Ephesians 6:1-9
June 14, 2009
Exordium: Life in the family is a common grace, that is, it belongs to the whole human race. So the Bible affirms, “God has set the solitary in families.” (Psalm 68:6)
Family life is God’s good gift. We all have come from families, even if now we are not in a nuclear family of our own. The family in God’s design is to be the bedrock of society, the foundation from which the state arises, and a building block of the Church Christ is making in the world.
Yet families are also a challenge. We were all made in innocence and perfection, but all of us have been affected by the entrance of sin and we are damaged goods in one way or another. No wonder there are stresses and strains that bump and bruise us. This is not the way it was meant to be, but the family has suffered as the world has from the ravages of human sin.
Explication: But the Lord Christ is restoring the years the locust has eaten in our homes. He is transforming homes, taking good and not so good families and turning them into godly families. (That is the essence of this passage from Ephesians)
This is not something that He does all at once. But He does do it, by the Spirit of God speaking through His Word. There are other places in the Bible that help explain this to us, but we are here at this place in our study of Ephesians.
It is interesting that in each of these nine verses Our Lord is present directly being named or by implication. That says to me that Jesus is very interested in our family life. So today we ask the question: What does Christ do in a home that makes so great a difference?
- CHRIST TAKES WHAT USUALLY DIVDES US and MAKES IT UNITE US. THAT IS THE PRINCIPLE of AUTHORITY and SUBMISSION.
He does this by His example. It is not unusual for a young person’s eyes to be opened to spiritual things, or to the wider world beyond his home and he or she becomes restless and disinterested in home life. There is the desire to move to a higher and different life.
It was so with Jesus when He met the doctors and teachers in the temple at age 12. “This is my father’s business and therefore my business. This is where I belong.”
But He left there with his parents and traveled the eighty miles north to the humble little hamlet of Nazareth to settle there for the next 18 years. Luke paints a vivid picture of this when he says, “And He went down with them to Nazareth and was subject to them…..and increased in wisdom, stature and in favor with God and man.” (Luke 2:51-52)
When it comes to submission to authority, though duty may seem to conflict, it never actually does. Two right duties never conflict.
Luke doesn’t tell us about the eighteen ensuing years. There is a cloak of sacred silence flung around them. Perhaps in Heaven He will tell us more. Suffice it to say that these are some of the most important years in human history. What took place then affects our lives today and shapes our thought, our Church and our eternity. We are who we are and what we are because of those years and the only report of them we have is “He was subject to His parents.” (Luke 2:51)
Certainly He was subject to them in little things, because they are what make up domestic life. Certainly He was exact in his obedience. Richard Cecil was exact in his obedience when his father took him with him on business to the Indian Embassy. He told his son to wait at this door for him, but the father went out another way and forgot that he had brought his son. Arriving home without him he had to hurry back, and knowing the boy’s ways, he was not perturbed. “He will be right where I left him.” And though some hours had passed, there was Richard standing dutifully where the father had instructed him to be.
He had thirty years of this kind of preparation with only three years to preach and heal and gather His own around him. It seems out of all proportion, but when He finally stepped on to the stage of history, He was prepared and ripened for the task the Father had set out before Him. He comes into human need like a wise physician walking among the sick, knowing that he has the remedy they need and is ready to give it to them.
In His whole life, He submitted Himself. Submission was the law of His life. His earthy father, Joseph, passed the place of authority to the heavenly Father, and Jesus lived and worked only to please the Eternal God. “I do always the things that please Him, He said, I and the Father are one. He that has seen me has seen the Father.” His submission to the Father’s will expressed and dramatized their oneness to the world.
He submitted to the baptism of John, though He did not need the cleansing from sin that John offered.
- He submitted to God’s plan for His temptation, faced it and overcame the devil in it.
- He submitted to the temple tax, though the temple was the house of His Father and He would not need to pay any tax.
- He taught His disciples to submit to the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees, even though He knew their motives were wrong.
- Finally, He became obedient unto death itself
- HE SET AN EXAMPLE FOR FATHERS BY HIS WORK WITH THE TWELVE
They were to Him as His children. He called them that at times. He did not provoke them to anger. Sometimes they were mystified and questioned what He was doing or not doing. Often they did not understand, but He never produced anger in them.
Anger is the most corrosive element in family life. No wonder Paul writes against it here. He is saying “anger out – nurture in.” With anger he is ruling out severity, partiality and unfairness as well.
Paul puts restraints upon the authority one uses, lest it be misused and spoils the unity which the authority/submission principle is designed to create. Instead, we read that He trained them, carefully, line upon line, precept upon precept, by example, by exposure, by question and answer, by stories and love and laughter, by prayer and miracle.
So, fathers and mothers are to do the same. It will be the most important thing they do. More important than gaining the White House or great riches is the training you give your little ones. Sometimes you will train them situationally, and sometimes you will structured instruction, but it must be done and done with great love. What wings are to the bird, and sails are to the ship, love is to the child. It is the lubricant that eases the way for your teaching.
By admonition He guided them-“warnings”. He would point out to them the folly of building life on the sand, the tragedy of spiritual pride, the emptiness of hypocrisy, the doom of the lack of faith, or the foolishness of following Him just for the material advantage of it.
He showed them the fury of the devil and described His own encounters with him to them. He shared His prayers of struggle in Gethsemane and his vision of seeing Satan fall for Heaven. How much they learned. How much children can learn from their fathers and mothers if they would share their experiences, their knowledge and wisdom with them.
Jesus did just what Paul sought to do when he said, “I warn every man and teach every man that I might present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”
Father and mother, you are the teachers of your dear ones. You can delegate some of that to others, but not all, and be very careful to whom you delegate any of it. Be as careful as you are of everything that goes into the mouth of your children. For poisons only damage the body, but wrong teaching can destroy the soul.
And with your teaching “fondly cherish them” as John Calvin exhorted us to do. Your child has a claim on your love. If you are self-centered replace that with love for them.
- HERE JESUS, THROUGH PAUL, REMINDS THEM OF THE LAW OF GOD ON AUTHORITY and SUBMISISON
Jesus did not set the law aside as if it were no longer useful or needed. Here Paul, by the Spirit, cites the fifth commandment, “Honor your Father and your Mother.”
He came to fulfill the law by making obedience possible through His Spirits’ power, thus making authority and submission a blessed part of believing life. With this command, God is drawing the generations together and holding them together. He does not want to stratify His people but to bless the young with the wisdom and experience of the old and to enrich and challenge the old with the energy and fresh vision of the young.
A modern book on adolescence is entitled A Tribe Apart by Patricia Hersch and the author’s conclusion is that this age group is effectively cut off from those who came before tem and those who come after them. They are a group unto themselves. You can see immediately how this fifth commandment speaks against that happening in God’s world, and how that stratifying is contrary to God’s purpose for us.
You will notice here that He addresses the various age groups all at the same time meaning that they were worshipping together when they heard this. He purposely wanted each group within the church to hear how he was instructing the other groups.
He calls us to live out this fifth command. It is part of the first table of the law which means that it is included in the commands that tell us how to relate to God in worship and in speech and in priority. That means that when we honor those who are in authority over us we are honoring God. We are obeying God because He rules His world through His servants in places of responsibility.
He calls this a commandment with promise, “that your days will be long upon the land that the Lord your God has given you.” This means that normally obedience to authority leads to a safer, healthier, longer life for us. Isn’t that what God’s commandments are for? They are for our wellbeing, our joy and happiness. They don’t affect God’s joy but they do ours. We cannot really break them, but when we are out of accord with them, we will find ourselves broken.
And, of course, this command challenges our care of our elderly. Sometimes it is utterly necessary, but other times our culture may be simply putting them out of sight and forgetting them. That is not keeping the generations together.
- THEN PAUL, BY THE SPIRIT, CARRIES THIS POWERFUL TRUTH INTO THE WORK PLACE
How does He transform our work relationships by His Spirit? He overcomes the rebellion in our hearts by changing our motives for going to work. The believing person goes to work to meet the needs of others, and then his or her own needs are met.
The believing person is not serving the employer ultimately. He is under him or her, but he looks upon his work as being unto the Lord Christ. That over the boss’s shoulder stands the blessed Lord and it is unto Him that he teaches that class, or serves that meal or cares for that patient. That sets the employee free from finding fault with the employer and enables him to seek to make him a success.
The Word reminds the worker that all are equal in the sight of God, that in Christ there is neither slave nor free. So he can hold his head high even in the lowliest place, because he or she is made in the image of God just as the most powerful person in his organization is.
God wants us to take the long view of our daily work. The good works we do will be rewarded by the Lord. In this life there are many “withheld completions”, things that never get appreciated or rewarded, and we may grow discouraged. But one day the Lord of our service will recognize the unseen, unknown works that you have done. Not one deed will go unnoticed or unrewarded. Meanwhile, remind yourself that we live in a fallen world-things don’t always come out right. We find our pleasure in the doing of each piece of work rather than waiting to receive it later. It may never come.
The employer/ master is to remember that he too is under authority. That means that the Divine Master is watching over his treatment of those who labor for him, and will reward him accordingly. So the employer must treat the worker as he would want to be treated himself if the roles were reversed.
There must be no threatening, often the temptation of those who lead. The divine Master does not threaten you but is patient and longsuffering toward your shortcomings. You must treat each one of those who serve you as if the Lord Jesus Himself were serving you.
Application: This is one of the hardest parts of the Christian life, wrapping our heart around submission to authority. It is humbling to do so. Our will resists being bent to another’s will, even God’s. It is the last part of our being that surrenders to Christ.
But everything that is worthwhile is hard, and this is most worthwhile. To submit is to be like Christ in all of His life. What could be worth more than that?
Glen C. Knecht
