Open your Bibles to Colossians
chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3. Our Father be with us this morning
and give us grace, give us strength to teach, to learn, to preach,
to listen, and most of all, to believe and to submit to those
things which you have written for us by the hand of your apostles. In the name of the Lord Jesus,
we pray it, amen. Now, Paul is giving exhortations
here, a series of them based upon the gospel that he has been
declaring throughout this letter to the Colossians a gospel that
consists of two main points. First of all, that Jesus is the
Christ, meaning that he is the prophet, priest, and king of
God's people. And secondly, that Christ is
all. that the man who has Him has
all he needs for life and godliness. He has everything that it takes
to get from his condition as a sinner under the wrath of God
unto one who has been received, accepted, approved of, justified,
and given all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.
Christ is all that's necessary. Nothing more is required. He says in verse 15, let the
peace of Christ rule in your hearts. And then in verse 16,
he says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. And last
week, we noticed that that word dwell essentially means to set
up housekeeping, to actually not simply live there, but to
be the one who is considered the central aspect of a household
and around whom the household is organized. We are to submit gladly, and
why wouldn't we, but submit gladly to the Lord Jesus Christ coming
within our hearts and minds and arranging things the way they
should be arranged. Then verse 17, he says, and whatever
you do, whether in word or in deed, do it all in the name of
the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Now, we could look at this as
an absolute statement. It would certainly apply, whatever
you're doing. There is nothing in the activity
of a believer that should not come under the category of those
things which could be done in the name of the Lord Jesus and
giving thanks to God the Father. But I do not believe that that's
the point he's trying to make here. The point he is making
or the activities and speech that he's talking about is those
things which we do in ministering to one another. Remember in the
previous verse, verse 16, he says, let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with
all wisdom. And as you sing psalms, hymns,
and spiritual songs with gratitude in your heart to God. Now we
have noted on several occasions that there is no such thing as
a member of the body of Christ who does not have a grace from
God in order to enable them to be of help to the body of Christ. Just as within our bodies there
are no useless parts, there are no useless parts in the body
of Christ. Some serve the church by speaking. Others serve the church in the
things that they do. That is, the helpful works that
they do. I think last week we mentioned
Dorcas, who made coats for the poor folk in church. Well, made
coats for, I suppose, anybody that needed one. And so what
he's saying here, whatever you do, whatever you do in ministry,
in service to God's people, whether it be by the word involving teaching,
preaching, words of encouragement that we give to one another,
words of correction, whatever, whatever we do in word or in
deed, do it all in the name of the
Lord Jesus. Now, what does it mean to do
it in the name of the Lord Jesus? Well, it means to do it as those
who are authorized by the Lord Jesus to do these things. Every believer is authorized
to tell the truth concerning Christ. Every believer knows
the truth. And every believer, in some measure,
can communicate that truth to others. Every true believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ is able to, with words of encouragement,
words of love and kindness, build up the other members of the body. Now normally we don't think of
doing that. You know, we figure, well, nothing needs to be said
until somebody expresses some need for it. Well, most of us
have been brought up not to complain and not to express our troubles
and needs to others. And so we have to be somewhat
proactive in our words of encouragement to one another and our words
that build up. And certainly to do it in the
name of Christ means to do it as much as possible as Christ
himself would do it. Now, you will note that when
the Lord Jesus spoke to his disciples, though some of his words were
difficult to take, he said, this is a hard saying. Yes, the saying
was hard, but the Lord did not say it with hardness. He spoke and he worked in his speech and in his deeds. He was gentle, he was kind, he
was patient. We never see him speaking with
harshness other than to those who openly withstood him. Otherwise, It was, well, it said
he shall not, or his voice shall not be heard in the streets,
meaning he's not just gonna go up down the street yelling things.
A bruised reed he will not crush, and a smoking flax he will not
quench. Unfortunately, because of the way many preachers
preach, people get the idea that forceful preaching means powerful
preaching. Not necessarily. I have listened to some message
where the preacher was pretty wound up, where he had a voice
that could have been heard halfway across the city. Remember listening
to one preacher that commonly filled the pulpit at 13th Street
when Henry was gone, and we're listening to him preach, and
he did have a pretty strong voice, and nobody adjusted the amplifier
to suit his kind of speaking, but there it was, it was loud,
and one little kid was like that, you know? Well, it doesn't need
to be that way. It doesn't need that we preach
with a scowl on our face. Our Lord did not. We speak truth and we speak in
love and that's how we can speak in the name of the Lord Jesus. And then to do things in the
name of the Lord Jesus means to do them for the same reason
that he did them, to glorify his father. The Lord Jesus said
this to his disciples, let your light so shine before men, so
that when they see your good works, they will glorify your
father, which is in heaven. Now, when he says let your light
shine, the light he's talking about is not their good works. The light that they would shine
was the gospel of God's free grace in Christ. And when you
preach the gospel of God's free grace, you're saying that in
myself is nothing good, that is, in our flesh there's nothing
good. I claim no goodness about me. That's part of preaching
the gospel. Any preacher that preaches goodness
in himself is certainly not preaching the gospel. We preach no goodness
in anyone except in our Lord Jesus Christ. We set him forth
as our righteousness. We let the light of God's grace
in Christ shine. Therefore, when they see us doing
something good, valuable, useful, beneficial, they'll not be glorifying
us for it. Why? Well, by our preaching,
we've already taken the light off of us. When the believer
lets his light shine, the light is shining on God, on Christ. And therefore, when they see
the good works that believers do, they're compelled to glorify
the God they preach, not glorify believers. The Lord Jesus Christ
did not come to glorify himself. He came to glorify his Father. He left it to his Father. to
glorify Him, to glorify Christ. And so, whether we're speaking
or whether we're doing works of love, kindness, usefulness,
whatever it is, we do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. And we
give thanks to God the Father through Him. We give thanks that
we can do these things. We couldn't do them We couldn't
speak the truth. We couldn't do works of love,
works of faith, labors of love, Paul calls them. We couldn't
do these things if God, by His Spirit, did not enable us to
do them. And so when we do these works
and say these words, we should do them not looking for someone
to give us thanks, but rather in our hearts giving thanks to
God that he enabled us to do that. Now he gives a series of exhortations, begin in verse
18, regarding various relationships among human beings. He says,
wives submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Now, exhortations such as this
always upset the world. They don't like the
word submit. No matter who you tell that they
are under some kind of obligation to submit to someone else. We
don't like it, especially here in the United States. And such
exhortations as are found in the scriptures, which are directed
particularly at wives to submit to their husbands, causes a certain
segment of our society to just lose their minds, it seems, as
though it is setting forth women as second class to men. Well,
that's not what's being done here at all. He is calling for
submission, but he calls for wives to submit
to their husbands. It never says in scriptures that
I'm aware of that all women should submit to all men. This is talking
within the economy or the framework of a household. Now, within the
household, God has given the authority, the primary authority,
to the man of the house. And why is that? Is it because
the man's better? Is it because he can lead better
than women? For the most part, men lead differently than women
do, but you can't call one a better leader. Here's why men have been
given the authority to lead in the house. They have been given
the responsibility of the care and maintenance of a household.
And as one brother put it, if I'm responsible for the ship,
I get to be the captain. And you know, everybody can see
the sense of that. Now, when men, or many, you know, among
religious people, when they see an exhortation, wives, submit
to your husbands, and they talk about man's headship in the home,
there are many men And I think they're merely religious men,
they're missing the whole point. But they suddenly get themselves
puffed up with pride as though they are something extra special.
Do you know why men were given the responsibility of the care
of the household? Because Adam, the man, sinned
against God. God said to Adam, because of
his sin, he said, by the sweat of your brow, you will eat. Now,
I know that as time has gone by, women have entered the workforce
more and more. When I was in elementary school,
there were a lot of kids who had mom at home all the time.
Not so much anymore. Nearly all families are two-income
families. Now, I'm not saying there's something
wrong with that. What I'm saying is this. Whether or not the wife
goes out and earns money is optional. Whether or not the man does is
not optional. It is his job. It's been laid
upon him because of sin. The curse is upon him to labor
by the sweat of his brow to provide for his family. Therefore, with
that responsibility laid upon him, He has been given the authority
to arrange the affairs of the household so he can get that
done. He can provide for it. Therefore,
it says to wives who have not been given that responsibility,
they've been given other responsibilities, but not that one. It says to
them, submit. Now submission's not natural
to us. No matter who, we're told, all of us, we're told to submit
to the authorities, the proper authorities. We don't like doing
that either, do we? They put up a stop sign and we
grumble about it all the time. We may stop, but most of the
time we stop because we're afraid of getting a ticket. We're not
really submitting. We're not willingly stopping,
we're stopping because there's a cost in not stopping. This
word translated submit is the word that's also used when a
person would sign up to be in the military. Now, when you go
in the military, there's a lot of submission involved in it.
Now, you don't have to go in the military. I am under no obligation to submit
the generals, majors, Why? I never entered the military. But if I do, if I do, then I
must willingly submit myself to the authoritarian structure
that goes with the military. Now, no woman ever has to get
married. You know, I know some people
think that there's, you know, that every believer ought to
try to get married. Nowhere in the scripture. In
fact, Paul says, if you can stay single, that's the best situation,
particularly for ministers such as he and Timothy were. He said,
now there's nothing wrong with getting married. He said, but
with marriage comes additional obligations, which you must fulfill. And without those obligations
and responsibilities, well, then you'd be freer to devote yourself
to the work of the ministry. I've known some pastors who have,
because of their zeal for whatever ministry they were conducting,
they neglected their families. And they said, well, it's more
important than I do this. Wait a minute. If Paul thought it
was okay for a preacher to ignore his wife and children or neglect
his wife and children so that he could spend more time in ministry,
he never would have advised Timothy. Titus and those others, stay
single if you can. Why? Because once a man marries, he is under responsibility for
that wife. Once he has children, he's responsible for them. And
he must take care of them. So anyway, wife, submit to your
husband. What that submission looks like
changes over time and looks different in different cultures But this
submission must arise from the heart. It must be willing, voluntary
submission, or it is nothing that will please the Lord. Submit
to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. He says not that
this is some unusual obligation pressed upon women, but it's
entirely fitting for those who Name the name of the Lord. For
those women who claim to be believers, it's entirely fitting that they
should submit to their husbands and that their submission to
him in these things should be rather obvious. We're not talking
about that they lose their will, that they are to act like children. I've seen religions that do that. while the woman's not even allowed
to figure out what to make for dinner without getting permission
from her husband. That's ridiculous. It might be easier to say that
all of us know what it looks like when a wife is not in submission
to her husband. Avoid that. Husbands, love your
wives and do not be harsh with them. Now, actually, everything that
he mentions in these relationships, these human relationships, can
come under the heading of love. Love is the one relational, or the one relation that guides
and defines every other aspect of our relationship. Submission
of wives to the husband, it's an act of love. And then husbands
are to love their wives, and he puts this on it and shows
us why he mentions this to men. Do not be harsh with them. Now, certainly this would include
verbal harshness, but I don't think that's primarily what he
has in mind. Why is that? Because if verbal
harshness is what was in mind, that applies to wives as well
as to husbands. But there's one kind of harshness
for which men are known, and that's physical harshness. Now sometimes that's often preceded
by verbal, we would call it abuse in our day, verbal abuse. And
then it escalates into physical abuse. But this is mentioned
specifically to men because they have the capacity to use physical
strength to get their way or the threat of it. And that's simply awful. No wife, no child should ever
have to live in terror of their husband or father. Men are simply by the natural
scheme of things bigger and stronger than women for the most part.
They should never use that physical advantage to rule tyrannically
in their homes or make anyone feel uncomfortable. Don't be harsh. Now, I said that
he probably didn't have verbal harshness in mind, but certainly
it applies. In fact, nobody should ever be
verbally harsh with another. If by harsh, we mean intending
to inflict pain by the words that we use, intending to belittle. I remember reading some books
on raising children, and one of them, the person talked about
the things that we do either, with regard to our children,
they either open them up or close them up. And we actually, that's
true with everybody. You come on strong to people,
what do they do? They put up the wall of defense. They have
to. They're being attacked. Well, that's not what we want.
We shouldn't want anybody to think they have to hide or duck
and cover when we show up. Don't be harsh. Children, obey
your parents and everything for this pleases the Lord. It's the
way God has set things up. Now, it used to be children left
the home much earlier than they do now because it didn't take
nearly as much preparation for them to be able
to take their place as productive citizens. Now, you know, they've
got 12 years of public school or whatever, and then probably
going to go on to some more training after that, and then they can
work, you know, enter the workforce. and become productive, what we
call economically productive. And so you have some children,
I mean, I lived in my father's house till I was nearly 23 years
old. And yet, as long as I was in my father's
house, I understood this, that I was under his leadership. And in reality, the very reason
that I left my father's house was it became obvious that I
was too old for that. And there's nothing wrong with
that. A person's supposed to grow up, aren't they? And be
their own independent person. But you cannot be an independent
person in your parents' household. It's not allowed. But certainly
young children, they are to obey their parents because their parents
have more wisdom, their parents are responsible for them. And
they should do so, and it says it pleases the Lord. Now it does
not please him in the sense that we would think that a child can
establish a righteousness with God because he's obedient to
his parents. Nonetheless, because this is
how God set things up from the beginning, it pleases him to
whatever extent that plan is being followed. But once again,
he returns to the men in the house who are in charge. Fathers,
do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged. Now, it shouldn't take a whole
lot to know what that means, but here's a few things that
Go back to the harshness. Don't be harsh with children.
It is written that as a father pities his children, so does
the Lord pity them that fear him. He knows our frame, that
we are dust. Now, we want the Lord God to
be merciful to us, don't we? We want Him in His dealings with
us. He's our Heavenly Father. We are His children. In His dealings
with us, we want Him to have an understanding of the weakness
of our nature, even the sinfulness of our flesh,
and to take into account these things which we cannot change. And you know He does. David said,
He has not dealt with us according to our sins. And He hadn't, has
He? He has dealt with us as a loving
father would deal with his children, to correct them and pull them
back from dangerous things. But he does not embitter them.
So harshness embitters children. And then too much control embitters
children. Now, the fact is there is no
amount of control that works all the time. When they are tiny,
it's complete control, isn't it? I mean, they can't walk.
I can't do anything. You carry them around, you're
in complete control. But what is your goal as a parent? You want them to grow up and
mature so that when they walk out the front door of your house
and go out into the world, they are already trained and experienced. That means as you're training
them, you give them more and more leash, less and less control
until finally, when they're ready to leave, it means they don't
need to be controlled anymore. But nobody does a good job when
they go from complete control and all at once no control. So, in all, well, he's speaking here
of fathers to children in particular, but this goes in any kind of
authority structure. Let those who've been given authority
be careful not to embitter those. over whom they have authority.
And he says, slaves obey your earthly masters in everything
and do it not only when their eye is on you to win their favor,
but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Now we
don't have slaves. Don't have masters. I'm glad.
But we do have employees and employers. So we can apply this
to anyone who enters into an employee relationship. That is,
he takes a job offered to him. He ought to do that job as he
agreed to do it. He ought to do it not only when
he's being watched, when the boss has got somebody looking
to make sure everybody stays busy. He ought to be the one
that they find being productive whenever they look at him. whether
he knows they're looking or not. You do not do this simply to
win their favor, you do your work diligently because that's
what's honest and that's what you agreed to. You do it with sincerity of heart
and reverence, now look here, for the Lord. It's dishonoring
to Christ. to not render proper work for
the wage you receive. You may as well just go in your
boss's office and take money out of cash register as to not
give diligent service according to what you agreed to do. And he says, whatever you do,
work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord and not
for men. Now this is helpful to us anytime
we have to work for those who are unpleasant to work for. Remember,
you're really not working for them. You're working for the Lord.
He will deal with anyone who is dealing abusively with you.
And he says, since you know that you will receive an inheritance
from the Lord as a reward, it is the Lord Christ you are serving.
Now he's saying that we're not working for that reward. He's
saying we work for the Lord Christ because we've already been given
the reward. It is guaranteed for us. It is
laid up in heaven reserved for us. Even if someone unjustly
withholds our wages, they will not be able to bring us harm.
They may bring us difficulty, but not harm. For the Lord has
guaranteed all things for us. Verse 25, anyone who does wrong
will be repaid for wrong and there is no favoritism. The Lord
does not like dishonesty and he will deal with his children
who do not deal honestly with others. And then verse one of
chapter four, and I don't know why they put a chapter division
there. This goes with what's before.
It says, masters provide your slaves with what is right and
fair because you know that you also have a master in heaven.
Everyone who is an employer should consider that he has won
over him. See, this is one of the faults
of men. He thinks he's at the top of the pile. One aspect of the fear of the
Lord is the knowledge that there is one to whom you must give
an account, and beyond him there is no appeal. Everyone who is an employer ought to be ready to pay good
wages. good, fair wages to those that
work for him. I know the American free market
system is based on the idea you hire people for as cheap as you
can get them. And the other reverse is you
find the employer that'll pay you the most. Do you know why
that system basically works? It's designed specifically for
people who are self-serving. And since it's the nature of
man to be self-serving, You're putting those two forces in competition
with each other, and as they duke it out, as it were, economically,
the one trying to get more and the other always trying to pay
less, you come up with some reasonable middle ground. Well, the believer who employs
should be ready to pay the fair wage of those who work for him
and should not call upon them or even, you know, in times of
financial difficulty, you know, when the job market's real bad,
that's when you can pick up labor cheap and there's people who'll
take advantage of it. A believer should not. If it's
a $20 an hour job, pay $20 and don't make someone have to fight
for it. Why? Well, look how well we've
been treated. We've got a master and he lavishes
all good things on us. All right, I hope that proves
helpful.