God's Will for the Body of Christ, Part 12

Dignity, equality, and unity. And that's what we're going to be talking about today as we continue to discover the revelation of what God's will is for the body of Christ. Join me if you would. Let's open up the Word of God and turn to the book of Ephesians, chapter 1. We have been going through God's will for the body of Christ for some time as ascribed in the epistle written by Paul called Ephesians. And in this will that is revealed, it is simple, and yet it is profound. It is written. It is not hidden in a corner. We can indeed come to understand it. And I always like to go right back to the very beginning to make sure that we are all on the same page and squared together before we proceed.

We notice in Ephesians 1, verse 9, Having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure. God is excited and he is thrilled that he is able to enunciate and reveal his will to us. It gives him good pleasure and he has purposed this in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him.

This was a vision that God gave Paul and it motivated him to go around the world of antiquity and to be able to share it, to be true to that vision and to expound that will as God had given it to him. And we've been going through that now for many, many months. We're now going to find ourselves today in Ephesians 5 and in Ephesians 6. And it's important if you want to begin to turn over there to remember, basically we have been reviewing something extremely profound and that is that the body of Christ, God's new creation, is being founded by none other than God the Father through Jesus Christ.

It's a new society. It's a new creation. And the calling of God gives them citizenship in heaven. It gives them a spiritual family down here below, you and me, all of us together, called the household of God.

Beyond that, and it begins to melt the mind, to begin to understand the fullness of God's purpose, and that is that He is actually in us living, breathing, flesh-bearing, blood-circulating human beings, having given our heart to God through Jesus Christ. He is enabling us to be His walking, talking temple, the temple of God that He resides in by His Spirit. We've covered that. You can go back to Ephesians 1, 20, and 21, and it expounds all of that, the magnificence of the calling that He has given us.

He's given us a holy calling, a holy calling that has two major features that are shot down. Some of this will be reminders, but we need to pull together before we move forward today. And that is simply two aspects about this body of Christ. Number one, it needs to be united. Number two, it needs to be pure. We talked a lot about that in the Bible class today about purity, and about washing, and about cleansing.

It needs to be united. Not united out of fear, not united out of constraint. You know, I can take a dog, and I can take a cat, and I can tie them by their tails. Now, I have a question. Are they united? Yes, they are united, but that's not the kind of unity we want.

You take a dog by the tail, if it has a tail, and you take a cat by the tail, and you tie them together. Oh yes, they're united, but they're scratching at one another. God has called us out of this world from many places, and many families, and many lands to be united. Not to scratch at one another, but to love one another, to grow with one another, to move forward towards the same common destination together in a united fashion.

But then again, that is not enough, because God wants to know what our motivation is, and it must be a purity. A lot of this, as we've gone through Ephesians 1 and 2 and 3, is precept. It's very high theology. It sounds very exciting, but it's when you get to Ephesians 5 and 6 that you have the rubber meet the road, and that's where we are today in discussing this. Gone through Ephesians 5, last time in part as we discuss the relationship between men and women in marriage.

I want to touch upon that for a moment before we go further again, because it's a part of what we're discussing. But let's understand where I'm going to be taking you as your guide in the God's will for the Body of Christ, because we're going to begin the crescendo. And the crescendo is basically dealing twofold. There are two things that can thwart our ability and our opportunity to remain within this will.

Number one is our households. It is our households. And number two is the challenge by the adversary, none other than Satan the devil. And this is where the rubber meets the road, and this is where we're going to be kind of building now.

And we're looking at very specific items, these two areas of challenge. Number one, our personal households must come into alignment with God's blueprint, not man's blueprint, not our own self-composed blueprint. The household of God, the Body of Christ, can only be assisted by having a physical household that in type represents it. A new society with new standards. With that stated, with that in place, we must, number two, be prepared for spiritual pushback from none other than Satan the adversary.

So thus, as we're going to start moving towards conclusion of this series, there's something that we need to remember. Here we go. Are you ready? Number one, we must have, number one, stability in our homes. Stability in our homes. And number two, as members of the Body of Christ, harmony in the fight that is before us.

Stability in our homes and harmony in the fight that is before us. Now, as we're dealt with last time when we dealt with the subject of marriage, we're going to be dealing with the subject of child-rearing, and we're going to be touching a little bit on the subject of employment today.

We need to recognize something. The book of Ephesians is so high in thought it deals with the holiness of God that you and I are being called to. But let's understand something. Holiness is not simply theory. And it is not just simply personal and about us. But it is tempered and it is molded in the arena of life. And we're going to find how that came about in the first century, as well as in our 21st century today. Holiness, if you want to put it this way, may I say it in the vernacular, is cooked in the oven of life.

To test the unity and to test the purity. Holiness is not exercised in a vacuum. What am I telling you, dear friends? It's simply this. The holiness that is set before us, the work that God is doing inside of us, his will that is being performed inside of us, this incredible new society that you and I have been invited into and been shown the new standards, is something that has to be cooked in the oven. And to recognize this, let's put this down if you want to, Christianity of and by itself is a contact sport. It's a contact sport. You don't learn it by staying on the bench and just reading the rules.

You have to get into the field. You have to bump. You have to grind. You have to rub your shoulders and rub your hearts with other people. Whether it be man to woman in marriage, whether it be parent to child in child-rearing and in family. And or whether it be as what we're going to see in the days of yesteryear, the master-slave relationship that was in the church. So this is what God's will is. Let's go to Ephesians 5 and verse 17. And then we're going to take off here in a moment with some new material. Ephesians 5 and verse 17. Again, this word keeps on popping up here.

Ephesians 5 verse 17. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. God has a will. He has a purpose. And there is a purpose being worked out here below in this household of faith and this new society and the new standards that God has set before us.

How then, if we notice this in verse 17 about this will, then what does it say? And do not be drunk with wine in verse 18, in which is dispensation, but be filled with the Spirit. To be filled with the Spirit speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. God's will being played out in the household of faith in these individuals whose citizenship is in heaven must be addressed in matters at a spiritual level, in discussion at a spiritual level of psalms and the words of those hymns and spiritual songs and melody in your heart to the Lord.

It's a spiritual conversation that we have to have down here below. Verse 20, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. To be able to continue to move and understand the will of God, we must address one another at the spiritual level with spiritual conversation, not the things of this world. Number two, we have to be thankful for the state that God's will finds us in, in which God called us in.

To be content where we are and to understand that it is either the personal and or the collective mission field that God has given us, our line in the will of God to accomplish.

We notice in verse 21, submitting to one another in the fear of God and or in the reverence of God in respect of what He's showing us in Ephesians 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, that in all things being desperate, all things being apart, the will and the pleasure of God is to bring everything together, come together through Jesus Christ.

And thus we stand back in awe and reverence as to the majesty, the immensity of what God is doing. And that Jesus Himself subjected Himself, submitted Himself to the will of the Father and said, not my will, but your will be done. That then becomes the introduction to the rest of Ephesians 5 and 6. And that is, is that Paul basically deals with the three components of the household. Marriage, dealing with that intimate side of the family.

Number two, children, dealing with the generational side of a family. And then in this context, he deals with slaves and or the economic side of the family relationship. Now, some of the words that I'm going to share with you today are going to sound, perhaps in our 21st century years, a little Jurassic.

They're going to sound a little old-fashioned, almost radical. But what I want to share with you today, brethren, is to recognize that Scripture itself is radical. What Paul was bringing to the world in the first century was revolutionary. And the world has never been the same since. And especially those that have taken that will of God, taken those principles of God, and incorporated them into their lives.

I want to share something before we go further, so I don't lose you along the way. We're just starting the ride. We're going to get off together. And that is simply this. As we've gone through marriage last time, we're going to go through child-rearing today, and we're going to be also going through the matter of slavery in the old days, and we might say employment in the new days.

And that is simply this. Wherever you are today on God's Sabbath day is to recognize this. What we're going to be learning from this profound lesson I want to share with you, and I'll remind you at the end, is simply this. And that is that Christianity is not about transferring our challenges away from us. It's not about transference. It's about transformation of dealing with the circumstances that are in our life today, whether it be in marriage, whether it be in child-rearing, or whether it be in employment.

It's not, I'm out of here and see you, Manana. It is dealing with what is in front of us. It is not running away from the challenges of where God's will has found us, but it is conquest of those challenges.

It is transformation of our lives, not because the externals change, but because our internals are keyed into and locked into the will of God. Now, as we've been dealing with marriage, as we're going to be dealing with child-rearing, as we're going to be dealing with the matter of the economy of the Old Testament, dealing with the subject of slavery, which is testing.

I want to share something with you, lest I miss it. As we go through some of these concepts, none of this is designed to magnify bad behavior, or to encapsulate bad behavior in marriage, in child-rearing, and or in the person-to-person relationships in employment. One thing that we want to remember as we go through some of these words that are powerful, like obey, or submet, or subject yourself, is to recognize something. As I said earlier, this comes from the inspiration of the Word of God, Jesus Christ, who Himself subjected Himself to the Father, saying, Not my will, but your will be done.

The words that have been spoken are by Jesus Christ, who was intimate in a brotherly sense and in a loving sense with women. They were included. They were around Him. Jesus had a tremendous love for a womankind. Jesus also had a tremendous love for children. Children were not a bother to Him. He said, Suffer, permit the little children to come unto Me. This is the same Jesus that Himself was a member of a conquered people. In that sense, a slave to the Roman Empire. This was a Jesus who did manual labor, worked with His hands, worked for others. In other words, you might want to jot this down in your notes to follow, Jesus was the spirit of experience.

With that thought, we covered marriage last time. Now let's go to chapter 6 and verse 1. In chapter 6 and verse 1, allow me to read it through, then we'll come back. That's a command of God. Do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord. When this was written, what world was it written to? You see these strong words of obey your parents, honor your father and your mother.

It speaks of commandments, but then it speaks of admonition to the fathers. What was going on here? Important. Let's talk about a moment, the world that this was written to. The world that Paul had to walk through on the roads that were built by the Romans because it was the Roman Empire. What was Roman culture like? Roman culture, bottom line, if you want to put this down in your notes, was perilous to children.

Roman culture was perilous. It was not a child-friendly atmosphere. Allow me to explain for a moment. If you go to the different commentaries, it will tell you the culture of that day was based upon what is called patria potestas. Potes, potentate, dad is king. Same Latin words. Patria potestas. The father's power. The father's power.

Hard for us to understand in our day and age the extent of the father's power in that day and age. It was all-encompassing. And it was upon a person all of their life, no matter when your children got older, whether they were 35 or 40 or 45 or 50, whether they were even the magistrate of a city. Your father was in control of your life. The father had tremendous control.

In thinking about the Latin culture, the culture of the Mediterranean, you think of the term God-father. Coming from Sicily, there's a reason why. It goes back to the days of Rome. The father was everything. Had dynamic power over children, no matter the status. In fact, that power was both in life and death, in principle and in theory, even though it was not always exercised such because there might be public outcry. But who knows what happened in homes?

The power of the father. Another thing that was occurring in the Roman Empire, there was what was child exposure and acceptance. When a baby was born in a Roman family, the child was laid at the feet of the father. And that Roman father could either accept or reject that child upon looking at it and looking upon the circumstances of his life. If he picked up the child and picked it up, the child was accepted. And or if he walked away, it was no child of his at all.

The child was laid at the father's feet and a choice was made. Number three, children, by the time this was written, were basically a nuisance. We discussed last time I would share about what was happening in the marriages. That the women of Rome were basically documenting the year that they were living in by the husband that they were living with. Marriage was being demolished, was being disbanded.

It was not a child-friendly atmosphere. There were so many partners that children were simply a nuisance. Children were in the way. And they were often abandoned in a public square or in one of the forums of a city. Left then, being left alone, to either be nabbed at night, either to go into slavery and or to become a prostitute, whether male or female.

This is what the atmosphere was like that Paul was writing to. Last but not least, society in Rome was merciless to those that were sickly or those that were born deformed. They were often killed. They were often drowned at birth. The world had no room for that which was sickly deformed or disabled. It is here, then, that the Apostle Paul, through the inspiration of God, enters.

Speaking of the household on earth, being like that household that is in heaven, children obey your parents in the Lord. Notice the power of the word in the Lord in reference of what God is doing. For this is right. Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and may live long on the earth. And then it speaks to the fathers.

There's a couple of things that Paul is doing to build up here as he speaks. Let's notice something. Both parents and children, listen carefully. Young folks, please listen to Mr. Weber for a moment. Let's understand that when an epistle was sent forth, it was read in a church. This is being read to the Ephesians. And it's very interesting that children obey your parents in the Lord and then it speaks to you, fathers.

This is written as addressed to a family in church. You might just call it a church family. There is the expectation that children would be there with their parents listening to this and listening carefully. That the epistle is being read, that it is begging that the children's ears and hearts hear the word of the epistle as well as the parents themselves.

Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. This is just basically, he starts at a very natural state. This is how society functions. Whether you're inside the church or outside the church, there is this naturalness that a young person is to abide by the dictates and the rules of the parent. But now he takes it a little bit further and notice what he says. Now he moves from that which is natural in society to that which is revealed.

Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. Now this is kind of where it is going to be interesting because we're dealing in that sense with the fifth commandment. That commandment, as Lauren brought out, which is one of promise.

But something that I want to share here a little bit, not to dispute what Lauren said, but maybe to add and one day we'll all find out. But you can read different commentaries, different books, get different thoughts. And that is so often in our Church of God community, we often speak of the first four commandments, addressing our respect to God, and then the last six being our respect to man.

We've all been there, know that, and understand that. But let's speak about the Jewish community for a moment. In the Jewish community, they always looked at the aspect that the Ten Commandments were given on two stones, and that they were equal balance between five and five. In that sense, the first five commandments were written on one stone, and the second five commandments were written on the other stone. Very interesting. We'll find out one day, Lauren. This is just thought. Are we all understand that just thought? But I think we'll bring a point out here, and that is simply this, that when you notice the first commandment says that we are to honor God.

You shall have no other gods before me. This total honor to God Almighty. It's very interesting as you would complete that stone, that then the honor goes to your earthly parent. That earthly parent, that in that sense, is as a God with a small g to the little ones as they are growing up.

And thus, it kind of leads back to the first commandment. But the thought here is to honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment of the promise that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. Now, this is an expansion of the concept that's in the Old Testament. It says that you might live long upon the earth. When you read it initially in the book of Exodus and in the book of Deuteronomy, it says that you, are you with me?

That you might live long in the land. Because that was the land was the promised land, the land that God was going to grant Israel. But now the Israel of God, this expansion of the body of Christ, it's no longer just that promised land, but now we're dealing globally. We're dealing with the earth. So notice what it says here when it says that you may live long on the earth.

And not only that, but now with the book of Ephesians in mind, we move from just simply the physical blessings of birthright and in the land, as mentioned in the Old Testament, to recognize that you'll join me for a second in Ephesians 1 and verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And as a parent, we want to nurture our young people forward in that regard so that we not only have a successful life now, but also a spiritual life as well.

Very interesting when you look at this concept of what's happening. Of children obeying your parent and in the Lord. Now that's very important. Young people, parents, I want you to hear me out for a moment. Go to Colossians. Colossians is really the twin epistle to Ephesians. Colossians 3 and verse 20.

Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Now does that therefore mean that our children are to obey us in everything? Whatever our parents tell us what to do, that's done because we said it.

Look at Colossians 3 and verse 20, and then you look at Ephesians 6, verse 1.

It's not just anything goes, but that which is in the Lord, in the written Word of God.

That takes discretion, that takes discernment, and that takes wisdom, both for the parent and for the child.

Now it's very interesting when you look at this in the Lord is to recognize what is happening here. This new creation, which now supersedes the old creation. That's how I want you to think about it, what God is doing. God is in the midst of creating.

Why are we here today on the Sabbath day? The Sabbath day is picturing the new creation. God stopped his fiscal efforts after six days. He said it is very good.

But then he set aside the Sabbath day. His spiritual work is continuing. And the Sabbath is a type of that which is yet to come. That spiritual work, that will, that purpose, that pleasure that he has in you and me, thus developing this new society with the new standards. And it is to bring children together with their parents, not like Rome, not abandoning your child in the forum to be a slave or to be a prostitute, or to be tossed into a well like a cat out on a Midwest farm yard by a barn boy or a farm boy.

It brings up the sanctity of life.

It re-enters that those relationships that God desired at Eden, before man rejected what God, this is what God was offering man at Eden, was this will, was this holiness to worship him not only by thought, but by what we do when the rubber hits the road, when our lives move into the oven of life. Man, Adam, and Eve rejected that. They were cursed.

And what God called good and very good became fractured.

Rebellion, selfishness, replaced relationship.

Love was replaced with lust. Authority became oppression.

And that's why we see where it says, fathers don't provoke your children to anger and or to wrath.

What God desired of selflessness became self-centered. In ancient Rome, are you with me? This is where we go deep. In ancient Rome, children weren't convenient.

They were a bother.

They got in the way.

You had other people teach your children because you didn't have the time.

You stopped having children because it wasn't convenient because of what you wanted to do.

Europe right now is going the way of Rome.

Europe is not repopulating itself.

There are going to be millions and millions of less children in Europe within 20 to 4 children people.

Because having children is no longer looked as being a blessing from the Lord because of the humanistic secular society that they are in.

Europe, demographically, my friends, is dying.

Demographically, if you just look at the numbers.

In about 40 years, there's going to be approximately, if I'm not mistaken, 25 to 30 million less Russians.

There's going to be millions of less Italians, the people of Amore, because children are not convenient.

Let's notice what it says here, then.

And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and in the admonition of the Lord.

This is an extraordinary, which I think Lauren was alluding to and I want to build on for a moment. With your permission, Lauren? Good. You didn't see him nod.

Extraordinary caution to the fathers, and why is that?

Well, if we don't know, we don't know. You know?

Mothers are mothers. That's why Mother's Day comes first.

Mothers are special. Mothers are sweet.

Mothers can get upset. Even mothers that are in the church can hoot and holler and get upset with those little ones that came out of them.

But, well, that's Mom.

And moms come back and wrap their arms around their little son or their little daughter, and everything's okay.

Fathers, guys, we're different. Just by creation, just by our natural being.

And children rise and fall based upon our approach to them. And then when you understand the patriopotestus, the power of the father, why Paul says, don't provoke your children to wrath.

Improper and unbalanced dominance, and or a lack of emotional presence can break a child's spirit.

Can break a child's spirit.

We need to understand that.

Dads, we need to think about it sometimes.

And we're not talking about being any less than a dad or any less than a pops, any less than a man.

But what we want to do is be the best man, the most understanding man.

What happens sometimes, and maybe your family, you're thinking about your dad, you're thinking about your family, it says, don't provoke your children to wrath. There's two different kinds of wrath. There's two different kinds of anger.

One is explosive, and the other is implosive.

You become angry and you take it inside of you, and you hold it inside of you.

And then you spend the next 60 years of your life getting over the first 20.

Are you with me? And do we understand?

The standards for the new society that God is calling you and me to is not to provoke our children to wrath.

How is it that we can provoke our children to wrath? Let's think of a few thoughts here.

We can forget that things change.

We can keep on living in yesterday rather than recognizing that things have changed.

And when things have changed, please understand, I'm not saying that all things have changed for the better.

But if we only just simply live our history and don't understand where the young person is today and work with him in today with the principles of God, we might provoke them to wrath.

We can also over-control, over-control a young person, especially as you're beginning to gain maturity, beginning to gain age.

We can over-control them. We can be too dominant. We can control too much and not trust enough.

I have a question I can only ask you. You fill in the answer. I may not even have the answer.

If you had it over to do again growing up, would you want to have an over-controlling parent, or would you want to have a parent that let out like a good fisherman?

A line of trust as you began to fly.

Or did you, as your parent and your experience, just simply be placed in a nest and never taught how to fly?

There's two things that we do as parents. There's two things that we establish to the next generation. Number one, we give them roots.

We ground them in the ways of God and in proper family ways. And number two, we give them wings to fly.

We give them wings to fly. Here's another thought I want to share with you. We can forget the duty of encouragement.

We can forget the duty of encouragement, to be an encourager. You know, I can turn around for a moment. I can be the powerpoint.

If you look at me, there's only six inches between a pad on the back and, shall I call it, a pad on the seat or something else.

But how often have we settled for the bottom rather than the top level of encouraging our children? Encouraging them.

And lastly, I want to share a thought with you. Being there as a dad, being there as a father, being a presence in the home, and not just simply away at work.

I'll tell you how this works, guys, gals. You can listen for a moment.

Men, by nature, our nature is we want everything running. We want to go out and conquer the world. We want to make sure that our lovely lady and our nice little girl are our nice little guy.

You know that they have a roof over their head, that they have three square meals a day, that there's a car to run them back and forth to school, that Johnny has $20 to be able to do something when a field day comes up, that this and this and this.

And we've got this whole line of this and this and this. But there's only one thing that's missing on that list.

You know what it is, guys? It's us. It's being present, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and spending time with our daughters and our sons. I'd like to share a story with you here, if I can dig it up for a moment.

It's a story that a gentleman named Boswell wrote. You may not know Boswell. Boswell was the famous biographer of Samuel Johnson, known for dictionary fame.

And Boswell wrote this, that he often referred to a special day in his childhood when his father took him fishing.

The day was fixed in his adult mind and he often reflected upon many of the things his father had taught him in the course of their fishing experience together.

After having heard of that particular excursion so often, it occurred to someone much later to check the journal that Boswell's father kept and determine what had been said about that fishing trip from the parental perspective.

Turning to that date, which meant so very, very much to the young person, turning to that date, the reader found only one sentence entered.

Gone fishing today with my son. A day wasted.

Mmm. Mmm.

Father's presence is so important to our young people, especially in this world of technological and economic demands that is all upon us.

All the more that we understand that you and I as men have been placed into this new society with new standards and we are not to provoke our child to wrath.

And it's sometimes not what we do by commission, but what we leave out by omission or by cultural dynamism of pulling us away from everything that we ought to be and what is precious.

And all of our worlds are spinning around and around and around and sometimes you just have to stop the world and get off.

Spend time with your children. It may not be convenient, but I tell you what, after listening to this kid, what he wrote, what that fishing trip meant that day, it meant the world to this man.

It's never a waste of time to be with your young one.

Let's go to the second section here because what Paul is doing, he's dealing with in this whole treatment of the household that is here on earth to be matched with the standards of the household of faith.

He deals with marriage. We dealt with that last time. We've just touched on dealing with the relationship of parents and children.

Now there's this other subject. Dealing with the time then.

Bond servants be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in the sincerity of heart as to Christ.

Not with eye service as men pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart.

With good will, doing service as to the Lord, not to men.

Knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord whether he is slave or free.

And you masters do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own master also is in heaven and there is no partiality in him.

What is this telling you and me? What is the world that Paul is writing to in that day and age around 65 AD?

Let's understand that the Roman Empire that was surrounding what they called our lake in Latin, which is the Mediterranean, the Roman Empire had approximately 240 million people.

One out of four of those individuals, folks, was a slave. One out of four was a slave.

And slavery was not just simply those people that were building a building or rowing in the galleys of Rome. A slave could be a doctor. A slave could be a lawyer.

A slave could be in many, many different classes. But no matter what your ability was, you were a slave.

At times, a relationship could be paternalistic. There could be some affection, some relationship. But often it was antagonism. Often it was apathy.

It's a world that you and I can't necessarily understand with our 21st century mind. Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers that ever lived, the student of Plato, who was the student of Socrates, and Aristotle, who was the one that taught Alexander the Great, said this.

He said that a slave is a living tool. A living tool.

In the Roman mind and in the Greek mind, there were three different kinds of tools. There was one that was inanimate, that would be like a hoe or a pick or a shovel. It was. It was a thing.

Then there were inarticulate tools. That would be like a cow. That would be like a mule. That would be like a donkey. Be like a beast, a burden. Then there was an articulate tool. That would be a slave. Somebody that could communicate.

But by and large, are you with me? A slave was a living tool. When you think about it back then, it was incredible that a master, any master, whether he had one slave or a hundred slaves, basically like that, Patria-Potistas, had life and death power over the slave.

If a slave did anything that displeased the master, he could have him put to death. Many a time, a slave would run away and the slave would be caught.

If the slave was lucky, he was branded with an F, a fugitive. That's where the word fugitive comes from. And he was branded right here on his head. Right here, with an F. He'd been a fugitive. He'd been a runaway slave.

This is the world that Paul is talking about. Here, though, we have something different. He says, Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling in sincerity of heart as to Christ.

This was the instruction of the church. They did not say, go and be a Spartacus. Don't lead a slavery vault. As despicable as slavery was at that time.

For Christianity, at that time, to become abolitionist long before the 1820s or 30s, would have rerouted and detoured the church in a way that it could not afford at that time.

Bond servants, slaves, be obedient. Be subject to those who are your masters according to the flesh. They're only your master according to the flesh. See where we're going? There's a greater master.

There is a master that is in heaven with fear and trembling. Do it with respect. Do it with awe.

And don't do it just simply with the brawn that is in your muscle or the intelligentsia that is in your mind or your cerebrum.

But you do it, notice what it says, you do it with your heart. And you are sincere. If you're going to be a slave, now we're going to bring this up to 21st century standards in a few minutes. If you're going to be a slave, you be the best slave that you can be as to Christ.

Don't be a Christless Christian.

Whatever circumstance where God has placed His calling in your life may be in a very troubled and troubling situation right now.

The encouragement that comes from the will of God to the body of Christ is do not be Christless.

Be it in marriage, be it maybe in a challenging, child-wearing situation, or whether it be in your employment situation today, with the boss at work that is giving you grief. Sincerity. I think I explained it last time. The word sincerity itself comes out of the Greek, comes out of the Latin.

Sincerity means literally without wax. When people used to transport statuary, they would put it on carts.

They didn't read the Old Testament like the Ark of the Covenant to carry it with a pole. It would have been better.

But they would put it on a cart. Well, the cart is like our roads out in Riverside. If you haven't been out in Riverside recently, you can't appreciate this.

John gets out there quite a bit. The roads of Riverside are famous for their ruts and their holes. That's when they're paved.

And so, you know, that cart would go along and that statuary or that pottery would get cracked. And so what they would do is they'd fill it with wax to kind of keep it together.

But if a piece of pottery came through from point A to point Z, that means it was sincere. That means it was whole.

That means it was exactly what it was intended to be. It was sincere. That means without wax.

Paul's imploring those one out of four people in the Roman Empire to be sincere, to be without wax, to give their heart to the job that they've given.

Now, what I want to share with you is simply this. If we were then going to come down for a moment, this is the interactive PowerPoint. If you were in the church at Ephesus, which was one of the great cities of the Roman Empire, we would have, let's see, one, two, three.

And I'm making our own granddaughter a slave. Kalen would be a slave.

I could go one, two, three. Patty, guess what? You're a slave. For the moment, figuratively.

Do I need to go any further? This was in the church. This was not outside of the church. This was in the church.

The slave owner and the slave would come to church together. That's how the household operated.

The household was man and wife. That was the intimate part. There was the generational aspect, parent and child. And then there was this slave-master, slave relationship, and it was coming into the church.

You do it not just simply with eye service as men-pleasers, but as bond-servants. You are the slave of Christ. You work for Christ.

In marriage, I am a husband for Christ, and not only Susan. Susan is a wife before Christ, and not just simply for Robin.

Take it down to the rest of the family level.

And when I am working and when I am employed as a pastor of a church, I am not serving for a paycheck, but I am serving the Lord Jesus Christ. Not just simply with lip service, but with my whole heart. If you are a plumber, you serve the Lord above with your whole heart, and you be the best plumber you can be. If you are an accountant, you be the best accountant for you are. Not for the employer that is giving you grief, but as to the Lord.

You're a teacher at school, and you have all these kids around you.

And you have a school board to report to, but you remember you are a teacher for Jesus Christ. You're a member of this new society. Your citizenship is in heaven. You're a part of a mosaic of a spiritual body. You are the living timber of the temple of Christ, the temple of God. And it's an expanded temple. It can be in Cucamonga.

It can be in Calabasas. It can be down in Santa Monica. It can be down in Watts. It can be over in Willowbrook. It can be down in Athens. I used to work South Central, so I know the area is down there. It can be out in Riverside. It's mobile. It's in movement. It's active. It's alive. It's not easy, humanly. But Paul says, you be the best that you can be. Not with eye service. Whatever you do, you do with your might. Ecclesiastes 90, verse 10.

My mother, who can no longer remember, taught me early on something that I have never forgotten. Whatever you do, you do with your might. Things done by halves are never done right. But that's not enough, even that. Because you can give all of your brawn.

You can give all your external. And God says that is not enough. It says here, notice to your friends what it says here, that you do the will of God from the heart. Not from the brain. Not from your muscle. Not from all of your experience. Not because you have a high IQ. Not because you're good-looking, bad-looking, or in between. But because you do it with the right motive. The right motive. God Almighty has called us, in whatever state, to be a people of dignity, a people of equality before Him, and a people of unity.

Let's finish up here. Notice what it says. With good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men. So often, dear friends, we get... and I remember this. This message was preached to me when I was a kid, 12 years old down in Long Beach. So often, we are only looking at the moment. We're looking at the clock. Don't anybody look back right now. But we're looking at the clock at work. We're looking at the clock at the school.

We're only looking into the moment. We are not looking at what we are doing today as being worthy of eternity. And if you look at a clock, or if you look at just the boss that is in front of you, you look at the mate that you're living with, you look at the child that you have, and it can be a blessing and or it can be a little testy. That's up to you and what's happening on any given day. If you're only looking at that person, and you're only treating that person as a person rather than as to the Lord, then close up your Bible.

Don't read the book of Ephesians, because you are a Christless Christian. And you don't recognize that what we are doing today with sincerity of heart is being taken stock of by God, who is going to reward us in the future. And He's going to strengthen and He's going to comfort us in wherever you and I happen to be today.

Let's finish the thought here and conclude. But that's to the servant. Now notice, and you masters, you three out of four that are sitting out there in the pews of Ephesus, you masters do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own master also is in heaven. And there is no partiality with Him. No partiality. That's the beauty of this three-fold discourse, the household here on earth, to be like the household of faith.

When you're dealing with men and women in marriage, yes, it says women subject, but then it says men, you are to love your wives as Christ loved the church, who gave Himself for it. What manner of dignity can that not proclaim? There is this equality. God does not say something to the woman, but He doesn't say it to the man. He doesn't say something to the child to obey their parent without saying to the parent to the father, don't provoke your child to wrath.

And there is this unity that is sought for. It says here, knowing that your own master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him. Let's conclude by going to the book of Philemon. The book of Philemon.

It's one of my favorite messages to be able to share, but we're not going to share it all right now. We're just going to go to one or two verses here.

Philemon is that little book. If you're looking for it, it's right before Hebrews. Last time I looked, it's on page 828 of my Bible.

And jot this down as you're turning to Hebrews. See if you can do two things at once. Galatians 3, 26-29. That proclamation there, Paul says there is no man, there is no woman, there is no Jew, there is no Gentile, there is no freed man, and there is no slave.

That is the ideal. Are you with me? That is the ideal. And that is where God is taking us, but we still have our feet planted on this earth. And thus, in that society, there were still slaves and there were slave owners. But notice what's good for the goose is good for the gander here in Philemon, verse 13. Philemon is the name of the slave master. The name of the slave is Onesimus. Onesimus runs away, goes and runs to Paul in Rome. Paul has to make the choice, make the decision to send Onesimus back.

Because guess what? Now we're all in the church. One big happy family. Apostle, slave, slave owner. Great stage play. Three people. Onesimus is told in Rome, you really need to go back to Colossae. You really need to go back to report to your master. What did I tell all of you just now? That a master had life and death power over a slave. And Onesimus is going to come back to Colossae, and everybody in the hood, everybody in the neighborhood is going to watch what the slave owner is going to do to the slave. Are you with me? Does he get the big F? The fugitivus? Is Philemon going to go too light on him?

Will Philemon lose standing in the community, being a member of the new society with the new standards?

Is he going to yell? Is he going to scream and throw Onesimus into a dungeon? What is Paul saying? You see, this is not just theory. What we're talking about is where the rubber meets the road. And notice what it says in Philemon, verses 13. Speaking of Onesimus, I wish to keep with me that on your behalf he might minister to me and might change for the gospel. But without your consent, I wanted to do nothing that your good deed might not be my compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. With the heart, with the right motive. For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever.

No longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother. Especially to me, but how much more do you, Mr. Slave owner, both in the flesh and now in the Lord? How would you like to be on the same street as Philemon and Colossae, and be willing to take the disdainful looks and rebuke and words from his neighbors, as Onesimus would come home? Because remember, the church met in Philemon's house, by the way, as well. That's another story. You see, we're not just simply on that street in Colossae, but you and I today are on the streets of Rancho Cucamonga in Claremont. We're on the streets of L.A. Sounds like a movie series, doesn't it? We're down in Watts, we're down in Willowbrook, we're over here in Pasadena, maybe we're up in La Crescena, maybe we're in Simi Valley. We need to understand that what I have spoken to you today is, from the pistol itself, the will of God. And that we not simply do it when people are looking to seek man's approval, our hope that we just get by, dear friends. But that we do it because we look at eternity. We recognize that we deal with where God found us and cleaned us up and placed us into His body and gave us this marvelous calling. And He says, I want you to look beyond the moment, I don't want you to look at the clock, I want you to look beyond the person in front of you, and I want to see what I have set before you. You say, but you don't understand. It seems like this is going to be forever. God says it's but a second. You don't understand. It's just simply too heavy. I say it's light. You say it seems like it's going on forever. Forever or eternity? Who are we working for? Who are we abiding in?

All of this that we've discussed over the last two sessions has been about the household of faith and the households that you and I are a part of. As you and I part this building this afternoon, dear friends, here in Los Angeles, I implore you to consider these words. To whatever we might do, to whomever we might be with, to whoever might come into our life, that we do it to them as to the Lord. And beyond that, to recognize that all and everything that we do, that it might be in Christ, that we move away as quickly as possible from being a Christless Christian and have Jesus Christ at the center of our life. For it is the will of God that He brings all things together, man and woman, parent and child, employer and employee, master and slave, that all things might come together through Him who God gave to us. The ultimate gift, which of and by Himself defines agape, the total gift known as Jesus Christ.

Let's go out now and let's allow our rubber to meet the road, knowing what the will of God is. And the next time when we come back, we're going to get into those famous verses at the end of Ephesians 6 about putting on the armor of God.