Ephesians 6:1-9 23.11.14 A Christian father got back from work one day and was shocked as he passed his teenage son s bedroom to see the bed nicely made and everything tidy. He noticed an envelope in the middle of the bed addressed to Dad and so he sat on the bed and very nervously read his son s letter. Dear Dad, It is with great regret and sorrow that I am writing to you. I have run away with my girlfriend because I wanted to avoid a scene with you and mum. I know you don t like the fact that Samantha is an atheist and 15 years older than me, but I guess you can t help who you fall in love with and besides, we have a real connection. I love her skinhead, tattoos and body piercings. Since she has become pregnant, we have grown even closer and I know we will be really happy living in her caravan in the woods. She says we have enough firewood for the whole winter. We want many more children together, although it is already a little crowed here as her 3 children from previous relationships are also living with us. Samantha has taught me that Marijuana doesn t really hurt anyone and we will be growing some for us and for our friends in return for all the cocaine we want! In the mean time, we pray that science will find a cure for AIDS, so that Samantha can get better. Don t worry Dad; I m sure we ll be back someday so that you and mum can get to know your grandchildren. Your Son Benjamin. P.S. None of the above is true. I m over at the neighbour s house. I just wanted to remind you that there are worse things in life than a bad school report, which you ll find in my desk drawer! I love you! Call when it is safe to come home! I guess it s stating the obvious to say that parenthood is a tough job! I m increasingly aware of that as I strive and often fail to be a godly father to my children. There are highs and lows, successes and failures, moments of
great joy and times of utter despair! And the same can be said of childhood. It s not only parents who have a tough time. Growing up is no walk in the park either. There are pressures from friends, culture, school and sometimes from home. Am I clever enough? Am I good looking enough? Am I popular enough? Even in loving, Christian homes childhood and parenthood can be incredibly difficult experiences. That s why it s absolutely essential that we listen to what God has to say about these issues. And one of the places he does that in the Bible is Ephesians 6. If you ve been here over the last few weeks, you ll know that from 5:18, Paul has been describing what it looks like to live a Spirit-filled life. That is, a life that s appropriate for those who have been bought into God s family. One of the marks of a Spirit-filled life is v21 - submission. And Paul explains what he means by submitting to one another in 3 sets of relationships from 5:22 to 6:9. Wives are to submit to their husbands, children are to submit to their parents and slaves are to submit to their masters. We thought about what it means to live a Spirit-filled life in marriage last week. This week we re thinking about a Spirit-filled life in the home and the workplace, as Paul addresses 4 different groups of people: children (v1), fathers (v4), slaves (v5) and masters (v9). Let s think first about A Spirit-filled home life (v1-4) Having addressed wives and husbands, Paul now has a word for children. Have a look at v1-3. Here s the first command for a Spirit-filled home: Children, obey your parents Notice which way round that command is in v1! I ve seen some families function as if Paul had said, parents obey your children, as a 7 year old boy runs the home from his bedroom control centre! But just like wives to husbands, slaves to masters and the church to Jesus, God has ordered relationships in such a way that some have more authority and responsibility than others. Children obey your parents in the Lord why? For this is right. In other words, children are to obey because that is what the Lord asks of
them. Both in God s world and in his family, that is the right thing to do. Just to be clear, obedience doesn t mean without exception. So when obeying a parent would mean breaking the law or disobeying the Lord then obeying Jesus must always come first. A few years ago I knew a Jewish guy who became a Christian and when he told his parents, they responded by saying that unless he renounced his faith immediately, he would not be welcome at home. The last time I heard, he had not been seen his parents since because he knew that his obedience to parents was in the Lord and that their command compromised his faith in the Lord. In Matthew 10, Jesus said that following him could mean dividing families and turn a man against his father and a daughter against her mother. So obedience does not mean without exception. It does mean with devotion. That is to say, obedience comes out of love for another person. And it s about a willing, joyful submission to a Godgiven authority. One Christian parenting book I read, defined obedience as doing what a parent said without delay, without excuse and without complaint. Following an instruction with a shake of the head and a role of the eyes is not how we re to live in obedience to our Father in heaven and it s not how children are to live in obedience to our parents on earth. So if dad asks his son to tidy his room, it is not obedience for the son to argue about it for half an hour and grudgingly do it in the end. After all, God the Father said to his Son, I want you to go to a cross and die an excruciating death in the place of sinful people. He willingly obeyed his Father he did not complain, he did not delay, he offered no excuse. Jesus obeyed his Father. Children obey your parents. And to further emphasis his point, Paul quotes the 5 th of the 10 commandments in v2. Honouring is broader than obeying. To honour someone means that you respect them, love them and revere them. Time and again in the Bible we are told to honour the Lord. Here children are told to honour their parents. So we re to honour our parents, just as we honour our Saviour. If you have older parents, this might not mean obeying them, but it must mean caring for them. And notice the promise that comes with the
command, v3. Now we all want that don t we? I don t know of anyone who wants to live a miserable life and die young! See honouring your parents will, as a general rule, mean that you live well. It s not a guarantee that if you do all your parents say then you will have a successful career, a happy life and live until you re 100! But disobedience to parents can have terrible consequences. Just the other day, I heard of a man who had been repeatedly told by his father not to smoke when he was younger his son refused and died of lung cancer in his 40 s. See when God has ordered his world in such a way; it is foolish to go against it. We see the consequences of broken homes, failed marriages, disobedient children and abusive fathers on the news almost every day. So children obey your parents. Fathers, train your children Paul really isn t very politically correct is he? First, he tells wives to submit to husbands, then children to obey parents and now he talks about how to bring up children and addresses fathers. Now this doesn t mean that mum has no role to play. Far from it. The Bible has lots to say on the role of mothers. But just as husbands have authority and responsibility over their wives, fathers have primary responsibility over their children. In today s culture, fathers are seen as assistant mothers or else totally unnecessary. But God s view of fatherhood in the Bible is very high indeed. I was reading a report recently of a Swiss study that examined the connection between a parent s church attendance and the future likelihood that their children would also attend church. The conclusion was that the spiritual example of the father was the key thing that shaped the children. So for example, the study found that when dad doesn t go to church but mum does only 2% of their children ended up as regular church goers. When those mum doesn t go but dad does, 44% of their children ended up as regular church attenders. I don t think we appreciate sometimes how much influence a father has on his children, for good or ill. And to fathers Paul gives 1 negative and 1 positive. The negative first of all in v4, Fathers, do not exasperate your children The word exasperate is
not just about making your children shake their head at dad doing something embarrassing. This is not about dad picking up his teenage son up from bowling and blasting In Christ alone out on the stereo! It is really about not provoking them to anger. Not embittering your children against you or the Lord. And fathers can do that in any number of ways. You can do that by being absent either because dads abandon the family for another woman, career or hobbies. Another way to provoke your children to anger is by being lazy. It is very tempting to get home from work and want to put your feet up and read the paper. My children often want me to play with them or read them a story and it is so easy to say I ll do it later which can also be translated as if I delay long enough I hope you will forget and entertain yourself without me! Fathers let s not treat our children as though they are a burden to endure rather than a blessing to enjoy. We can also exasperate our children by being discouraging. So we set impossibly high standards for our children to reach and then criticise or chastise them for not attaining our standards. Constantly telling them how much better they could have done being a dad who is never impressed. There are many ways in which fathers can exasperate their children. Dads don t! But then comes the positive that we are to do - v4, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. The word for bring them up is the word for nourish or feed which is the word Paul uses in 5:29 to talk about what Christ does for his church. Christ feeds his church, fathers feed your children. Now you wouldn t dream of allowing your children to starve physically; so fathers, do not leave your children spiritually undernourished, to potentially die eternally of starvation. Fathers, it is our responsibility to feed our children in the things of the Lord. So let s take responsibility, not abdicate it. The spiritual nourishment and growth of our children is not the responsibility of King s Kids, School CU s, or Summer Camps. These groups are there to support the work that is going on in the home every day. It is not primarily our wives responsibility, although of course mums have a vital role to play.
Father let s step up to the plate take responsibility. If you re doing it already, keep going. If you re not, talk about it with other dads; read a book, get some help. If you re an older dad who s been through this, it would be great to get your input as well, successes and failures. If you re a mum, encourage your husband to do these things. If you re not a dad, well, these are good things for you to know in case you ever do become a father and it helps you pray for dads in the church family. Fathers train your children. And that means not simply seeking better behaviour, but seeking a transformed heart. Improving behaviour alone is the way to raise a Pharisee. But we want Christians, not Pharisees! We need to show our children how wrong behaviour stems from a sinful heart and that only Jesus can save us and change our hearts. In other words, teach them the gospel and live out the gospel in your home. Fathers your primary role is not to prepare your children for exams, but for eternity. 10 A stars and a 1 st class degree will be of no use in Hell. I m not saying we shouldn t encourage our children to work hard and do well at school. But our job is to train our children so that they know and love the ultimate Father who gave his Son over to a horrible death, so that our children can enjoy eternal life. That s a Spirit-filled home life. Next A Spirit-filled work life (v5-9) I guess many of us have got job descriptions. Well v5-9 are a job description for the Christian in the workplace. When Paul uses the term slaves here in v5, he is not talking about the kind of slavery that went on in the slave trade, where human beings were taken away from their homes, treated cruelly and stripped of their freedom. The slaves and masters that Paul has in mind are much more like employee, employer relationships today. So when we see slave think worker under authority. When we come to master think boss with authority. And Paul has a command for each. First: Slaves, remember your job What would you say if I asked who you worked for? Now you might work for yourself, a headmaster or a managing director. But what we see here is that
whoever our earthly boss is, we are really serving Christ, v5-6. Every Christian, whether employed or not, whether Managing Director or cleaner, housewife or retired, every Christian works for Jesus, the ruler of the universe. You couldn t have a better employer! And our job is to serve him, by serving our earthly boss well. That means we re to work respectfully, v5. The words for respect and fear are literally, fear and trembling. Now I don t know if fear is an accurate description of how you approach your boss!? But fear and trembling is not a call to approach them with quaking boots and grovelling terror! It s a phrase the Bible uses to describe deep respect (2 Cor 7:15); the call is to approach your boss with a clear awareness of their position over you and their resulting authority. And respecting your boss will mean not entering into the behind the scenes gossip about them which might take place over the lunch break. It will mean not responding in kind to the text message from a work colleague who is grumbling about the headmaster. And notice that Paul doesn t say anything here about the boss deserving or earning respect. He deals with masters and their responsibility in v9. But the responsibility of the person serving under the boss is to show respect whether they deserve it, earn it or not. In fact, if there is a qualification made here, it is to raise the bar, not lower it, end of v5 as you would obey Christ. Work respectfully and we re also to work consistently, v6. One of the fun things about having small children in the house is that they are often inventing new words! Paul invents a new word here. He s not confused or mistaken, he is very deliberately bringing 2 words together the word is literally eye-service. That is, serving only when the boss can see you. It s in contrast to the heart-service which is how we re to serve Jesus. Eye-service might be a new word, but it s not a new struggle. I m sure we ve all been tempted to work harder when we re being watched. Paul calls for consistent work, whether seen or unseen by your earthly boss. After all, our heavenly master sees everything. And working consistently means we shouldn t be work shy, prone to under work.
Nor should we be workaholic, prone to overwork. Work respectfully, consistently and we re also to work wholeheartedly. The heart of a slave comes up 3 times in 3 verses - v5, with sincerity of heart, v6, doing the will of God from your heart and v7, serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men The Spirit-filled worker is not just a task-doer or a clock-watcher, you are not going through the motions before home time. So many people seem to do their jobs in order to fund their weekends or their leisure activities and work is something they do in between. But for the Christian, you are to be devoted to your job and to your boss wholeheartedly. Christians should be known in the workplace for being honest, hardworking, employees. So slaves, remember your job and serve as a slave of Christ respectfully, consistently & wholeheartedly. The final command is to masters: Masters, recognise your boss Read v9. Treat them in the same way means that if you want respect, you must give it. If you want consistent workers, you must work consistently, if you want wholehearted employees, you must be a wholehearted employer. If you want to be served, you must serve others. In Mark 10:45, Jesus our ultimate master says of himself, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. And both slave and master are under his loving rule. And he is the one who will reward his slaves v8. I suppose there are times when we feel as though we deserve better. We ve worked hard, but the bonus or the thanks or the promotion just doesn t come our way it s as if the boss has been totally blind to our endeavours. But that is not true of Christ. And there s no favouritism with him. In fact, non-one deserves anything from him. But because of his work, not ours, we get the reward! What a boss to serve!? He does all the work, we get all the reward! The Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does. These are the good works that we read about in 2:10. The ones that the Lord has prepared in advance for us to do. So, whether you are a slave or a master, let s recognise our boss and live to serve him.