Made For More - A Study In Ephesians - 6:1-9

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

We're going to go one through nine today.

This is our second to last message in the Made for More series.

And what we're looking at is God's design for family and work.

And so the way that you work should honor God, the way that you parent, and the way that you're a child should honor God.

And that's not just when you're a little person living in your parents' home.

That's all throughout your life.

You should seek to honor your parents, your father, and mother.

And I love that Paul gets really practical.

He gets into the nitty-gritty stuff here in Ephesians chapter six.

I love that he talks about the way that we should work, even though there's a little bit of like an awkward hurdle for us to understand that that we're going to get to talk through, because he's writing in a certain context.

He's writing in a certain time period where the norm is bondservants and masters.

And so the way that he instructs bondservants and masters to operate in that time is very specific to that time.

And there's not really another parallel to a slave and a master in the modern time, other than employees and employers.

Or it could be volunteers in an organization, potentially, perhaps.

But there's some fun things that we get to talk through there as we look at that.

But this is all still in that same context of being made for more.

That's all still in the same context of this idea that we are a family.

We're meant to be united in love under Jesus Christ, who is the head.

That we get to unpack how the gospel reshapes our lives, our identity, our relationships, our work, our worship, that we get to see this idea that we can grow in maturity, that in Ephesians 4, 11 through 16, it talks about how we should be built up in love, united with Jesus Christ, who is the head.

We should be growing in maturity.

Because he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that we would grow up in every way into Christ when each part is working properly, that we would be built up in love.

This means that we are diverse, we're unique in the way that we're gifted, we're different body parts with different functions, with different responsibilities, but we are working together, aligned under the head, and growing up together in love.

And so this idea, this theme of being made for more, this theme of uh growing up into Christ has been the passion of uh the elders as we've been praying for our church of what is next for Taylor Bible Church.

For the past 12 months, this has been a focus of ours, of saying, this is what the Lord wants us to do.

This is what the Lord wanted us to focus on, and this is kind of like a capstone of that of sorts.

Uh experiencing God will be a continuation of that, of us growing in the maturity into who Jesus wants us to be.

Of us being willing to say, Jesus, where are you sending me?

Where are you already at work and how can I join you there?

Uh it's it's kind of really simple, but we get this idea that we are made for more.

And as Paul's writing this, he's where?

He's in prison.

And he's writing, he's talking to the church at Ephesus, the church at Ephesus that has had like uh powerhouse preacher after powerhouse preacher.

They had uh James, they had Timothy, they would have John as their pastor.

They have like these this incredible lineage of leadership at their church, but they lose their first love.

And so he's encouraging them towards how do you grow in maturity?

How do you recognize that it's more than just you guys?

And in chapter five, he talks about being filled with the Spirit, and then he continues with how husbands are to love wives and to walk in love.

And as we as we look at this, uh, let's look at verses one and two in chapter five.

It says, Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

We are to be imitators of God, who is our Father of Jesus, who is the head.

We are to walk in love, not fall in love, but walk in love as Christ loved us.

How did he love us?

He gave himself up for us.

So all of us are called to this sacrificial, self-giving love of others in the body.

Following the example of Jesus, being imitators of God.

Verse 15, look carefully then how you walk, because the days are evil.

Look carefully how you walk, be filled with the Spirit is the first imperative.

And then the fifth imperative is submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

There's this fear of Christ that drives us to obedience.

This fear of Christ that allows us to walk in love, allows us to walk in mutual submission with one another in the fear of Christ.

We should walk in love as Christ loved us sacrificially.

How we walk in love, how we thrive in community.

He gets into more of the nitty-gritty details.

He talks about a husband and wife relationship, and then he talks about children and parents, and then he talks about slaves and masters, and he's giving these three different places in your marriage, in your parenting and children, child rearing, and then also in your work.

How are you to live in a way that would produce unity?

How are you to walk in love?

How are you to submit to one another in love when there's also going to be a clear hierarchy of here's a superior and here's an inferior, not in value, but in the hierarchy, in the role in the uh in the task that they've been given of how do we lead and love.

And so as we consider this, we talked last week about how husbands are to love their wives sacrificially, that wives are to submit to their husbands.

We talked about how we were made for more, that as we submit to God's design for marriage, that uh we're looking to Jesus, and we're we're actually getting to show off the love that Jesus had for the church as we live out that pattern, as we live that out.

And we talked a lot last week about uh some different qualifiers, obviously, uh not in an adulterous situation, not in an abusive situation, but in the healthy situation, uh, this is what we're called to.

And so as we look ahead at another text that could potentially be controversial if you don't listen to uh the context that it was written in.

Uh, would you stand?

Would you join me in standing for the reading of God's word?

Chapter six, verse one.

Children, obey your parents in 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.

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Bond servants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by a way of eye service, as people pleasers, but as bond servants 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's a bondservant or is free.

Masters, do the same to them.

Stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours in heaven is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

You can have a seat.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you that your word is perfect, we thank you that your word is truth, that your word is timeless, that your word is sharper than a two-edged sword.

Would you convict us to live in your way according to your design as we parent, as we're to children, as we work, and as we lead others at work.

Help us to represent you well.

Help us to um be good stewards of what's been entrusted to us in where whatever season we're in.

Uh we look to you.

Uh Lord, this this text is convicting uh because we fall short.

But we thank you for the grace that's available in the Son, Jesus.

Help us to rest in that grace and help us to not be crushed by your word, um, but to be encouraged, that we're set free for the good works that you've prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Uh, that we read your word and we're uh convicted by it, not because uh we're here to just pat each other on the back and say, Great job all the time, but because we're we're meant to be a body that helps each other to be built up in love, that you've actually given us these different functions of apostle and prophet and evangelist and shepherd and teacher so that we could be built up in love, so that we could become more and more like your son, Jesus.

So would you grow us up today in the sun?

Would you help us to grow up?

Help us to act like men, act like women, help us to live according to your design and just give us ears to listen.

Lord, I pray that you would um hide me behind your cross.

Uh that as an imperfect messenger, Lord, you would um just guide my tongue, guide my thoughts, guide every word that comes from my mouth, every thought that comes through my head.

Uh that this would be your time, your word.

It's all for your glory.

We look to you.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

I'm gonna grab a chair.

I'm I'm a little bit down today.

I had a one of my best friends, um had a grandbaby born yesterday, uh and they didn't make it.

And so I'm a little bit down uh with with some of that.

And um I share that, not because I want to bring everybody down with me, but because like this is this is real life.

This is the stuff that we're walking through.

And when you have a tough day, what you should do is bring that to your community so that they can pray for you, they can pray with you, they can walk with you and uh encourage you through that.

And so um, as I might be a bit distracted, uh, I pray and I hope that uh you guys would uh still hear the word from the Lord uh today.

So um this text is convicting to me because uh as a parent uh I fall short of not provoking my child to anger.

All four of them.

Uh I find myself provoking to anger uh more often than I want to.

Uh, and it's just like that's weird that that's in me, but it's always been in me, and it's something that I'm trying to root out and grow in.

Uh but before that it says, Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right.

Honor your father and your mother.

This is the first commandment with the promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.

There's this instruction to children to honor their parents, to obey their parents.

There's this tension here of responsibility and duty for the child.

Uh, and if we're looking at this and you're looking at my kids who are eight and six and three and one, uh they don't Ace reads his Bible and he loves to read.

He's really excited about it.

Karis is starting to read and growing in that.

But for the most part, they're hearing these words of what scripture is from mom and dad and from TBC kids and the ministry that's happening over there.

And I'm so grateful for that because that is how we are shaped to honor our father and mother through being instructed in God's word.

If we're not opening God's word with our kids, how are they to know these promises if they're they're probably not able to just pick up your ESV Bible and read it that's written at like a ninth grade level, right?

They're probably not quite there yet.

And so until they're there, it's our duty as parents to shepherd them and teaching them that.

And this also applies to us as we grow older.

We talked uh a little bit about this at our elder meeting uh as we were talking about being like this sandwich generation, where uh this applies to us as we're still children with parents, and also that we're still parenting children, uh, that you get to see both sides of that of how do I help my parents, my children to honor me and to obey me and not uh aggravate them, not uh make them angry in the way that we lead them.

And then how are we also to uh love them and care for them?

How are we also to honor our adult parents as adults?

Uh continue to pursue friendship with them, help support them when needed while also being cleaved to our new family, right?

Like for me, if my family's in Dallas, I get to go and support them.

I'm like the pastor on call in the family, uh, and I go and support the people that barely go to church as I go and visit home and as I go and encourage them with God's word, often at funerals and holidays and such.

But what does that look like?

Sometimes it's difficult to maintain both of those priorities of my family being my first ministry and also loving and supporting my parents and caring for them.

And then also making decisions of like how do we continue to support our parents as they lose abilities, as they lose financial abilities to provide.

I know many of us have that tension that we feel where we have to drive out of town and go take care of a sick parent, or where we uh have our sick parents very close by so that we can take care of them, so that we can love them.

And in every season, what does it look like to honor your father and mother?

This commandment that comes with a promise.

There's this blessing that's attached to that of generally as you listen to your parents, you live longer.

As your uh family walks through uh different seasons, there's this piece of these rewards.

And there's some mystery there because it's not like a guarantee every time.

It's not like if a life is cut short that that child was disobedient, they didn't honor their father and mother.

That's not, of course, the case, but there is a promise uh that comes with this that it may go well with you, that you may live long in the land.

And um with with this, there's countless illustrations of this, uh, but my 14-month-old Charlie, uh, she's really sweet.

She was trying to crawl on the stage uh during announcements, and often she'll want to be held by me uh during announcements.

Uh, and she's really sweet.

She wants to follow us and she wants to be doing what we're doing.

She also loves to uh grab cords and pull them out of outlets.

She loves to chew on cords, uh, and she loves to just pull on whatever she can get her hands on.

Uh, and there's a lot of warning that she doesn't understand because she's 14 months old.

There's a lot of like, hey, don't do that.

This isn't safe, this isn't wise, this isn't helpful.

Uh yesterday uh she crawled into our bathroom and she pulled on a cord, uh, and Katie Straightener came and whacked her on the head.

And I was like, well, there's this there's this thing in me that wells up and says, I want to, this is why you have to listen.

A 14-month-old can't hear that.

And so you just grab her and love her and comfort her in those moments.

Uh but there's this idea that as you listen to your parents, as you honor them, there's this transfer that's happening where uh we are the representatives of God to our parents.

In a Jewish audience, that would be like a no-brainer.

They see parents as just below God in uh the order of society.

And so as uh Paul is writing this with a heavily Jewish background, as he talks about honoring your father and mother, uh, this is kind of a no-brainer to Paul.

As we look at this, um I was I was reading some of Tony Evans' commentary, and he says, the saga of a nation is the saga of families magnified.

So, how a nation is going, look at the families, magnify that.

That's how a nation is going.

Our culture is reaping the devastation of family disintegration.

We need Paul's timeless words for children and parents.

Children play their own role in God's kingdom agenda.

They are to obey and honor their parents in action and attitude.

They are to submit to their parents legitimate authority because their obedience is in the Lord.

Children respond to their parents out of their response to God because parents are leading them in the ways of God.

And so if you're leading your children in the ways of God, they should be listening to you and they should be getting closer to God as a result of that.

Doing so is right, it reflects God's righteous character.

Children must also honor their parents, showing respect and holding them in high regard.

When adult children leave the home and are no longer dependent on their parents for provision and protection, they're not obligated to obey them.

Nevertheless, no one outgrows this requirement to honor mother and father.

This is the first commandment with a promise.

If children want things to go well for them and want to have a long life, it is absolutely critical that they respond properly to their parents.

Thus, however many years they live, they will experience the life and blessings that God has for them.

So, children, obey and honor your parents in the Lord.

This is the first point.

There's going to be four points from the text that we have.

Children, obey and honor your parents in the Lord.

We, as young children, definitely get to experience this more, but as we grow up, we also get to show more honor to our parents in the Lord and continue to show that care for them.

And then the second part is for parents.

Parents, bring your children up in the Lord without provoking them to anger.

Parents, bring your children up in the Lord without provoking them to anger.

And the word in the ESV is fathers.

And I think that's funny because fathers are more guilty of this.

I don't know if that's a fact, but I'm going to just say soft evidence, absolutely.

At least in our house, I'm more I'm the guilt I'm the culprit of this all the time, uh, more than my wife.

Uh and it's like, hey, it's hard for your kids to obey you.

It's hard for them to honor you when you're driving them crazy, when you're doing things purposely to annoy them or to get a response out of them.

You you can't do that and then expect obedience because you've created a weird dynamic there.

And so it's saying, don't do that.

The word for fathers here could also be translated, and in other places in scripture, it's it's the uh masculine plural, so masculine, men, plural, fathers, uh, but it could also mean parents.

It can it can be translated parents just as well in this case, just like uh when in the letters we see brothers, it could also be brothers and sisters.

It's not just the brothers, it's not just the fathers, uh, it's parents.

Don't provoke your kids to anger.

Bring them up in the discipline and instruction in the Lord.

There's two parts of that, right?

Uh there's the discipline part, there's the instruction part, the way that we um lead our kids, the way that we help them to follow Jesus, uh, we have this responsibility to encourage this obedience to God before uh it's too late, before they're too old.

Uh, it falls on us to be the ones to teach that.

And so we get to reinforce how uh to interact, how it how it should look to interact in the family of God.

Uh it's turning to fathers as the head, as the leader of the family, uh, who has a primary responsibility for raising his children.

Uh, but this is obviously both parents as well.

The father has the ultimate uh responsibility in the context here in Roman households.

Uh, men had way too much authority in their homes, like they could decide if their children children were to live or die, which is tragic.

Uh but Paul would have no misuse of this authority.

He's not making any provision for that.

He's saying, Don't stir your kids up to anger.

Don't correct your kids in such a way that they become embittered.

Be an encourager, not a discourager.

Praise them.

Make sure they know that you're proud to be their dad.

Help them to be raised up in the Lord.

There's this training and instruction piece, there's teaching and discipline.

The fathers are given this role of child rearing, teaching them to obey God's word, being disciple makers, making disciples of saying, Hey, this is why we obey Jesus in this.

Will you follow us as we do this?

And discipline, uh it needs to be age-appropriate discipline.

It needs to be not in anger, but in love.

It's not the same thing as venting and just sharing all the things that they've done wrong.

God disciplines us in a way to correct our behavior, and we owe our children the same.

So don't provoke your kids to anger.

Bring them up in discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Give them Jesus, give them hope.

Provide concerned oversight.

And there's this promise of like, hey, you should be living a life that is more full, more joyful, because you've listened to your parents.

So lead them to life.

Parents bring your children up in the Lord without provoking them to anger.

So this is the this is the next part that gets a little bit awkward where we're talking about slaves and masters, where we're talking about bondservants and masters.

As we look at this part of the text, it's important for us to know that in these social structures, slaves in the Greco-Roman world were pretty much like employees to us.

Like slaves would be maybe slaves up until about 30 years old, and then they would be graduating on from that.

They would have skills, the ability to pick up trades, the ability to do, have a lot more freedom and access.

When we think slavery, we think like race-based, we think disgusting, heinous, uh like the type of slavery that we saw in America.

That's not what's happening in the Greco-Roman culture.

We're not, it's not American antebellum slavery.

It's not uh human beings being kidnapped and sold.

Uh slaves weren't to be abused, fugitive slaves were not to be returned to their masters.

Uh racially based slavery is disgusting and awful.

And you guys know that.

But just so we're clear, as a position of Taylor Bible Church, we're anti-racism, anti-slavery, the way that we've seen it practiced in America.

Uh, and and what happens in the text here is that Paul is describing slavery in a way that, like, if there was any sort of disgusting like dehumanization of a person seeing a person as property, uh, there would be no room for that after they read these verses and obeyed them.

There would be no room for that, no place for that.

It subverts the function of slavery in that way, uh, because you would not be able to maintain that type of mindset if you were to heed this text, if you were to listen to this text.

And so he's talking about this Roman culture infused with this uh better version of slavery, but he's telling them, hey, in this moment, this is what this looks like.

And a way that you can uh look at this is uh like there's parts of scripture that is prescriptive of like this is what you should do, and there's parts of scripture that's descriptive of like describing what's happening.

This is kind of in uh it's prescriptive in a context that's weird, in a context that doesn't exist for us now, right?

So it's saying if you were to have, if you were to operate as somebody that has somebody who oversees you, this is how you were to operate.

If you were to have uh managerial uh responsibilities, if you were to be an employer, this is how you should operate.

This is the way that would honor God, this is a way that would provide unity in that broken structure that he's writing to.

He's not writing to abolish slavery here.

Uh that wasn't his purpose in writing this.

He's saying, hey, in the context that you're in, let me tell you how to live a life that's pleasing to the Lord.

Let me tell you how to do this.

And what's crazy is that early Christianity, the highest level of leaders, what did Jesus do?

He got down on his knees, he got a basin of water, and he washed his disciples' feet.

He said, if you're gonna follow me, if you want to be a leader, you need to be a servant.

You get on the low position, you put others above you, you look after their interests, not your own.

This is the way of Jesus.

Put yourself low so that others could be lifted up.

And so uh consistently throughout scripture, we see true leaders are primarily servants themselves.

That's what Jesus calls them to.

He says, uh the Son of Man didn't come to be served, but to serve, all the way up to being, to giving his life as a ransom for many.

And so uh Jesus set the example of this servant leadership.

Um and and this is an incredible text that's saying, hey, here's the hope within a really broken system.

Here's the hope that's really uh gonna be give you the freedom to operate and the freedom to love uh that will set you free in Christ.

And so um another important distinction before we look at this text again is work came before the fall, right?

Like God commanded Adam to do what?

To work the land, to subdue it, watch over the garden.

Work was pre-fall, but when Adam sinned, work, like a lot of things, became corrupted.

And one corruption of that work would be slavery.

And so as we look at uh these verses, verses uh five through eight, first, bondservants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

So he's saying, hey, in the way that you love, in the way that you serve, who are you really serving?

You're serving Jesus Christ.

The way that you serve Jesus is you are sincere.

You're not just like, yeah, I got you as a people pleaser, but you do the will of God from the heart, with sincerity, because you're actually serving Jesus.

And then seven and eight, 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's a bondservant or is free.

So if you're working a job and you're not getting paid enough or you're not getting paid at all, who are you really working for?

You're not working for that employer, you're working for Jesus Christ.

He says, maintain this mindset as you serve, as you work.

You should be excellent in what you do.

You should work respectfully, you should work wholeheartedly, you should work willingly, you should work expectantly, expecting God to provide, expecting God to do above and beyond what you could ask for or imagine.

This would give an extraordinary work ethic to those who are submitted to Christ and not to their imperfect boss.

So work sincerely for the Lord, knowing that God sees and rewards faithfulness.

Work sincerely for the Lord, knowing that God sees and rewards faithfulness.

So even if you get passed up for a promotion, God sees you.

He will reward your faithfulness.

Do not lose heart, do not give up, do not quit.

Work for the Lord and trust that he's the one who's gonna provide for you.

And he's gonna reward your faithfulness.

What about on the other side of that?

What does that look like?

I mean, for us, as we have imperfect bosses, as we have imperfect people that we work for, that we answer to, that we're uh operating with, what does that look like?

It looks like um sincerity.

Like I'm gonna I'm gonna give my all at work.

I'm gonna recognize that uh the situation's not gonna be perfect, but I'm gonna work as well as I can in an imperfect system, and I'm going to be excellent there.

And then on the other side of that, for employers or managers, what's the imperative?

Uh that you would manage those you oversee faithfully, and that you would recognize that you will answer to God as well.

So manage those you oversee faithfully, recognize that you will answer to God for the way you manage them, for the way that you uh set standards and goals and ask for those to be fulfilled.

The way that we manage those that we lead should honor the Lord.

There's some very practical things in it in there.

Stop your threatening.

Knowing that he who is both their boss and yours is in heaven, and that there's no partiality with him.

He's not partial to you because you've gotten a better seat at the table in your board meeting.

But he says, No, this is the way you are to love, this is the way you are to lead, this will allow there to be unity in the body of Christ.

And what's crazy is like somebody could be a slave at work, and they could be an elder in the church.

They could be a leader in the church.

This was uh often the case, would be somebody that had that mindset of servant and brought that into the church, they would excel and they would be uh in often uh in church leadership positions.

And so there would be this flipped upside-down kingdom in the kingdom of heaven, and also they would see that in their own local bodies.

Uh, there's an example where uh some Christians that were being punished were called deacons or servants, uh, and they were also called slaves within the same uh context of that passage.

It wasn't in Scripture, but it's in uh Pliny the Younger's letters.

And so we see this uh in that day, in that age, uh, that this happened, that uh sometimes slaves would excel and they would be in leadership positions in the church.

And so, whatever good one does, uh he will receive this back from the Lord.

You work for an unseen employer who sees all and will reward you.

So, masters treat your slaves the same way that they treat you, which is this idea that you would treat them well and trust the Lord to make all things right, because their master and yours is in heaven.

So even if you're the boss, you're under divine authority too.

Employees may be under you in position, but they're equal to you in value.

They bear the image of God, so honor that dignity and treat all your employees with equity, with respect, consistently applying righteous standards to them.

Don't play favorites, because there's no favoritism with God.

So there's this encouragement to treat your slaves as you would Christ, to practice this mutual respect, this mutual submission, to avoid hostility, to live with this Christ-centered accountability.

We a lot of us don't like that word accountability, of like holding each other to certain standards, of having a level of respect, a level of standards that we encourage each other towards, but that's also how we grow, is that we encourage each other towards these standards, and so accountability is a good thing.

But we should manage those we oversee faithfully and recognize that ultimately we're gonna answer to God for how we do that.

And so, what's the application uh with this text that we look at today?

Uh, will you submit to God's design for your family and for your work?

Submit to your master, Jesus, obey him, honor him, obey your parents, honor them.

Specifics in each season, like for a lot of us here, we we have these, uh we have one of these four roles of child, parent, boss, employee, with others managing us.

What does it look like for us to thrive in those roles?

As a child, we should honor our parents through obedience and care.

As a parent, we should bring up our children in the Lord and stop provoking them to anger.

As an employee or a volunteer, we should work hard for the Lord because he will reward us.

Even when your employer might not, even when they might miss something, even when it might take longer and there might be some deferred hope in those areas, you're working for God, not for man.

And so you can trust the Lord to uh provide.

As an employer or a manager, manage over those you see faithfully, recognizing that you will answer to God.

So, like be an encourager, be a servant, even if you're in a leadership position.

How can you serve and empower and lead those you are leading?

Not to uh make them do the parts that you don't want to do, but to say, how can we accomplish this mission together?

And how can I help you to grow into the person that God has made you to be?

And like release you to actually do those things instead of constantly micromanaging or uh over leading those individuals.

So employees work through Christ, work like Christ, work for Christ.

Employers lead through Christ, lead like Christ, lead for Christ.

This should change the way we relate to people, this should change the way we work.