Col No.32 Authority & Submission

And as you follow in your version of the Bible, I'm going to read from J.B. Phillips's paraphrase, and I'm commencing at the twelfth verse, Colossians chapter 3 and verse 12. As therefore God's picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God Himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind, accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you, and above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, remembering that as members of the one body you are called to live in harmony, and never forget to be thankful for what God has done for you. Let Christ's teaching live in your hearts, making you rich in the true wisdom. Teach and help one another along the right road with your psalms and hymns and Christian songs, singing God's praises with joyful hearts, and whatever work you may have to do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the Father through Him.

Wives, adapt yourselves to your husbands, that your marriage may be a Christian unity. Husbands, be sure you give your wives much love and sympathy. Don't let bitterness or resentment spoil your marriage.

As for your children, your duty is to obey your parents, for at your age this is one of the best things you can do to show your love for the Lord. Fathers, don't over correct your children, or they will grow up feeling inferior and frustrated. Slaves, your job is to obey your masters, not with the idea of currying favor, but as a sincere expression of your devotion to the Lord.

Whatever you do, put your whole heart and soul into it, as into work done for the Lord and not merely for men, knowing that your real reward, a heavenly one, will come from the Lord. Since you are actually employed by the Lord Christ, and not just by your earthly master, but the wicked man will be punished for his misdeeds, and naturally no distinction will be made between master and man. Remember then, you employers, that your responsibility is to be fair and just toward those whom you employ, never forgetting that you yourselves have a heavenly employer.

Now I'd like you to turn with me in the New Testament to the book of Colossians, and we return to our systematic meditations from this beautiful epistle which Paul wrote to the church at Colossae 2,000 years or nigh on that ago. We'll be concentrating on verses towards the end of chapter 3, and going on to the first verse of the fourth chapter. But as it was last November, just before I left for India, that I was previously preaching from this epistle, perhaps I should spend a moment or two, just in some sort of resume, to put you in the picture, if you have not been in attendance at the tabernacle for some months.

The apostle has spelt out in the first two chapters of this epistle certain great doctrinal truths concerning the creation of the world, and the reason for the Lord Jesus Christ pitching his tent, so to speak, amongst humanity. There locked up in those two chapters is the most extraordinary description of the great plan of God's salvation. And as is often the case in the writings of the apostle, when he has dealt to some extent theologically with certain subjects, he then lifts them up, and he applies them practically.

Because the apostle is of course concerned that Christian people live in a fashion that pleases the Lord Jesus. So roughly speaking, obviously this is a generalization. The third and the fourth chapters of this epistle are the outworking of the theological content that you discover in the first two chapters.

Now it's important for us to realize the accuracy of these opening comments, for unless we appreciate this, then we won't know what Paul is talking about when we come to the 20th verse and onwards of the third chapter. There's a book that has been written by Francis Schaeffer, which is entitled, How Then Should We Live? How Then Should We Live? And Schaeffer had been dealing with the the fight of the gospel, and the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the total plan of God's salvation. And he says, because of these things, we ought to live differently than other people in the 20th century.

Well, you could almost entitle the third and fourth chapters of this, of this epistle, with the, with the title that that Schaeffer takes for his book, How Then Should We Live? If then, look at verse one, if then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. If you belong to Jesus, let your life show it. Look at the third verse again, of the third chapter, for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

You're a different sort of person, because you're a Christian. You're no longer alive in the, in the sense of the worldling. You have given your life into the control of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, again, your style of life must be completely contrasting to that of the unbeliever, or else your faith amounts to nothing. Come to the fifth verse, the argument is carried through. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.

Die to certain things. Why? Well, that's the reason why Paul puts the word, therefore, into the fifth verse. You are to die, because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for you.

You no longer live, with just a materialistic objective. Verse two, your affections are on things above. You're not just mundane.

You're not earth-orientated. You're looking for something that is far noble, far more lasting. You're caught up into the purposes of God.

One day, you shall share the new era, the new age, with the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, your eyesight is not to be set just on terms of things of time and of space. Rather, you are to set your affection on things above, living differently, different from other people.

Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth, and so on and so forth. Now, the apostle works this out very logically, very easily to be understood, in the following verses. When he talks from the fifth to the eighth, for example, of the personal disciplines of the Christian, how he is to conduct, how she is to control her life, because she belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Certain things he or she will do. Certain things that he or she will refrain from doing, because they are Christians, because they have pledged their confidence in the Savior. From the ninth to the fourteenth verses, the apostle is here talking about the relationships that exist within Christian communities.

There's a pattern of behavior which is unique. There is a love which is profound. There is a manner of deportment which is absolutely unique to Christianity itself, and is not found in secular society.

I wonder, have you worked these things out? Are you aware of this? If you claim to be a Christian, then all the practical applications of Colossians 3 are to be taken into your lifestyle and worked out on a day-by-day basis. Look at the fifteenth verse, through to the seventeenth verse. Here we have certain stabilizers referred to, that the Christian enjoys, that will enable him to live a life that is different to that of other people.

The apostle makes reference to the peace of Christ, which rules our hearts. And in the sixteenth verse, to the word of Christ, which indwells us. And in the seventeenth verse, to the name of the Lord, which controls everything that we do from day to day.

How then should we live? Because we belong to Jesus? The apostle spells it out in these verses. And I say it again, if it is true that you've set your affection on things above, if you really belong to the Lord Jesus, then the whole of your life, whether you're a businessman in the city, whether you're in commerce here in Worthing, whether you're a pupil at a day school, a student at a college, it is to be absolutely different from other people's lives. Because you have trusted Jesus.

Now, the apostle is not content at leaving his application of what he has said in the opening chapters at that. He might well have put a full stop at the end of the seventeenth verse, and have completed his letter. But he doesn't.

Rather in the eighteenth verse and on to the first verse of the fourth chapter, he opens up the whole scene of the domestic life of the family circle. Wives and husbands, verses 18 and 19. How are they to behave one to another? How are they to relate one to another? Well, because they're Christians, they will do so in a different fashion than the majority of people in wedlock who are unbelievers.

And you will remember that I brought three or four addresses on this whole intimate and wonderful business of the relationship between a man and his life's partner. And we used Ephesians and parallel verses in that letter to fill out the apostle's teaching in this 18th and 19th verse verses from this chapter. But Paul is not only arguing that wives and husbands should live in such a way that glorifies the Lord, that is fit in the sight of the Lord.

He goes on to say something about children and servants, or if you please, slaves. Let me read from the twentieth verse now in the authorized version of the Bible. Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord.

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. Servants or slaves, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service, as men pleases, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ.

But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done, and there is no respect of persons. Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven. What's Paul referring to? Well, I mentioned it a few moments ago.

He's talking about the family circle, the domestic household situation. Now, you've got, of course, to realize that two thousand years ago, there are a lot of slaves. It is argued that one third of the Roman Empire was in servitude.

One out of every three persons were slaves, at the time when Paul was writing this letter. So, every well-to-do household would have, not only father, and mother, and children, but also servants. And, of course, there were Christian parents, and there were Christian children, and there were Christian servants.

So, Paul, when he's writing the practical application of the gospel into this letter, he refers not only to mums and dads, but also to boys and girls, and servants. And, what he has to say to these two categories of a household is roughly the same. So, I've linked them together, at least for an introductory study.

Maybe I'll come back to this on a later Sunday during this year. Before we come to examine just what he's saying to children, and to servants, let me make one or two observations. In fact, I'll make my observations the stepping stones to outline the teaching of these few verses of scripture.

Remember this, before you come to a detailed examination of what Paul is here declaring, that he is addressing his remarks to Christian people. I think that that needs to be said. Because, you see, there are a lot of people in the world today who are nominally Christian, and some of our politicians, in recent days in particular, and some of our philosophers, and even some trade unionists, will, when it suits them, dip into the New Testament, and they will quote, completely out of context, the words of the Lord Jesus, or the teaching of the Apostle Paul.

And they will say there, that's what the Bible says, and this is how you are to live. But let it be always remembered by we who count ourselves evangelical Christians, that the Bible, and the New Testament, and its epistles, are directed to Christian people themselves. In other words, it's no use taking the practical application of the writings of the Apostle Paul, and applying them, shall we say, to the trade unions congress.

It's no use taking some of this teaching, and applying it to Parliament, or to the various statutes that are in the law books of England. Why? Well, you see, these regulations, these injunctions, they are given to people who primarily love the Lord Jesus, who are, in the words of the Apostle Paul, in an earlier verse of this, of this chapter, rooted in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not talking to secular parents.

He's not talking to secular children. He's not talking to secular slaves. He's talking to Christian households.

And this is what he is saying, that Christian children are to live in this way. Christian servants, Christian employees, are to conduct themselves in this manner. I don't think it can be emphasized sufficiently.

When the New Testament puts down its instructions, it is laying down instructions for members of the redeemed community. Let me give you an example of what I mean. So often, we have quoted to us, and in a congratulatory fashion, the golden rule.

Do unto others as you would do to yourself. That's Christianity, or so we're told. Well, you see, it's very well to applaud the golden rule, but the Christian teaching is this, that nobody can live up to the golden rule.

Nobody can live up to the Sermon on the Mount, until they have first confessed who Jesus is, and what God the Father expects of them. Until there's been a radical alteration in their nature. Until they have received the Holy Spirit.

It is impossible for a person to live by the proposition of the golden rule. And now I come back to what Paul is saying here in Colossians. He is addressing his remarks to mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, boys and girls, employers, employees, who have trusted Jesus, and have had the implanting of the Holy Spirit within their hearts.

So that's the first stepping stone, if you like, that I offer to you, as a help to get you across this passage, this flow of argument that the Apostle here has in these verses. Paul is writing to a Christian community. The second general observation I make is this, from these verses.

Authority is here recognized as a virtue. Authority is recognized as a virtue. Look at what seems to be a very unattractive statement for for Junius, as they read the Word of God in the 20th verse.

Children obey your parents in all things. That's authority. Come to the 22nd verse.

Servants, slaves obey in all things your masters according to the flesh. And so on. There is an authoritative statement.

And I repeat what I said a moment or two ago. In the Word of God, authority is recognized as a virtue. See, if you had a society where there was no authority at all, you would have anarchy.

Some of you lads and girls may have read for O-level English literature, The Lord of the Flies. The story of some boys who were, somehow found themselves on an island. All on their own.

And they had to govern their own conduct and lifestyle and so on and so forth. And they just couldn't. There was no one who was mature.

And there along there was anarchy. Not one lad could trust another lad. And here is a study of a situation without any authority at all.

And when the Bible tells boys and girls and servants, employees to obey, to have respect for those who are over them. It does so because the Bible places a premium of value upon authority. If you had no authority, you'd have anarchy.

If you've ever been in a situation of anarchy, I've seen crowds sometimes get out of control. It's the most fearful thing that can ever happen. To be in a crowd that is uncontrolled.

No authority. To be in a family circle where there is no control is a terrible thing. But we are witnessing today, in many areas of family life, a complete breakdown.

Boys and girls no longer having respect for fathers. Mothers and fathers not being able to to win the love and confidence of their children. So the Bible comes again and it emphasizes this, this necessary dictum.

Obey those who are in authority over you. Your parents, your employers. The Bible is a very honest book.

And sometimes when you look into the Old Testament, you think to yourself, if you haven't got much of a knowledge, what a great man, say David was, or Eli, or Samuel, or Solomon. And in one sense, your, your deduction is right. They were, they were in some degree, great men.

But each one of the men that I have mentioned failed miserably in the area of being a parent. They had no authority over their children. And as a result, their family name became tarnished because there was a breakdown of authority at home.

In the book of Judges, not one that is often read, alas, by people today. The book of Judges in the Old Testament, there's a very interesting verse right at the end of the last chapter. It speaks of the children of Israel, the occupants of Palestine.

And it says that a time came in their history when everybody did that which was right in their own eyes. And as a result of that, there was anarchy, there was chaos, there was economic disaster. There must be an authority, you see, whether it's at home or at school, or whether it's in the area of industrial relationships, or whether it's the government of a country.

So the Bible here in its general teaching concerning boys and girls and concerning servants, Christian boys and girls, Christian servants, Christian slaves, as they existed in those days. The Bible says obey those who are in authority over you. Because, look at verse 20, this is well pleasing unto the Lord.

God is not a God of chaos. He's a God of order. That's why incidentally, even in a communist society, say we lived in the Soviet Union today.

I would be preaching to the congregation, assuming that we are in Russia, that you are to respect the government that has authority over you in that land. You are to respect it because a bad government is better than no government. If there's no government, there's anarchy.

If there's anarchy, there isn't an environment in which the gospel can be proclaimed. So the Bible, speaking to Christian people in this world, which is besotted with so many problems and pressures, and looking forward to a new world which is yet to be, says children, at this moment of time. Obey your parents, slaves.

Obey in all things your masters. Acknowledge the authority that they have over you, because this pleases the Lord. But let me go on and give you another introductory stepping stone, if you please, to this passage.

The authority that is referred to in this chapter is not tyranny, is not tyranny. In the 18th verse, we've got a text which really is like red rag to a bull, as far as the women's lib movement is concerned. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands.

And he puts it even more strongly in Ephesians, when the wives are told to obey their husband. And the idea there is of a tyrannical authority. Poor wife submits.

All her personality is stripped. She loses her individuality. She becomes just a serf for her husband.

But that's not what the Bible means when it talks about the authority that a husband has, the authority that a parent has, the authority that a Christian employer has. You remember David Copperfield, just again to help those who are doing English literature at the moment. When poor old Copperfield's mother got married, David was almost in despair.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think his stepfather's name was Murdster. And he was a brute of a man. A real picture of the caricature of a Victorian parent.

His authority was tyrannical. And poor old Copperfield was eventually sent to school and he jumped from the proverbial frying pan into the fire, because there he met one of the most grotesque schoolmasters of all time. A tyrant, if ever there was one.

But it's not the tyrannical authority to which the Bible here is referring when it says that parents have authority over their children. Come to the 21st verse. And boys and girls, you remember this, just in case you think that I've been preaching against you on the 20th verse.

The Bible is wonderfully balanced. It talks about children, then it talks about parents. And here it just elects to refer to fathers, but it's an abrasive term, including mothers as well.

Parents, if you like. Provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged. The best translation I've come across this is in Hendrickson's commentary.

Fathers, don't exasperate your children. There's a way that you can do that. You can exasperate a child by always placing him in a straight jacket, superimposing your will upon his, believing that what he is in infancy, what he is in minority years, he's going to be in the years of his majority.

Not realizing that a father is to harness the talents of his child and to lead him, or to lead his daughter in a loving way, so that the very principles by which mom and dad govern and condition their home become such a part and parcel on a voluntary basis of the disposition and the belief of their offspring, that when they achieve maturity, they want to continue the same way. Fathers, don't exasperate your children. You know, it's very easy to get, in some situations at any rate, whatever response you want from a child.

I was always very careful when a school teacher, not to put the gospel in such a fashion that the children could do nothing else but accept it. You only need to have a certain expertise in psychology to be able to get from the children, at least for an initial period, just the response that you're, you're looking for. And there are Christian parents who have been guilty of doing this, who have so pushed their will upon their children, that they have come to believe that the children's mild acquiescence really denotes a deep, basic belief on the part of the child, but rather he was making this assertion just to shut his dad up, or his mother up.

Fathers, don't exasperate your children. I think one of the most tragic pastoral situations I have dealt with, and not successfully here, in the last 10 years, has been on the part of a young man who was known to say of his father who claimed to be evangelical, if being a Christian means being like my dad, you can keep him. He'd been exasperated beyond measure down the years, and when he reached the age of maturity, he reacted against the tyrannical authority of his parents.

The authority that the apostle here refers to is not the authority of, of tyranny. This is why, incidentally, in the first verse of the fourth chapter, he refers to Christian employer, employers. Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal.

In the 22nd verse, he's been speaking to the slaves, he's been speaking to the employees. Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh. But you Christian masters, you Christian employers, give unto your servants that which is just and equal.

The Bible recognizes that there are employers who will deal cruelly and bitterly with their employees. Matthew 18 gives a classic example of that. The Bible also recognizes that it's possible for a kind employer to win for Jesus Christ those who are under him.

So we get the example of the kind centurion in Matthew chapter 8. Do you know why there was revulsion to some extent on the part of the working classes the turn of the century against the Christian faith? Because there were those in the upper class, the mine owners, the mill owners, in the in the north of England, who were treating their employees as though they were just slaves. Had no concern to be kind towards them, to deal justly with them. And these men were found in the establishment churches on a Sunday, singing the praises of God.

And it was all a charade, it was all a farce, it was all superficial. And there became, there came a revulsion on the part of certain of the working classes. If that's your Christianity, you can keep it.

But of course it wasn't Christianity, it was just the Christianity of the establishment. It was a pseudo-Christianity, a false approach to the New Testament. Authority says the word of God here in dealing with the place of children and servants.

The authority is not to be tyrannical. And the last thing that I leave for your consideration this morning, is that submission. Submission to your parents, submission to your employer, is not weakness, but rather it's worship.

It's not weakness, but it's worship. Boys and girls in the tabernacle, look at the 20th verse again. Children obey your parents.

Why? Because you love them. Yes, that's a good reason, but it's not the only reason. I would say it's not even the primary reason, if you're a Christian.

Children obey your parents in all things, because this pleases the Lord, the Heavenly Father, who is the best example of what all parents should be. He gave you your mum and your dad, and with all their weaknesses, and with all their deficiencies, because they can't be like Him, nonetheless He gave them to you. So obey them in all things, where it doesn't cut across your Christian conviction, because this is well pleasing unto the Lord.

Submission is not weakness, but worship. And as far as we who are employed are concerned, look at the 22nd verse. Servants obey in all things your masters.

Why? Because the 23rd verse says, whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, ask to the Lord, and not unto men. Let me ask those of you who are employed, how do you work? As a one who gives eye service. Do you know what that word means? It means working well when the employer has his eye on you.

It's a very funny story in a book of philosophy. You even get jokes in philosophical books. It's a remarkable library that I'm acquiring in the back room of the church here.

And I remember an occasion in one philosophical book that I was reading, when there's a quotation of some Africans from South Africa, and they're employed in one of the plantations there, and they will not work unless the buanna, unless the master is standing by them. Well, it so happened that this employer had a glass eye, and he hit on the scheme of convincing the Africans that when he took his glass eye out and put it on a nearby wall, he'd still be watching them. And it worked for quite some time.

When he was away, the Africans were still industrious, until one African who was more astute than the other, crept up behind the wall, got out his handkerchief, and covered up the eye. Then they all sat down. Not with eye service.

Not looking unto your master, your employer, as being the one for whom directly you're working. But realizing that you're offering all your service on this earth, not to a human employer, but as Paul spells it out in the 24th verse, to the Lord Christ. Submission and authority.

It's these things that these verses refer to. And the best example, of course, is our Lord Jesus. He came on this earth and submitted to the will of his Father.

I come to do your will, oh my God. And he recognized the authority that the Father had over him. And he lived his life with those twin concepts of authority and submission dominant.

And you too, and I myself, must basically acknowledge the authority of God over us. And submit to his claim upon our lives. To the fact that Jesus bled and died to save us.

And when we've acknowledged his authority, when we've submitted to his will, it will help us to be a better boy, a better girl, a better employee, a better employer. We do all things as though we were working for the Lord God, having accepted his jurisdiction over us. Well, we'll come back to that subject next week.

Now Father, we ask that whether we're boys and girls, parents, employers, employees, the way we conduct ourselves these next few days, may they illustrate the fact that Jesus is rooted into our lives and we are part of his body. Help us as employees to work hard for you. Help us as employers not to be greedy or insensitive in our dealings with those who come within our jurisdiction.

Help us as parents to be kindly and sensitive to our children. Help us as children to honor our parents. And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, the fellowship and communion of the Holy Spirit be our experience always, until the Lord Christ returns.

Amen.