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Heavenly Father, we need to learn from your word. We need to learn from Jesus. So speak to us, we pray. Open our minds and hearts to your challenging and life-giving truth. And make us more like Jesus. In his name we pray, Amen.

This morning we’re thinking about what it means for us be ‘Serving Christ in Our Relationships’ – in particular in marriage, family and work. So this is pretty close to the bone. Please have Colossians 3.18–4.1 open in front of you. Last Sunday we ended with Colossians 3.17:

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

That’s a tall order for us who have been ravaged by self-centredness and sin. How’s it possible for us to live for Christ in every nook and cranny of our lives? We can only begin to live like that when we know who we are by faith in Christ. That’s what those of us who were here last week reminded ourselves of. So:

i). We have received Christ by faith and are indwelt by his Spirit.
ii). Our flesh (our sinful nature) has been put to death with Christ.
iii). We have been raised to new life with him.
iv). We are to walk in Christ. So that means,
v). We are to put to death all that belongs to our sinful nature.
vi). We are to put on our new Christ-like nature that’s been given us through his death and resurrection and the gift of his Spirit.

We saw how that works out in love for one another and love for Jesus. And now Paul gets into the nitty-gritty of three relationships: husband and wife; parent and child; slave and master. What does that mean for us? As the apostle Paul says in his parallel passage to this in Ephesians, we are to be:

…submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

That’s Ephesians 5.21. We are not to be a collection of Kings and Queens each ruling our own dominion, population of one. We are all to yield our lives (submit our lives) to Christ the King of kings. Not just wives, children, and workers – every one of us is to live in submission to Jesus. And Colossians 3.18–4.1 gives us worked examples. So, let’s dive in.

1. Serving Christ as wives and husbands

Now, this is certainly deep water in which to swim and we can’t begin to get to the bottom of it. All we can do is to make some soundings. Colossians 3.18:

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

And part of why that is fitting in the Lord is there in that parallel passage in Ephesians 5.23:

For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour.

This is amazing teaching – not least because it is so counter-cultural. There’s nothing very new about that. Back in the late 1970s we were in the thick of second wave feminism. I was a student and I got into a conversation about this aspect of Biblical teaching with a fellow student. She was a young woman who had only fairly recently come to faith in Christ. She told me that the first time she realised what the Bible teaches about submission and headship in marriage, she felt physically sick. But she said that she was beginning to come to terms with what the Bible taught. She had come to believe the Bible was God’s word and so true and right. Instead of rejecting it out of hand, she was letting God’s word re-shape her thinking. How we all need to follow her example, letting go of our preconceptions, and listening to what the Bible actually says.

Married or not, we’re all involved here because marriage is an illustration of a relationship in which every Christian is involved: the love relationship between Christ and the church. But this is also relevant because all of us, single or married, have a stake in what happens to marriage in this country. For good or ill the state of marriage permeates the whole of society – either as a poison or as a healing medicine. At the moment it seems like lethal poison is pumping around the blood system of our nation, and the signs of sickness are everywhere. The deterioration in marriage is frightening. The accumulated pain of it all doesn’t bear thinking about. How can we turn back this tide of anguish? Surely only by listening again to the wisdom of the Bible. So – a wife should not seek to dominate her husband. She should not seek to force her own will where there is a disagreement. Her attitude to him should be submissive. A number of things need to be said:

i). Accepting the headship of the husband in marriage is unavoidable if you accept the Bible as the word of God. There is scope for discussion about what it means and how to apply it, but the only way to escape the notion altogether is by straightforwardly disagreeing with the Bible and rejecting its authority. And that of course is what many do. But if we do that, we are casting ourselves off to drift rudderless on a very stormy ocean.
ii). The headship of the husband in marriage is grounded in creation and is therefore permanently valid. In Ephesians 5 Paul takes it back to the creation account in Genesis 2, before the fall. It’s not something that derives from the culture of Paul’s day. It is built into the fabric of God’s creation.
iii). Different does not mean inferior. Men and women are equal in the sight of God.
iv). Being equal does not mean having the same roles in God’s order for society. That is, after all, basic teaching about life in the body of Christ: the eye is just as important as the ear; the hand is as important as the foot; but they are not the same. So it is with husband and wife. The roles of husband and wife, of father and mother are complementary. They are not identical. No doubt sometimes men do regard women as inferior, and denigrate the role of wife and mother. It is conceivable that sometimes wives regard husbands as inferior. Those are sinful patterns of thought that need rooting out. But you don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. However counter-cultural this God-given teaching may be, we have to hold together the equality and the complementarity of the sexes.
v). Submission is voluntary, not forced. Submission is a matter of willing obedience to the will of a loving God who is working to transform us into the likeness of Christ. The command is to the wife to submit and it is up to her to work out under God what that means for her in her situation.

One other point here. The command is; Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. It is not; “Wives, change every nappy.” The point is that this framework for marriage of voluntary submission and self-sacrificing loving headship is a rather different matter to the division of labour in the family. I take nappies as an example because I’m well clear of that particular danger zone. It is not that every task has to be equally shared out. Division of labour is appropriate and can be worked out within the family. But headship does not imply that the division of labour should be: wife 90%, husband 10%.

Now the question has to be asked: Isn’t this whole biblical pattern of marriage ultimately anti-women? No. It is impermanence in relationships and abdication of responsibility on the part of men that is the real insult to women. But haven’t men oppressed and abused women in appalling ways down the ages? They often have. And that’s because God’s word through his apostles has been ignored, not because it’s been followed. Remember we’ve only had half the picture so far. On to Colossians 3.19:

Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

So Paul speaks to husbands both positively and negatively. Negatively, he says husbands should not be harsh with their wives. Why does he say that? Two reasons. First, on average men are significantly stronger physically than women. Secondly, sometimes in a relationship the man uses that greater strength to be abusive and violent towards the woman. This has been a terrible scourge, not least in marriages, for thousands of years. It remains so today. And churches are not immune. So if you are a wife experiencing harsh treatment from your husband, please don’t suffer in silence. Speak to a trusted friend. Speak to a member of our pastoral team, such as Liz Jackson or Carolyn Hosie, who’s also one of our Safeguarding Officers. And if you are husband who is violent towards your wife, take this word of God to you to heart. Stop immediately and permanently. And seek help before it’s too late.

Husbands…do not be harsh with [your wives].

That’s the necessary negative. The positive is this:

Husbands, love your wives…

And in Ephesians 5.25 Paul expands on what he means:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…

Just as there is no escaping the principle of headship, there is no escaping the fact that it is the self-sacrifice of Jesus for us that is the pattern for what headship means. It is not lording it. It is serving the wife, as Jesus came not to be served but to serve. It is putting her welfare above your own convenience and comfort – even above your very life. Jesus is prepared to pay any price to secure what’s best for us. His headship is one of responsibility and care. And that’s the pattern for the husband. John Stott describes in contrast how we think of the authoritative husband as (I quote):

…a domineering figure who makes all the decisions himself, issues commands and expects obedience, inhibits and suppresses his wife, and so prevents her from growing into a mature or fulfilled person.

That is not biblical headship. Certainly leadership and initiative are involved, but they are exercised through loving care. So, both wives and husbands are to follow the pattern of Christ, and of his relationship with the church. Now the foundation of a strong marriage is the best possible basis for being effective parents. And that’s what Paul comes on to next.

2. Serving Christ as children and parents

Colossians 3.20:

Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Unless they are commanding something forbidden by God, or forbidding something commanded by God, the duty laid on children is to obey their parents, at least until they’re adult and taking full responsibility for themselves. That’s for the child’s own good. And it’s right that we should teach children to obey. Learning to obey God is more straightforward if we have first learned to obey our parents. And throughout life, we have to be careful to honour our parents. That of course features in God’s top ten commands. Why? Is it because in practice that’s something we often don’t do well? Do we too easily take our parents for granted? Do we even forget them, and wish them away? We should honour them. In an increasingly aging population, we’ll have to pay attention to that neglected command, or our whole society will suffer the consequences. But the duties don’t just fall on the children. Colossians 3.21:

Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

That applies to mothers too of course. But perhaps it’s the fathers who need reminding that they personally have a heavy responsibility for the upbringing of their children. Here too, we have to be very careful that God-given authority is not abused. Children must be treated with great respect. They do not belong to their parents. If our child is angry, it may be that it’s we who should say sorry. We easily overlook that possibility.

Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

What is it that provokes and discourages? It may be an unbending demand for obedience in something that the child just can’t see any purpose in. It may be treating an older child as if he or she were still an infant. Or it may be inconsistency, so that something that gets ignored, or that gets an amused reaction one day, is met with anger and punishment the next. We shouldn’t be surprised that we have irritated children if we behave in irritating ways. Don’t make unreasonable demands that make no allowance for the inexperience and immaturity of the child. Don’t humiliate. Don’t be overindulgent. Discipline shouldn’t be arbitrary or unkind. That won’t build up the child. It will lead to discouragement and frustration. But don’t abdicate responsibility either. We are to give our children a training for life that teaches them to walk in Christ. So that’s serving Christ in marriage and family. Then:

3. Serving Christ as employees and employers

Paul’s third example of serving Christ in our relationships relates to bondservants (slaves, that is) and masters. So not a family relationship but an economic one. The nature of that relationship in the first century Roman world was not that of employee and employer. The slave was a possession. The master was the owner. But Paul does not regard the slave in that dehumanised way. He addresses slaves within the Christian community as fellow-heirs in the family of God. And here, too, what transforms the slave’s attitude is putting Christ at the centre. Look at Colossians 3.22-25:

Bondservants [that is, slaves], obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord [there it is for the second time] and not for men, knowing that from the Lord [that’s the third mention of Jesus] you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ [that’s four references to Jesus in four verses]. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

Then what is astonishing in the context of the culture of the time is what Paul says next (Colossians 4.1):

Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

The relationship between slave and master should be based on justice and the knowledge that they are equal before Christ. That (as someone has put it) is to put a time bomb under the institution of slavery. But in the meantime, the slave should serve as if serving Christ; and the master should treat his slave as he would want to be treated. A contract of employment is different. But surely what was true for slavery is even more applicable to employment. The employee should work as if Christ is the employer. Employers should treat employees as they would want to be treated, in the knowledge that Christ is Lord of them both. If we are employed, then whatever our work, we’re better off than slaves were. If we allow this principle of Christ-centred – (not employer-centred, but Christ-centred) service to shape our thinking, then our attitude and approach to our work will be transformed.

We all have a responsibility to the Lord for each other. Whether wives or husbands, parents or children, employees or employers, we are to serve Christ, and faithfully fulfil the role that he has given us for now, looking to the other’s interests, and not our own. If we stand on our own rights; if our major concern is for own fulfilment, our own enjoyment, then that sets up powerful centrifugal forces in families and societies that tend to force them apart. If our aim is to be like Christ, to walk in him, then that acts like glue that sticks people together. Back up to Colossians 3.14:

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

And finally Colossians 3.17 pulls it all together once more:

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Let’s pray:

Our Lord and Father, thank you that by the outpoured blood of Jesus, and by the power your Holy Spirit living within us, we can grow to be more like Jesus, in all the different relationships you’ve given us, and in all the roles into which you’ve placed us in these earthly lives of ours. We’re sorry for all of our failures to walk in Christ and to live to please him. Have mercy on us. Thank you for your forgiveness. Change us, we pray. Teach us more and more to live and love like Jesus, and to serve him in every aspect of our lives. For the glory of his name, Amen.