Good morning, good to be here today. Always a blessing, always a blessing. So excited. Enjoying that membership class, by the way. The discussion in there and it's me a little too fired up, so maybe I have to settle it down where we start today. If you would turn with me in your in your copy of the scriptures to Colossians chapter three, we're going to be back in Colossians looking at verses 18 through 25 and all the way through 4.1. So I guess it would be Colossians 3.18-4.1. Waiting for me to get there. If you would follow as I read, and I'm reading from the New King James Translation. Wives, submit to your own husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is right, or this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men. knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ. But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, give your bond servants what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. Let us pray together as we contemplate the Word. Our Father, again, we are thankful, so thankful to come to You in prayer. We consecrate this hour now to You, this time together in Your Word. We trust that You would use it for Your glory, that You would help transform us into that image of Christ, into what is fitting into the image of Christ. We give You that praise and that glory in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen. so we come into a passage which looks rather similar to us if we were here about a year ago we were able to go to the book of first peter and in the book of first peter and also by the way in the book of ephesians there's a similar passage to what we see here now there's a reason for the similarity it must be important this topic as it comes up frequently in the scriptures must be an important topic now it's a bit of a transformation from where we have been in the book of Colossians. Going back just a little bit, Colossians is a book that exalts Christ. It puts Jesus up onto the platform that he deserves. He is preeminent. That word comes up very early on. Of course, it fleshes out his nature, fully God, fully man. It helps us to understand that Christ alone was able to save us to the other most by doing that work of redemption, work on the cross, all right? Christ alone is sufficient. But notice, as is often common in the epistles, there's a bit of a transformation to things that are a bit more practical. A lot of times we hear this, you know, hey, so-and-so, preach more on practical things. Did you know that the deep truths of the scripture theological truths. They are very practical. They're outworking of our lives. And what was laid in the foundation in the early parts of Colossians really becomes the premise of these next few verses. Where Christ is exalted, now the Apostle Paul is going to say, listen, is your life fitting in with the picture that Christ is Do you fit with Christ? Do you fit with Him? It's very interesting because as we read in this opening text here, verse 18, and of course it's very controversial in some ways, we're gonna kind of work through that today, as we did the last time. It says, wives, submit to your own husbands as is fitting in the Lord, or fitting in Christ. And so this context is all about fitting together the basic meaning of that meaning to something that is related to a standard, okay? I often think of this in terms of puzzle pieces. One thing that is a normal celebration at our house during Christmas is there's usually a puzzle sitting out. Anybody else do that tradition where you put together a puzzle, like a thousand-piece puzzle? And sometimes when Carrie and I choose the puzzle, No one likes it for whatever reason. So a lot of times, we did find a few years back that if we chose a Star Wars puzzle, for some reason, everyone liked it. I guess our kids are older now, kind of grown up. But they were Star Wars kids rather than Star Trek kids, all right? I don't really care. I'm indifferent to either one. But whenever we had a Star Wars puzzle, it would come together once in a while, someone would try to force a piece into it. You ever see that happen when you've got those puzzles and someone smashes a piece and it looks like it fits, but it's not quite right. A real predicate of what we're going to be dealing with today is that there are things that are fitting in Christ. Like a puzzle that comes together, there are things that fit together, there are certain groupings in this text of saints. These are social groupings, and they have a lot to do with the family unit. And this includes husbands and wives, children and fathers, and masters, and bondservants or slaves. Different social groups which individuals are interacting with in society, right? Their conduct within these groups have to fit with what Christ has laid out as proper, right? It's pretty simple in a way, but it's also very profound. We don't scrunch the pieces of the puzzle into the wrong place. And so we're going to build a little bit of a frame just for a minute as we start things, but there are things that fit with Christ. And some of these are institutions that God has designed. These are fabric that is a part of the nature of humankind. God designed us. He designed the family. He did. Put it together. See when social ideas are eroded. Floodgates kind of enter in right a lot of evil that happens when When society seeks to change those norms to something different Opens the door opens the floodgates The enemy I'm talking about Satan when I say the enemy right enemies very interested in eroding some of these basic institutions very interesting On one side, and another side, the enemy is also very interested in maybe making the institution of the family a little bit of an idol to some people. It seems that he works in both ways. There were individuals who Christ called to follow him. And their families had a lot of grip on them. When he said, come follow me. Christ calls you to him. Believe on him. Don't look back and say, maybe we asked the question. Do they want me to do this? They want me to follow. Christ calls a person to himself, saving grace. Sometimes it disrupts certain institutions. But either way, these social norms can under attack, and we're going to kind of focus on that side today. Not making the family maybe the center of what Christianity is. Because listen, sometimes a person who loves their father or mother more than Christ is not worthy of Christ. I know of individuals who've been saved on cultures where Christianity is so taboo. Pressure for them to believe. It's so great. When they trust Christ, they lose their family. That has happened before. We're going to kind of focus on this idea that family structure is something that God has ordained. And we're going to preface this just a little bit. The basis of what we believe, we get from the Bible. Everybody ought to believe that that's in a Bible-believing church. The Bible is the basis of our authority. the boundary, if you will, for often what we talk about as biblical manhood and biblical womanhood. These are tough topics nowadays. People don't like to talk about that. But the Bible talks about these things. It lays out certain boundaries that fit. And they fit with Christ, where if you redefine those boundaries, it doesn't fit. So a lot of people myself included, we seek the truth from the Bible. Does the Bible matter to you? As you try to live your life, are you trying to live it biblically according to God's word? Does that matter? I hope it does. There's more to it than that. Many groups agree that the Bible is true, but they interpret it differently. when it comes to these areas of social institutions. And some of the stuff I've gone through before, but it's worth repeating. So it seems like a repetition. Remember, part of teaching and preaching is that we go over some of those things again that are very instrumental. It must be important because it's repeated so many times in the New Testament, this topic. Therefore, it's appropriate that we repeat it. We go over these ideas. There are many who interpret the Bible in different ways. How we interpret the Bible is just as important as what we believe about it, or just as important as believing that it is the source of truth. It can make the difference between heaven and hell. If we don't believe that the Bible teaches salvation by grace through faith, then we've missed the point As the Bible teaches it, you must be born again. You've got to believe on Christ. You can't do it yourself. He's the only way. But if somebody reads the Bible and says, I can do this by good works, they've missed it. You've interpreted the Bible wrongly. This comes into play with the whole issue of family. Biblical interpretation is called something called hermeneutics. And some of you have probably heard of that. It's a word that we borrow from the Greek. It's related to the Greek god, small g, Hermes, who was like this messenger god. So when a preacher preaches a sermon, he's preaching the Bible, but he's preaching it in a way that we're interpreting it. And there are methods of interpretation that get put over the Bible that have different views of the family. There is a hermeneutic method called evangelical feminism. That's not political feminism. Evangelical feminism is a way of interpreting the Bible that rules out all differences in roles. and only focuses on egalitarianism, right? I've read excellent books on this by Wayne Grudem. Wayne Grudem is, you know, I talk about him periodically because I like his writing style. He's easy to read. If you like to read Christian theology, it's nice to be able to read somebody who is clear, okay? And he talks about, his little book, it's called Evangelical Feminism. He says it's the pathway to theological liberalism. All these terms, why are we using it? Well, that's not political liberalism, but what it is is a pathway to not believing that the Bible is true. And he kind of proves that. At the end of the day, the evangelical feminist hermeneutic basically teaches that everything is seen only through the lens of equality. and that there are not role differences that God has defined for men and women, particularly in marriage. And this is very popular today. Very popular. It's, by the way, if, when it comes to a lot of the issues, like the abortion issue, there happen to be people who are called evangelicals that try to support abortion based on these hermeneutics, okay? Goes that way. We don't teach that here. We teach something called complementarianism, where God has designed men and women so that in the marriage relationship, they work together, and that working together includes the leadership of the husband, Because it's biblical. Go back to that. The Bible teaches it. We need to teach it, too. We don't teach a hermeneutic called male domination. We don't teach that. In the ancient Roman Republic, we think we had it bad. I've gone over this before, I know. There was a system called patria potestas. In that, the husband, the man, the head of the household, had complete power over life and death of wife, children, slaves. This was under the old Roman Republic, back before Julius Caesar. Remember, Julius Caesar became the emperor. You probably know that from Shakespeare, if you've read the play and read some history. Roman law gradually began to give more rights to women. Did you know that paganism, that is completely separate from Christianity, is very, very tough on women? Very tough. In many ways, women were seen as chattel, property. The New Testament teaches something totally different from that. And we're going to hopefully see that today. If some form of male domination enters into a church too, and there are groups that this has happened before. There are groups where, I don't know, it's a strange thing. That's not right. And we're hopefully gonna see the biblical way to address those relationships. And obviously, this is important. This is important that we preach and we teach these things in the church today. They are not popular by any means. Now, I know not everyone's married. We know that. The church is not just for the married or the unmarried. It's for everyone, right? It's for all the Lord's people. Marriage is not a prerequisite. Neither is unmarriage. There are all shapes and sizes of people in the church. There's singleness, stay-at-home dads, single moms, families that don't fit the profile of Leave it to Beaver. Remember the old, I love that show. So classic, right? Everybody, doesn't matter who you are, everybody is touched by marriage and family some way or other, right? We're all touched by that. in some capacity or another. We're still framing. We're kind of putting the puzzle together here. God made us male and female, and that was not a mistake. Children need to hear that. Need to hear it more and more. It was designed. I don't know how to encourage young women and young men in this. Because the airwaves are pumping information into their heads. It is telling them very young age. Opposite. You need to incur. I made you just the way. Of shoe. Way you are. Everything by the way in the scripture builds off of this by the way, that's Genesis 127 and God created man In the image of God he created him he created them male Not everything including In today's message by the way is comprehensive this isn't everything you need Families and Paul didn't do that. He's like I think he's when he's teaching on this he's like saying boy These are the problem spots, the hot spots, OK? We're not going to paint this big picture. Maybe we already have a little. But he's going to hone in on difficult areas and deal with them. And I think that's very appropriate. These are probably some of the same areas we struggle with. So as we enter into the text again by now you've forgotten we've all done all this prefacing We read the text like where do where were we even at? Well, we're in Colossians 3 18 and we're gonna start there where it says wives submit to your own husbands It is fitting again. There's the premise it fits with Christ in his way That wives submit to your own husbands as is fitting in the Lord Now that word, it says, first of all, there's an idea of submission. That is not blind obedience. Blind obedience is not what that teaches. But what it does teach is it teaches this idea of being in proper arrangement under the influence of. And if you've ever seen a person being undermined in their leadership, You get the premise of this. Imagine you have a boss at work, and everybody rolls their eyes when he talks. They treat him like a buffoon. Just imagining it. But imagine that scenario occurs, right? Do you think anyone is going to respect that individual? Or if you're a basketball coach, and you're out there and you're coaching, and you tell somebody, hey, this is what you need to do. I'm not going to be a star player. It happens. It's a complete breakdown of the structure. Now, the idea of submission is more one of coming into the influence of. We're going to see as we move on a little bit that God has ordained a leadership role for the husband in the marriage. He has. There's no way to argue it. Now, some people do, of course. But they put on these glasses of interpreting the Bible, where they don't see what's clearly written there. See this passage in it. So in that marriage rule, let me ask this question. This is to the wives. Are you undermining, degrading, making the man the foil? Maybe with your girlfriends, you're talking, it's like, oh, there he goes again. Calls on the cell phone, oh, what a buffoon. Are you undermining your husband? I feel sorry for men when I see this. I've seen this before, where you can tell, man, there's a disconnect. something wrong. I tell you the children see it. There's a support. When you use the illustration of basketball, when you have a good coach, do extra push-ups for the coach, right? Because you love the coach. You respect the coach. And when someone talks bad about the coach, you're like, no. It's the coach. He's my man. I played a lot of basketball growing up and coached it. And it's a great analogy. When you undermine something like a coach's position on a team, it goes to chaos completely. And it says, he's talking to the wife, be in submission to your own husband. Your own husband. This isn't blind submission. This isn't when. They're doing something wrong or morally wrong. Now, we're not in submission to somebody else's husband. That even came up in the membership class. I thought it was very insightful, right? In fact, in your relationship and husband and wife, there's no other guy and there's no other girl who occupies that same intimate position that your wife does or your husband does. You may have a boyfriend or a girlfriend from college. And why? You better not be more friendly with somebody outside of your marriage. Does that make sense? We don't be, we're not drawing back. When it comes to submission, it is in the sphere of your own spouse, not somebody else's. We have to be very careful in the church, right? We are brothers and sisters, and we need to have healthy relationships between brothers and sisters in Christ. Here's a little tip for men. If they're your same age, you treat them like a sister. If they're younger, you treat them like your daughter. If they're older, they're like your mother, okay? You treat women, with dignity, but you love your wife, right? Keep that in focus. There's a lot out there, all right? In the workplace, men and women work together. Sometimes you may be spending more time with some other woman than your own wife, all right? That's a reality. You've got one wife. That is your priority, period. So these are important things. These are very important things. People need to hear this. Subject unto your own husband, not unto another. And of course, this is true with men as well, right? I kind of put it into the man's context there, but it's true with women. got this guy who's a friend from college, and he's calling you up all the time. And your husband's going to be like, what's up with this? Why are you doing that? Drop that. Be done with that, right? He's trying to think of practical situations. You're committed to that one person. So we've hit that pretty hard. Look at 19. As we move on, it says, Husbands love your wives and do not be bitter toward them And he's spot-checking. He's coming and saying hey, I'm gonna hone in on some of the problems that happen in marriage husbands Love your wives now the Bible also tells wives to love their husbands, but it repeats it for the guy over over again now Christian husband is the head of his home and loves his wife as Christ loved the church Here's the key. The way that Christ loved the church is he loves us sacrificially. He gave his life for us on the cross willingly. The husband's love for his wife is compared to the sacrificial work of Christ and his love for us, Ephesians. Is this this parallel passage to colossal? Let me just read you don't need to turn here ephesians 5 22 26 wives submit to your own husbands as to the lord For the husband is ahead of the wife. Also christ is ahead of the church And he's the savior of the body Therefore just as the church is subject to christ. So let wise wise be subject to their own husbands and everything Husbands love your wives here it is Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water of the word. Our love for our wives is a sacrificial. It's demonstrated by Christ. That's how we love our wives. It's the best marriage sermon you can ever hear. They say 1 Corinthians 13 is disagree, totally. That's the passage. You're gonna do a wedding, go there. It is sacrificial love. And this is the great modus operandi of leadership, right? Loving those who are in your care. Love them. If you are motivated by love. It is a tremendous thing. But it goes on, it says, don't be bitter toward them. Apparently, this is a thing with men. There must be something within us by design that tends to be either becoming agitated or irritated with our spouse. Matthew Henry comments and says, this verse calls for husbands to avoid being harsh or overbearing and instead exercise love that is gentle, considerate, reflecting the love of Christ. Calvin noted that Paul's warning against bitterness implies a natural tendency in men to misuse authority and power in the household, leading to harshness and damaging the marital relationship. Now, there are probably some women who tend to be this way, but The word even in the Greek kind of sounds bitter is to cry no that sounds to me very bitter It's like a bit of onomatopoeia It sounds like it it is right you're you're you're causing sharp cutting wounds maybe by your words And sometimes we'll see this maybe maybe others see it in us before we see it ourselves, right? That's kind of embarrassing treat our wife poorly in public Have you ever been embarrassed for somebody because you've seen that? Where a guy is just harsh with his wife. It's like, that's embarrassing. That's just as embarrassing. We adore our wife. It causes us to overlook even faults that we see. Overlook things. Has Christ infiltrated you so that your attitudes are like this? Different. Are you treating your wife poorly? Do you treat other people better? Go to work all day. Put on a smile, right? And we come home. How do we? Better put the smile on. Sometimes you just have to buck up and do it. You realize that? Maybe the work has not gone well that day. Oh, well. Tough. Put it on. You did it for those other people. You better do it for your wife. OK? Very simple. Now it goes on. He's going to go to children. Verse 20 says, it is fitting that children obey our parents. This is well-pleasing to the obedient children. Now, this is a different word than submission. When it talks about wives submit to your husbands, again, that's more of a word that deals with order. This is more of the word that deals with obedience and actually listening. It has built into it the idea of hearing. Are you listening? Mom and dad have your best plans. They're not always going to get it right. So much of what mom and dad do for us is to protect us. To help us to be safe right and secure. By the way there's a promise with obeying your parents remember that. It's the first commandment with promise. What is it. What's the what's the promise. A long life. Maybe that's because they protect us and if we go out of that we're likely to. You know, it's amazing children survive childhood with all the things that happen, right? Mom and dad have our best interests. It doesn't mean we obey them all the way into adulthood. There's a time where we begin to make our own decisions. I will say we always honor parents. That's a really bad look, too, talking about your parents in a horrible way. I mean, I know there are some true things, right? But we try to honor our parents, even after we launch. Even as we're old men, right? We honor our parents. Verse 21. It says, fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. It is fitting that fathers do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Okay, what is this? Who's he talking to here? Fathers? It technically is the masculine word for it. When this Greek word is used, it's not talking necessarily about mom and dad. It's actually talking about dad, okay? It says fathers. It's quite definitive. It would apply to both. Apparently, fathers in particular are warned against an authoritarian approach. to parenting that leads to resentment in children. F.F. Bruce contrasts this with the model of Christ's leadership over the church, which is characterized by love and service. He emphasizes that Christian parenting should reflect the gospel's values of grace, kindness, and understanding. And this is tough because kids even take the things we think we're doing positively a little bit negatively. You know, I'm talking with one of my One of my boys, we were working on the car the other week, and I was having a pretty good time working with him. You know, hey, we're learning some things, right? But they sometimes still come away with a little bit of sense that you're being critical of them. I might have said, how did it get to this point? Or, you know, you should be looking better at the car, you know, as it's going. Dads, we tend to do that, right? Tend to try to push a little harder. And I think there's some measure of appropriateness to that. But we don't want to push so hard as to completely discourage. I like to compare it to this. How can we foster in our young people? We can't guarantee their conversion to Christ. We want them. God is sovereign over them. You know that, right? God is in control. There are things we can do to help give them vision in their life. We sometimes help them find their way, find a vocation. That's a tough thing. You know, that's important for a young guy, a young girl, to find their way. And at the end of the day, probably the best advice on this is, how do you like your loving Heavenly Father to treat you? Right? Intrinsically, they like to be tough, a little tougher, right? Do you really thrive under, what do you thrive under with the Lord? You probably thrive under his grace and his mercy. And I've seen this with bosses at work over the years. You know, a lot of times they say, well, we want a tough guy. Well, that really doesn't turn out well most of the time when they're just only a driver, okay? Usually everybody ends up resenting them. We want to do the best we can with our children like our loving Heavenly Father has done with us, right? And this is adult children, too. Don't look at it as too late. Sometimes our children, you know, they go their way, they're in the universities, and there's a lot. Never give up, right? Never give up. You're praying for God's grace in the heart of family. You never give up. You see, God can work. He can work in so many ways. So anyway, fathers, don't provoke your children. Don't discourage them. Treat them the way your father treats you, a loving way. Doesn't mean you can't help them and push them a little. That does happen. Notice as we continue, we get into a little bit of a transition here. in the next verses. So it's been in the family structure, okay? Now it's going to branch out into society. This is complicated. You and I, when we're really looking at this passage, need to understand the real context of what we're seeing here. I want to go back to the very beginning here, if I can find it. Where we were looking at this passage, And it is about verse 22 that we transition away from those natural parameters, the family parameter, out into this societal parameter. And the writer of the scripture here uses the word bondservants. Verse 22, it says, bondservants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh. Not with eye service as men pleasers, but in sincerity of the heart, fearing God. What does he mean by bondservants? That's actually the word for slave. Now, Peter used a little less of a word. It was more like a domestic servant. This is the actual word for a slave. This does not mean the Bible teaches that slavery is acceptable. Talk about that for a minute. In fact, it doesn't teach that at all. But the Roman structure of hierarchy had all sorts of individuals who were interacting underneath an authority structure. I want to go into that for a minute, but I just want to kind of circle back here. You know, American slavery was the most reprehensible. American slavery was. And the problem with American slavery is we're more or less a nation that's already been kind of immersed in Christianity. And from our beginning, we should have seen that. In Great Britain in 1807, they had already pushed out, already pushed out slave trade. By 1833, Great Britain had emancipated slaves all through the kingdom. One of our champions of This Reformed Baptist faith, Charles Spurgeon, fought vehemently against American slavery, which was different than Roman slavery, but no better. American slavery was totally predicated on color and race. It was taking men, women, stealing them from the country, bringing them here, subjecting them. Let me just read. some quotes by Spurgeon on this. And just to give you some bearing, here's Spurgeon from his New Park Street Pulpit, Volume 6, Sermon 345. He says, I do from my utmost soul detest slavery. He's talking about American slavery. And although I commune at the Lord's table with men of all creeds, yet with a slaveholder I have no fellowship of any sort or kind. Whenever I have seen or dreamed of such a man, I have felt inclined to say to him, stand off. I'm a better man than thou. Slaveholders are, in my opinion, the worst of thieves, and they rob a man of himself. I have a few more of these I'm going to kind of focus in because Spurgeon is generally one that we certainly align with. I want you to see how genuine Christians were interacting in that day. Here's another quote. He says, I would soon think of receiving a murder into our church as a man stealer. We ought to pray for him as still great sinner. We have no fellowship with him any more than men unholy and profane. That's from his autobiography. Page 225, volume two. Here's another quote. I do not believe that we shall ever see any great improvement in the manners and customs of the people until, first of all, this great national inquiry is swept away from the United States. As long as they maintain the accursed institution of slavery so long as It is in vain for them to pray to God for His blessing. They are a nation of men-stealers, and I pray that they may be speedily rid of this wickedness. I'll condense these. Here's another one. Here's Spurgeon's quote. In Charleston and other southern cities, they burned my books in the streets in front of my brothers' ministers' chapels. It was because of my faithful testimony in the name of the Lord. Slavery. and in favor of the man of color. Oh, that I might continue so faithful. Wow. There are many others. I have about 10 of them here. I'm not going to put you through them all. I wanted to make a point, all right? This was American slavery, wrong, completely predicated on a single principle, which was stealing people. It was kidnapping. That's what it was. Kidnapping. Roman slavery was not much better, but it was far more complicated. If you were in Roman society at the time that Paul was writing, the Roman Empire had about 60 to 70 million people. So that's, by today's standards, we think, oh, that's not the biggest country. The world population has grown, right? In the Roman culture, there were these divisions that were so distinct that there was little crossover. There were the elites, and at the top of the elites were the senators' class. Of the senators' class, there were about 600 to 1,000 individuals in the whole Roman Empire. They had to have a certain measure of wealth. They were at the top of the social structure. The next level were the equestrians. We do get a little bit of our equestrian terminology from that. These were people who apparently at some point in time had some link to the Calvary, but they were the second class level. There were about 10,000 to 20,000 equestrians. They were concentrated primarily in Rome and other cities. There were about, again, 10,000 to 20,000, maybe 40,000 to 80,000 people with their families. The third level, so these are all the tiers of the Roman Empire, were the decurians. These were social elites from governing cities. They formed the ruling class of the cities across the empire. The estimates put this group between 50,000 and 100,000 with just being Decurians and about 200,000 to 400,000 people. Now, those were the elites. By the way, that's a very, very small percentage of the Roman population. So here's Paul. He's preaching to this Roman world, right? And he's got this social strata that he's dealing with. Now we get down to the lower classes. The first were called freeborn citizens, plebeians sometimes. I do use that word plebeian periodically and joking at work like, oh, the plebeians, we're the plebeians, you know, but they were the freeborn citizens. They made up about 20 to 30% of the population, 10 to 20 million people. The next group were called the freedmen. They were the liberty. They were about 5% to 10%, or 3 to 7 million people. And they were the ones who had been emancipated. And there was the slave class. Slave class. So these are classes of people. This isn't based on race. It's still not a right thing. And there was the slave class. Slaves were a significant portion of the population. In Rome, it was probably 30% to 40% of the population was slaves in the city of Rome, a city of about a million people. Huge. They're estimated to have been about 6 to 12 million people across the Roman Empire who were slaves. That's actually the word that Paul uses in the text. And then there was a whole other group called the Pellegrini. They were the non-citizens. This was a huge group. Or the Peregrini, I'm sorry. The Peregrini in the Roman Empire were non-citizens or foreigners. They had limited rights compared to Roman citizens. They could not vote, hold public office, or appeal legal cases. They were subject to very harsh treatment. You see that with like Peter and Paul. Remember when Paul appealed, he said, hey, you just beat a Roman citizen. Remember that? Well, it would have been OK if he wasn't, right? What good is speech anyway? But he appealed to that. Peregrini had no rights. They could not marry a Roman and it be legal. They couldn't have a spouse that was a Roman citizen. And so this is a culture that we enter into in that time. It was very stratified. It was tough. Tough. By the way, come into the church. I don't care if you're CEO of General Motors. Walk in. Brother, right? Brother, set that aside. That doesn't come. And that was true with the early church. That was a problem for the Romans, by the way. Slaveholder and the master and the slave were in the same church, and they weren't. At that point, there's a whole New Testament book, Philemon, devoted to that, where Onesimus come to the church. By the way, Christianity undermines the concept of slavery. But Paul didn't tell the people, he didn't say, go strike up an army and fight. There was a slave rebellion that took place. There's a lot of history about this. Read Roman history. There was a massive slave rebellion. It was put down brutally. Paul doesn't sit there and say, go become a zealot. Get a sword, fight. He says, listen, you're going to work within the structure of society to serve Christ. Listen, we're in all different walks, right? Even the centurion that went to Christ, remember he said, hey, my servant's hurting. Would you come? All you have to do is say the word. Just say the word. You'll be healed. And he said, the reason I'm just asking you is because I'm a man under authority. He had people over him and people under him. Understood that, right? We are all in some capacity. to it, even if you're self-employed. You account to somebody, that customer, I tell you. You account to them. You don't get it right. You've got a problem. We are all under some element of interaction in life. And he says, hey, this is the way the Christian is to operate. And he gives us some guidance. The first thing he does here, and by the way, There are many ministers who have compared this idea of Paul, and Paul twice, Ephesians as well, and then Peter, to the application of all those situations that we're supposed to handle as we're in a context of outside authority. This is how we walk in it. Matthew Henry, John Kelvin, Charles Hodge, you can name it. All these guys had this similar take in their commentary as they're working with these. How do we deal with it? Well, the first thing, the first thing it says, bond servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. Of course, this doesn't mean you should do something immoral. You have a moral check. You cannot be asked to do something that's against your conscience. You cannot do that. That is not right. It doesn't matter. If you were a slave, even the lowest level of slave, you cannot do that. You have to do what is right with the Lord. But when you are working in a situation, you are not to be present only when the boss is around. Or working only when they can see you. Says, not when I service. That's what that means. If that's all you do. A lot of people do that, frankly, and sometimes people get accolades because they do that. So sincerely, work sincerely, fearing God. Whatever you do, it says, not as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God, why? Because you know, he sees you, he's watching. Whatever you do, do it heartily. It doesn't mean that you know if you're you're shoveling gravel, I'd have to pace yourself shoveling gravel by the way this week at our house driveway. I love gravel. Very fun thing to do. But if I if I go too fast at my age, I'm probably going to heart attack. So you hardly doesn't mean you just burn yourself out. Right. But it says work to the best of your Do your best. This is true with everything, right? Whatever. If you're in school, you're in college, you give it your best. You're under the authority of your teachers, your tutors. You're homeschooling. You better give your school the best. You kids that are in school on a day-to-day basis, you've got to give it your all. That's right. Not with eye service, but it says, do it heartily as unto the Lord. You're not doing it as unto men. You do it unto the Lord. Because you know that from the Lord, you will receive the reward. The Lord sees what we do. And he sees the heart. He sees the heart. He sees what we're made of. Is there a grace in your heart as you're serving God day to day? When you work, day to day, are you doing it in light of His grace? Do it heartily. The reward is not always with men. You don't always get the reward here on Earth. It's not always seen. Sometimes the person who is doing eye service gets noticed. It's not your concern. It's not my concern. But there's never an excuse for doing it. Paul says, he who does wrong, verse 25, will be repaid for what he's done. There's no partiality. There's no like, oh, I'm the victim. Therefore, I'm going to boss this. The boss is just mean and taken. I'm just going to do a terrible job. It's like, what's wrong with you? That's not a Christian spirit. You cannot do that. That's a victim mentality. That's not right. It doesn't matter. No excuse. Finally, all the way to verse one. Wrapping it up here in just a minute, I know it's been a lot today. Came in one section, so that's why we have to get through it. Masters, give your bondservants what is just and fair, knowing that you have a master in heaven. The scriptures cry out against unjust masters. If you're in a position of authority, be mindful of this. In several places, scriptures talk about this, emphasizing the need for justice, fairness, and mercy. In Colossians 4, here, Paul says, Masters, give to your bondservants what is just and fair, knowing that you have a master in heaven. It highlights that all are accountable to God for how they treat those under their authority. James has a similar statement. Listen to this. It condemns the wealthy landowners who exploited their workers. It says, behold, the wages of the laborers who moved your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out. And the cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. This reflects God's concern for the oppressed and the exploitation of power. So if you're in a leadership position, boy, don't let that go to your head. You've been given a responsibility. You're accountable for others and their lives. Proverbs 22, 16 says, he who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich both come to poverty. So giving bribes to get some sort of a stipend and oppressing the poor. We have to be careful. Don't ever underestimate. A person's ambition is driven by the church. It's amazing how sometimes you can see folks who will step on anybody. That is never the case with a Christian. That isn't the way it works. You can hear Paul, as you wrap this whole thing up today, the things that fit with Christ. In Ephesians, he has a verse and he says this. Just hear him talking to us. He says, you have not so Christ, doing some of these things. You haven't learned. You know, the Lord is the one who changes us. And as we become more like him, we're more able to respond in the correct ways. We have a picture here. We have a picture that was given to us today of what some of these social institutions family, the workplace look like when Christ is set above all in our lives, okay? That's a beautiful thing. Aren't you glad you have? I can get up and I can do a lot of the most mundane tasks with joy, grace, because I fit in Christ, right? I'm in Him. I have such joy in that. So thankful. Thankful for you all for listening today. Thanks for bearing with it. It's a long passage, but hopefully fruitful and productive. Let us go to the Lord in prayer. Father, your goodness is abundant. Thank you for these words. They encourage us on how to live and how to act and how to to be in an ungodly world a light for your gospel truth. We pray, Lord, that these things would be true in our lives, that we would fit in with the Lord, Lord, that we would be like him. Thank you, Father, for your people. May you give us that joy that we speak of so often, that joy down in our soul, because we have Christ in our life. We have his love. Thank you, Father. We give to your name your holy name the name of Jesus