under your authority.
If all Judah and Silas learn from my training in the home is
oh, I just fear Daddy, I've I've, I've failed.
I have failed in that moment because what I've hoped I've
done is said, Hey, fear the Lord as I submit to the Lord
discipline that trains instruction that explains
authority, that reflects Christ. And then he turns to masters
says masters do the same to them and stop your threatening right.
That phrase do the same is arresting.
He's saying hey, that same Christ conscious sincerity that
I've demanded of the servants I demand of you too.
Authority does not excuse anyone from obedience to Christ and
Paul immediately names the abuse stop your threatening.
Threatening is authority reduced to fear, compliance without
care, power without restraint. Right?
That's why it's be slow to anger.
I'd be slow to speak. It's like God knows our hearts.
And as O'Brien observes, Paul attacks the very mechanism by
which domination is maintained. Fear.
Paul is not naive about power. He knows exactly how it
operates. The most damaging thing that
could happen and your authority is to watch the person under you
cower in fear and not in submission and respect.
He says under Christ's lordship this stops.
And Paul grounds it theologically because he's he's
just knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in
heaven and that there is no partiality with him.
As Arnold puts it, earthly hierarchies dissolve before the
heavenly throne. Authority will answer to Christ.
This lands anywhere authority is exercised.
Parents, leaders, managers, pastors, teachers, coaches.
If you have authority over someone, you should rule and use
that authority in the Lord. If Christ is Lord, authority is
never for ego, convenience, control, or self protection.
It's always for stewardship, formation and care.
As we get to the the Third Point, Christ unites both sides
very quickly. If Christ redirects submission
upward and point to Christ restrains authority downward.
This whole section of Scripture unite shows us Christ unites
both sides under 1 Lord. He's spoken to children,
parents, He's spoken to servants and masters, and in every case
he has refused to let the relationship stop at the human
level. Paul keeps lifting our eyes
upward. Paul is dismantling the illusion
that authority ultimately runs horizontally.
Every relationship in this passage is triangular, not 2
sided. It's child, parent, Christ,
servant, master, Christ. No one stands alone.
No one stands above Christ. No one escapes his lordship
because he is Lord, and he places Jesus Christ at the
center of it. Paul does not flatten
distinctions. He does not erase authority.
He revitalizes it by saying Jesus Christ is Lord.
And so if Christ is Lord of the relationship, then obedience is
never wasted. Children obey not because
parents are perfect, but because Christ is worthy.
Servants obey not because the system is just, but because
Christ sees you. Faithful obedience offered to
Christ is never invisible. Paul is telling the church you
are never merely submitting to a person.
You are living before the Lord. So authority is exercised before
the face of God. And as we conclude, at the
beginning we talked about John Newton, not to admire his past,
but to confront the reality of authority.
A man who held power, a man who misused it, a man who lived as
though authority belonged to him.
Grace placed his authority under a better Lord.
And that's exactly what Paul has been showing us.
Christ redirects the mission upward, He restrains authority
downward, and he unites us all under 1 Lord.
The problem was never authority. The problem was who held it.
And when Christ becomes Lord, obedience is no longer
degrading, authority is no longer domineering, and power is
no longer unaccountable. So the question before us is
simple. Where does Christ need to be
acknowledged as Lord over authority in my life?
For some of you, that means trusting him and obedience where
you've resisted. For others, it means repenting
of authority you've carried careless carelessly.
And for many of us, it means surrendering control we were
never meant to hold. And so as we move to our
response time and as the band comes up, we're going to sing
words that confess what Newton learned and what Paul is calling
us to see. That faithfulness doesn't come
from our strength, that obedience doesn't rest on your
resolve, That leadership isn't sustained by our power.
The Christian life is lived not by self rule, but by grace under
a good king. So as we respond, may we say
with honesty and hope, not I, but Christ in me.
Thanks for listening. To learn more about Heritage
Church or if you'd like to respond to this sermon, visit
our website at www.heritageshawnee.org.