Servants of Christ (Colossians 3:18-4:1)

I do have an update though from Chris that I wanted to share just to let you know how it's going.

So, in his words, Hello Abide Family.

I just wanted to provide an update as we close out the fifth week of my sabbatical.

I'm happy to report my body feels a lot stronger already.

My physical therapy is going well.

I've been able to triple the amount of reps I'm able to do for most of my exercises.

My left leg feels stronger than it has in over three years.

I'm starting to gain some spatial awareness back in my left foot and ankle.

This is allowing me to walk farther before it cramps up, and I've been able to do so more physically.

Do more physically.

One question I've received quite a bit in the last few weeks is with this progress, are you able to do more in the afternoons?

The answer is no, because that was never the purpose of the physical therapy or the sabbatical.

So don't feel bad, because I don't.

I feel so much stronger and healthier, and that was the purpose.

So thank you for all your prayers.

I can't wait to see you all on March 1st.

So we want to make sure we gave you guys a little update on how it's going, because it's been a little while, and so uh obviously keep him in prayers as he has health sabbatical.

For those of you who are um new, uh, he had a brain tumor that was removed, and so continuing your work through the physical therapy of this.

So there we go.

That's all the process in that.

We're going to be in Colossians chapter three this morning, continuing through the book of Colossians.

So with that in mind as you're flipping there, if you're able to, please stand for the reading of God's word.

Colossians 3, starting in verse 18.

Wives, submit to your husbands, yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Husbands, love your wives and don't be bitter toward them.

Children obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they won't become discouraged.

Slaves obey your human masters in everything.

Don't work only while being watched, as people pleasers, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.

Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord.

You serve the Lord Christ, for the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism.

Masters do with your slaves justly and fairly, since you know that you too have a master in heaven.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you for today, and I thank you for your word.

I ask that as we continue to study your word, that you would be glorified, that you would draw us closer to you, that you would continue to shape us and form us, conform us to your image, that we would seek to follow you in all things.

That we would be transformed, that we would continue to seek to glorify you and to love and serve one another as a result of that.

In your name.

Amen.

Alright, go ahead and have a seat.

So we at Abide teach verse by verse through whole books of the Bible.

So we don't skip around.

So this is where we got, which is super cool, because I get to make everybody mad today.

So that's how that plays out.

But ultimately, Valentine's Day is over.

That's done, and we're moving on to this.

So wow, what a passage, huh?

I'm actually looking forward to it.

This is a letter, right?

Paul is writing a whole letter to the church in Colossae, and he has never met these people.

He's never personally been there, and he is writing to cover all of the bases.

So uh something with Colossians, it's kind of like JV Ephesians, to where a lot of the uh things are parallels between the two books.

And so that continues through in this time.

So he went through a whole lot of you have everything in Jesus.

You are complete in Jesus.

Uh, don't let people pull you away from Jesus.

And here we see a lot of how to function as followers of Jesus.

So the crux of everything for today starts in verse 17.

Because this is a letter, right?

There is no chapter breaks, there's no turn the tape over to side B.

For those of you who are younger, a tape is what you used to listen to music on.

It was terrifying when it would get a and you have to get a pencil to try to resuscitate.

It's good flowing through.

So when we see verse 17 of chapter 3, whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That has to be the foundation of everything we go over today, because when you take it out of that context in granularity, there's a whole lot that's here is like, oh, I don't like that.

And I don't like that, and I don't like any of this.

And so, whatever you do, in word, in deed, do everything in the name of Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

So the focus here is the Lord.

Why am I making such a big deal about this?

Because what we're gonna go through today only works when our focus is the Lord.

And it breaks when our focus is on self.

That's gonna be a thread that I'm gonna continue to weave through this whole passage here.

So, what is before we just dive into this?

Let's go back to where everything went bad.

Genesis 3.

So, I'm gonna read Genesis 3, 1 through 6.

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals the Lord Jesus had made, Lord God had made.

He said to the woman, Did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden, but the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.

No, you will not die, the serpent said to the woman.

In fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom.

So she took some of its fruit and she ate it, and gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

So, what happened?

God created everything, and he said it was very good.

And he gave to Adam and Eve, he said, You can eat from any tree in the garden, except for one.

That tree, good.

That tree, also good.

That tree, not okay, but that tree, good.

Good, good, good, good, good.

No, good, good, good, no, good.

Every tree except one, right?

So the reality was that God gave them abundance of good things.

And restricted one thing.

The question that the serpent asked was, did God really give you nothing?

He starts with, did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden?

Is God restricting you?

Did he give you nothing?

And the tactic is that he's going to say, No, you won't die.

In fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened.

You will be like God, knowing good and evil.

And he turned the focus from the Lord to the self and all of the benefits now, so that you can live your best life now.

So, what shifted here?

So I have a just a slide for some imagery.

The reality is that God gives us an abundance of good things, and he restricts some things.

And when our focus is on the on God, that's fine.

But when we start to look through the lens of ourself and what I deserve, then we start to think that what God has given us is very small, and what he has restricted us from is very great.

And this is the problem.

This is what happens when we focus on self over focusing on the Lord and what he has given us.

Contentedness dies and coveting rises.

And so, with that in mind, that will start to affect how we interact with people.

Because we'll go, how can I take care of me?

How can I get what I need?

How can that person fulfill my needs?

And that's what happens is that God designed us to be dependent upon Him for all these good things He's given us, and He, because He loves us, has restricted some things.

But we start to think about ourselves and what we deserve and what we want now, and suddenly God's restrictive, right?

And He's keeping us from what we want and what we need.

Because He knows that you'll be like Him.

That's such a brutal statement.

So when we shift our focus off of the Lord and onto ourselves, we will prioritize desire and sacrifice others to that desire.

So we see this played out in James 1, 14 through 15, and we'll put that up as well.

Each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own desire.

Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death.

So when we serve our desires, we have a little baby sin.

And when the sin grows up, congratulations, it's death.

Literally.

Now, desire is not bad.

Desire is a part of us.

Desire submitted to God is good.

Desire uh to as a focus of serving self will cause us to use others to get what we want.

And that is how things go wrong right off the bat.

Main point you cannot glorify God while focusing on self.

And that's problematic, because I don't know if you guys have noticed, but we live in a world that glorifies self more than anything else.

I need to live my best life now.

I'm going to live my truth.

You do you.

Self-care.

All these things, self, self, stuff, stuff, me, me, me, me, stuff, stuff, stuff.

To the point where we get to this idea, we start to live a fad diet existence where we do unnatural things like cramming our schedules full of everything and try to solve it with unnatural things, like ignoring everything and basically I'm gonna take care of me for a while now.

That's not how we were designed.

So, with this in mind, you cannot glorify God while focusing on self.

Now, diving into this passage, there's a structure here.

And so the first chunk of each little couplet here is a party is to submit and obey, and then a Lord statement, and then a party is to lead well, and then a warningslash admonition.

Repeat it four times, and I'm gonna put that up on the screen for the majority of this time.

So, but again, all of this under the umbrella of verse 17, whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

So let's look at our first little couplet here.

Wives, submit yourself to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord.

Nobody threw anything, we're good.

Husbands, love your wives and don't be bitter toward them.

Nobody left.

Hey, we're doing fine somewhere.

So this is the most opposite to self thing that you can say.

And yet, it comes up three times in the epistles.

It comes up in Ephesians 5.

It comes up here, and it cut just in case you think this is Paul's thing, it comes up in 1 Peter 3 as well.

This is a theme that keeps rolling through of how do we love one another.

And so something that I like to think about when I look at this is not only what is somebody called to, but what is the typical desire that conflicts with this?

So we're gonna paint with broad strokes here, and that'll that will be okay.

This is generalizations, but wives submit yourselves to your husbands.

Nobody on the planet likes to submit.

Nobody does.

And he's calling wives to submit to your husbands.

Why?

Because it's fitting in the Lord.

What is the desire that conflicts with that?

Well, you know, everybody's different.

Everybody's different, of course.

There's a lot of uh back and forth with that, but I would say that the desire that conflicts with this would be agency.

To have a say in things, to have a voice.

People like to jump to control, but that's a side effect of agency.

That's that's the that's what happens when agency goes weird.

To be to have a voice in things.

Submitting threatens that.

It shouldn't.

That should not be the case.

So if wives, if if you're in a position to where submitting looks like you don't have agency, that's not good.

That's not what we are talking about here.

That's not healthy.

So I think that's what's difficult in here, is there's so much nuance to the reality of these passages that it says, submit yourselves to your husbands.

Why?

Because it's fitting in the Lord.

If that comes though at a at the expense of your dignity, that's not what God desires.

You're an image bearer, right?

Made in the image of God.

Husbands, love your wives and don't be bitter toward them.

So the husband call here to love your wives, and the admonition or warning, don't be bitter toward them.

This is expanded a little bit in Ephesians 5, where we see husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her.

What did Jesus do for the church?

He died for the church.

So that's that's there's love in there.

And also, don't be bitter toward them.

Love and bitterness cannot coexist.

That is not going to be able to be a factor in there.

And so it is easy sometimes to look at this and go, oh man, wives, you have the hard job here, submit to your husbands.

Husbands, you have the easy job here just to love your wives and don't be a jerk, right?

I mean we can summarize it that way.

But here's a secret that isn't always talked about.

Painting with broad strokes.

As guys, we don't want to be in charge of things.

We may act like we do, but at the end of the day, the typical desire is tranquility, to not have responsibilities, to be able to either be done with things and sit down and relax, to go out in the yard and be at peace and work.

Different thing, or in the garage, or different things like that, broad strokes here.

But ultimately, my greatest desire is to not have to be responsible for anything.

So when husbands are called to love and to lead in that way is hard and is contrary to desire.

And so both of these things require dependency upon God in order for it to happen.

And if we are focusing on self, it will not happen.

You can't submit or love without bitterness while focusing on yourself.

It's not, I mean, we said this before when we went through Ephesians, it's not like, hey, this is a 50-50 thing.

It's like God calls us as husbands and wives to serve our spouse 100%.

Not if they are doing their job first.

And when we start protecting ourselves and go, I will do that if they do that first, it all breaks down.

Now, I want to say something because it does not come up all that often in these passages, and it is really, really, really important.

There is no context, no context, where we are called as image bearers of God, as followers of Jesus, to endure abuse.

Full stop.

I know this because I know the elders that abide.

If ever somebody is in a situation where their safety is in question, we will prioritize your safety first.

Number one.

If there are, and I know it works both ways, but you know, statistically, overwhelmingly, abuse works in one direction, um, physically at least.

If there are husbands who read this passage and feel comfortable in a situation where they're overbearing, um you are blissfully unaware of the wrath that is coming, because you have a master in heaven who is not nearly as concerned about your interpretation of submission as how you are treating his child.

So be careful and be warned.

With that in mind, it always needs to be said in these passages because we're basically calling to put us to basically die yourself and take care of others.

But if somebody is abusing you, get help and be safe first, and we will sort out the rest.

So Fox done.

Okay.

Moving on, we see here, children, obey your parents in everything.

For this pleases the Lord.

So, what is the call here?

Children, obey in some things.

No.

No, no, in everything.

Why?

Because this pleases the Lord.

That's crazy, isn't it?

It pleases the Lord for you to obey your parents.

That's pretty crazy.

What is the typical desire that conflicts with this?

Independence.

Right?

I want to phone.

I want to drive.

When I'm 18, dot dot dot dot dot.

And so the desire for independence is what conflicts with this.

And yet it pleases the Lord to obey.

Anybody like obeying parents?

Please don't raise your hands.

I know you're lying.

So uh, and on the other side, fathers, don't exasperate your children.

Exasperate is such a fun word, right?

Don't exasperate your children.

So that they won't become discouraged.

So, with that in mind here, what do what do parents want?

Compliance.

Oftentimes.

Which goes back to the tranquility thing.

Can you just do what you're told so that it's done?

I don't have to think about it, I don't have to follow up with it, and I can have a moment's peace here, and everything is calm and happy, right?

So uh I will be honest that when we had children, the most shocking thing to me was that they do not desire compliance.

That they do not that, and you cannot go, hey, do this, and they go, yes, father, and do it.

And I mean, I'm talking about like toddler level age to where they're basically.

They're like, oh my gosh, they have a will of their own, and there's nothing you can really do to change that.

And yet, compliance does not come, is not enforced in such a way that exasperates or discourages, depending on your translation, your children.

Here's the thing.

Parents are in a very heavy position, like it or not, how our children interact and see us informs how they interact with and see the Lord.

That's terrifying.

It is if somebody has really poor experiences with their parents, it is very difficult to not project that upon the Lord.

And that's not fair, but it is true oftentimes.

Not all the time, but with that in mind, it's a heavy responsibility.

And so kids are like, okay, how many more years until I'm an adult, and then I'm gonna get out of the house, and then I'm gonna realize really hard, and I'm gonna try to get back into the house, and then it gets awkward, and then we have to cut contract because you still have to follow the rules of the house, but you're an adult, and I don't know how all this works.

It's coming.

Can you tell?

Can you tell that I'm bit close to that?

Anyway.

But parents, how do we parent in such a way that accurately reflects the Lord?

That's pretty that's pretty heavy, right?

Um kids hear us apologize to them a lot, unfortunately, because we don't get it right.

And in the moment, I will want to do what it takes to get compliance.

And sometimes that's necessary for the well-being of everybody.

You know, I'm not, there's nothing wrong with that.

And please parent your children.

That's part of reality with that.

Not every child is a strong-willed child.

So, with that in mind, just know that when we get it wrong, because we will get it wrong, have grace with that and be honest with that.

And that goes a whole long way.

So, with that in mind, you cannot obey your parents long-term effectively without relying on the Lord for that.

Parents, you cannot parent in a way that does not crush their spirits without relying on the Lord.

See the theme that we keep going through here, it's it's all consistent in that.

And again, this is never a call to endure abuse.

Humans are uniquely made in the image of God.

And God takes it very seriously.

All human beings are to be treated with intrinsic dignity.

So, continuing forward, slaves obey your human masters in everything.

You're like, okay, let's see you do something with that.

Uh don't work only while being watched as people pleasers, but work wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.

Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people.

Knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord.

You serve the Lord Christ.

For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong he has done, and there is no favoritism.

Okay, this is where it gets super messy, because we do not live in the Roman Empire.

Shocking, I know, but it's true.

So this is not something that we encounter on a daily basis.

And looking back, we have to go this and look at this passage, and he's talking to slaves, masters, this is really awkward, this is really uncomfortable.

And I either have to start to do uh linguistic gymnastics to explain how this doesn't mean what it seems to mean so that we don't feel bad about it, or then I have to go over here and plow through.

And here's where I landed this.

Uh there were many forms of servitude in the Roman Empire.

We want to focus on one of those to feel good about it, but there were many of them.

There were those who actually contracted themselves as servants to the house to pay off their bills, to pay off their debts.

There were trafficked people who were indentured servants in the Roman Empire.

Both of these are a reality.

What is Paul talking about here?

I don't know exactly.

I just don't, because you can't parse that through with the language.

Dulas means a lot more than we say it means, I'll put it that way.

And so, with that in mind, what does it mean here?

Here's what I would say.

On one side, Paul is focused on the proclaiming of the gospel, the furthering of the kingdom of God, and the making of disciples, right?

So he did not burn down the institution that was obviously corrupt.

On the other side, we're going to see in chapter 4, one of the people he's going to send to this church is a Nesimus, who, if you pull out a Philemon, was a slave who ran away from his master, and Paul was like, Can you please forgive this guy?

Because he's really good and useful, and just let him go.

And we see elsewhere in scripture he says, look, if you are uh in servitude to someone, try to free yourself as much as possible so that you can serve the Lord instead.

So it is never encouraged, it is seen as a reality, and if you can get out of it, that's great.

But in the meantime, here's what we do: obey.

Don't work only while being watched as people pleasers.

Gosh, I've been I have a day, a full-time day job, enough people that I and I have been in retail management of some kind for 13 years now, I think.

And uh something that is an axiom is that everybody is a model employee when you're standing right at them.

So God is calling us to serve whatever that capacity that looks like, even when we're not being watched to do so with integrity.

What would a slave desire?

Freedom.

That's the easiest one at all with this, guys.

So, but serving as unto the Lord, fearing the Lord, wholeheartedly, from the heart, done for the Lord and not for people, is pleasing to the Lord.

So if someone is in that position to do so wholeheartedly.

What am I gonna say?

This is never a call to endure abuse.

Okay, we've got that.

Boom, boom, boom, all three topics here.

So here's a cool thing.

Verse 24.

You will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord.

Do you know what slaves don't get?

An inheritance.

Isn't that pretty cool?

The work that you've been, that they are, the work they think they're doing.

They're doing it unto the Lord, as servants of the Lord, but they're being treated as sons by the Lord.

Isn't that cool?

That's super cool, because they are, they have the reward of an inheritance, and they have the promise that the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever he's done.

There's no favoritism for slate or for master.

Although we are called in this situation to serve the Lord as unto the Lord rather than self, there's a promise of the inheritance that we do not deserve and are not afforded.

I'm pretty sure we can pull the gospel connections out of that without having to dive too deep into that.

So, super cool.

Masters, verse 4 deal with your slaves justly and fairly, since you know that you too have a master in heaven.

And we see in an adjacent passage, and there is no partiality with him.

Dun dun dun.

So the call is to deal justly and fairly.

Again, the typical desire is obedience.

Do what I asked you to, get the job done, do it quickly.

But he's called to do so justly and fairly.

Why?

Because you have a master in heaven as well.

If we are in any position of authority here, and we think for one second that we are not under the authority of God, we are in for a rude awakening.

What we do matters.

How we treat people matters.

There's an element to where we can have all of the right answers.

We can have our doctrine lined up perfectly.

We can do those things.

And that's good, right?

That's good.

But if that does not translate to treating others well, what are we even doing?

Basic human dignity.

If you take that and go weird directions with that, that ain't my fault.

So, but ultimately, as a whole here, we've been talking about how we glorify God and we love God.

And as a result, we love others.

But if we are glorifying ourselves, we will not glorify God and we will not adequately love others.

We will end up using others to glorify and love ourselves.

It's a zero-sum game.

But why is Paul even saying all of these things?

Because it's a human issue.

Whatever context we are in, there is the human desire to go, okay, all that you said, I'm gonna do the opposite.

And so he's telling people he's never met.

You think this is like this is what we're thinking, is like it gets weird and tense and odd when we talk about these topics in a church setting.

Imagine writing all this stuff to a letter to people he hasn't even met.

And then it's like he's gonna show up one day and they're gonna be like, oh, it's you.

Let's talk.

So back up for a minute.

Wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters.

All of these topics are so often ground, when we discuss them, grounded in power dynamics, right?

Something we understand.

Something that we all crave to a certain degree, if we're honest.

And I don't see that here.

I see it largely more of a um interactional.

How do you interact with one another?

And so again, wives, submit yourself to your husband.

We see that in Ephesians 5.

4 and 5.

We see that here.

We see that in 1 Peter.

Um, but again, like if that comes in a situation where you have no agency and you have no voice, there's a core unhealth in your relationship that needs to be at rest.

This is problematic.

Um why am I making a big deal out of this?

Because we don't make a big deal out of this.

Uh in in oftentimes in the church setting, because this is awkward and we want to talk about it and we want to do it and we overdo it.

Um, but if there's if this is not normal patterns, something that is a lot more nuanced and easy to navigate, then like there's there's bigger unhealth there to navigate.

And again, husbands, we're called to love our wives, if that's really, really hard on the long term.

Like, again, what's going what's going on there?

Don't let unhealth be the default.

We're gonna talk about that?

Okay.

Counseling, okay, help.

Parents, children.

Same thing.

It shouldn't be conflict all the time.

No, there's going to be conflict.

I mean, that's just unfortunately, that's a reality of the situation.

But ultimately, there it shouldn't, we always, here's what I'll say.

In these passages, we always frame them in the worst case scenario, and it doesn't have to be that way.

Same thing, slaves and masters, with that topic of ultimately um as we work unto the Lord, we keep our eyes off ourselves and onto the Lord.

And here's what that looks like in practicality.

I will I will say this.

Um, nobody does this well long term, right?

And there are moments where we really blow it, right?

When I do not feel like my spouse or my child is living up to the end of their bargain, ten out of ten times I am thinking about myself in the best possible light, and my spouse or my child in the worst possible light.

It's amazing how that happens.

If I am indignant or I am hurt or I am upset, I am not thinking about how that person has seen me at my absolute worst and loved me through it.

About how they have selflessly and lovingly cared for me, even when it wasn't easy to do so.

This is gonna shock you guys.

I'm not an easy person to live with.

So, but in that moment, when I am upset or I am hurt, that is the furthest thing from my mind.

And I can guarantee you in that moment that I'm thinking, I'm actually the easiest person in the world to be married to.

And that person, man, they don't understand what they have.

Or in the parent-child situation, I am the best dad ever.

And man, that kid is terrible.

When in the reality, that kid is amazing, and we're having conflict.

But in that moment, my view is so restricted of the other person and is so huge and gracious of myself.

Yeah.

No child, when they're upset at their parents for being corrected, goes, Well, they did wipe me for years.

I'm gonna give them some grace.

It doesn't work that way.

And so, with that in mind, the core of this, if we go home from this and go, man, you could if you're married, you look at your spouse and you go like, gee, do you hear what was the Bible verse?

Yeah, uh, you miss you miss the point.

You know, if you're a child or a parent, you know, um, you know, slaving employee does not quite slate equate, it does not equate that way.

There's a certain element with that, but at the same time, if you're like, oh wow, this makes me really think about the other person's faults, that's a problem.

So at the core of it, um, because we do everything in word and deed in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him, therefore we ask him to grow us in this way.

That does not happen instantly.

So also have grace with one another.

But these things are not compatible with the self-first mindset.

You can if if we are thinking about ourself first, we will not love those in our lives well.

They will fundamentally become tools to sacrifice at the altar of our desire.

And that sounds reductionistic, I don't care, it's true.

So, and these things are not sustainable outside of the Lord's help.

You can't ultimately long term, and you're like, well, I know these people, and they are not believers, they've been married for 40 years.

Yes, that's true.

There's such a thing as common grace, and that's good.

But ultimately, how to do so in the moment, to do so well, requires the work of the Lord.

But also just remember a few things.

We have this chart here, and it's like, okay, it goes that way, it goes that way, it goes that way.

There should be a fifth one.

I wanted to put it up there, the text got too small.

But we serve the Lord.

The Lord Jesus is the bridegroom of the church.

The Lord is, God is the Father, and we are his children, right?

He is the master.

Lord means master.

Same word, and we are we serve him.

It all terminates at God.

So all the things here, think about this.

There is that parable where, and I'm this is off the cuff, so I'm not gonna say it completely right, but there's this parable where uh the master goes away on a journey, and then the servant goes, Hey, he's gone on a long journey, I can do what he wants.

And then he starts beating his fellow servants and everything, and Jesus is like, What do you think is gonna happen when the master comes home?

May we be people who, when the master returns, are seen doing as he's called us to do.

And what does that look like in closing here?

Let's look at 1 John 4, 7 through 11.

Dear friends, let us love one another.

Because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

God's love was revealed among us in this way.

God sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also must love one another.

Let's pray.

There is no unrighteousness in you.

There is no darkness in you.

You are the light of the world that exposes darkness and yet pays for the price of it.

And I thank you for that.

I ask, Lord, that we would fundamentally be quick to take our eyes off of ourself.

That we would be quick to rather than view what you have given as good, as restrictive, and to view what you have restricted as a slight, that rather we would trust you and commend ourselves to you.

Lord, I ask that you would grow us, that you would shape us, that you would refine us.

Be working mightily.

I ask that you would convict us whenever we read these passages and think, hey, I'm doing pretty good.

Please gently remind ourselves of reality.

And at the same time, remind us of our grace as well.

And let us be quick to extend that to others.

I ask, Lord, that as we go through these tricky topics, that it would always culminate in our desire to serve you in all things, that it would always culminate in a desire to show more love and more dignity and more care to those around us.

That we would be convicted of the times we're reading these passages would lead us to entitlement.

But rather that we would desire to love more, to love deeper.

I thank you for the love that you showed us by dying on the cross for our sins, when we were your enemies.

That you offered your life so that we may live.

You offered your sinless sacrifice to pay for our sins.

For anybody who does not know you, I ask that they would desire that.

Through all the complexities of these interactional logistical passages, that they would ultimately hear that you love them, that you want them, that you've paid the price for their sins that have separated them from you, and that it is free to receive that.

And I ask you would move by your spirit upon hearts to receive that.

Be glorified and help us seek you more and more every day.

Amen.