And I think it fits with some of the ideas that we're talking about today. This week is Juneteenth, okay? Juneteenth. One of these days here, June 19th is Juneteenth. And I'm going to mention that because not only is it Father's Day and we've got this text about, you know, children and that, but it's also about slaves there in this section of our scripture, see? So it's a hard topic to cover, and so bear with me, but we'll ask the Lord to help us. The title is, Earthly Obedience is Heavenly. I have to shorten these titles. I mean, I might have made it longer. Earthly Obedience is Heavenly Obedience. Okay? Earthly Obedience is Heavenly Obedience. And the text is Ephesians 6, 1 through 9, which we've read. Let's pray. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we know that you are here, you've spoken by your words. May, as we've claimed, we say scripture alone dictates what we do and what we believe. So when we read these words, may we put them to practice for your glory. And we ask it in the name of your Son, Amen. So, Looking in your Bibles if you have one, but if you don't, just look at the text in the bulletin, which is there on page eight. I'm gonna go back a little bit behind that earlier in the book because right before this Paul was talking about marriage between a husband and wife and how the wife has to essentially it says be subject that means to obey her husband so the wives have to obey the husband that's Ephesians 5 22 and then looking at our text in Ephesians 6 Children obey your parents. So there's a lot of obedience going on here. Okay, in this text, right? Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise so that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. So we're looking at those who must obey right now. The wives must obey the husbands. The children must obey the parents. And you'll notice when the wives obey, chapter 5, verse 22, it says, as to the Lord. See? So that's where this title comes from. Earthly obedience is heavenly obedience. And the manner we obey is as we obey the Lord. And it's an obedience to the Lord when we do obey the one that we need to obey. So we're obeying the Lord when the wife obeys the husband. Earthly obedience is heavenly obedience. So chapter 6 verse 1, children obey your parents in the Lord. And obviously you get benefits. He says here, you know, if you obey your parents, you're going to live longer. It's just a fact. They care. They want you to live well. Yeah. Good job, Philip. And they've lived it already. You should get some wisdom from them. Okay. All right. Then slaves, verse 5, chapter 6, verse 5. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh. with fear and trembling in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ. See? Same idea is that you obey them like you obey Christ and not by way of eye service as men pleasers but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God. See? So obedience, earthly obedience, is heavenly obedience. You see? with good will render service as to the Lord and not to men knowing that whatever good thing each one does this he will receive back from the Lord whether slave or free whether you're a slave or a free person when you do the things that you should do to others that you owe to them as a servant of that person whether it's the government you owe the government your obedience to the laws the Bible says you know and and one of the things that the Declaration of Independence said, of the United States, it said, of course they weren't the United States at the time, but the colonies, the Declaration of Independence of the colonies of the states of North America, said that we are endowed with inalienable rights, okay? We are all created equal, okay, and endowed with inalienable rights, among which, not only these three, but our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which was originally going to be the pursuit of financial gain. But they decided, well, not everyone finds their happiness in financial gain, so we'll just put the pursuit of happiness, okay? So, originally it was going to be, you should be able to do your economic things and deal, you know, with people as you are free to, should be free to, you know, do those things that benefit yourself in your happiness. So, freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Anyway, what that was getting at, in part, was the previous view of the world, Which was that the king had the rights. The divine right of the crown or of the king. The divine right. Because the Bible says you should obey those who have the rule over you. Because they're placed there by God. So the king has the divine right from God to be a monarch and tell you what to do. You know, it was a distorted understanding of that part of the Bible. So this Declaration of Independence is a beginning of freedom from the tyranny of the monarchy. Okay? That we are created equal to the king. That's the point of it. We are all created equal to the king and endowed with inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Okay. But that doesn't change the fact that it also means that we as individuals, white, black, Jewish, Hispanic, are also created equal, okay? And have those rights. But we're equal to the king also, okay? All right. King, what was the king? I forgot his name. Anyway. George, King George. I should have said, it's George, right? It's got to be George. The answer is always George. So we see obedience, though, is important, but it's as as if we're obeying God. Now, I tell my students that I'm tutoring, your teacher, they don't deserve your work, do they? They're awful teachers, and you hate to do your work for your teacher because your teacher's not very good, is he or she? But guess what? You're not working for them, you're working for God. You're working for Jesus. You should do it like you're working for Jesus, and Jesus deserves your good work. And you should turn in good work because it's for God and for Jesus. You're working for them. And so you might have a bad husband, but you're as a wife, you've got to obey as to the Lord. If you're a child, you obey your parents as unto the Lord too. I mean, it says, in the Lord, for this is right. And they might not be perfect parents, you still have to obey them. And if you're a slave, you might have a bad master. You have to obey that master. You'd think Paul would be saying here, it's time for women's rights, and it's time for children's self-determination, and it's time for slaves to be freed, but he doesn't. He says, when you have a relationship of these kinds, you're supposed to obey. Now, he also comes back through, we go back through now, for the husbands, he says in chapter 5 verse 25, he says, husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church. You gotta love like you're Jesus, meaning you have to die for your wife, even if she's not great, like he died for us and we're not great. Okay, you gotta love your wife. So there's instructions for the master side too, right? But that doesn't mean that as a master you can be a bad master just because the one you're the master of isn't good, and vice versa. Just because the master isn't good doesn't mean the one who serves or obeys can be bad. Neither one of those is correct. You have to do your job. These commands are for you. It's not telling you what you deserve. It's telling you what you owe to the other. That's what it's telling. So we need to take it to ourselves and say, I owe what I've been told here that I owe to give as to the Lord. We like to say, well, this is what it tells you to do. We love to do that, don't we? But it's speaking to ourselves. So as I said, the husbands, yes, to love. And then the parents, verse 4. Fathers, 6-4, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. And we're not going to go into all these things in great detail, because I want to focus on slavery because of Juneteenth being here. Is this the first year or the second? Fourth year? No way. Okay. Well, anyway, it's only been briefly that we've had this as a national holiday, but every state had recognized it several, several, several years ago. And it hadn't been a national one. But, and I want to say this, I'm so glad for it because we used to have a holiday that celebrated the deaths of those in the Civil War. celebrated, remembered. It was called, I'm sorry, it was called Memorial Day. And I need to move along. But Memorial Day, which was to remember the dead from the Civil War They tacked on the dead from every war and pretty soon we were just remembering all the dead from all the wars and we forgot about the fact that Memorial Day was specifically for the Civil War. So now we have a holiday which is specifically about our Civil War which is Juneteenth. So that's a good thing because we had lost the focus on the Civil War which was what was Memorial Day. And of course Juneteenth is the date of the freeing of the slaves in Texas. Theoretically, once some of the last slaves that were freed, but actually Kentucky and Delaware had a legal thing happen later than that, which freed all the slaves there. And New Jersey had like six slaves until a little bit after that. Like just a few slaves left in New Jersey. I'm from New Jersey. What? They were the last. If you look at New Jersey's official website, they'll say, we had the last slaves. Man. How awful. OK. Just a few. All right. But you know, this is a difficult subject, I know, okay? And so I'll have some opinions here, and you can disagree with me, all right? It's an opinion. But here's one, fella. Here's a fact. 2% of Northerners died in our Civil War. which is equivalent to four million people today. It's as if four million people today died in a war. If you compare that with all our other wars, I'm sure it's much larger by like an order of magnitude, okay? The Northerners died and died and died, just like the Southerners died and died. But speaking of the Northerners who were fighting to free, in part, the slaves. In part, is why they were fighting. 2% of the population, which is equivalent to 4 million people if you look at today's population. Now, agree or disagree? U.S. Congressman Burgess Owens, who is an African-American congressman, has an opinion. He says when those Northerners died, that was reparation paid in full. He says. Now you can agree or disagree. But reparations is a hot topic, a big issue. If you want to hear what I have to say about it, you'll have to go back five years to March 10th, 2019, my sermon on Psalm 10. My title for that psalm is, Lord, Stop the Wicked Oppressors. And that's because that's what David is singing about that. He's singing, God, stop these oppressors. And so you can listen to my opinions there about, but it's based on the scripture about social justice and reparations. So I cover that in that sermon. So we're not going to be able to cover it in detail. But to say briefly, I wouldn't expect a, a poor white person to pay reparations to a rich black person. You know, just an example. I mean, there were states that ended their slavery before this country became a country in the North. A couple of states outlawed slavery before even the Constitution. Some say this country was founded on evil. No. Every step of this country was a direction towards freedom. It just didn't happen overnight. It was step by step. It's a long story that we can't tell right now. But step by step, with each step, until the tension between those who saw one view and those who saw the other view reached a point where some had to split away. And the others said, no, you're not allowed to split away. We have to resolve this issue, and we have to stay united, or we will fall down. And it was resolved with the death of what's the equivalent of millions of people. So why slaves? Why did God create that institution? You know God made that? Just like God takes lives. God is responsible ultimately for whatever is in this universe. Why did he choose to have something like slavery? Well, we'll get to that in a minute. First of all, the enslaved Jews of the Old Testament were temporary slaves. The most time they could be a slave was seven years. Usually it was much shorter. What was enslavement for the Jews? It was God's wise alternative to jail time for a debt owed. If you owed a debt, they didn't put you in jail in the Old Testament times. They didn't have jails. They just said, pay up. You can't pay up? Well, then you have to serve that person till you pay it off. That's what slavery was for a Jew in the Jewish law under God. It's a wise alternative to jail time. You owe something you can't pay, you go to jail. How is that helping? You're not paying the debt and it probably isn't helping you much, but now you're learning the trade maybe, you know. So a Jew that owed a Jew for whatever reason They had to be a slave until it was paid up. Unless the seventh year came, then they were freed. And all debt was canceled. So that was it. Now, slavery of a foreigner in the Jewish in the Old Testament was a different story and it was God's judgment on the worshippers of other gods. Just to briefly give an example of what it was for. And now those slaves in the Old Testament times who wished to be permanently serving their master could voluntarily become a bond servant permanently bonded to their master. That was a voluntary thing. So, but still, why slaves? Why would God make that a part of this universe? That's the question, right? Well just look at what we had here, husbands and wives. Why are husbands and wives in this universe? It's to be an example of Jesus being married to the church. Okay? Husbands and wives are here to show us what God is like joined to the church. What is slavery illustrating to us? Well, let's see what Jesus said in John 8 31. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, if you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. It'll make you free, you see. The truth will make you free. They answered him, we are Abraham's descendants, and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? How's that for pride in these Jews, right? There they are, enslaved to Romans, practically. They're conquered by Rome. Jesus is there. The disciples were hoping Jesus would free them from Roman oppression, but he didn't. He came to free them from something else. Let's see what he says here. Verse 34, Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. So, you know, do we serve sin or do we serve righteousness? Are we a slave of sin or a slave of God? So I see this as the illustration that we need to see in the creation that God made of slavery. is that if we commit sin, we're a slave of sin. And Jesus gave us truth to set us free from slavery to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever. The son does remain forever. So we want to be a son of God, not the slave of sin. So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. So Jesus came to free us, but He didn't come to free wives from their husbands, or children from their parents, or slaves from their masters. He came to free everyone that would believe in Him from sin, slavery to sin, and to serve God. And that may entail obeying your husband. Now you're a slave of God, and you have to obey your husband. Oh, or you're a child. You have to obey your parents. Or you're a slave. You have to obey your master. That's what, that's what, we're a slave of God, not sin. If we don't focus on what God is focusing on. So here, the title of the sermon, Earthly Obedience is Heavenly Obedience. It's hard for us to do, but that's what Paul and other authors of the Bible, it's not only here, tell us if we're in a difficult marriage, no, you're supposed to obey your husband. If we have a terrible slave owner, you're supposed to obey your slave owner. and it'll be paid back to you by God. If you'll hear my message I mentioned already from Psalms, Psalm 10, then you'll hear more about that, okay? And justice from God, justice from God for those who are oppressed. Quickly here, Romans 6, 15. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be. Do you not know that when you present yourself to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 1 Corinthians 6. I know all this is a very difficult subject, but we need to apply what the Bible says about being slaves to sin or to God or to righteousness. 6.12. 1 Corinthians 6.12. All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything. Mastered. Hear that? I don't want to be a slave to anything. I don't want anything to be my master. Food is for the stomach, et cetera, et cetera. The point is, I don't want to be a master of the things around me. I don't want to be mastered by the things around me. I don't want to serve those things, such as food, worshiping food. Look at this. Verse 19, 1st Corinthians 619, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? You're not your own. Somebody else owns you. For you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. You're a slave of God. God bought you. And you're His slave. And then going to Ephesians 2, because we've already been through this part of Ephesians, Ephesians 2, but going back to remind us how this is a little bit similar. Ephesians 2, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience Among them, we too, we formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest." We were slaves of sin, slaves of Satan, slaves of the ways of the world. That's what we were. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. We were slaves to it. We didn't have any ability to fight against it. We were slaves of it, but God raised us from the dead even when we were dead in our transgressions made us alive verse five together with christ raised us up now again the emphasis here isn't so much slavery but the first part of that chapter two where it talks about us we were dead and we were walking that way according to kata the prince of the power of the air of the Spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. But God bought us from all that. Now we're slaves of God. So earthly obedience is heavenly obedience. And as I say, it's not an easy thing. No one says it's easy. Oh boy. Well it's simpler, but the point is, you can wish for what's impossible, and if God doesn't promise it, You're just frustrating yourself, okay? It's something that cannot, people imagine, well, this is the way I think it should be. Well, it isn't that way. I think I should get money if I don't work. Well, that's not how it works. So you're just frustrating yourself if you say I can not work and then have everything I need. But I deserve it. Well, you say you deserve it. You just frustrate yourself when you say things work the way they don't actually work. And you're banging your head against the wall. Just agree with God on the subject. Okay. If a man doesn't work he shouldn't eat. God said that. You know. Oh I guess I should work then. You know. And God never said I'm freeing the slaves. God never said I'm liberating women. You know. What did he do? He said obey. That's really hard. Yeah but that's the reality. Now Paul did go on to say, if you can become free, do it. He did say that to the slaves. And a relationship between a slave and an owner or a master should be appropriate. And as I said, in the law of the Old Testament, that was a temporary thing. Any slave that wanted to be permanent, that was up to the slave, if it was a Jew. Well, it's a difficult subject, I know. But we need to be looking at the fact that anyone who sins is a slave to sin, says Jesus. That's the slavery that we should be fighting against. Slavery to sin. We are slaves of righteousness now. God has purchased us. We are His. We are His. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, thanks for redeeming us. Thanks for purchasing us. We do pray for Many around the world that are in such difficult situations that whole swaths of humanity are herded off to re-education camps in China. Wide groups of people in sections of Africa are downtrodden, killed, massacred in wars. And even now, people kidnapped in the Middle East, people killed, wars in Ukraine. We think of all the difficulties, Lord, that people are facing, and we just ask, Lord, that you'd help us to improve our situations, that we may help others. That's why I think, Lord, that if you bless us, may we bless others. We thank you, Lord, that you do bless by your grace and by your mercy. And may, Lord, whatever the reason a person may be downtrodden, may those that are not lift them up voluntarily out of a heart of love and care, not out of forcing or evil injustice, but through care and love, lift others up, whatever the problem be. And we ask that you do this in us by your grace, that you may be glorified and not the government. And we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Yes, church, rise to the occasion.