Well, I need to begin by telling you, admitting, that I struggled a bit with the passage that we have before us in the second chapter of Matthew's Gospel this week. Partly it's a week of difficult thinking and less sleep, and I struggled and struggled and struggled and finally arrived, by the grace of God, at an understanding of how to proceed with the passage at 7 a.m. this morning. So what I have for you in anticipation of this difficulty, I began working on restructuring an entirely different message, which I'll be presenting to you this morning, and that should give me time to catch up in my thinking. I think, and as I was sharing with Jim, I think I know where we need to go with the passage in Matthew 2 next week. So your patience, and if you were looking forward to that, I just didn't want to rewarm up what we studied and talked about when we handled Mark. That's not the same thought that John has that Mark has. Instead, please turn to Colossians chapter three. And I've entitled the message this morning, Harmonious Love in a Context of Opposition. Harmonious Love in a Context of Opposition. I'm going to begin our reading at Colossians chapter 3, verse 18. And I'm going to read actually to Colossians chapter 4 and verse 1. I had originally intended to read to verse 18, but I think it's better to read all the way to the first verse of chapter 4. Beginning at 18. Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. bond servants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work hardly as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. Now before I begin to address the text that I just read, since we are again jumping into the middle of the book, the second half of a letter in fact, we need to build a little context from the earlier parts of Paul's letter to Colossae. In chapter three, verse 11, Paul makes this statement. It's a key thought here. Here, speaking of the church, the community of those redeemed in Jesus Christ, here, there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave-free, but Christ is all and in all. Now with these words, Paul describes a fundamental equality of every believer as the redeemed of God in Jesus Christ. It eliminates the eternal significance of purely material distinctions, such as what Paul was dealing with, Jews and Gentiles, circumcised and uncircumcised. There are no slaves and masters with that status in the kingdom of God. All are servants to Jesus Christ and to one another. Now, as we read a little further in chapter three, Paul makes it clear that this equity created by salvation in Jesus Christ requires that we, we in the church, behave a certain way toward one another. In verses 12 through 16, to prove this to you, Paul says, put on then, as God's chosen ones, as this equity of the redeemed, put on, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you, richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Paul is telling us that all believers are equally entitled to receive the love of the brethren as described here in these verses. All believers are equally obligated to love one another according to this apostolic command. None are excluded, none are more entitled than others, and none less. We are all to be compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient toward one another. Harmonious love is to be experienced by every believer equally in the church, whether or not a particular believer is easier to love than someone else. Gender, race, wealth, these things do not impact the obligation of believers to love the church as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. who we are in Jesus Christ transcends these material distinctions. This is Paul's point. Remember as well that Paul has commanded this with the voice of Christ in a worldly context, a broader context of what he calls elements, authorities, principalities, powers, these basic elements of the world, things like culture, peer pressure, sociological worldview, political pressures, These things attempt to deceive and misdirect Christians, and the power of Satan is behind them, at work in the children of disobedience. In chapter 2, verse 4, Paul says, In verse 8 of chapter 2, he warns, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. In chapter 2 of verse 15, Paul speaks of the redeeming work of Jesus Christ as a power which has, quote, disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them. What's my point? I'm simply reminding you that the world and the devil are constantly present in this world to oppose the functional equity of love in the body in the church, which Jesus Christ purchased with his own body. That's a reality. We are not unopposed in our obligation to engage in harmonious love in and for the church of Jesus Christ. So, we may well expect these basic elements, these powers and authorities of the world, to confuse the practical expression of harmonious, unbiased love in the Church. We ought to anticipate it. Question. Where might that deceptive opposition appear? Where might we experience that in the church? Where, my answer is this, where relationships are in reality and present materiality where those relationships are already less equal. In the text that we're considering this morning, Paul anticipates that the world and the devil will work to disturb and oppose the harmonious love of the church. In preparation for Satan's opposition, three material, unequal relationship contexts are addressed by Paul. And those are marriage, family, and secular labor. Paul immediately follows up the requirement for harmonious and unbiased love in the church with a practical recognition that there are presently common earthly relationships that appear in this body, which we now experience, where absolute equity is just not a reality. In verses 18 through 25, the apostle is teaching believers, you brethren, how to harmoniously love in these contexts, these three contexts, and how to resist the opposition of these basic elements of the world, disturbing harmonious love in this context. So here's our question. Let's try to boil this thought down into question. If there is a spiritual equity, let me change that. Since there is a spiritual equity in our mutual investment in Christ, and inequality, brethren, that we are all really going to one day experience far more fully in heaven. That's the reality. How are we to handle the common earthly relationships that we now experience with one another that are simply unequal? How does love exist in that context? Do we just throw off these earthly relationships, sort of attack them with a critical theory and eliminate these institutions and say they're just not equitable? Do we reject these relational inequalities? Do we try to build a new utopia where we're all operating at an equal level of independence and autonomy? Of course not. And Paul does not recommend that. You see, Paul has done such a good job explaining to the Colossians their new shared status as brethren in Christ, as equal co-inheritors of future glory, that he now has to balance that teaching, that view of a heavenly future, against equally real, present, earthly relational distinctions. Having destroyed the significance of irrelevant distinctions in the kingdom of heaven here in the church, Paul is careful not to leave us in a place of confusion that Satan can exploit in our relationships on earth in the church. Paul will not allow us, you might say, to become so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good. So, he lays out the most common earthly relationships that we experience here in the church, where there truly is functional inequality, and he applies practical harmonious love to those relationships. In other words, rather than destroy or remodel marriage, the family, and labor relationships, which are foundational to society, Paul calls us to live as Christians in the context of these relationships as they exist in the church. It's almost as if Paul, after warning us about the basic elements of the world, these powerful forces of culture and Satan in this world that pressure us to conform to their ungodly values, it's almost as if Paul anticipates the basic elements of the world specifically targeting and attacking these foundational relationships, marriage, family, labor. It's not almost, is it? This has happened. This is happening. Now, my purpose today is to look exactly at how Paul directs us to live in the context of marriage, family, and labor relationship, and exhort and encourage you to handle your relationships in the name of Jesus Christ. That is, as a Christian, exercising harmonious love, the kind of love he's commanding here in this chapter. Now this is vital, brethren. This is urgent because we live at a time, at a moment in American history, in Western culture's history generally, where scripturally defined institutions like marriage and family and labor relationships have been almost entirely rejected by our culture. We're just seeing little echoes of what they used to be in our culture. Now, let me try to give you some examples of how the basic elements of the world are employed against these foundational institutions, these earthly relationships that are here, starting with marriage. Now, in the context in which we live, marriage is commonly regarded by most in modern post-modern American culture as just a kind of social contract, which is entered into based on mere preference. Preference perhaps based on perceived mutual advantage. It's good for me, good for you, yeah, let's get married. Or perhaps a vague sense of tradition. some subjective personal preference. You may not know why. A person may not know why they're getting married if they do. But it's certainly, whatever it is, it's certainly not a moral obligation between a man and a woman living together. This is what the basic elements of the world tell us. The worldview, the philosophy of Satan expressed in the world. It may just be more advantageous to live together. So let's do that. If not, no worries. Marry, don't marry. It's not required by God. The fool says, no God. In fact, isn't it smarter? We're told to test the waters of marriage first before you commit. just live together for a while. By covenant, when you can have all the advantages without the commitment. Friends with advantages. See, I'm not making this up, am I? You know, you hear this in the culture. You know there are tax advantages to just living together, not legally marrying. Corbin's nodding his head. What if you want out? You're in that marriage, you want out, you just don't love him or her anymore? No worries. If you do make the mistake of getting married, just get a divorce. Remarry as needed, no harm, no foul, it's a big deal. Does it even have to be a him and a her? Can it be a him and a him, a her and a her, a him and a her and a him? Completely lost is the unique idea of the unity and the oneness of a man and a woman, their mutual, exclusive, permanent, self-sacrificing, self-effacing interdependence, their harmonious love for one another. Why would you want that? Why be dependent on that man? Why follow him? Why should he be allowed to exercise his toxic masculinity in your relationship? Why, men, do you need to be faithful to one woman? Why do you need to support and cherish some woman in particular? Sow your oats. Do you men really want the responsibility of taking care of some woman for life? She needs to pull her own weight. Do you women really want some man providing for you? How demeaning. Do you want to give some guy that kind of power over you? Should the smartest, the wisest, most caring member of the relationship have the lead? Doesn't that make sense? Or maybe there shouldn't be any with the lead. Maybe we should just operate with complete functional equity. Nobody leads, nobody follows. That'll work. Here's one. What if I need to change my gender mid-relationship? This is happening, brethren. Wow, what we're hearing is the voice of the basic elements of this world deceptively telling us about the marriage relationship. All right, let's deal with family. What does it tell us about family? You remember for a while in our culture, in American culture, I think it was in the late 80s, early 90s, there was a weak, I think quickly aborted interest in defining the family in a more traditional sense, and it was called the nuclear family. Does anybody remember that? Yeah. Do you remember that? Dad, mom, and kids all together in the same house even. Well, that idea didn't last long, did it? Family is now a variable term, just ask Disney. A single mom can do just as good a job, possibly better as a parent compared to a married mother. You know, that's the way most mammals do family. Mom takes care of the kids and dad may even be driven away. Social Darwinism, thank you. Even in a whole family, dad and mom together, both parents work full-time plus, and the schools and the after-school programs raise the kids. The government and our culture will be glad to help families raise their children. This whole idea of family, we're told, is nothing more than a legal difference that white culture has created in order to subjugate other races. CRT tells us that. Children should not experience discipline, we're told. It's abusive. It's stifling. You'll damage social development. Practice affirming them in their behavior in positive ways. Positively apply the rod. Parents shouldn't assume they have the ability to teach their children. They simply don't. That's abusive and stifling. You're too ignorant. You'll damage social development. We have experts that will help you with that. Most of them work for the government. Children should be allowed to fully express themselves without constraint. Let it all out. Children, follow your heart. Let it go. Let's all sing the song. Let your heart lead you. Fathers, husbands, the less you say, the better. Almost everything that comes out of your mouth is wrong or stupid. This is what our culture tells men, husbands, fathers. Mothers, just keep your head down and run through all those social programs, run through those events, keep running yourself and the kids through all the activities more and more. This is the way you safely and wisely raise them to success. Takes a village. When the kids can't keep up, when the absence of order and discipline and morality finally causes your kids to collapse, head to the psychiatrist and get the meds that will help them out. And you too, dad and mom, you need help too. Your frustration, depression, your anxiety, your anger, that's not evidence of a spiritual or moral problem. It's just a medical problem and we live in advanced times that provides medical solutions to these problems. Here's your prescription. And what about the social programs with unending safety nets that reduce parents to permanent consumers, destroying their dignity and their responsibility and generating a self-perpetuating system of family that's ever dependent on the government social system? Why work when your family can be taken care of and live off of others? This is the voice of the basic elements of the world. What about labor? Well, we just arrived at labor, didn't we, living off of others? Funny how these are all connected and we end up at labor. Work and employment, the basic elements of the world, don't skip this one either. To the laborer, they say entitlement. You are entitled to a living wage. You deserve benefits. Your employer only wants to extract labor from you. He wouldn't even pay you if he didn't have to. Do as little as is necessary to keep your job. Don't make the rest of us look bad by working hard. Are you just kissing up to the boss? Just make it look good. Look busy, you know. Just don't overdo it. Besides which, you'll never get ahead. The system is stacked against you. It's because of your gender. It's because of your race. This job you have, it's been crafted by white culture to keep you in subjection. The rich are your master if you work. You need to look out for yourself. Look, nobody gets rewarded for excellence. See, no one's getting a raise for working harder, so why work harder? You need to put out for yourself. What you're doing for work, it really doesn't matter anyways. There's no future hope, no future advantage, there's no rest. Maybe it's time to throw off the yoke of your master's oppression. And we've arrived at Marx. Does this sound familiar? Sound like the rhetoric of the government, the media, educational institution? Does this sound like the basic elements of the world? Brethren, this is what Paul is fighting, even though it's 2,000 years ago. And what of employers? We've just dealt with employees. What about employers? Employers are told, just follow orders. Don't worry about the morality of what you're told to do. As your workers are managed, just listen to and follow upper management unquestioningly. Increase the profit line, no matter the cost to human resources. That's all they are. They're just resources. We can replace them. There's a job market out there. Use them efficiently. Don't get all tangled up in concern for your employees. If you can cut corners, cut them. You don't need to turn out the best product or service. Just turn out a good profit. Besides which, rewarding excellence is unfair, because not everyone has had an opportunity to be as excellent as the next person. You need to be fair and compensate with absolute equity. And if you have to mess around with pay or a pay period, hey, you got to do what you got to do. Rule with the fear of loss. Don't worry about motivating with hope for reward. Besides which, you have the answers. You're educated. You have the MBA from Stanford. Don't listen to that old guy who only has a high school diploma who cares if he's been doing this for 25 years. What could he know? You pay your employees. Isn't that enough? What other responsibilities could you possibly have toward them? Come on. And don't admit to an employee when you're wrong. Don't apologize. You'll lose face. You know it's their day off. You know what that's like. But you need this project to go home and get done there. That's just real life. They don't need to be paid for that. Just get it done. Be careful that you don't mention your Christian faith, by the way, or pray or do any of that God talk on the job. That's for church or in your own home. And definitely don't evangelize or start a Bible study at work. What are you, some kind of fanatic? What if it offends the Satanist in HR? Why pray for my employees? They're just employees. Brethren, this is the voice of the elements of the world. So let me ask you, in summary, do you think maybe Paul hit the nail on the head when he carried our conversation from his warning about resisting the basic elements of the world and loving harmoniously to identifying these three relationships as the battlefield of the fight? He's got the arena right. It's almost as if by some power, the Apostle Paul could look down the corridors of time and be amazingly relevant. And there was power, brethren. It was the power of the Holy Spirit moving and inspiring the Apostle to speak words of truth that we need to hear this morning at the end of 2025. Now let's look at these three foundational relationships lived in a Christian context. Against this unloving, divisive, and immoral assault against biblical Christian relationships, against harmonious love in the church, the Apostle Paul preaches a simple, sane Christian response. His response is simply the application of all the principles of Christian living that he's covered in verses 5 through 17 of chapter 3. As the world dictates and demands that we relate to one another according to its values, Paul simply says no, clearly and firmly, in practical terms that we can understand. Now, before we look at Paul's practical applications, we need to draw two observations from the passage for clarity, two observations regarding Paul's approach to the three foundational earthly relationships. And here's the first one for clarity. First note that all three relationships, marriage, family, and labor relationships, are all protected and reinforced by Paul. I'll not reread through verses 18 through chapter 4, verse 1. They're all there. They're all preserved. No relationship is dismissed. No relationship is dismantled and rebuilt in a special New Testament way. No relationship is evaluated by the apostle as an immoral construct due to some functional inequity. Even the institution of slavery as encountered by the Apostle here in Colossae is not dismantled. If there was one to dismantle, brethren, that was it. Now this is far from saying that Paul supported this slavery. Far from that. It was at least, in part, primarily upheld by man-stealing and kidnapping, which the Old Testament civil walls deemed punishable by death. It was a capital offense. Paul understood this as a Jew. He's not arguing that. Rather, Paul is supporting the employer-employee relationship. That is, the institution of labor and its consequent relationships while at the same time he's elevating Christian virtues in a context of sinful abuse of power or sinful abuse in general. Man-stealing was and is an evil crime. This evil the apostle is not addressing as there's no need. Christians know, ought to know, this is an evil crime. Such an evil behavior has already been addressed by all the sinful earthly behaviors that Paul has already commanded the Colossians to dismiss, destroy, and discard earlier. What Paul is now addressing is how Christian masters in charge of workers, some of whom were slaves, were to treat the workers under them, and how workers, again, some of whom were slaves, were to treat their masters who employed them. Employed foreman, master owners, household managers, some of whom were slaves themselves. Brethren, imagine a church context of Paul's day where you might have an elder who's a slave to one of the members of the congregation. What an odd situation, not unheard of. Often a slave ran a household because he was well-educated, maybe better than the owner. Something to think about. Employed foremen, master owners, freemen, indentured servants, slaves alike, will fall under Paul's tutelage here. Labor relationships are not sinful and labor is not part of the curse in and of itself. Adam was employed before the fall as a keeper of the garden and a manager of the creatures of the garden, which means that labor is a good institution, just as marriage and the family are good. All three are creation ordinances, and as such, are indispensable so long as the earth remains. All right, first observation. Now the second. Second, I want you to notice that in all three of these relationships, marriage, family, and labor, Paul first addresses the party in submission, and then after that, the party with authority. Now, why the subordinate member of the relationship first? Good question, glad you asked. Why not address the authority, the head first? Don't they have the greater responsibility? I think the answer is actually fairly simple. And I think it's this. Because in our fallen state, it's typically harder to submit to someone than take the lead, isn't it? Typically, isn't it more challenging to our pride in our fallen willfulness to submit to leadership that we find disagreeable And wasn't this ultimately Adam and Eve's problem in the garden? There we see them both refusing to submit to God's command that they abstain from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead, they willingly allow themselves to be convinced that submission is not only not required, but actually submission's a bad idea. Submission will lead to loss. Submission will promote unfair subjection. That's not fair. He knows that when you eat it, you will become like him, knowing good and evil. Why submit to that kind of inequity? We know their thinking was completely wrong, and it turns out that submission would have saved the human race from destruction of the fall. My conclusion? It appears that our primary challenge in all three of these foundational earthly relationships is willing submission. It's our primary challenge. Now, let's look at Paul's practical advice to Christians in the context of these three relationships, beginning with marriage. If you are not married, doesn't mean you never will be. So young people, even if I'm not dealing with you, or if you're not a child, or you're not a master, there are still principles that you should be taking in and preparing to apply when providentially God brings you into a place that they need to be applied. When you have children of your own, when you have a husband or a wife, or maybe you're the head of a household, something bigger than just your immediate family, maybe the head of a company, So, beginning with marriage, wives. No wonder, if this is the case, that willing submission is our standard problem, our difficulty, and that's the context in which the basic elements of the world tweak and try to get us to not serve with loving equity, harmonious love, then no wonder that Paul commands you wives to submit to your husbands. He seems to know what the most difficult situation of the three relationships is. Now, there should be some comfort for you in this, wives. Jesus has chosen and moved his apostle Paul to deliver this message exactly as Paul has, which means that our Savior, though he is a man and was never married, knows how challenging living up to this exhortation is at times. When you pray on this matter, ladies, our Lord and Savior understands the battle you face. For you men and husbands, it may be very difficult to understand what is required of your wives when they are challenged to submit to you on a matter of disagreement. That's where the challenge is, isn't it? If you have ever been asked, gentlemen, think of this. If you have ever been asked by your boss to do something decidedly stupid, and after clear, reasonable discussion, you make no headway with him or her, and you just have to do what they say and follow through on the stupid requirement, then that gives you a little taste of what your wife has to endure. Now, I don't know how often that happens for your wife individually and personally. I'll let her fill you in on that in some private moment between the two of you. But brethren, that's a difficulty. It's hard. Some of you work for almost intolerable employers at times. You know what I'm talking about. Note that wives, brethren, note also that wives are to be in submission to their own husbands. There's no element in Paul's exhortation that would allow the extension of a woman's submission to all men in general or allow for the extension of a wife's submission to the husband of another woman as if she were his wife. A husband should expect wifely submission from his own wife and not from another man's wife. It's not love to expect something different from that. That's not going to build the body up in harmony. Wives submit as is fitting in the Lord. Fitting in the Lord is the direct quote, meaning as is consistent with union with Christ. Do you want to love your husband with harmonious love in the context of the marriage in the church? This church is made up of marriages. then submit as is fitting in the Lord. If your husband's requirements align with the basic principles of the world, and submission will cause you to violate your allegiance to Christ to maintain allegiance to your husband, then you have to refuse to submit. Your first allegiance is to Christ. Also, fitting in the Lord, suggests that such submission is consistent with how God ordained the marriage relationship to operate from the beginning of creation. God's mind about marriage has not changed. Modern challenges to the wife's submission to her husband based on changes in our culture, societal development, those things are rendered without merit or authority. In other words, the wife is to be submissive in spite of any culture or societal pressure to alter the marital arrangement, the arrangement of authority in the marriage. Why? Because God's marital authority arrangement is fitting. It's consistent with the way God has established it from the beginning, and that will contribute to harmonious love. Ironically, think about it this way. Ironically, in the face of the pressure of present postmodern radical feminism, you ladies will have to refuse to submit to the world in order to submit to your husbands. If you have rebellious tendencies, by all means, express them there, not in your marriage. Be a countercultural wife. That's harmonious love. Husbands, let's talk about us now. As the head of your home, you are first the head of your marriage, the head of your wife. Ephesians 5.23, for the husband is head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now, Paul tells us in verse 19, husbands, love your wives. Only four words, five in Greek, but how much is packed into these few words, brethren? Now, we could run to 1 Corinthians 13 to review this iconic passage on the subject of defining Christian love. We could do that, but the immediate context of Colossians 3 is probably more impactful. Before commanding love, Paul has already laid out all of the holy ways we are to relate to one another. Mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with each other, forgiving each other. The list goes on. And he then summarizes all these things under his phrase in verse 14, and above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. This is a challenging call. This is a challenging command. Love, it seems, is the summation and the final cumulative expression of the image of Christ that's being renewed in us. We think of the garden and we think about the Imago Dei. We've talked about this, the image of God when he made man. We wander into the land of speculation where I've warned you there are few landmarks. We hope not to lose ourselves and we say, well, perhaps the image of God is justice, righteousness, judgment, reason. Animals do not express such things. They can't contextualize such things. Maybe that's it. I'm not here to challenge that. But here in verse 14, Paul has led us out of the realm of speculation and delivered us to a solid reality. If the image of God is anything, according to Paul, it's certainly expressed in Christ-like love. Husbands, you're to live out this aspect of the imago Dei, the image of God, in your relationship with your wives. This is what is being renewed in you. You are to be the example of the image of Christ being renewed. All that Paul has described leading up to verse 14, you are to live out in your relationship with your wife. Mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, long suffering, bearing with each other, forgiving. You're to live that out, which you don't. Which I don't. So what do we do? We repent. Wives forgive. We restart in the strength that God provides, and we do it because we must, because the Holy Spirit compels us to, because we love Christ, we love our God, and we love our wives by the grace of God. Now, let me help you with encouragement, because that's a heavy task, brethren, but for the grace of God. There's a promise of a reward here when you men do this, when we do this. Now, if this order seems too tall, too impossible when you consider your fallen nature, I understand. When you are tempted to give up, keep the promise of Colossians 3.14 before you. What promise? Well, be preoccupied with this thought. Love binds everything together in perfect harmony. There's the promise. Love binds everything together in perfect harmony. Love is the key to being bound to your wife in unity and engaging with her in perfect harmony. When your days seem to be filled with strife with your wife, ask yourself, well, have I been preoccupied with loving my wife the way Paul describes here in Colossians 3? Because you know what? If you haven't, it explains why there's not harmony. Because the promise is attached to obedience. If you've disobeyed, why would you have the promise, the reward? Also, husbands, note the particular sin that Paul identifies here in verse 19. Harshness. That is more accurately translated as being embittered. And it might not mean what you think it means. Surprised me. It's the same root word that we find in Revelations 10, 9, when if you recall, John eats the scroll and it's bitter in his stomach. The book that he ate created a condition of extreme discomfort, pain, irritation in John's stomach. What Paul is commanding, Paul is commanding those of us who are husbands to remove from our relationships with our wives any attitude, any approach, any speech, any behavior that deliberately operates toward bringing such pain, discomfort, and irritation to our wives. That does not mean that there will not be times when the things we say and the issues we need to address are necessarily unpleasant to our wives. Sin still has to be dealt with. Difficult family situations still need to be addressed. But when we deal with them, men, we are to do it in the most painless way possible. That's what Paul's teaching us. In other words, gentlemen, be gentle men. All right, let's talk about family. Children, are you listening or are you coloring? Okay, listen. Children, verses 20 and 21, obey your parents in everything. For this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Children, sons and daughters, obey your parents in everything. It's very simple, isn't it? Very clear. Paul speaks very plainly. I don't think this is confusing. You must obey them. It pleases God when you obey your parents. By implication, it's displeasing to God when you will not obey. When Paul says this is pleasing to God, he means more than that God is pleased. He means that you should keep in your minds that you should be doing everything out of a desire to please God, including obeying your parents. If you find you simply do things that are pleasing to yourself, but that's all you think about, and you don't think regularly about pleasing God, then you need to understand that there is a serious spiritual problem inside you. Your heart is not given to God. And if you do not love to please God, that tells you that your heart is wrong and it needs to be replaced with a heart that loves to please God. That's the kind of heart that loves to please mom and dad. Now, maybe you wonder, how can I tell if my heart loves to please God? Well, Paul has given you a way to tell here in Colossians 3. You boys listening? Does it please you to obey your parents because you know that pleases Jesus? If yes, thank God for giving you such a heart and ask Him to help you love Jesus even more. If you answer no, no, I do not see that I love to obey my parents, it's hard, I don't like it, and I don't think about loving Jesus and pleasing Him in obedience to my parents, then you need to repent of sin. And you need to go to God praying for a heart that loves Jesus and loves to please Him. And God rewards those who truly come to Him for such help. So go to Him all the time for this help. That's the best advice your pastor can give you. Fathers. This includes mothers as well. Fathers are identified due to their headship, but parents in general are, to apply Paul's words here, Do not provoke your children. Sorry, moms, you don't get a pass. What do we mean by provoke? I have seen so much error, brethren, in the application of this line of scripture over the years. Provoke literally means stir them up or excite them in an evil sense. We need to ask the question, what's this evil sense? What evil am I not to stir my children up to? What evil am I not to excite them to engage in? Paul doesn't say here. So generally we can say that Paul intends us to understand this statement more broadly. What do I mean by broadly? Well, let's consider broadly, do not stir them up. That means don't raise them in such a way that you are actively guiding them towards sinful behavior, or by neglect, passively allowing them to guide themselves towards sinful behavior. Because that's what human nature naturally does. Instead, raise them in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord. Ephesians 6 for fathers do not provoke your children to anger or to wrath but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord I've seen this misapplied so many times to think that parents can't make their children angry Nonsense that's not what Paul is teaching us You think the natural heart of fallen man loves to be corrected and guided toward righteousness Brethren, you know better You're Calvinists, you understand the tea and tulip. This is a silly application. Specifically, Paul says, do not stir them up. Or as Ephesians 6,4 says it more specifically, do not stir them up to anger or to wrath. It suggests that there's a specific way in which our raising of our children will stir them up to evil and sinful wrath. All right, what's that way? How do I avoid raising them that way? That's the question, isn't it? It would be odd to bring up such an important, I dare say vital issue, and then provide no context from which we can understand what we're to avoid as fathers raising their sons and daughters. Well, context is provided in Ephesians 6, 4 when we read, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The implication is clear. Whatever else stirring up to evil and wrath may mean, It at the very least means this. If we fathers refuse to bring up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, if we are too lazy or too weak or too rebellious or too distracted to obey this command, we are choosing by default to stir them up in an evil sense. Now let's apply this. Men, raise your sons and daughters with discipline. Believe the preacher, wise Solomon, in Proverbs 13, 24, when he says, whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him. There's Paul's point about harmonious love. This is where love appears in the context of parents and children. Is there any greater love than to spare your children evil? Proverbs is full of such commands to discipline our children and use the rod. Corporal punishment. It's necessary for the good of their souls. Proverbs 23, 14. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol, the grave. God himself chastens us, his children. Scripture tells us that he scourges every son whom he receives. And we know why. Because his will for us is that we be sanctified. And so should our will be for our children. That's harmonious love, active in the parent-child relationship. Children, you need to interpret that this way. When mom and dad discipline you with the rod or through some other means of correction, and it's painful, and you get a spank, they love you. That's why they're spanking you. That's why they're correcting you. They don't want to see your soul destroyed with evil. Instruction. What about instruction? Our children need to be taught the righteous requirements of a holy God. If they don't know the weight of the ethical demands of a thrice holy God, how will they ever feel the urgency to escape the wrath that is to come upon the children of disobedience? Why would they ever throw themselves upon God's mercy? Why would they ever come to Jesus for atonement and removal of that wrath? We also need to be careful what we train into our children. There's a warning. Proverbs 22.6 says, train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he's old, he'll not depart from it. Now this is, again, a frequently, I think, misapplied scripture. It's a difficult language. Literally, the original language carries this meaning. Train up a child in his way that he should go. And even when he's old, he'll not depart from it. You hear the difference? This promise is not just a promise of blessing. It's also a promise of warning. The preacher here warns us if we let our children choose to raise themselves and follow their hearts, choose their own way, they'll find it. And they'll follow it. And they will carry it with them all their lives to old age to the grave. No wonder Paul warns us in Colossians 3.21, lest they become discouraged. Lest we take the spirit out of them. I have never seen, and brethren, you know this is true. You can bear witness to this. I have never seen more sad, angry, empty, discouraged, spent, aimless, dispirited adults than those who were raised exactly as I have just exhorted you not to raise your children. A word to the wise is sufficient. We're out of time. I don't have time to break open labor another time. Another sermon when I struggle during the week to get everything together. I'll put a bookmark there. Brethren, I don't want you to feel discouraged by what I have just encouraged you and admonished you to deeply consider. That's not what Paul is doing here. He's not discouraging the Colossians. He's telling them, you have been renewed in the image of Christ. And I've already explained that the Imago Dei being renewed in you Covers harmonious love in the body of Christ in your marriages in your families We didn't get to it in merit in labor relationship So the work is already being done in you, but you also have to submit as children to their Heavenly Father God help us to do that And then we can expect that harmonious love will appear, will bring everything to one body in the church. We're disturbed by the breakups of churches. We've seen it. We've been through some of it. And we watch the division and denomination seem to be increasing even. Why is that happening? Very often, brethren, it's because we're not doing these fundamental things that Paul is teaching us build the harmony of the church. It's very practical, isn't it? It's not all about gushy feelings. It's about doing. So brethren, be encouraged. Continue in the work that you have begun. The work is a good work. Your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And the advantage will be in your marriages, in your relationship with your children, which I had time to explain it better, your relationship with your boss and your employees, and then in the church, there will be loving harmony. I give you that encouragement this morning. Let's pray.