Having collected our gifts and even our prayers into the heavenly sanctuary, the Lord now consecrates us through His Word and by His Spirit. Let us stand for the reading of Holy Scripture. Our Old Testament lesson comes from Exodus 21. And these are statutes that concern the institution of slavery as it existed in the Old Testament economy. And it will dovetail with our New Testament lesson directed towards bondservants in the church. Exodus 21, verses one to six. Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them. If you buy a Hebrew servant, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh, he shall go out free and pay nothing. If he comes in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master has given him a wife, and she has born him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall go out by himself, but If a servant plainly says, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. We'll turn now to our New Testament lesson and sermon text as we consider these verses again. We looked at them last week in the broader context of slavery and freedom, and we'll look at them again this week and then at least one more week. Today, focusing on the duties given to bond servants. Ephesians 6, beginning in verse 5. Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and sincerity of heart as to Christ, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill, doing service as to the Lord and not to men. knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. May the Lord bless the reading and proclamation of his word. For Christ's sake, amen. You may be seated. I quoted T.S. Eliot last week, and I'm gonna quote him again. Same quote, but it deserves, I think, extended reflection. It comes from Eliot's play about the assassination of Thomas Becket, titled Murder in the Cathedral. Here's how it goes. A martyr is never the design of man. For the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God. Not lost it, but found it. For he has found freedom in submission to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom. That's a great quote, but the phrase that jumps off the page to me is this, found freedom in submission. You might say, that sounds like oil and water. Found freedom in submission. This paradox is completely foreign to our culture. Whether it's woke, social justice, or the angry red pill alt-right, nobody likes to submit to authority. It's not just our culture, it's endemic to our nature, fallen in Adam. We don't want to submit to authority, and that's something the right and the left have in common. The default setting is don't trust anybody, don't submit to anybody, just do your own thing. I did it my way. And it's a vicious cycle, historically, because anarchy paves the way for tyranny, and then tyranny creates the conditions for anarchy to arise. Congregation, in our own day and age, we've lost not only the dignity of work, we've lost something of the dignity of service and the glory of submission. We've lost the truth, goodness, and beauty of God-ordained hierarchy. And so there's no respect not to mention any kind of concept of submission. It rubs us the wrong way, the very language. And so instead, we stick it to the man. We're not gonna take it anymore. Stand up, stand up, stand up for our rights. And yet, Eliot, drawing on a strand of biblical truth, says, found freedom in submission. Well, regardless of our culture and our own sinful hearts, the household in this passage is an area of authority and submission within God's ordained hierarchy. In this passage, as we've seen in prior weeks, we have submission of wives to husbands, of children to parents, and now of bondservants to masters. Now just to be clear up front, these are not identical relationships. The submission, the respect that a wife gives her husband is not the same as the obedience that a son or daughter gives to their parents. And likewise, these two relationships are quite different than the bondservant master relationship. However, there is a point of contact insofar as all of these relationships involve authority and submission within this hierarchy. Now you might say, I understand that marriage and parenting go together, they both involve the family, but why is Paul connecting dots to slavery? I mean, even if the relationship is not the same, Why is Paul drawing this connection? At this point, we need to jump into a time machine and go back 2,000 or so years to the first century and understand that in the ancient household, slaves were considered members of the home. Abraham's servants were circumcised along with his sons. Lydia's servants were presumably baptized along with her entire households. Servants or slaves were given a place in the family grave plots. They were able to make a will and to leave possessions within the confines of the households. They were a certain kind of member of this order. Now last time, we considered slavery in broad strokes, and just to review what we saw, we saw that slavery is not wrong in itself, though it is often wrong in practice. And regardless, it's not God's best, it's not God's ideal for humanity, and thus, slavery as an institution follows the long arc of history in which we see a movement from slave to son. from glory to glory. The long arc of history has a certain trajectory and it bends toward freedom. The gospel produces conditions in which slavery dissolves and washes away. That's what we looked at last time. I'm not going to go over all that ground again. So bear all of those qualifications in mind and realize that we do not live, by God's grace, in the same redemptive historical moment as the Apostle Paul did. He could look out, stand behind the pulpit and address first Christian church of Ephesus, and he was talking to slaves and masters. It was a live issue. I don't have that today. We live in a different time and place by the grace of God, and so we're gonna have to make some adjustments and wisely apply what Paul says based on analogies. Along the way, my goal is to give each of you eyes to see how you might find freedom in submission. How you might find freedom in submission to whatever kind of authority God has put in your life, whether in family, church, or commonwealth. Our approach this day is gonna be a little bit different than our typical fashion. I'm going to summarize the text, then I'm gonna illustrate the text using two figures from Bible history. And then finally, I'm gonna try to apply it to our own lives using two analogies from today. So summarize the text. two illustrations, and then two analogies with a view to application in your life today. First, just to summarize, survey the text. Most of this section is addressed to bondservants. We didn't read verse nine, but that's where Paul turns to those who are masters. And the word bondservant could just as easily be translated as slave. I said this last week, and there'll be some overlap with last week, but roughly one third of the residents of the city of Ephesus were slaves. 33% or so of the population were in chains. In fact, there was a wholesale slave market in this city that helped to service the Western Roman districts. If you read historical accounts, there were Roman plantations. The Latin word is Latifundia, and there were a lot of them in Italy and Sardinia, and Ephesus was key economically to provide slaves to those plantations in that area. Now last time we saw that slavery existed for all kinds of reasons within this fallen world. War, displacement, house-born slaves, people who got into debt and they paid it off through service, restitution slavery, voluntary indentured servitude. One thing that happened a lot in the ancient world is that sometimes people got rid of their children. a kind of early form of abortion, they would leave the children out to die, and sometimes slave owners would pick up these infants, or rather slave traders, and they would raise them in order to be slaves. This happened a lot in the ancient world. And of course, there was also human trafficking. There was a brutal slave trade in which people were kidnapped and sold into slavery. Now again, it's complicated. It's complicated because we live in a fallen world, and at times, people did this because it's cheap labor, and they used and dehumanized their fellow men, but it also solved certain social problems, so to speak. People didn't always have a place to go, and perhaps indentured servitude was a great personal option, maybe the best that you had. If it's slavery or death, and slavery gives you certain protections and certain securities, you might prefer slavery to a relatively benevolent master. It's complicated and messy. At times, there was some upward mobility. In fact, it's really weird, but if you look at the records, sometimes slaves owned other slaves. History's messy and complicated, and we saw some of that last time, but regardless, some of the slaves in Ephesus became Christians. men, women, and children who remained physically bound, yet were spiritually free. And the question is, what now? What now? You know, elsewhere in the book of Galatians, Paul says that spiritually speaking, before the Lord, there is no difference between slave and free in Christ. And if you're a slave in Ephesus, you might wonder, does that mean that Christian slaves can do whatever they want? Can they run away? Should they run away? We can summarize Paul's message for bond servants with three words, duty, manner, and motivation. As we're summarizing this text, duty, manner, and motivation. What, how, and why? First, the duty of obedience. Look at verse five. Bond servants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in sincerity of heart as to Christ. Now, last time I told you that this is not God's ideal for humanity, that God meets us where we are, not where we should have been. And we know that as the gospel went forth, Paul was, so to speak, planting time bombs that were gonna go off in the centuries to come, and the conditions under which slavery existed disappeared and led to the dissolution of slavery. But at this moment, that hasn't happened. The gospel solvent hasn't done its work. Those time bombs haven't gone off, and there are slaves to address. And the duty that Paul puts upon them is one of obedience. It's the Greek word akuo, from which we get acoustics. It can be translated to hear, but also to obey, because rightly understood, if you're under authority, to hear is to obey. Be obedient to your masters, literally your lords, according to the flesh. Now that's an interesting phrase, according to the flesh. Why does Paul say that? Well, it's the flesh in contrast to the spirit. And here, if you read all of Paul's letters, he has a certain distinction between flesh and spirit. Between earth and heaven. between this age and the age to come. And Paul is speaking at the overlap, the intersection of heaven and earth, this age and the age to come, the spirits and the flesh. And these are masters according to the flesh. The duty of bondservants in this arena, in this age, is obedience. In the scriptures, Obedience is the overflow of humility. You express your humility through obedient service. This is the way in which, in relationship to God, we glorify him. Perhaps some of the covenant children know the question and answer in the first catechism. How can I glorify God? By loving him and doing what he commands. Well, that's what bond servants should do with respect to their masters. But how do they do that? How? And that leads us to the manner of obedience. And Paul sketches out the manner or fashion of their obedience in verse five through seven. He says, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart with goodwill, doing service, as to the Lord and not to men. Be obedient, how? With fear and trembling, with appropriate reverence and respect. Be obedient, how? Well, in sincerity of heart. And I'm sure certain slaves under certain conditions might justify hypocrisy and deception stealing the family silver and running off in the night. But Paul calls them to a single and thus a sincere heart, an undivided set of affections. Now as Paul says this, if you're a slave in Ephesus, you might wonder, are you saying that my worth is bound up in my master's approval? Is my master, according to the flesh, does he have authority that is absolute and unlimited? And the answer is no, as you keep reading. Because Paul says something very significant. As he's calling them to obedience at this moment in history, at this stage of development, God meeting them where they are and not where they should have been, He calls them to obedience in a particular way, as to Christ. And that makes all the difference. Be obedient as to Christ. Negatively, he says, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but positively, as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, literally from the soul, with goodwill, doing service as to the Lord and not to men. In other words, as you obey your masters, you're not doing eye service, you're doing heart service. You're not a men pleaser, you're a God pleaser. He's framing this obedience very carefully to communicate to them that your worth is not bound up in your master's approval. His authority is not absolute and unlimited. Your body might be bound, but your conscience is free, and that entails that you may not, you must not obey unlawful commands. No. You obey in the Lord, as to Christ, as a bondservant of Christ, with your eyes set on God himself. This manner of obedience probably required, on the part of Paul's hearers, a kind of mind shift. A mind shift, where he's telling them, you are a servant of Christ before you are a servant of men. Servants, you have a greater master whose loyalty always comes first. What God is doing is he is redeeming the slave status to the point where Paul elsewhere can call himself a slave of Christ. and not view it as derogatory, but as glorious. I am a slave of Christ. John Murray, in his masterful book, Principles of Conduct, says this. We could not conceive of a more revolutionizing force in the direction of reforming economic conditions than this transformation of the bondservant's psychology. He is saying that Paul is doing something radical in the ancient world. He is telling these men, you're not defined by your earthly servanthood. You are defined by your heavenly servanthood. He is saying to them that in all of your obedience, perform it as to Christ, as bondservants of Christ, as to the Lord and not to men. The vertical trumps the horizontal. And this goes back to Paul's, we could say with Gerhardus Vos, his semi-celestial perspective. Because Paul is standing, again, at the overlap, at the intersection of heaven and earth, of the flesh and of the spirit, of this age and the age to come. And what he's saying is, yes, you have masters according to the flesh on earth. Remember that you have the master according to the spirit in heaven. You have the Lord of glory. And that leads us to one of the greatest paradoxes in the Christian life. Even today, you are slaves and sons at the same time. You are slaves and sons at the same time. I love how Martin Luther expressed it. A Christian is a free lord of everything and subject to no one. A Christian is a willing servant of everything and subject to everyone. I think this gets us closer to understanding what Eliot meant when he said, found freedom in submission. Well, we've seen the duty and the manner, what you should do and how, but a lingering question that is often the most significant for us, and that is why. That's important for our children, especially as they grow older, why? Do we do things the way we do and other families don't? Why do we get up on Sunday morning and go to church and the other family's blowing up a pool and they're jumping in and having fun? Why are we different? Why? Well, Paul answers that question with the motivation for obedience. And we see that in verse eight. knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. What Paul is saying is the motivation for you to be obedient to your masters according to the flesh, with all of these ways that he's described, the motivation is the knowledge of future reward. You know something. And that knowledge of future reward is a tremendous motivation now. What he is laying before these bond servants in Ephesus is an eternal weight of glory. He is saying that regardless of what you might receive from your human master on earth, whether in the form of protection or provision or security, What ultimately motivates you, what drives you, what pushes you on, is the prospect of divine reward from the Lord in heaven. What drives you forward in obedience that is sincere, that is true, that is faithful, is that one day you want to hear the words, not from your earthly master, but from the Lord of heaven, well done, good, and faithful servant, enter into my joy. That is what Paul is setting before these servants. The fruit or reward of their labors, something that is true of those who are in chains and those who are free. And you might say, is this an otherworldly hope? The answer is yes, it is an otherworldly hope. We don't have to be ashamed of that. Our hope is, our blessed hope is the coming of Jesus Christ from the clouds of heaven, and we don't have to be embarrassed of that fact. But congregation, realize, That does not imply complacency in this world. Quite the opposite. Those most heavenly minded do the most earthly good. And if you have any doubts about that, realize. that the only civilization in world history to bring slavery as an institution to an end, ironically, was Western civilization through the progress of the gospel, eliminating the conditions that caused slavery to exist in the first place. That it was, as I said last time, not in spite of, but because of his Christian convictions that someone like Wilberforce, who was heavenly minded, worked for the earthly good of those who were in slaves. Tremendous motivation for all of your obedience to receive from the Lord a gracious reward. As Augustine says, God crowns his own graces. Not in a way that is merited, but in a way that corresponds to what God has first of all worked in us. I've seen the duty, it's obedience, the manner, it's as bondservants of Christ ultimately, and the motivation is heavenly reward. Now you might say, that's helpful to sketch out as a summary, but what does this kind of household piety look like? And to help us, paint a picture, we're gonna move from our summary of the text to two illustrations from redemptive history. Two illustrations. And the first, that comes at least to my mind, is that of Joseph. Joseph was a son who was sold into slavery. He was trafficked. from the land of Canaan down into Egypt, and there he served faithfully and was obedient to his master according to the flesh in the house of Potiphar. He took responsibility and sincerely, from the soul, labored as a servant in that house, and moreover, did not take advantage of his master's absence. He didn't touch his master's wife. And even though he was faithful, he suffered. He was thrown into prison unjustly. And even in prison, He served faithfully there. He did not grumble or complain, but realized that even as he served first as a slave, then as a prisoner, he had a higher master. He was doing this as to Christ. And he did that for the long haul, waiting upon the Lord, and in due season was exalted. and went from slave back to son, from slavery to freedom to rule. Joseph is a wonderful model of obedient service in which because he knew who he really served, Joseph could be free even in prison. As he was rotting in an Egyptian prison, Because of the gospel, he had a free conscience and a free mind. And just realize, congregation, whatever Orwellian, dystopian future you might envision, they can bind your hands, they cannot bind your soul. They cannot lock up your conscience because you serve Jesus. Well, Joseph is a wonderful model of how to find freedom in submission, but there is a greater model. There is a greater illustration, and that's the one we are told to placard every Lord's Day. That's Jesus Christ himself. And I'm not gonna retell the story in my own words, that would fail. I'm just gonna quote from you a familiar passage, Philippians 2, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation. Taking the form of a bondservant. of a doulos, of a slave, and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. But like Joseph, this wasn't the end of the story. Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. This is the perfect model of obedient service. This is what it looks like with skin on. Jesus Christ, the son who willingly became a slave, the slave who was declared to be king, he found freedom in submission. to the will of his heavenly father according to his humanity while in this earth. We've summarized, we've illustrated the text, but the burning question is how should we then live 2,000 years later after Jesus lived, after Paul wrote this epistle? Well, to bring this message to a close, I want us to look at two analogies and then two sets of application corresponding to them for today. Now obviously, this text, addressing bond servants and later masters, this is a live issue in certain places of the world. I think I mentioned last time, was it 27 million people could be considered slave status today? It really still happens. This is a live issue, especially with human trafficking. And most and much of this is just plain wicked. There's great injustice in this earth when it comes to the institution of slavery. And if we looked at a particular culture that perhaps still has some sort of system of slavery, we would have to very carefully go in and examine what kind of slavery is this? And how did they become slaves? And are the commands and conditions of this slavery even remotely lawful? If you're a missionary in a certain context that has slavery, you have to ask a lot of hard questions to, again, have God meet people where they are, not where they perhaps should have been. Where you come into unideal, suboptimal circumstances and try to do your best to work out the mess. Now for most of us, however, that is not the kind of situation we're in. That's not the kind of situation we're in. As I said last time, I think when it comes to the places and pockets of the world where this is still a live issue, we should work toward and pray toward conditions where slavery disappears. That's what the gospel does over time. But for most of us, again, we can't draw a one-to-one parallel between our life on Monday morning and what Paul is saying in this passage. There's a gap, there's a distance. But that does not mean that Paul's message is not applicable. All of the Bible is applicable. I don't care what verse, what passage. It's all profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, instruction, and righteousness. And to quote the commentator S.M. Baugh, and his commentary on Ephesians is excellent if you're looking for commentaries, he says, articulated in this passage would apply today in submission to any lawfully constituted authority over us that does not fundamentally compromise our commitment to Christ. So this is applicable. And I want to apply it in two ways. First, with a narrow analogy and some strict application. And then with a broad analogy and some looser application. First, a narrow analogy. The commentator, Bob, whom I've already quoted, points out that the closest analogy for most of us living in America in the 21st century is that of military or police work, being a soldier or being a police officer. That's probably the closest analogy for most of us to this passage. It's not the same thing. But there is a close point of contact because of the force of the authority and the necessity of obedience. Now, unlike some forms of slavery, not all, it's voluntary to join the military or to join the police force. But it becomes relatively involuntary from there. Moreover, during wartime, there can be a draft or conscription, where regardless, your time, your opportunities, and your decisions are often not your own. Now, of course, we know that you must not obey unlawful commands, but your orientation is one of obedience, one of compliance to authority. And this passage relates directly, I think, to Matthew 8, when we think about this. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only speak a word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, go, and he goes. And to another, come, and he comes. And to my servant, do this, and he does it. Now we have at least one Marine here, and we have others who've served in the military in the past. I'm not sure how many people are either in military or police work or have that experience, but you are people under authority. And much of the things you do are not your own. Now, although there may be wisdom, reasons to avoid military service at particular times, it remains a lawful and important profession. Luke 3, John the Baptist has all these people coming to him. He says, the tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, collect no more than what is appointed for you. Likewise, the soldiers asked him, saying, and what shall we do? And he said to them, do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely and be content with your wages. This is a great application for those like Ben and others who either have been or are currently in military service. We know, likewise, police service. Romans 13 is in our Bibles for a reason in which God has ordained the civil magistrate to bear not the sword in vain. And that would include military and police work. And realize not only is this part of God's ordained providential ordering of society, but those of you who are in military work or considering military or police work, you can consciously serve Christ in your police or military service. You can perform your police or military service as a duty to Christ, as bondservants, as soldiers of Christ, as to the Lord. I don't know who your commanding officer is, Benjamin, but Your commander according to the flesh is there, but you serve a higher commander according to the spirit who is in heaven. And so again, the closest analogy for most of us is going to be this military or police service in which you have to answer in a very direct way to those who are in authority. So consider how you might apply the principles of this passage to where you are. Now for most of us, however, we're not in military or police service, so does it apply to us? Well, I think it does, using a broader analogy and a bit of looser application, and that is the area of workplace relationships. John Murray argues that the master in some ways corresponds to capital and the servant to labor. Just as, or similarly, as servants answer to masters, so employees answer to employers. workers, answer to managers. Now again, this is an analogy, and it's a broad one at that. There certainly are differences. You're not so much rendering strict obedience as you are honoring, serving, and respecting those who are in authority over you in the workplace. But there is a similarity in the sense that as long as you work there, there are gonna be certain expectations and duties based on mutual agreement. Once you sign the contract, Voluntarily, certain obligations kick in. You could always quit, but that has its own set of consequences. So by way of broad analogy, we can make a loose application to those, all of you, who work underneath a superior in any kind of workplace authority. So I want to end with three exhortations, really for anyone and everyone. but specifically for those thinking through, what would this look like in my workplace relationship? Three exhortations. First, let your work be ethical. Let your work be ethical. Don't squander your employer's time or money. Because the Bible says, with fear and trembling in sincerity of heart. You may not be in a master-slave relationship, but that principle still applies. Let your work be ethical. Second, let your work be excellence. I hate it when Christian workmen think they can put a Jesus fish on the back of their van and do shoddy work and get away with it because God bless them, they're a Christian. That's pathetic. Christians, all things being equal, should do more excellent work than anybody else in any field, any endeavor. Politics, art, economics, power washing, I don't care. Let your work be excellent, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart with goodwill doing service. If you're working under a manager or a superintendent or a boss of some kind, yes, it's different, but Ask yourself the question, am I just ticking off the boxes? Am I giving lowest common denominator effort? Am I putting forth the bare minimum not to get fired? Congregation, it should not be. No, pursue excellence in your work, no matter what it is. It could be surgery, teaching, sales, cleaning, writing, software development, fill in the blank. Whatever you do, do it from the heart, with good will, doing service, a good faith effort, because your work reflects on you, and you reflect on Jesus. People know you're a Christian. You are saying something about your Savior to them in the way you work. What does your work say about you to your boss? Just think for a moment, what adjective would pop into his head if I said your name? Sloppy. Late. Lazy. or dependable, hardworking. In fact, he does excellent work. Just think about for a moment, what would your employer, your manager, your boss say? Because as Christians, our work should be excellent. And finally, most importantly, let your work be Christian. Let your work be Christian. You're not doing this to impress your boss or merely to fortify your job security. You're not doing this to climb the corporate ladder to be seen by men. Look at me. Another selfie on Instagram. No, you're not doing that. Let your work be Christian as to Christ, as bondservants of Christ, as to the Lord, and not to men. It's for the glory of God. John Calvin said, every individual's line of life is a post assigned to him by the Lord. So let your work be ethical, excellent, and Christian, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is free or slave. The crown of life is set before you, which the Lord has promised to those who love him, the prospect of hearing. By the grace of God, well done. good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord. You're not saved by good works, but you're saved unto good works. And Jesus can say that last day, you did it unto me. I know, I saw, you did it unto me. And on that day, we will understand in a finer tone what it means to find freedom and submission to God forever and ever, amen. Let's pray.