Obeying with Integrity: Serving Christ in Every Role- Eph 6.5-9

Good morning, and welcome to the preaching ministry of Dillingham Moravian Church.

My name is Pastor Simon, and here at DMC our mission is to make disciples for

Christ as we share the Word of God to Bristol Bay, Alaska, and beyond.

It is our joy to have you join us today.

Lately, my older biological son Jonathan has been putting his dishes in the

sink and cleaning up his area of the kitchen table without me having to ask him.

Jonathan's obedience to me, his father in that area, has really pleased me,

not only because he needs me or he needs to obey me as his father,

but because it bodes well for his spiritual and mental maturing process.

And thus, when I see our boys doing what they should be doing without me asking

them, I thank them and I commend them for it.

My point with this family story is that as believers in Christ,

we're not just to obey those in authority over us, but we're to do so to please Christ.

And the bonus is that Christ will someday reward us for it. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word, for your truth. Teach us and guide us, O precious God.

Show us how we can apply your

truth here and be able to

live out your love and the

proper obedience to you and to those in authority over us we thank you lord

use us and may you speak to us today help us oh lord to apply it by your grace

and by your love in your precious son's name jesus christ i pray amen.

Previously, in Ephesians 5, God taught us through Paul that wives are to be

subject to or to rank under their husbands as to the Lord.

Secondly, husbands must love their wives just as Christ has loved His bride, the church.

Moreover, Christ-loving husbands must love their wives by taking their focus

off of themselves and make God their first focus and treasure,

and then, in God, focus their love upon their wives.

Another key truth to remember is that the Christian husband and wife are now

one body and their oneness is a showcase of the oneness of Christ and His bride, the church.

Husbands, then, are to love their wives as Christ loves the church,

and wives are to respect their husbands.

God also taught that children are to obey their parents in the Lord,

for this is according to God's right standards.

Children are also to show high regard for their mothers and fathers,

valuing their parents so that they will be blessed by God, and generally,

life will go well for them.

Lastly, Christ-trusting fathers are not to provoke their children to anger,

but to focus on bringing up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

And today we will continue in Ephesians 6, verse 5-9.

Ephesians 6:5–9

Ephesians 6, verse 5-9.

Ephesians 6:5–9

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh,

with fear and trembling in the integrity of your heart as to Christ,

not by way of eye service as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ,

doing the will of God from the heart,

serving with goodwill as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good

thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.

And masters do the same things to them, give up threatening,

knowing that both their master and yours is in heaven, and there's no partiality with him.

As we study this passage this morning, there are two overarching truths that

God through Paul taught the Ephesian church and to us.

The first truth that I believe that God wants us to understand is that we are

to obey those we are under authority to, for Christ is our Master.

The first thing I want you to see in this passage is the difference between

slaves and bond-slaves or bond-servants.

During Paul's time in the Roman world, slaves were treated like animals,

and they were ruled by their masters using fear and severe physical punishment.

I bring this up to you because although the LSB translation of slaves that I'm

using here is an accurate translation, I don't think it gets at the heart of

the transformation of the Christian household in Christ.

The ESV rendered this word as bondservant, although a better way of saying it would be bondslave.

Now, it is important to note that many Christ-honoring masters gave freedom

to their slaves when the master became Christian.

Yet many slaves would not leave their masters.

A bondslave was a slave who was given their freedom by their master,

and instead of taking that freedom, they, out of love for their master and for

the whole household, committed to staying and serving that household for the rest of their lives.

And I believe when Paul was addressing the Ephesian Christ believers,

many of the slaves that he was commanding in this passage in Ephesians 6 would

have been bond slaves. Not all, but many.

And this is important because Paul wasn't out to change social and political

and economic structures of the day.

Rather, transformation was from within, just as God does not often change our

hardships, but rather transforms us from within the hardships so as to give

greater witness to the glory of God.

And this brings us to the first command that Paul gave to bond slaves that I

want us to look at in Ephesians 6, verse 5.

Ephesians 6:5

Paul wrote, Slaves or bond slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters

according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the integrity of your heart as to Christ.

The big question that this verse brings up is, why does Paul command bond slaves

to be sincere or have integrity in their hearts.

And be obedient to their masters with trembling or quaking fear?

Their answer is that Paul wouldn't give that command to Christian bond slaves

or slaves because that was the attitude of unbelieving slaves to their Roman and Ephesian masters.

The Romans and other masters amongst the world would have ruled by intentionally

cultivating fear through torture and control tactics.

No, Paul was commanding the Christ-believing bond slaves to serve their Christ-believing

masters as they served the Lord.

According to one commentator, Paul in the New Testament is the only New Testament

writer to use this expression.

And on each of these occasions, consistence, the phrase has to do with an attitude

of due reverence and awe in the presence of God.

A godly fear of the believer in view of the final day.

It's not a slavish terror of the unbeliever, nor is it an attitude oriented solely to humans.

You see, the bond slaves' service to their masters was part of their worship of the Lord.

The rest of Paul's commands to the Christian bond slaves were centered in this

concept of serving Christ through their service to their masters.

I also wish to point out that even if some of the slaves that Paul was addressing

were not bonded to their masters.

As Christians, they were to obey their masters out of obedience to the Lord.

The second command that Paul addressed to Christ-fearing bondslaves was that

they were to obey their masters, not out of eye service as pleasing people,

but as bondslaves of Christ.

And thus the motivation behind the Christian bondslaves' obedient service was

not so that they could catch the eye of their master and be praised for their

work or have their status elevated in the household.

Rather, they were considered themselves as bondslaves of Christ doing the will

of God from their hearts.

The bond slave was to please God by joyfully obeying God in their obedience

to their masters that they were bonded to.

As Paul in Galatians 1.10 proclaimed, For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God?

Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men,

I would not be a slave of Christ.

1 Corinthians 7.22 For he who was called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord's freed man.

Likewise, he who was called while free is Christ's slave.

What Paul was getting at in 1 Corinthians 7 was that a Christ believer who was

a slave is spiritually free in Christ, whereas all Christians,

both physically free and slave, are slaves of Christ.

The third command is like the first and the second, except that the bond slave's

obedience was to be done out of goodwill as to Christ.

The word that Paul used for goodwill meant a positive attitude exhibited in

a relationship with good attitude, willingness.

So not only was the Christian bond slave commanded to obey their master's ask

to the Lord, but with a positive and good attitude.

It's also important to see that the bond slave was only to have goodwill towards his or her master.

This is essential because a person can obey someone in authority out of duty

or drudgingly because they have to.

But to obey out of only wanting good for that person takes service to a whole

nother level. That's Christlikeness.

Christ demonstrated His goodwill towards us by sacrificing His life for us so

that we would not perish but have everlasting life with God.

Lastly, Paul commanded Christ following bond slaves that as a result of their

willing obedience to their masters under the Lord, they will be rewarded for their service.

Paul in Colossians 3, verse 23-24 taught,

Colossians 3:23–24

And whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men,

knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. Serve the Lord Christ.

Jesus, in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, verse 21,

Matthew 25:21

said, His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful slave.

You are faithful with a few things.

I will put you in charge of many things.

Enter into the joy of your master.

Since we are now not physical slaves in this country, the best way that we can

apply the principles of this passage is how we live under authority.

Albeit we get paid for our jobs and many of us have benefits of some kind.

The boss-worker relationship is perhaps the closest to the bond-slave-master relationship.

I understand how challenging it can be to be under bosses that can be difficult to work for.

I've personally had bosses in the past that were quite mean to their employees, myself included.

And yet God, through Paul, commands us as Christ believers to obey those who

we are working for or under authority to in obedience to the Lord.

Not only to obey them, but to do so willingly with the desire to do good for

them as Christ defines good.

We are to work hard for our bosses, not so that they will notice us and reward

us or advance us in the workplace, but to work hard for the Lord Jesus Christ to please Him.

And that means we get noticed and promoted all the better.

But we are to first seek the Lord's favor in all things. I know this is challenging

right now, but what about our attitudes towards the IRS or the government?

We are called to do what is required of us with a cheerful heart,

knowing that the government really works for God himself.

What about paying off debts? Isn't debt one of the biggest form of slavery we have now? Absolutely.

And again, we are to joyfully work hard as to the Lord to pay off our debts

as soon as we can so that we can be free of those chains of financial debt and

serve the Lord free of those restraints so that we can use our wealth for the Lord's work.

And as we joyfully obey the Lord in all these situations and more,

the Lord will be pleased with us, and the promise is that we will be rewarded in heaven.

So far, we've learned that God, through Paul, taught the Ephesians that bond

slaves are to obey their masters in obedience to Christ and as part of their worship to the Lord.

However, Paul addressed Christ, trusting masters as well.

For us as Christians today who are in authority, We are to treat those underneath

us with goodwill, knowing that Christ is our master and theirs.

Just before I came up here to Dillingham to be pastor here at the Moravian Church,

I worked in the mailroom for Fred Meyer's main headquarters in Portland, Oregon.

While I worked at that mailroom, I had a great boss.

She was a hard worker and fair, even pitched in when employees were sick.

She also went to bat for her employees and fired a supervisor that was treating

members of the team badly.

This boss of mine also recognized the hard work and efforts of her employees and rewarded them.

Although not a Christian, knowing that I was a Christian and a bivocational

preacher, she took interest in me and commended me in my mentoring of other workers in the office.

She would have even promoted me if the Lord hadn't moved me here to Alaska.

I share this story with you to explain that even though there are many horrible

bosses out there, there are good ones.

And although the boss-employee relationship doesn't quite match the master-slave

relationship of the ancient world,

it does give us a good idea of how a Christian master can transform the work

environment for their bond slaves when they are obedient to Christ and treat

their bond slaves with the kindness of Christ.

Paul continued on in Ephesians 6, verse 9. And masters do the same thing to

Ephesians 6:9

them, give up threatening, knowing that both their master and yours is in heaven,

and there is no partiality with him.

I want you to notice that Paul taught Christ-believing masters to do the same

things to their bond slaves as Paul taught the bond slaves to act in respect to their masters.

What was it that Paul was asking the Christian masters to do?

First of all, like their Christian bond slaves, Christian masters were to serve

the Lord and see themselves as slaves of Christ.

Masters were also taught to do the will of God from their heart or from their

entire being, treating their bond slaves with the same good will as they would to Christ.

Christ-trusting masters were to

remember that when they did good to their slaves, God would reward them.

Paul also commanded Christian masters to stop threatening their slaves out of

the knowledge that both of them and their bond slaves have Christ as their ultimate master and Lord.

From our modern perspective, we want to say, free all the slaves.

And yes, as Christians today, we have a responsibility to help free slaves and

those who are oppressed.

Yet back in Paul's days, Christians were not in charge of the Roman society.

And if all the slaves were to be freed, where would they live and work?

They would not be citizens, and most of the slaves would have ended up homeless

because of the patronage society.

The whole society ran based off the patronage of those wealthy masters.

Now, some Christian masters elevated their slaves to be part of the family,

adopted them so that they could be Roman citizens.

Some may have paid their bond slaves. Yet I want you to see that God wanted

to show us that even in the midst of societal constraints,

occupation by foreign militaries, slavery, torturous persecution of Christians,

both master and slave, that a person could be free in Christ and be transformed

into a powerful witness to be used so that the Holy Spirit could transform people

in Christ, not societal structures.

When Christ first came, he did not overthrow the Romans, but Jesus left the Jews in Roman slavery.

Instead, Jesus himself died at the hands of both the Jews and the Romans to

demonstrate that true power is in weakness so that he could be the sacrificial

lamb of God to pay the blood debt for our sins that all humanity owed but could not pay.

Jesus died so as to bring those who respond to God's graciousness into relationship with God once more.

But there's wonderful news. The next time Christ returns, it will be different.

Christ will come in the almighty power of God, and he will overthrow all governments,

all human systems, including slavery.

Christ will rule this world and the universe as righteous judge and good master.

There'll be no more sorrow, no more death, no more pain, no more evil, no more sin.

And God will be all and all to everyone.

Now, how can we apply Paul's commands to masters to us today?

If we are an authority of any kind, we are to accomplish our duties with the

love and respect of Christ, knowing that we all work for Christ, our true Master.

Christian bosses are to understand that who they truly serve is Christ, their Lord and Master.

Christian bosses are to set the example of Christlikeness in the workplace by

viewing their employees with the goodwill that they view Christ with.

And if you're listening today and you are a Christian boss, strive in the power

of the Holy Spirit to be a servant leader who considers the needs of their employees

as Christ considers our needs.

I totally understand that you must work hard, make money for,

and promote a company or organization that you work for.

Yes, do that as an example of Christ's hard work and integrity.

But also remember that your ultimate master is Christ, and He sacrificed His

very life for you out of love for you, who did not deserve His love at all.

For you as Christ followers who work for the government or politicians,

understand that you ultimately work for Christ and He is your master and Lord.

Treat those underneath you and the people you serve as Christ treated you.

School administrators and teachers who are Christians, view Christ as your Lord

and master. Work hard for Christ.

View the students and parents that you work for with the goodwill that Christ sees you with.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and cherish your wives

as you already do your own self.

Parents, love your kids in the Lord and lovingly train them up in education

and the admonition of the Lord, knowing that we do all this as part of our worship

to the Lord our God and Master.

There are two main takeaways from this section in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

The first takeaway is that God through Paul taught the Ephesians that bond slaves

are to obey their masters in obedience to Christ and as part of their worship to the Lord.

Paul also commanded that Christian masters were to view themselves as slaves

of Christ doing the will of God,

treating their bond slaves with the same goodwill as they would to Christ.

As Christians living in the Western world, almost 2,000 years later,

Everyone is in authority to someone, and all are under the authority of God.

As Christians, both those in authority and those under authority,

we are called to serve and to treat others with the goodwill that God in Christ has for us.

We are to see ourselves as bond slaves of the greatest and most wonderful Master

ever to exist, Jesus Christ.

Yet we also need to remember that our wonderful Master is also the Most High

Judge, and He is Yahweh, the Great I Am,

Lord, who's going to return and judge the world, and every knee will bow everywhere

to Jesus Christ our Lord.

And power, and the love of Christ, we are to always do the will of our Master, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the grace and mercy that you have

bestowed upon us in Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

But we're also so grateful of the example that Jesus has shown us what it really

means to be a servant leadership or to be in servant leadership.

Help us, O Lord, to live like you, to think like you, to act like you,

to have your thoughts, emotions change us, Lord, so that our desires are your

desires and our love your love.

And Lord, as we treat the people around us, the ones that we are in authority

over and those people that we are in authority to.

May we treat them as you have commanded us through your servant, Paul.

Help us, O Lord, to love you. And may you be our all in all,

our treasure and our joy forever.

In your precious son's name, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.

I'll leave you with this benediction from Ephesians chapter three, verse 20 to 21.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand,

according to the power that works within us.

To Him be the glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Have a wonderful Sunday, and may the Lord bless you.