10/04/09 Fathers, Children and Slavery Colossians 3:20-21
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Let’s look together once again into God’s word in Colossians 3:19 through 4:1.
Dictionaries are incredibly helpful books. I have an old Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary that my mother purchased with Green Stamps for my brother when he went off to college. It is about five inches thick and weighs approximately six pounds. When our kids were small we used it for a booster seat. Therefore, I usually use Dictionary.com. Much easier! Much faster!
You probably did not know this, but in Dictionary.com, the word “right” has 62 definitions. “Right” can be used as an adjective, a noun, or an adverb, thus the many definitions. Here are some examples of how we rightly use the word right:
1. Toward or on the right.
2. In a straight line; directly: went right to school.
3 In the proper or desired manner; well: The jacket doesn't fit right.
4 Exactly; just: The accident happened right over there.
5. Immediately: called me right after dinner.
6. Completely; quite: The icy wind blew right through me.
8. Accurately; correctly: answered the question right.
9. Chiefly Southern U.S. Considerably; very: They have a right nice place over in the holler.
10. Used as an intensive: kept right on going.
11. Used in titles: The Right Reverend Jane Smith.
We also have right angle, right-handed, political right (vs. political left), religious right, right-brained, in his right mind, right or wrong, etc. However, here is the definition of right that we’re concerned with right now:
Rights. That which is due to anyone by just claim, legal guarantees, moral principles, etc. 1
On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It begins with this statement:
“Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. . .” 2
According to the UN, it is only by means of the universal recognition of inalienable human rights that we will ever have peace in the world. Therefore, the more rights you have, and the more people there are that recognize those rights, the more likely we are to have unity and harmony and the cessation of global conflict. That kind of thinking has evolved over the last 60 years to the point where today we have a generation that thinks it has a right to whatever it wants. Just by virtue of the fact that I exist, according to our culture, I pretty much have the right to whatever I want.
So now we have the right to privacy, reproductive rights, gay rights, rights for our pets and other animals, and the right to freedom from all forms of tyranny. I have a right to free health care, free housing, free speech, freedom of religion, freedom FROM religion, and a free lunch. Then there is this statement. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights goes on to say, “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”
That is good. I understand what they mean by that. But it also presents a slight problem. As we look at the Word of God, and as we exercise our freedom of religion as it is granted to us by the United Nations in Article 18, we find that we must obey God rather than the UN and insist upon Christian slavery. As followers of Jesus Christ, we cannot think more highly of ourselves than we ought. A degree of humility is in order among God’s people. As Christians, we willingly relinquish our freedom and any rights we may have, to Him. We are the slaves of Christ, He is our Lord and Master, and we gladly serve and worship Him, and die for Him.
In Colossians 3 and elsewhere, we’ve seen this wonderful slavery that is ours in Christ. It is our Lord and Savior who commands us to do His bidding, and His alone. Part of His will for us is that we humble ourselves and submit to Him and one another. In verse 18, Christian wives are commanded to submit to their husbands. Husbands are commanded by God to love their wives in verse 19. Children are commanded to obey their parents. Fathers are commanded not to provoke their children to discouragement. Slaves are commanded to obey their masters, and masters of slaves are commanded by their Master to be just and fair towards their slaves. And as the slaves of Christ, we say “Yes, Master. We will obey.”
All of this talk of submission to authority leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many. Why is it that we don’t want to be in subjection to anyone? Why is it that we cherish personal rights so highly? Why is freedom so precious to us? Why are so many so prone to say, `We will not have this man [Jesus] (or any man) to reign over us'?” (Luke 19:14, NKJV). Why are we so easily rebellious against authority? Wives resist submission, husbands resist loving their wives, children resist their parents, slaves try to escape, and masters fight the temptation to mistreat their slaves. Why?
Two things seem to be the problem: Fear and pride. Fear is understandable. Because of the fear of oppression or even extermination, the world’s answer to man’s inhumanity to man is to grant everyone in the entire human race certain obvious, inalienable rights which all the nations of the world will somehow voluntarily recognize and respect. Somehow we will all evolve and come to the realization that humanity is divine. Then we will have world peace. The driving force, the worldly elemental philosophy behind such thinking is fear and self-preservation.
But the other thing that motivates people to cry out for their rights is not fear, but pride. No one, not even God, has the right to tell me what to do because I am all-important. I have Free Will, with a capital F and W. Simply because I am a human being, I deserve universal respect. That is the kind of thinking fostered by documents like this one from the UN. It is Humanism with a capital H. We worship ourselves.
But even Christians wrestle with the temptation to rebel against authority, whether or not it is oppressive or abusive: Wives against their husbands, children towards their parents, and people in general against God and His Law. If that is not true, then why did Paul write these verses?
The primary reason, in my estimation, why submission is difficult for us as believers is because it requires great trust and great humility. That is something that does not come naturally. The Lord Jesus, the King of Glory, in obedient submission to His heavenly Father, “humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” (Php 2:8, NKJV)
Submission to authority requires trust. The reason wives don’t submit to the husbands is because they do not trust them to lead rightly. They don’t believe their husbands have their best interests in mind. And sometimes, that is true. There are a lot of inept, poorly qualified husbands out there. But that does not give the Christian wife the right to rebel against God and refuse the leadership and headship of her husband, regardless of how poorly he may perform. His is a position of authority, and your submission to Him is the result of your submission to your Master, the Lord Jesus.
Submission to parents requires trust. Most teenagers often doubt their parent’s ability to be good parents and to know what is best for them. The complaint you hear from parents is that their teenagers think their parents are the dumbest people in the solar system. Sometimes, parents give their kids reason to think this and they create this lack of trust. Even so, if you are a child and a Christian, your Master commands you to obey your parents. And so you trust God that at least He knows what He is doing, and you obey your parents.
Submission to authority requires humility. As fallen people, we naturally hate humility. We like it in others, but we hate having to be humble ourselves. It goes against the grain. It is not compatible with our sinful tendencies. We think it’s really great that Jesus was humble. We just don’t like it when we have to be humble. We much prefer pride and self-promotion. We hate humility so much that, even as believers, we cultivate pride in our children.
We are reaping the consequences that come from a generation of children raised on a steady diet of positive self-esteem. In the minds of many, children are considered to be equal to their parents with the right to, in some cases, divorce their parents. Many children who have been raised to believe “Johnny can do no wrong” have grown up with little or no respect for any authority. We’ve unwittingly grown an entire generation of self-centered rebels who think quite well of themselves and quite poorly of anyone who would disagree with them about anything. They are rebels against their parents, against their government, and against God. Many young adults today not only do whatever is pleasing in their own eyes, but they would be quick to tell us they have an inalienable right to do so.
Christian slavery, on the other hand, is profoundly counter-cultural. For the Christian, our heavenly perspective, or rather our biblical convictions, are so contrary to our society that we actually teach from the Bible that wives are to submit, honor and obey their husbands! We also teach and insist upon husbands loving their wives and being responsible fathers. Not only that, we require all our little cherubs to obey their parents. How backward could we possibly be? How unenlightened!
The motivation behind Christian submission is is not world peace. It is a desire to be like Christ. Like Him, we are to humble ourselves and become obedient to those in authority over us. Turn with me to the book of 1 Peter, chapter 5. I want you to see a few verses there:
1 So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: 2 shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; 3 not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:1-7, ESV).
According to verse 7, what is it that hinders humility and submission to authority? Anxiety. What kinds of anxieties? What kinds of fears tempt us to be proud and rebellious? The next verse says,
8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
The fear of suffering at the hands of another tempts us to be rebellious. In this case, Peter was speaking to people who were suffering great persecution and who were the objects of the Devil’s hatred. They had legitimate fears and anxieties. Peter’s instruction to them was to trust God, to humble themselves under God’s authority, and cast those anxieties upon the Lord because, even in the midst of their persecutions, God cares for them.
We aren’t often, if ever, afraid of that kind of persecution. Even so, for us, just like for the Christians of the first century, it is the fear of suffering, or more specifically the removal of our freedoms and our will to go where I want to go, and do what I want to do, and to be happy that causes us to cringe when we hear words like “submit to your husbands” and “obey your parents in everything”. The temptation is not to trust those over us, but to be prideful and fearful of them and to demand our right to be treated well.
The command we have from the Lord is that those in authority and who rule over us must not be domineering. That would include not just the Elder in the local church as Peter mentions, but it applies also to the husband toward his wife, the father towards his children, and the master towards his slaves. The fear of unfair domination of someone more powerful than us tempts us to doubt God’s sovereign hand in our lives and to be fearful and rebellious.
But what does God say? The Elder who shepherds the church answers to “the chief Shepherd”. The husband and father answers directly to God Himself. The master over his slaves will answer to his Master in Heaven. All of us without exception must be clothed “with humility toward one another.” It is humble submission to those whom God has placed over us all that will cause the Lord Jesus to say to each one of us on that great day, “Well done, good and faithful slave.” When we trust God, humble ourselves and submit to those over us, we are emulating the life of Jesus Himself.
Turn back to Colossians with me and I want to remind you of a few things we’ve already looked at there. Look at chapter 3 beginning in verse 12:
Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
The Christian, in whatever circumstance he finds himself, whether as a husband or a wife or a parent or a child (or a slave or a slave owner, which is kinda rare these days); in that circumstance, humble submission is always fitting and proper and right. The only other option is pride and rebellion because of a lack of faith in God. Submission to our Master produces the peace of Christ in our hearts. Rebellion against God and His commands produces strife and heartache. Which do you prefer?
Children, look up here. I want you to come up here for a minute so I can talk to you. I want you to pretend there is no one else here right now except you and me. Listen. When I was your age, I was responsible before God to obey my parents. I didn’t have the best parents in the world. But I still had to obey them. They made mistakes, but I had to trust God that obedience to my Mom and my Dad was good. I also had to trust my Mom and Dad and believe that they knew lots of things I didn’t know. They knew better than me how I should live and what I should and should not do. I depended on them to teach me and protect me from things I wasn’t old enough to know about. I grew up in a very bad time in our country, and my parents helped me live through those times.
Then all of a sudden, I grew up. I met Miss Sharon in college, and I asked her to marry me. For some reason, she said yes. A few years later, she and I were parents. We had children of our own. Now we were the ones who had to teach our own children to be obedient to us because we were SURE we knew better than our children how they should live. We weren’t the best parents in the world, and we made a lot of mistakes. But God made us the parents of our children. We were Christians, so we prayed and asked God to help us be good parents. Part of being good parents is teaching your children to be obedient. God commands children to obey their parents, and parents must be obedient to God’s word and teach their children to obey them. Parents answer to God for how they raise their children. That’s why Christian parents insist that their children obey them.
That is how God has created the world. He has created husbands to be the leaders in the home. He has created Dads and Moms to be the leaders of their children. And He has told children to obey their parents because your parents are smarter than you. I know that is hard to believe sometimes, but it is true. They know better than you what you should and should not do. When you obey your parents, you are obeying God and preserving your own life. When you disobey your parents, you are sinning against God and threatening your own life. So do what they say.
God has not only created the whole world this way, but He has also arranged your family the way it is with your particular Moms and Dads. God is in charge of everything, including who your parents are. It is not a mistake that you have the parents you have. But regardless of who your parents are, your responsibility is to trust God. Be obedient to Him by obeying your Mom and Dad. Listen to this verse again:
Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. (v.20)
Is there anything in that verse you don’t understand? This verse does not mean you should sin if your parents tell you to sin. Your parents would never do that. So you should obey them in everything, even if they make mistakes, and they will. Why should you obey your parents in everything? Because it pleases the Lord. You humble yourselves and obey them because it is prideful and sinful not to. When you submit to your parents and do what they say, you are pleasing to the Lord. Your obedience pleases your parents also! But you should first be concerned that you are pleasing to God.
Now I have a question for you: Why do you suppose your parents bring you to church? You’re here every week, and you’ve been coming to church every week all your lives. Why would your Mom, and why would your parents want you to be here? Because they are responsible to God to teach you about God, about the Bible, about the Lord Jesus, and about salvation. They want you to hear the gospel message, they want you to repent of your sins and trust the Lord Jesus as your Master and Savior. They want you to be happy. They love you. That is why you are here.
When you come to church, you need to be obedient and listen to what is being taught. Everyone here, not just your Moms and Dads, but everyone here wants you to know Jesus Christ. We all love you very much. We pray for you often. So when you come here, I want you to know that the adults here care about you. In a sense, we’re all like your Christian Moms and Dads. Or maybe aunts and uncles.
So we’ll stop right here, and we’re all going to pray for you.
Now I want the husbands and fathers to come up here and let’s ask the Lord’s blessing upon us:
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1 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rights
2 http://www.hrweb.org/legal/udhr.html
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Other Notes:
Ro 12:16 Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.
Jas 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Ac 20:19* "serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews;
Eph 4:2* with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love,
Php 2:3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
Col 2:18* Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Col 2:23* These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
Col 3:12*
2Ti 2:25* in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth,
Tit 3:2 to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men.
Pr 11:2 When pride comes, then comes shame; But with the humble is wisdom.
Pr 15:33 The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom, And before honor is humility.
Pr 18:12 Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, And before honor is humility.
Pr 22:4 By humility and the fear of the LORD Are riches and honor and life.
Easton's Dictionary:
Humility
1. A prominent Christian grace - Ro 12:3, 15:17-18; 1Co 3:5-7; 2Co 3:5; Php 4:11-13.
2. It is a state of mind well pleasing to God - 1Pe 3:4.
3. It preserves the soul in tranquillity - Ps 69:32,33.
4. It makes us patient under trials - Job 1:22.
Easton - Christ has set us an example of humility (Php 2:6-8). We should be led thereto by a remembrance of our sins (La 3:39) and by the thought that it is the way to honour (Pr 16:18) and that the greatest promises are made to the humble (Ps 147:6 Isa 57:15 66:2 1Pe 5:5). It is a "great paradox in Christianity that it makes humility the avenue to glory."
What is the motivation behind a universal declaration of inalienable human rights?
Much of it has to do with self-preservation. The United Nations crafted that document in 1948 largely in response to World War II. Germany had committed all kinds of atrocities, and the entire planet was terrified of the power of the atomic bomb. The UN was attempting to save the planet by indoctrinating the world regarding what they saw as “the inherent dignity and . . . the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.” If we could think highly of ourselves and one another, then maybe we could avoid global annihilation. Albert Einstein summed up the sentiments of many when he said, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."