Open your Bible, it's Colossians chapter three. Well, this is Palm Sunday. And as you've already heard, we are celebrating what Jesus has done for us and how 2 million people gathered in Jerusalem many years ago. I mean, think about it. You have the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. You had the Feast of the Passover and around 2 million people pack this city and they're here to celebrate the Passover. But there was also excitement in the air because there was a man named Jesus who claimed to be the Messiah. And he had done amazing works. In fact, one of the ones you heard Pastor Robert read was that he had raised Lazarus from the dead. So this is on the minds of all these people. And so they respond in worship of him. People line the streets, they take their coats off, they put them down. Jesus comes in on a donkey. And here they begin to yell out and they begin to sing Psalm 118. And they sing, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And imagine this scene as hundreds, possibly even thousands of his disciples. The Bible says a great multitude. Hundreds, possibly thousands are lining these streets as Jesus comes in there to Jerusalem. And the Pharisees are mad. In fact, they yell at Jesus while he's coming in. They say, hey, stop the disciples from doing this. And why are they mad? They're mad because there's a worship service going on here. And they didn't like that. In fact, two elements to worship are this. You submit yourself to a higher power and there's praise to that higher power. And here they're submitting themselves to Jesus as King. It's like this is the coronation of our King Messiah and they're praising the Lord and praising Him. We're going to talk about worship today. Now sometimes when we think about worship, we think about worship happening in a certain place, or a certain ceremony, or what we just did, we sang songs. And that is worship. But when the New Testament describes worship, it describes worship as so much more than that. Because worship isn't just relegated to a place or to some type of ceremony. It is something we do every day, really every moment of our lives. You see, everything you think, everything you say, everything you do is an act of worship. You are either consistently choosing to worship the Lord as you submit to Him, or you're choosing to worship yourself as you bow down to your own desires. I mean, this is a conversation I feel like I have with my kids every week, maybe sometimes every day. And that is, who are you worshiping? You see, we are all worshipers. We all worship something, I should say someone. It's either we're worshiping God or worshiping ourself. Now, my kids aren't in here today, so I can talk a little bit about them. But, you know, just a little example. If our children are in the backyard and they're playing with a soccer ball, this is something that's happened before. One of my children might go up to one of the other children and want to play the soccer ball. And they're willing to grab the soccer ball, push their sibling down to the ground, grit their teeth and say, I want this ball, right? And run away the other way. Okay. And they're willing, in some sense, to bow down to this soccer ball as an idol, right? I mean, they're thinking this soccer ball, having this inflated piece of rubber, will give them some type of happiness, right? And they're willing to act in a very unrighteous way to get this, to give them the happiness that they want, and to fill the emptiness they feel inside their souls. Now, do they actually get the happiness they want? No, they don't, right? They're still left empty. But in some sense, they're treating this ball as an idol. And ultimately, though, what they're doing is they're worshiping themselves. Because they are bowing down to themselves as the Lord of their lives. They're bowing down to their thoughts and their words and their actions are submitting to their own selfish desires. And they're saying, I want that ball and I will do whatever it takes to get that, even if it means to hurt someone else. And they'll follow their lust wherever that takes them. And so at that moment, they're choosing to worship themselves and opposing the worship. of the Lord. And the truth is, in Colossians here, Paul presents to us this idea that we are to worship the Lord. In fact, look at Colossians chapter 3 in verse 17. And in Colossians 3, 17, Paul says, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. The name of the Lord is a reference to the name of God. And the phrase, the name of the Lord, is used over and over in the Old Testament to refer to the worship of God. In fact, you can see this in 2 Samuel 6, 18. David is worshiping the Lord and he's sacrificing in the name of the Lord of hosts. And I could show you many other passages that show that this is a reference to worshiping the Lord. And so in Colossians 3, verse 17, Paul is saying that everything you do, whether it be in word or deed, needs to be done into the worship of the Lord. And what you see in Colossians also is you see at the end of the verse that we're to give thanks to God the Father through him. So you see submitting to the lordship of Jesus and the result of that, the outflow of that is that you will praise and thank the Lord. What you see here in Colossians is a call to worship Jesus in everything you say and everything you do. In fact, if you flip back to Colossians chapter 1 verse 12, you'll see this. Here he says we're to give thanks. And then after that, he goes through some verses and he talks about the supremacy of Christ. So we give thanks to the Lord based upon our knowledge that he is supreme. Colossians chapter 2 verse 6. Would you flip there? Colossians 2 verse 6 says that as you have therefore received Christ, that's the promised one, Messiah, Jesus, that's the Savior in Lord, that's the ruler of all, as you receive him, that's speaking of that time when you trust in Jesus Christ and you give your life over to him in complete faith, and you become a worshiper of Jesus, he says, so walk in him. So you receive him as your Savior and your Lord, and now you're to walk every day and worship of him. Verse 7, rooted and built up in him, established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with what? with thanksgiving. So you see we're submitting to the Lord, but also the outflow of that is praise and worship of Him. Now our worship to Jesus is not like the world's worship, right? They worship their gods, they follow their religion, so they can hopefully please their God. So they can hopefully get some kind of gift at the end of their life, which is called eternal life, and hopefully they can get into heaven. We don't worship Jesus for that reason. Because if we're a Christian, we've trusted that Jesus is the promised one, which means he has promised us that he has given us the gift of eternal life through his life. And we are now trusting him as our savior and following him as our Lord. And so we already have the gift. So what we do is we live our life different. We don't live our life hoping to gain his acceptance. We have it. We are his beloved. We are his children. We are holy in him. In fact, that's what you see in Colossians chapter three. And that's what he says in verse 12 there. And so we celebrate the lordship of Jesus because he has given us the gift of eternal life and he has done so much for us. Let me ask you this question. If you have received Jesus Christ, If God has truly done all this for you, if he looks at you and he treats you as his chosen holy child, how should you then live your life? And we just live in thanksgiving to the Lord. Won't your life be one that says, thank you, Jesus, I will follow you. In fact, that's what you see in Colossians 3, verses 12 through 17. In verses 12 through 14, he says, we're to submit your life to the lordship of Jesus by loving like he loved. And verse 15, we're to allow the Lord to rule your heart. So there you go, you're submitting to the peace of God, allowing Him to rule your heart, and what? And be thankful. So there's grateful submission. Verse 16, we're to allow the Christ's words to rule our thinking, and the result of that will be that we will say words of wisdom that teach and admonish and sing, and we're singing with what? With grace or gratefulness in our heart to the Lord. In verse 17, he kind of wraps all of this up and he says, OK, so no matter whether it's your mind or whether it's your words, whether it's your heart, whether it's your life, everything you do, everything you do should be done in the worship of the Lord. So whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And so a person who is saved by Jesus submits his heart and his life to Jesus as Lord. And he does so in praise because he wants to praise his Savior. So verses really 12 through 17 are talking about the new person in Christ and how he is now a worshiper of Christ. And I've created a definition here on that passage, on Colossians 3, verse 17. Hey, if you could help me up there, sometimes it's going to get stuck. If you see me going like this, just go ahead and click to the next one. Worship is a continuous, this is one of my definitions, worship is a continuous consciousness that Jesus is Lord. So it's being conscious that He is the Lord and then a continuous response of praise to Him. Maybe a little simpler one. is this right here, worship is a choice to submit gratefully to Jesus as Lord. So that's what we're doing every day of our life. We're choosing to submit gratefully to Jesus as Lord. And you may ask, well, Ben, what does that look like in my life? What does that look like in my marriage? What does it look like in my parenting. What does it look like at work? Well, I'm glad you asked. Because that's what the next couple of verses are about. Verses 18 through chapter 4, verse 1. Because, you know, worshiping the Lord in your daily life is not theoretical. It's not just theological. It is very, very practical. And so if you look in verses 18 and 19, You see that he applies this truth in the most intimate relationship between two humans, and that's the marriage union. If you look in verses 20 through 21, he speaks of the parent-child relationship. In verses 22 through chapter 4, verse 1, he speaks of the master-slave relationship, which for most back then took place in the home. And if you notice in these nine verses here, Paul uses the word Lord six times to refer to the lordship of Jesus and how we're to worship him in our everyday life. And one of the most difficult places to apply the lordship of Jesus Christ is amongst those who know us the best, isn't it? That's the hardest place, and that's usually in the home. And also it's very difficult to do it when you're under an authority figure. So before we dive into this passage some more, let's pray. Shall we do that? Father, we need your wisdom. Spirit, we need you to speak to our hearts. And we want this to be very practical. And so, Father, on behalf of everyone in here, we pray, pour out your Spirit upon us. Help us to see how we, by your grace, can be true worshipers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And align our hearts through your grace in faith to you. In Jesus' name, amen. So how can a person practically worship Jesus as Lord in your home? And the first way we're going to see is what worship looks like for the wife. Worship for a wife means she puts herself under the leadership of her husband. Verse 18 says, Wives, submit to your own husbands as is fitting in the Lord. The verb submit here literally means to voluntarily put yourself under the authority of someone else. Now, this is not a popular idea in our society. Honestly, even saying it up here might make some people a little nervous, okay? And the reason for this is because this is opposed, isn't it, in our society. It's dismissed by popular culture. It's misconstrued by most people. And it's misunderstood by many Christians. So I think it's important for us, first of all, to talk about what submit to your own husbands is not. First of all, it does not mean that the wife is the slave of the husband. It does not mean that the wife is serving as a slave of the husband. This does not mean that she must be complicit in his sin, or she must sin against God in order to follow him. It does not mean that a lady should submit to other men. Notice he says in this passage, he says, to your own husband. So this is talking about the marriage covenant. This does not mean that the wife is inferior to her husband. In fact, Genesis chapter one, verse 27. says, teaches that both man and woman are made in the image of God. So one gender is not made more in the image than the other gender is. They're equally made in the image of God. And they were made equal in their personhood. But they are distinct, right? I mean, men and women are distinct, no matter what our society says, right? They have different chromosomes, right? Isn't that how that works? Somehow it works like that? Ask your science teacher. Their biological makeup is different, right? Read your science book. And they have different roles assigned by God in the home. In fact, Galatians 3, verse 28, I'll go back to this, says that in Christ, there's an equal share in the blessings of salvation. So what does it mean, submit to your own husbands? Well, you can write this down if you want to. It means that each spouse, is equal in personhood, but God has given them distinct roles to fulfill in the home. It means each spouse is equal in personhood, but God has given them distinct roles to fulfill in the home. And what is the role of the wife? Well, Genesis chapter two says that the role of the wife is that she is a helper to her husband. Both Adam and Eve had responsibilities given to them by God, and her role in the marriage was to support and encourage her husband to fulfill the role as leader in the home. And she used to work in union with her husband to accomplish the tasks that God has for their family, for their family. And so they pray together, they talk together, they should make goals together, and she's supporting him as he leads that. So this is not a 50-50 leadership. This is a hundred percent of her fulfilling her role and a hundred percent of him fulfilling his role. In fact, I think it's interesting that even in our secular society, they recognize this. I read an article by a lady who is a writer and she also teaches dancing. And I'm talking about like ballroom dancing and things like that. Salsa, tango, all that kind of stuff. Okay. Partner dancing. And it's interesting to see in this article, just the correlation between partner dancing and marriage. And I don't know where you stand in all that kind of stuff. I'm not up here endorsing a certain type of dancing, okay? But I think it's interesting to see that the secular society recognizes the principles that we're talking about here. Let me read her article. She says, the most difficult thing to master in ballroom dance, salsa, tango, swing, or any other kind of partner dance is not in the steps. It's not the technique. It's the interaction with your partner. And wouldn't you say that's probably true in marriage? The most difficult thing in marriage is the person, the people. I was going to say the other person, but it's actually probably you. And they must coordinate their moves perfectly. And the only way to achieve that is for one person to direct the moves of the other person and the other person to follow. So who leads? When partner dance, one partner is facing forward while the other has the back to the direction of travel. And obviously the person who should lead is a person who can see where they're going. And that in fact is by a rule, the person who is taller. Politically correct, though it may be usually, that is who? The man. So here she says usually the man is the one, even though it's politically incorrect. The point is this, is what? If you're going to have a good dance, one person follows, one person leads. It's chaos to have two people trying to lead this, isn't it? That's a principle of life. And it's interesting to see that God made marriage in a very similar way. One must lead, one must follow for there to be unity and for there to be beauty. Just because you occupy a different role and God has given you a distinct function and differing gifts does not mean you are less significant or you are superior to someone else. One pastor said it this way. He said the divine calling of a wife is to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it out through her gifts. It's an attitude that says, I delight for you to take the initiative in our family. I am glad when you take responsibility for things and lead with love. I don't flourish in the relationship when you are passive, talking to the husband, and I have to make the family work. So the idea there is she's encouraging his leadership. So the daily choice of a wife to voluntarily support the leadership of her husband Get this, it's an act of worship, not of the husband, okay? Don't get that wrong, man, right? You are not God, so no one should be worshiping you in the home. But following the leadership of your husband is truly one of the ways that you as a wife can worship the Lord. If Paul said this at the end of verse 18, he says, for this is fitting in the Lord. And therefore, as a wife, you must consider every thought and every word and every action towards your husband as an opportunity to worship the Lord in thanksgiving. Well, we're done with the wife. Let's go to the husband now. In verse 19. He talks about worship for the husband, what that looks like. Worship for the husband means he unconditionally sacrifices his desires for the good of his wife. Verse 19 says, The word love here is the word agape in the Greek. Agape was a distinctly Christian word that described a love that was unconditional in self-sacrificing. It's used in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 25 to speak of the husband's love that he should have for his wife and comparing that to the love that Jesus Christ had for his church. So Jesus came to serve, right? Jesus came and he sacrificed his life. Jesus came, he gave up his rights for the good of the church, for the good of us. And a husband must do the same thing. He must serve his wife, sacrifice for her, surrender his rights for her benefit. And as a new person in Christ, a husband should gratefully submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ by loving his wife. And as a husband, you worship Christ most clearly when you are choosing to unconditionally sacrifice your desires for her good. It's interesting, this word agape is found three times in the book of Colossians. Look at verse number 12. It's found first there where we're called the beloved of God. Then we see it again in verse 14 when we are told to love one another, put on love. And I think verses 12 through 13 actually describe what verse 14 commands us to do. So which means for husbands, if you want to know if you're truly worshiping the Lord and how you're treating your wife, maybe go through verses 12 through 14 and see if that describes your marriage. I think we can come to a worship service like this. We can lift our hearts and praise and sing and say, man, I love to worship the Lord. But your true worship, husband, your actual celebration of the Lordship of Jesus Christ took place, yes, in here. But this morning, when you got up and you chose whether or not you were going to submit your heart to Jesus Christ and how you treated your wife. when it's Colossians chapter 3 verse 12 says, you treated her as God treats you, and that is you treat her as your beloved. And how you show your affection to her and you're kind to her. And she knows that she is secure in your love. It's unconditional. She doesn't question at all if you're if you love her, if she is your beloved. When as verse 12 says this morning, you got up and you treated her with tenderness. When you were kind to her, even though you didn't have your coffee yet, but you still had the Holy Spirit, right? When you left your clothes on the floor this morning, and she said, could you please pick your clothes up and put them in the dirty laundry? And you said, I'm sorry I did that. I was lazy. And you humble yourself. and you have humility. When you might have heard those comments a lot, like every day for the past 50 years, and you still are long-suffering, and you still remain humble and kind. And as verse 13 says, you admit when you're wrong. My dad said to me when I got married, he says, one of the best things you can do is every day, just look at your wife and say, I was wrong, will you forgive me? And I said, what about? He said, it doesn't matter, just say it. Okay. And I haven't done that by the way, but I probably should do that more. And then also to forgive her when she wrongs you, because no matter how great the sin she has sinned against you, your sin was so much greater against the Lord and he still forgave you. And above all, verse 14, that you intentionally sacrifice your desires because you value her and you love her. And men, the reality is we're selfish, aren't we? We're spiritually lazy. We are quick to abdicate our responsibility as servant leaders. And why is that? Well, I think it's probably because of the end of verse 19. What does the end of verse 19 say? It says, husbands, love your wives in what? Do not be bitter toward them. Bitterness destroys marriages. A husband can become bitter towards his wife when he refuses to forgive her or to ask for forgiveness when he has wronged her. A husband can become bitter with his wife when he allows problems to remain unsolved in their marriage and they just fester in his heart. When he chooses to internalize his frustrations or when he selfishly believes his rights are violated. Bitterness is kind of like this piece of bread up here. You ever had a piece of bread and you see a little green spot on top and you realize there's mold there, don't you? But you know, if you were to put that under a microscope, maybe cut that open, put it under a microscope, you would see that there's long roots that are spreading throughout that bread. Roots that you can't see on the surface. And what appears on the surface doesn't reflect what's really happening below. And bitterness grows in the same way. One little bit of bitterness can start to spread throughout your heart and contaminate your whole life. And it can start in your marriage. You can be bitter about something and it begins to spread and it'll affect your marriage. It'll affect your children. It will probably affect your livelihood. And ultimately, bitterness is a symptom of a greater problem. Because your greater problem is this, is that you're a worshiper of yourself. And you're not submitting on a daily basis to Jesus Christ as your Lord. You're submitting to your own desires. in your own ways, and you're willing, like that child with that soccer ball, you're willing to destroy your family to get what you want, because ultimately what you want is you want yourself to be the one in charge. But if your husband, who's a new creature in Christ, chosen and holy and beloved by your Father in heaven, you can, by God's grace, worship the Lord by loving your wife like Christ loves. Well, how about in the next relationship? And that is in the parent and child relationship. And verse 20 speaks of this. Verse 20 says, Worship for a child means a child is submissively attentive to his parents. A child is submissively attentive to his parents. The Greek word obey actually has a lot more meaning to it than its English counterpart. Literally obey means to, and here in the Greek, to listen under. To pay careful attention to someone in authority. So we could actually say it this way, I don't know of any versions that translate it this way, but you could actually translate Like this, children, be submissively attentive to your parents. So this is submissive attentiveness. This idea is a key concept actually in the book of Proverbs. So we're not going to go through the book of Proverbs, but I just listed some verses up there. And in the first nine chapters of Proverbs, ten times Solomon, who wrote the book of Proverbs, tells his son some wisdom. And one of those things he says to him is, give me your attention. Give me your attention. And I think we can all agree that in America, our children, probably all of us as Americans, have an attention deficit problem. Would you say that's probably true? And it's interesting, Paul in the New Testament, Solomon and Proverbs presents to us the greatest need our children have. And that is they need to be submissively attentive. And in some sense, all children have attention deficit disorder, right? Amen, okay, there we go. And some have it to a certain degrees more than others for various reasons, okay? Anyways, we're not going to get into that. But the book of Proverbs calls the lack of attention of a child, and the lack of their attention on something that they're supposed to value, which in Proverbs is wisdom, he calls that foolishness. Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. And a foolish child places value on his immediate desires, on his natural instinct. I mean, that's what a foolish child does. That's what a child does. That's why foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, right? Another way to say it is this, is he worships himself. He worships himself. And so we all desire for our children, if you have children, you desire for them to obey, right? So what is obedience? I think one of the problems we have in America that we see obedience as the end result, right? I mean, as Americans, we're all about results, right? Get the healthcare bill passed, build the wall, get the results done. That's what people want, right? But, well, no, don't say amen to that. Those are examples to you. Okay, but we all, the people want results. In other words, we say to our children, you know, clean your room. And we think obedience is having your room cleaned. Like the end result is obedience. But actually it's interesting that many other cultures have a broader idea of what obedience is. In fact, this is the Greek, oh, this is the Greek, no, it's Chinese. This is the Chinese symbol right here for listening and for parents telling their children to listen. Kind of the idea there is this is the symbol for obedience. And notice all the different elements that you see up there. You see here that you see the ears, you see the eyes, you have a line there that describes the undivided attention, and then you have the heart. So it's not about the result in the Chinese culture, it involves all those things coming together. In the Jewish culture, when they greet someone, they'll say, peace be to you. And the idea is they point to their heart, they point to their lips, they point to their head. And the idea is that my attention is given to you. You have my heart, you have my lips, and you have my head, which includes my eyes and my ears and my mind, okay? So peace be to you. And the person says, and to you, peace. And the idea there is this, is that you have my attention. My focus is upon you. And biblical obedience, too, is more about the instruction of attentiveness than it is about the desired results. I mean, notice Proverbs chapter 4. And we're Americans, we're like this. OK, we want our children to obey. So verse 24 is our first verse we go to. Put away from you a deceitful mouth. Stop your lying, go to your room. We skip all that and we go right to that and go to your room, learn some wisdom, tell the truth next time, right? So as Americans, we look just at that result. But notice Solomon starts with helping them focus their attention on what Solomon knows is valuable. What does he know is valuable? It's wisdom. Notice Solomon starts with helping them focus their attention by helping them focus their physical attention. He says over and over, listen with your ears, watch with your eyes. And biblical obedience starts with children, teaching children at the youngest age to give you their physical attention, to give you their physical attention. And I think in our society, unfortunately, many parents miss this. And they fail to teach their children the value of physically paying attention and giving your undivided, as we say, your undivided attention. And that is to say that we need to, as parents, train our children to have the self-control to focus on what is valuable. And let me just give you a little tip. This is from Ben, not from Jesus. Those little things they have in their hands, They're not valuable. Well, they're financially valuable, but they're not valuable for wisdom. And it's kind of funny to think about. Like we have our children, you see like these two and three-year-olds are running around with these little, you know, six, $700 little phones, you know, these mini computers. When I was growing up, we had this little 386 in our house and my parents were like, be careful, don't break it. They're afraid. I was going in, doing the code and trying to learn that kind of stuff. And they were afraid that if I was going to click the wrong button, I would break something. And now we're running, our kids are running around, these little two-year-olds, you know, running around the house, scrolling on their little phones. But we have so many distractions in our day, don't we? We have so many things that draw the attention away, children's attention away from what is valuable. And as parents, it's our job to teach obedience, which starts with physical attentiveness. This morning, I came into our house, coming back from studying here, and I saw my little two-year-old, and he had something in his mouth. And I thought he had some food in his mouth, right? So I went up to him, I was like, hey, buddy, give me a little kiss, you know? And he went like this, and I was like, oh, okay, well, let's swallow what he already had. And I look, he had a Lego in his mouth. Yeah, I probably shouldn't say that maybe publicly. Well, whatever. But anyways, he had a Lego in his mouth. His mom didn't know, okay? And so I went up to him and I said, hey buddy, let me see that. So I took it out of his mouth and I got down, I looked at him in the eyes and I gave him the instruction. He gave me his physical attention. And I looked at him and I said, we do not, so kindly with authority, we do not put these things in our mouth. Now give me your physical response. I didn't say that, but say yes. Yes. What are you not going to do? Put this in your mouth. And here's the consequence when you do that. If you do that again, the consequence is this. There's a consequence. What's your consequence? So a two-year-old telling me. So physically I'm helping him. And there's times, he didn't do it this morning, but there's times when he goes like this. I'm like, hey buddy, look at me. Come in. So I have, come here, look at me. Come here. And he's going like this. Looking up. He's not giving me his attention, isn't he? He's doing that on purpose, right? And so sometimes he needs to feel some physical discomfort so he can physically give me his attention. And what are you ultimately going after? What are you going after? Well, it's the next part there. Proverbs chapter four, verse 20, is that you want them to have your, you want their mental attentiveness. You're going for their heart, right? Verse 20 says, keep them in the midst of your heart. Verse 23, keep your heart with all diligence. Why? Because what's in your heart comes out in your life. And so what you give your attention to, if what you say is valuable, and you give your attention to that thing, it's going to be in your heart, and it's going to be valuable in your heart, and what's valuable in your heart comes out in how you live, and comes out to verse 24. And following, the verse is following that. So it's so important that we teach our children to be attentively submissive to our instructions. And ultimately, parenting is teaching children to be worshipers of God. And you're like, where did you get that from? Well, look at Colossians 3, verse 20. It says, children, be submissively attentive to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. And to the Lord in this verse is very interesting. Actually, it's in the dative, which means that you could translate it like this, in the Lord. So children, obey your parents for this is pleasing in the Lord. In other words, in the realm of thinking and considering that he is the Lord of everything, that he's the Lord of your life. And so a child, if he's a new creature or she's a new creature in Christ, she can think of Jesus Christ or he can think of Jesus Christ as the Lord and he can obey and keep his attention in some sense on the Lord, value him and respond according to that value system. And therefore, every parenting moment is a moment to teach your children to worship Jesus as Lord. And parenting is teaching children to give their attention to God and value the Lordship of Christ, and then to joyfully submit to Him. So that's for children. And if you're scared, we're gonna go through all these. It gets shorter, don't worry, okay? And the next one is for parents. Parents, how can you worship the Lord in your parenting? Verse 21, fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. So worship for parents means, worship for parents means their parenting encourages the child to be successful in obedience. This word for fathers can mean just that, fathers. It's also translated in other places as meaning mothers and fathers as a pair. But I think Paul probably actually intended to use this word. It's a different word than the word found in verse number 20. And I think he did it to point out that, and I'm guessing here, okay, but I think he did it to point out that fathers are the leaders of the home. And also I think that sometimes as fathers, We can be the ones that discourage our children, can't we? I mean, men, do you notice a pattern here in this passage? Don't be bitter to your wife. Don't provoke your children. And we as men can be tempted to be harsh in our home, can't we? You can say it this way. We're tempted as men to worship ourself and to severely and fleshly demand everyone in the home bows to us. However, it's the desire, it should be the desire of parents to create an environment in the home that helps our children succeed in submitting their hearts to the Lord. And the truth is, if we are truly worshiping the Lord as new creatures in Christ, we will seek to do everything we can to help our children be successful in their relationship with God. But the sad thing is many times as parents, what do we do? Sometimes we can discourage our children. And I'm not going to go through all these. I'm just going to mention here just a list of some things to think about. Like how could a parent discourage their children in their relationship with the Lord? One is sometimes parents, we can use shame and guilt as motivation. It's kind of like, you want to grow up to be a loser? And the idea is if I shame you enough, then you're going to change. They're not. Why do you keep getting this wrong? Are you dumb or something? We call them names. Thinking that belittling them like that is going to change their view. It's not. Sometimes we're harsh in our tone. Maybe we yell at our kids. Get down here. Or we say words like shut up. You stop annoying me. And those seem like very harsh things to say from pulpit, isn't it? But you know the reality is? It's going on in a lot of our homes, isn't it? Number three, comparing siblings with other siblings. If you're just more like your sister, taking your personal frustrations out on your kids, you have a bad day at work and you come home and your words just slaughter everyone in the home because you're having a bad day. Being inconsistent. Today, it's okay to throw balls in the house. Tomorrow, it's not. So I'm mad. Or how about failing to give clear expectations? This happened to Jesus. He's 12 years old, right? He's in the temple. I mean, he's doing what his father in heaven called him to do. And his parents come in, they're like, what are you, what are you doing? You're supposed to be with us. He's the sinless son of God, so he didn't make a mistake, did he? It was their fault. In other words, they didn't give clear expectations of what they expected of him, or giving unreasonable expectations, or pushing them to excel in areas in which they're not gifted or don't like. It's like, I played baseball growing up. I loved it. I don't know why you don't like it. I pay a lot of money for this. And we need to, by the grace of God, create an environment in our home that encourages our children to value the Lordship of Christ and to direct their full attention to Him as Lord. And even our parenting really is an opportunity to worship the Lord. I mean, we can have a worship service throughout our day as we parent. A lot of your moms are looking at me, you're like, oh boy. I don't know what you're talking about, worship service. But seriously, we can have a worship service in our heart as we say, I'm gonna worship the Lord. Let me put it this way to you. If you're a new creature in Christ, you should, in your parenting, be joyfully submitting to Jesus Christ. And if you're not, if you're not in your parenting, what leads you to believe that your child will turn out any different? I mean, if you worship Baal, it's more than likely your child's gonna worship Baal. And if you bow to yourself on a daily basis in your parenting, it's very likely that your child will bow to their own self as the Lord of their life. Children learn from what is taught and what is caught. Well, the last pair of people we have in here are the slave and master relationship. Now you might look at this and have a lot of questions, and if you do, you can email me and I'll email you back what I wrote about it, but I'm not going to present today. But you look through verses 22 through 24 and you can see what God, how you can worship as a person we're gonna call the slave, an employee, as an employee. Look at verse 22. Bond servants obey to do what you're hired to do, follow the policies and the guidelines, obey in all things, except when your boss is wrong. Oh, wait, I'm sorry. Someone must have inserted that in there. No, it says in all things, doesn't it? According to the flesh, not with eye servants, eye service, as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. So there's the worship of God. Fearing God is talking about worshiping God. In verse 23, in whatever you do, do it heartily, work as hard as you can, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord, you'll receive the reward of your inheritance. For what? You serve the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, imagine a slave that's going to this church here, and in church they're equal. I mean, the master and slave, they walk in, they're equal in Jesus, right? But then the slave goes home, and he's in the field, and he's plowing his field, and he's like... Thinking about church, Tychicus got up and Tychicus is talking about how people are saved. They're starting churches here and starting churches there. And he's like, wow. And he's plowing his field saying, man, I wish my life was like that. I mean, I got this this ring in my ear that says I am owned by that guy in there and I can't do anything about it. If I run away, I'm dead. So here I am plowing my field. What am I supposed to do? And he considers a passage like this. And Paul writes, when you serve in that position, you can actually serve and plow that field serving Jesus. So you actually can serve and plow that field with enthusiasm, right? I mean, you can be plowing that field with having a worship service out there and knowing that at the very end, when you're done plowing that field, you're gonna walk away, you're gonna go, Jesus, that was for you right there. And you can serve the Lord in that way. And you might think to yourself, as you're plowing that field, as a servant, you might think, what'd I get out of this? I'm not getting paid anything. I get my food and maybe a shilling here or there or whatever. But what does he say you get paid? Verse 24, it's not really a payment. He says, knowing that from the Lord, you receive the reward of an inheritance. As a slave, you had no such thing as an inheritance. You're a slave. But this slave, he's not a slave. He's a son. He is a child of God and he received the inheritance. So you're there working at your job and you're like, what am I doing in this job? It's so boring. My boss is this guy, you know, he's not very nice to me. But you can worship the Lord in how you work, knowing that you're working for Jesus and it matters for eternity. And then for management, worship for management means they treat employees right and have no bias. And some of you in here say, you know what? You need to really preach a whole message on that one verse. You know, Colossians 4.1. Well, maybe someday I will, but I'm not going to be able to do it today here. Let me wrap up and finish up with this. If you're a new creature in Christ, you have been saved by God. And you are now a worshiper of Christ. God calls you to submit to the Lord in every area of your life, whatever you do. In word or deed, do it all in the worship of God, in the worship of Jesus. Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to him. So let me ask this as we close. Wives, are you worshiping the Lord in how you treat your husband? How you partner with your husband? Husbands, are you worshiping the Lord in how you treat your wife? Children, are you gratefully submitting to your parents, understanding that in your attentiveness and your submission, your being submissively attentive to your parents is a way for you to worship the Lord? Are you gratefully submitting to your parents? Parents, are you teaching your children to worship the Lord and creating an environment in your home that encourages them to do so? Employees, are you working as hard as you can in your place of employment, knowing that your job is a daily worship service? And the reality is that even many of us in here who have been changed by Jesus and are new people, new creatures in Christ, we need to be submitting our heart to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Would you stand with me? I'll ask our pianist to come and begin playing. I think it'd be appropriate just for a minute or two to have a moment of silence, just reflect upon these truths that we've talked about. It's a little tough to talk about these things, isn't it? I mean, it was hard to study these things and then have to go home and live it. And I think it's appropriate here to just think about and reflect upon, am I worshiping the Lord in my daily life? And we sang about worshiping Jesus this morning, but am I doing that in my home? If the Lord is working in your heart, would you please respond to him right now? Give him your marriage. Give him your parenting. Give him your daily tasks. Depend on his spirit to help you daily worship him. Satsang with Mooji Well, the good news, we don't have to do this in our own strength. That we have the Holy Spirit, we have the grace of God, and we, in some sense, stand beneath the cross of Jesus. and we depend upon Him. We worship Him, but we worship Him in dependence, don't we? And I don't want this message, hopefully it hasn't discouraged you, hopefully it has helped you to rethink, in some sense, renewed your mind with what your goal should be every day and how you should be thinking about things. Let's go to our knees, let's go to God in prayer and ask Him for help in our marriages, in our homes, in our place of employment.