Paul says this, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands love their wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her with the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife. The two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you husbands love his wife as himself. and let the wife see that she respects her husband. And then chapter six at verse one, children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. We'll come back to that in just a bit. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. Bondservants or slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ, not by the way of eye service as people pleasers, but as bondservants or slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man. Knowing that whatever good anyone does this he will receive back from the Lord whether he is a bond servant or is free Masters do the same to them and stop your threatening Knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him into all these words God's people say Amen Jesus died for our sins Jesus rose in newness of life. When a sinner like you and me puts trust in Jesus, we come out of spiritual death and into newness of life, amen? That's what we've been seeing all throughout this letter of the apostle, that Jesus died for our sins, Jesus rose again because of our sins and for our justification. And when we sinners who are dead in our sins trust him, we come out of death into newness of life. And so the Christian faith, Christianity, faith in Jesus Christ is a miraculous religion. We proclaim that miracle every single Sunday, every single day, that the Christian faith is a miraculous religion, because every single sinner who is saved by grace experiences a miracle of spiritual resurrection from the dead. And that's what Paul has told us, if you go back to chapter 4, beginning at verse number 20, when he's comparing and contrasting our life before Jesus and our life after Jesus. Don't live like Gentiles. That's how you used to live in the world. Don't live like dead people walking anymore. Instead, he told us, beginning at verse number 22, and if you go back and listen to that message, you'll hear why I'm gonna say this. He says to us that it is God who has taken off. God has put off of you. Your old self, which is Adam, which is your sins. And God has put onto you the new self, which is Christ himself, in fact. And he calls that new self, which is Christ himself, the new self created, verse 24, after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. In other words, when you have come to Jesus Christ by faith and you've been baptized in his name, you have had your sins taken away from you and you have had Jesus Christ's righteousness given to you and so you are a miraculous new creation. just like you were made in the image of God in the beginning, but yet we all sinned in our first father, Adam. So in Christ, we are made new creatures, new creations, new human beings, and we are recreated in the image of God, and he re-breathes into us the breath of life, the Holy Spirit. And so Paul is saying, that has happened to you. You've already been made new. Don't live like the world. Live like a new creature, like a new creation, like a new image-bearer in Christ. That's why he told us in chapter 5 that we are to imitate God, that we are to walk in love, verse 2. Verse 3, that we are not to be sexually immoral. We're not to use words and thoughts and gestures that are immoral. Because those who live like that and whose lives are characterized like that have no place in God's heavenly kingdom. And so don't be partakers with them, he says, verse number seven. And then he told us, beginning at verse 15, that we are to walk as wise people, not as unwise. We are to use the time that God has given us to honor Him, to glorify Him. And we left off last Sunday with this beautiful, beautiful image here, that we are not to be drunk with wine, verse 18. But we are to be filled, and I mentioned that, that's a passive verb, that this is a thing that God does, the Spirit does, we are to allow the Spirit, we are to open ourselves up to the Spirit, to allow Him to fill us, how? We saw there are four ways in which we are Spirit-filled as new creatures in Jesus Christ, by addressing each other. with Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. That is, we are to address each other with the truth of the word of God. Secondly, by singing and making melody in our own hearts to the Lord. So we address each other. That's one way in which we are filled with the Holy Spirit. We sing to God, that's the second way in which we are filled with the Spirit. Giving thanks, verse 20, giving thanks, not grumbling like our forefathers in the wilderness, but giving thanks is a means by which we open ourselves up to the Spirit of God to fill us. And then finally, verse 21, this is where we're gonna transition here this morning. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. When we don't think of ourselves more holy than we are, but we think of ourselves as equal to or even lower than our neighbor. That's another way that the Spirit of God fills us. And so he's saying to us then, in the midst of all this discussion, that we have been made new creatures in Jesus Christ. that we are to live like that miracle. You've been miraculously made alive, now live like that miracle. And that miraculous new life that you have actually affects not just all these other things, but your relationships. to one another, that's verse 22, down to six, verse number nine. The miraculous power of the gospel that has recreated us in Jesus Christ effects change in our lives in how we are to live new lives for the glory of God. And so let's hear that this morning. First of all, he is picking up here, transitioning from verse 21 about submitting to each other, then to wives, okay? The miracle of new creation, affects the relationship between husbands and wives. And notice that he addresses wives first. The husbands are all going to sit back and say, this is going to be good, isn't it? He just says the wives first. But brothers, your turn's coming, so just pay attention. Verse 22, wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. Notice that contrast with verse 21. All of us in the church, there is no male, there is no female. There is no slave, there is no free, there is no Jew, there is no Gentile in the body of Christ. Every one of us is equal. And that's why verse 21 said, we are all to submit to one another as a means by which the Spirit of God fills us individually, but also collectively as the body of Christ. But when it comes to the relationship between a particular wife and her own particular husband, there is another area in which she is to submit. Submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. So there's a humility that we are all to have, but there's also a particular humility that a wife has in her own family with her own husband. I want you to just notice that. It's probably obvious, I hope it is, but if not, just to reiterate it. Wives submit to whom? To whom are wives to submit? Their own husbands, right? Their own husbands. It's unbiblical to teach that all wives in the church are to submit to all the men in the church. That's been said before, it's going around again, it's unbiblical. The Bible does not say that all wives in this church or in the church are to submit to all the other men in the church, no. And it's also not biblical to teach that all women are to submit to all men in this society or any society on the face of the earth. Paul's point is that to us in the body of Christ, who are all equal in Jesus Christ's sight, yet in our families as married couples, as married husbands and wives, a particular wife is to be submissive to her particular husband so uh just to reiterate that hopefully that was an obvious point but just to bring that out and notice why she used to do that as to the lord a wife's submission to her own husband is as to the lord it is her service to christ right it's an act of worship and of service to Christ to do so. Note the reason why Paul gives this command. For the husband is head of the wife even as, and notice he's making this contrast or this comparison multiple times with that word as. As Christ is head of the wife. of the church, his body, and is himself its savior. He'll come back to that in a few verses. That word head there, kephele, it's usually used for a source or an origin. That certainly is true of Jesus when it comes to the church, that Christ is the head, he is the source, he is the origin of the church. But in this context, it has a sense of authority or even leadership and so then he brings it home In verse 24, now as, there's that analogy again, the church submits to Christ, so also, wives should submit in everything to their husbands. In everything, in all things, literally is what he says, to their husbands. Now, we oftentimes hear people say, expositors say, when they get to a verse like that, and it says, you know, in all things, they say this little dictum. You probably heard it before. All means all. You know what the rest of it is? All means all. You don't know that phrase? And that's all all means. You haven't heard it before? Come on, people. Where have you been? Maybe my head's been in books too long. Sometimes people say, you get to an all passage of the Bible. All means all. And that's all it means. And usually in the context of Jesus died for all, right? And so I want to make the point against Calvinists and so forth. But notice here, we have to take this phrase seriously and be somewhat skeptical of any kind of dictum that applies to every passage in the Bible all the time. Does everything here, or does all, mean wives are to submit to their husbands who command them and demand them, because they're supposed to be submissive, that they sin? Is a wife to submit to every command, every demand of their husbands that they sin? Doesn't it say everything? Wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Doesn't all mean all, and that's all all means? So, for example, the scriptural teaching in other areas would apply here that believers are to be submissive to those governing authorities, but yet we know the apostles said that when the governing authorities command us to sin, it's better to obey God rather than men, right? We know that phrase. So, are wives to submit to their husbands who command and demand that they sin? No, Christians obey God rather than men when it comes to these kinds of things. If a husband is commanding or demanding his wife sin, a wife is obligated to serve Christ, most importantly. Are wives to submit to their husbands who themselves are in sin? For example, A husband who's verbally, or physically, or emotionally, or mentally, or God forbid, sexually abusive towards his own wife? I hope the answer's obvious. I hope the answer's obvious. Wives in this church, this is me speaking, and I hope I'm speaking correctly, but wives in this church should need to know that I, and I trust and pray that the elders along with me have your back against any such husband. Anything that goes beyond just this normal spiritual correction or discipline of a husband that we as pastors and elders from time to time, as we shepherd and guide and direct brothers to be good husbands, but anything that goes beyond mere spiritual correction, meaning a husband who not only has sinned against his wife, but has potentially committed a crime of violence will be immediately referred to law enforcement, period. That's my stance. So when we get to a passage like this, if a husband tells me, well, the Bible says that my wife has submitted everything to me, we have to qualify. All doesn't always mean all, and that's not all all means. So wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. That's the important principle here, because you are a picture of Christ, the church towards Jesus. All right, husbands, your turn, okay? Verse number 25. Note the section of husbands, although it comes second, it's longer, so that's just a good point to reiterate. That's how much more you and I, as husbands, need that kind of help, right? The apostle speaks longer to us, although he speaks first to our wives. Husbands, love, agape te, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up So go back to the command in verse 22. Okay, so husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Go back to the command, verse 22. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. So to us as husbands and men here who desire to be husbands, you need to be worthy of that submission. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her. For her, love your wives, yes. Don't demand that your wife love you. If you love, they'll love. If you love, they'll submit, right? This is as Christ loves the church. Not as an ogre, not in some kind of power trip kind of a way. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. and self-sacrificially gave himself up for her. So what does that submission look like? Husbands are to love their wives, and wives are to submit to their husbands. How does that play out? What does it look like? Well, I can only explain from my own experience. Those of you who've been here the longest remember when I was called away to go serve another congregation quite a while back. And in our family discussion, Danny had a vote, Kerrigene had a vote, and when we discussed that particular call, it was one to one, okay? One versus one, right? One Danny, one Kerrigene. So what does submission, what does love look like? How, you know, we were deadlocked. Well, why submit to your husbands, right? Right? Danny won, Kerrigene won. Well, in that context, my wife has a brain, she has a heart, she has desires, she has dreams, she has a life, and so on and so forth. And I would hope that you as a husband would respect your own wife in that same way. So I had a vote, she had a vote, we didn't vote the same way. So at the end of the day, the tie-breaking vote came to me as the head of the house, with the caveat that you had better make the right decision. Okay, so, all right, I'll change my vote to that side and happy wife, happy life, right? And it was God's will. Now, that's my example, at least, but as a head of a house, as a head of a wife, we have our voice, we have our vote when it comes to these sorts of things. When it comes to following Christ, of course, it's not a vote, we do it, but when it comes to other kinds of things, you have a vote, your wife has a vote, and if you don't agree, well, At the end of the day, you've got to make the decision on behalf of the family, but you had better make sure you make the right decision because your decision affects others and not just for yourself. So love your wives, he says, as Christ. Love the church. And are you sure, husband, brother, are you sure that you want to demand and command submission? The Lord is over you. The Lord's over you. Are you sure you want to command it and demand it that kind of a way? You're called to love as Christ loved. Notice how. And gave himself up for her. Right, this is describing Jesus, but when it comes to a husband, this is the hardest thing for us as husbands, as men, to do, to self-sacrifice our own desires, our own egos, our own needs, our own wants for the good of our wives. Recall from what I said last Sunday, my little definition I gave you of love, a deliberate commitment to give yourself for someone else's good and benefit. Let that sink in again. A deliberate commitment to give yourself for someone else's good and benefit, in this case, for your wife. Love your wife. Commit yourself deliberately to her for her good, for her benefits. That's what Jesus did, right? So even as he's describing here these exhortations to us as wives and as husbands, notice Paul can't ever get away from the gospel. This just leads him to meditate upon the glories of who Jesus Christ is. This great mystery, as he goes on to call it. As he thinks about the husband loving his wife and the wife submitting to her husband, he can't but think of Jesus. who gave himself self-sacrificially, committing himself for our good and for our benefit. And so notice that verse 26, then he kind of like goes off on a tangent, we might say, or begins to riff on why Jesus loved the church with such a deliberate commitment to give himself for its good and benefit. Notice there are three that statements in verse 26 and following. So Jesus gave himself up for us deliberately in a committed way for our good, for our benefit, for three purposes, for three reasons. First, verse 26, that he might sanctify her. That he might sanctify her. Sanctification is what? It's holiness, okay? It's holiness. Is it a one-time thing? It's an ongoing holiness. Where does sanctification come from? It's the work of God, right? The work of the Holy Spirit. It's the work of God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our Trinitarian God all work together in this. But this is the work of God, a gracious work of God that he progressively is making us holy. What does that look like? It looks like Jesus. We are being conformed, Romans 8, verse number 29. Conformed into the image of Jesus. He is the image of God. He is holiness, par excellence, and so we are being conformed to him. And so Jesus gave himself for us that he might sanctify her, the church. Now back in chapter one at verse number four, remember, Paul said that God from the foundation of the earth has chosen us. For what purpose? Ephesians 1 verse 4, even as he chose us in him with the foundation world that we should be what? Holy and blameless. Holy and blameless. So sanctification is the purpose of God from all eternity past and it goes all the way into and unto eternity future. How does he sanctify us? Notice verse 26, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. Now in ancient societies, there was a ritual, a wife, a bride would undergo a ritual bath, a ritual washing before she would get dressed for the wedding ceremony. And so we have something of this imagery, this ancient imagery here. But also it's interesting that Paul is drawing on, I think, Ezekiel 16. So we turn to Ezekiel 16 briefly. Just notice a few verses there, Ezekiel 16. The imagery doesn't, it's not a one-to-one correspondence, but here he's describing Israel as a bride that he takes. And he's describing how he has saved her and redeemed her. She was a faithless bride, or Hedy might say a faithless bride. And so Israel was like a faithless bride that was left for dead out in the wilderness by these other false gods that she had committed adultery with. And so they had abused her and left her for dead. But then God, the Lord, describes himself this way. Look at Ezekiel 16 at verse number nine. So again, this is the Lord speaking about his bride. So this is an Old Testament example of where Paul gets this idea that Jesus is husband and church is like a bride. Verse number nine, Ezekiel 16, I bathed you with water and washed off your blood, because she had been abused, from you and anointed you with oil. Right? Not just washing, but anointing. I clothed you, he goes on to say, Also was embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. So he's clothing her, this bride, with his beautiful clothing. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. So on and so forth. He's ascribing here how he is so committed. that he gave himself up for her, for her good, for her benefit, even when she didn't give herself up for him, for his benefit. That's what the gospel is. It's God giving himself up for us in Jesus Christ. And so Christ has washed us. He gave himself to sanctify us by washing us, we are told. The only other use of that verb, to wash, in the entire New Testament is by Paul. He uses it in Titus 3, verse number five. this verb, lutro, it's used in Titus 3, verse 5, where Paul says, he, God, saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy. So salvation is by grace and the mercy of God alone. How? How did he save us? Paul goes on to say this in Titus 3, verse 5, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the spirit. In our passage, Paul says that he sanctifies us by washing us with his own word. Titus says it's by the Holy Spirit. These are two sides of the same coin. Emmanuel, where's that little coin I gave you? A coin has two sides, doesn't it? Right? A coin has two sides. So like one side you see a president, turn it over and you'll see a building and some kind of a phrase. A coin has two sides. So when Paul says in one verse that God has saved us by washing us with the Holy Spirit, and this other verse says that he's washed us with his word, he's saying the same thing. It's just two sides of the same coin. Right? So here he says that he's washed us with his word. Washed us with or by his word. So what does Christ do again? Why did Christ give himself up for us again according to verse 26? To what? To sanctify us, right? To sanctify the church. And how does he do it? According to verse 26? By his word, right? Washing us by his word. Now Jesus is the eternal Word, amen? John 1, the Word became flesh, right? The Word was God, the Word was with God. In the beginning, all things were made by the Word. So the eternal Word speaks His Word. And that Word washes us. It cleanses us. It sanctifies us. It makes us more like Jesus, okay? So think about that, when we gather together, and I'll just speak about when we gather together, not about the rest of the week, but when we gather together, we are coming to receive the word of Christ to us, that he powerfully or effectually makes us what he wants us to be. Again, he gave himself, who's doing the sanctifying again in verse 26? Well, technically it's Christ, isn't it? That He, Christ, might sanctify her. Yes, by the Holy Spirit. So Christ by the Holy Spirit. But it's Christ who's sanctifying. And who's the one who's cleansing? Who's cleansing us? Christ, right? By what? Whose word? Christ's word. So when we come together to hear the word, right? we're coming to hear Jesus speak to us again, and we are confident, we should be confident in him, not in me, but in him, not in ourselves, but in him, that he is going to speak his word to cleanse us, to purify us, to wash us of our impurities, to make us holy as he intends for us to be. It's his word, he's speaking it, he's doing it. He wants you to be X, And you are over here, you're Z, and he's gonna make you from X to Z. He's gonna take you from point A to point B. Notice verse 27, it reiterates this. This is the second that statement. So that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Look at that beautiful language again. That he, Christ, might present the church to what? Himself. You exist for Jesus. Again, he is making you what he wants you to be, what he intends you to be. And we pray and trust that over the course of our Christian life, we want that too. But notice that he gave himself up for us, self-sacrificially, that he might present all of us as the church, the body of Christ, to himself in splendor, without spot, wrinkle, any such thing. This is the power of Christ. This is his sanctifying work. And we are just the overwhelmingly grateful recipients. of what he is doing in us, and what he is speaking to us, how he is washing us, and how he actually is going to present us like that faithless bride in Ezekiel 16. One day he's gonna take us, he's gonna clean us up, he's gonna wash us, clothe us, and we are gonna be presented, strangely enough, back to him in splendor. No spot. No wrinkle or any such thing. The third that, verse 27, that she might be holy. Again, he's reiterating this, but that she might be holy and without blemish. Again, goes back to chapter one, verse four. From all of eternity past, if we can even say that, God has chosen us in Christ to be holy, and now he's saying that this is going to be accomplished ultimately in eternity future, if we can even say that, right? Our holiness was planned, It's been accomplished and now it's being applied in us and to us. So Paul's speaking to husbands here, but notice he just can't stop speaking of Jesus. So the good news for us husbands in our sins and our lack of loving our wives as Christ of the church, you have Jesus Christ in your side, amen? Right, the Lord Jesus Christ, just like he's making the whole church what he intends the church to be, we gotta trust that he's going to make us, you, me, what he wants us to be in our relationship to our wife. Now back to 28 then, he comes back and says, in the same way, in the same way that Christ loved us and the same way that Christ gave himself for us, he brings us back full circle. Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. Right, do you take care of yourself? Just like you care for yourself, care for your wife. Verse 29, no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church. Do you get enough sleep at night? I do, trust me. Do you get enough sleep at night, brothers? You care for your body, right? You have certain food that you like, that's good for you, right? You take care of yourself, you comb your hair, brush your teeth, whatever it is, you take care of yourself. In the same way, Christ so amazingly does this for us. He cares for us. He provides for us. He nourishes us. And so again, even when you and I as husbands don't care for ourselves, let alone our wives, Jesus does, amen? Jesus does. Why? Because, verse 30, we are members of his body. We belong to him so he loves, he nourishes, he cherishes us. And then he quotes from the Genesis story, therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and two shall become one flesh. There's that leave and cleave language, why? Because just as a husband and wife are one, so too Christ and the church are one. And that's why he brings it all together when he says that this mystery of a husband and wife being one with each other is profound. And I'm saying that the husband and wife being one actually refers to Christ and the church, verse 32. However, he says, verse 33, his point is to exhort us as husbands who are new creatures in Jesus Christ, let each of you husbands love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband. So you are all new creatures in Christ, especially husbands and wives, right? This is who's addressing here. You are new creatures in Christ. Live like it in submission and in love. If you're not a wife yet or a husband yet, take notes, take notes, and be ready, right? Okay? Children and fathers then. Quickly, it comes in chapter six there. Verses one to four. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. So kids, let me just, first of all, as you read that verse again, verse number one. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. You are part of the church, kids. You belong to this church, you belong to Jesus' church, the body of Christ. Not just this little church, but all churches, the whole body of Jesus Christ. So kids, do you realize that the inspired apostle, he's speaking on behalf of the Holy Spirit, he's writing this letter. He didn't just write this letter to pastors, to elders, to deacons, to husbands, wives, men, and women. He wrote this letter for you too. This is amazing. So, right from the get-go, as you read that verse, just realize, kids, that you're important to God, you are important to the life of the church, and because you are important and because you belong, God addresses you. God addresses you, speaks right to you, and says, children, obey your parents. Why? Do it in the Lord, he says. Just like your moms are to submit to your dads, wives to husbands, and just like your dads, husbands, are to love, your mom, their wives, they do it to the Lord as service to the Lord. So in the same way, kids, you obey your parents in your daily service of God. So, you know, kids, how can you serve God? By obeying your parents. Do you have to obey your parents? Yes. Is that the only reason why you should obey your parents? No, right? It's not just that you have to, but You get to, you should want to because you, hopefully you'll see that your parents have good things to teach you, right? And they provide for you and take care of you. And so here is Paul writing to you too, kids, and he's saying that you are in Christ and you are to do this in the Lord. You are joined to Jesus and you are united to Christ, we say in our theological terminology. And so he's writing to a whole congregation, but he's also writing to you. And he says that you kids belong to Jesus too, just like your parents, just like the husbands and wives around you belong to Jesus. And so children of Christians are Christians, and you're addressed like Christians, you belong to Christ. And then he goes on to notice, this is Paul, he's the apostle of the Gentiles, he's the new covenant apostle of the Gentiles, and he addresses a mostly Gentile church by quoting from the old covenants, that was written to the Jews, the fifth commandment on your father and mother. That's the first commandment with a promise because the promise was that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. So that's what the ESV says, live long in the land. Anyone else have a different translation this morning than the ESV, anyone? I guess I can't ever change my Bible translation then. Well, the ESV, seriously. Now, Denny, you gotta have the King James, come on. Kalen, where's the Geneva Bible today? You got it? You didn't bring the Geneva Bible today. Okay, other translations translate it correctly. Not in the land, but on the earth. On the earth. Why? Well, the Hebrew Bible says in the land, because it was addressing the Jews as they were going into the promised land. And that's what it means in the Hebrew text, in the land, the promised land. But here's Paul writing to Gentiles living in Ephesus in Asia Minor, and he's quoting this commandment, but he actually applies it to the new covenant church that exists everywhere, not just in the promised land. And he says that this promise is that it might go well with you children who obey your parents, that you might live long on the earth. On the earth, that's the word he actually uses, on the earth. So, NIV, New American Standard, New King James, New Living, those are the ones I looked up real quick. They all get it right. So, this shows us that as New Covenant Christians, the Old Covenant Commandments, the Ten Commandments, they apply to us as the New Testament Church, the New Covenant Church, just as much as they apply to the Old Covenant people of God, the Israelites, in the Promised Land. So kids, obey your parents. in the Lord. Now, notice he doesn't address all parents. This is interesting. He doesn't address just parents in general, but fathers specifically. And this should hit us as fathers right in the eyes and strike our hearts. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction Now obviously not all first century households had Christian husbands, Christian dads. But Paul's point was, they knew what a broken family was too, just like we experience broken families. Paul's point was to address Christian homes. So that's what he's doing here. Don't treat your kids in a way that leads resentment, is what he's saying. Instead, discipline them or train them and instruct them in the Lord. They're not just your property, they're precious gifts from God that need to be raised up to know what you have come to know, what it means to be a new creature in Jesus Christ. What it means to be a new creature in Jesus Christ. So catechize, instruct, teach your kids. Now, what if a household doesn't have a Christian father? or even a father at all? How is this commandment, this exhortation, how does it get applied? Well, here's where our idea of a church being a covenant community is so valuable, so important for us. We have older parents here, we have grandparents here, we have empty nesters here. Maybe you didn't catechize, discipline, train your kids because you were a pagan at the time. Maybe you didn't know that you're supposed to do this, right? You just ship your kids off to select children's church and you didn't know it was your job. Maybe you weren't ever equipped to do it. Maybe you have some regrets that you didn't. But you belong to this church. You belong to a church that actually wants to instruct our kids, to catechize our children. And we, younger parents, need your older parents, grandparents, empty nest parents. We need your help. So we may not all have a husband or a father to be able to fulfill this task, but we have other dads, we have other parents in the midst to enable us all together to instruct each other children in the Lord. And so new creation life in Christ affects how you children obey your parents. and how you fathers, me as a father, train and catechize our sons and daughters. And if you're not a father or a parent yet, again, take notes and prepare. If you're an empty nester, right, if you're an older parent, if you're a grandparent, help those without Christian fathers in the home to raise their children in the Lord. And then Paul comes finally to this little section of bondservants and masters. Scholars estimate that at least 10% of all people in the Roman Empire were slaves. A huge amount of people were slaves, especially urban areas like Ephesus, the percentages must have been much higher. The reality is that slaves, too, experienced the miracle of new creation life. Notice that. Just like he addresses husbands and wives, and he addresses children and fathers, he addresses slaves. Obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ. Slaves were considered property by Aristotle and by Greek and Roman philosophers and by Greek and Roman society. They were even considered things like tools, to dig ditches, to be used sexually. They had no personality, they had no agency, we would say. And so Paul addresses them on equal level, notice, as their masters. There's no slave, there's no free in Christ. All who trust in Christ, all who have been made new, who've been born again, all who are new creatures in Jesus Christ are the same. Again, the same. Although in society, and although in our families, and although in our relationships, there are differences amongst us, and so Paul, recognizing the world in which he lives, he addresses slaves, a huge population. But he demonstrates that the gospel changes attitudes about life, work, relationships. Slaves were ultimately serving the Lord despite the sin against them by their fellow man. They're serving the Lord, although their fellow man has sinned against them. Slaves can be made slaves by winning a war against people, you take them as slaves. People that didn't want to have a child in the first century, the way that you committed abortion was by taking your kid to the local trash dump and you let your kid out in the trash, let him die by exposure. Christians were known for going to adopt those children, but pagans were known to go take those little babies because they wanted more slaves. So one sin was compounded by another. But here's Paul addressing slaves, saying, you serve the Lord despite what your fellow human being has done to you. And I think Paul already here, but also in Philemon, he's laying the seeds, he's planting the seeds for what eventually comes to understand that all human beings are made in God's image, all human beings are created equal, and slavery is an abomination. and a sin in the sight of God. And so they were serving the Lord, not just by eye service, right, not just doing it when their masters looked upon them, not to just merely please people, but as bondservants of Christ, doing God's will from their heart, rendering service with a goodwill as to the Lord. Notice that again, as to the Lord, not to men. Why is it important? Notice verse eight, knowing that whatever good anyone does, right, not just a slave, but also a master, Right? Anyone. Whatever anyone does, any good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord. Whether he's a bond servant or a freak. We believe that God rewards our works by His grace. And the works, the good works that servants were doing for their masters would be rewarded. And so slaves were human beings too. They were dead sinners, too, and they had been given new life, too. And as such, they were full members of the body of Christ with a service to offer Him. Finally, the gospel of new creation life transforms master's relationships to their servants. Paul commands them in verse number nine, do the same. Do the same to them. Treat them as fellow new creations in a way that flows from redeemed hearts, as if doing it unto the Lord. And he gives an example. Stop your threatening. Treat them, you're a Christian, treat them like Christians. Stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours, right, they're equal, is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him. There's no partiality with God. And so, loved ones, Paul, in these ways, husbands, wives, children, fathers, slaves, masters, he shows us that Sinners who've experienced the new creation power of Jesus Christ and have become themselves new creations are to live like it in their relationships. And these are just six examples. Whatever place we find ourselves in life, married, single, with children, childless, in the first century, slaves and masters, whatever it might be today, We work, we have boss, right? We don't like our boss, and our boss owns us, it feels like. Whatever life situation you find yourself in as a Christian, you are a new creation in Jesus Christ. And that new creation should affect how you relate to your fellow human beings, amen? Let's do it to the Lord, let's do it as service to him, let's pray. We thank you, Lord, for blessing us with a new life in Jesus Christ. And we ask that you would now bless, Lord, the reading and preaching of your word. And right upon our hearts, these things that we've heard, help us to apply them by your Holy Spirit. And we ask as we come to the Lord's Supper, Lord, that you would assure us and seal upon our hearts the gospel that Jesus Christ gave himself up for us. And we ask all this in his wonderful name and all of God's people say, amen.