Set Free for Great Relationships

Right now grab your message notes that look like this and let's continue our series in the Book of Colossians. We call it set free and today let's talk about how to be set free for great relationships. You know there are probably more jokes about relationships than any other subject on the planet. And I think I could have filled a 35-minute message with nothing but jokes, one right after another.

But I'll give you this one, somebody just emailed me, I think it's pretty good. What a woman says. I think you know I'm too jealous but why should Charlene get gifts all Valentine's week when you and I go back so much further? Can't you just play along with me and go dancing? Is your whole heart used up by your stupid golf game? What a man hears, you should go play golf. You know that's about the size of it.

Well today let's talk about how to make three crucial relationships in your life better. You know they say, you know why we joke so much about relationships? Because you only joke about the things that cause you pain. Is that really true? Let's talk about it today and this really applies to you wherever you are in terms of relationships.

How many of you are married? Can I see a show of hands? Those of you who are in a marriage relationship. How many of you have children, grown or at home? How many of you have parents, living or dead? That should be every one of you. Raise your hands. You're not paying attention. Come on. How many of you either work for somebody or have people who work with you or under you? Can I see that show of hands too? How many of you have friends? Can I see a show of hands?

What we're talking about today applies to every single one of those relationships as we talk about how to make the three most important relationships in your life better in the book of Colossians. Here's sort of the overarching theme today. Kind of do a little review for you. If you've been with us for the last month or so, we've been studying Paul's short little letter to some of the very first Christians in history.

In the first century, in a city called Colossae, back there in the first century Greco-Roman world. And he was writing on this letter because these guys are in a church that is starting to go bad. It was dominated by a very authoritarian religious culture. They were hyper-authoritarian leaders and this new version of Christianity that they were trying to get across to the Colossians was all about performance, about trying harder, about rising up the ladder to heaven through your good works, about gaining God's approval, about proving yourself.

And Paul is saying, no, that is not the message of Christianity at all. The message of Christianity is that not that we climb a ladder to God, but that God climbed down to us and that He forgives us and loves us unconditionally by His grace, not your good work, so that now when you receive this, you can in turn be changed and be gracious to other people.

That's, he's saying to the Colossians, that's the whole point of your faith, not that you climb some ladder to heaven. And then today he says, here is what this looks like in your house. You've heard the phrase, "bring it home." Paul here literally brings it home. He says, here is what it looks like to be set free by grace in your home. Here's what it looks like to be set free in my relationships.

If you have your Bibles with you, turn to the book of Colossians chapter 3. That's on page 834 in those brown TLC Bibles that are in front of you in the pews or underneath some of the pews. And as you're turning there, kind of a little discovery channel or history channel moment to set the context for you so you can understand the society way back there 20 centuries ago that Paul is writing to here.

Check this out. The typical Roman family was much bigger than the family that we think of today because it included not only the nuclear family, the spouses and the kids, but also the servants, the slaves, and the cooks and so forth. And they called this big group the household. All right, they were all considered to be part of the household.

And in a Roman family, the father ruled absolutely, excuse me, was absolutely a patriarchal society. In fact, in this painting from first century Rome, you see that the father is literally wearing a crown. This was not a king. This was just the dad, literally the king of his little castle. Interesting little fashion. I like to wear my crown around my house. Don't wear it often outside the house.

But in the culture that Paul is writing to, the dad was the big man. Look at this relief carving. This is also from the first century. And you can see there that the father is large, right? Well, he's probably not literally this much bigger than every other member of his family. This was symbolic because the dad in that culture was the big man. He could, for example, legally sell his own family members into slavery. He could legally send his children away in chains.

Now, how many parents of teenagers wish, no just kidding, I'm just joking about that, but he was absolutely the final authority. He could even have his family members killed if they displeased him. So pretty authoritarian, I'd say, right? Definitely performance-based. But listen, maybe that picture reminds you of home. Maybe you were raised in a family a little bit like this.

And to this day, you're still insecure about your father or mother's love for you. You still feel, even as an adult, that you have to somehow earn their approval. You're afraid of dad. And now listen, maybe left to yourself, you're something like that because it was modeled to you. And what you do in relationships, even against your own better judgment, is you try to kind of throw your weight around and you try to kind of get a step ahead of everybody else because that's kind of how you were taught.

Well, I want you to check this out. Watch how Paul changes that whole structure as he talks about showing grace in three important relationships. And if you're here today and if you're not married or you don't have kids, you're still in relationships with friends, family, coworkers. So all these principles apply to us all, as you'll see.

First, Paul talks to husbands and wives. And he says, "Wives, show grace-filled respect for your husband." Grace-filled respect for your husband. Now, this is not always easy to do, is it? A lot of nervous laughter there, but it's true. Kind of like in this TV commercial. Watch this. We just got this catalog for homewarehouse.com's grand opening sale. It has a huge selection, really low prices, and we can buy it all online, which is nice because sometimes just getting started on home improvement projects is the hardest part of all.

And this catalog really seems to help. Break your butt up. Ever feel like doing that to your husband's wives, right? It's not always easy. So let's talk about this first verse, Colossians 3:18. Now, Paul's talking about three different relationships, but this first sentence is the one that in our culture, we kind of do a stutter step on because he says, "Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord." Uh-oh. There it is. The S-word. Submit.

That is not a very positive 21st century word, is it? I mean, what's that make you think of? Cringing women, right? Chauvinistic males. And maybe it's no joke. Maybe you see this word and you're thinking, "That verse is what kept me away from Jesus for years, the way I heard that thrown around." Or you're thinking, "I heard that verse quoted in my house growing up by my dad to keep us all under his thumb." And all of us, whatever your family background is, we all come to this verse with 21st century baggage because we live in the 21st century, right?

This was written 2000 years ago, and so when we read this verse, we bring our awareness of how the word submit has been misused to abuse women throughout the centuries. But what we have to try to do is ask ourselves, what did this really mean the way Paul was using this word for Christians in the 1st century? So try to approach this with that level of freshness.

And I think the biggest misconception about this that people have today is that submission equals doormat, right? Submission means a cow-like, docile, slavish obedience. But you want to know the two people that the Bible says displayed this attitude of submission the best, Moses and Jesus. Moses, the most humble man ever, the Hebrew Scriptures say, and the greatest servant ever, the Bible says, was Jesus. It says, "He was the one who submitted perfectly to the will of the Father." Now, were Moses and Jesus wimps? Were they docile, cow-like slaves? No way, they were leaders. They were world changers.

So are you starting to get what I'm saying about how we have a 21st century understanding of what this word meant, and we have to look at what it really meant to people who read the Bible in the 1st century? And another thing, this one phrase is not the sum total of all the Bible says about women, and I think you have to understand some of that context, too. I put some other verses in your daily meditations this week if you want to study this further, especially under Monday's list, but let me summarize the Bible's big picture.

In Jesus' time, men weren't even supposed to talk to women, but Jesus does. Men weren't supposed to teach women, but Jesus does. You see a female apostle at the end of the book of Romans, female prophets in the book of Acts, females leading the nation of Israel. You see Paul saying that in Christ there is no male or female. Yes, the supposedly chauvinistic Paul in the eyes of many people a day greets 15 women, apparently leaders in the church by name at the end of the book of Romans.

So what does he mean when he says submit? The best translation I've seen of the Greek is wives follow the lead of your husbands. That's literally what it means, almost like in a dance. Wives follow the lead of your husbands, but even this definition, this sort of dictionary definition of the word can't be misused by men who club women over the head with it. And so we got to clarify a couple of things.

One is submission is not an absolute command. Submit to your husbands in any circumstance. No matter what they say, excuse me, no matter what they do, you should submit to them. That is not what this means, and I can prove it, because we are also told to submit to authority, right? All of us are told to submit to the governmental authority, and yet the Bible is full of examples of people who had to choose not to do that because of things that the authority was telling them to do.

For example, in Acts 5, Peter and John say, "We must choose to obey God rather than men." And so this does not mean whatever nutty thing your husband says the wife should submit to. It can't mean that. It doesn't mean that in scriptural context. And incidentally, it's also not universal. This has also been misinterpreted to mean women submit to men. It doesn't say that, does it? It's talking about wives and one relationship on the planet with their husband. It doesn't say women submit to men, and that's also mistranslated and misunderstood sometimes.

So what does Paul mean by this? Wouldn't it be great if we could just ask Paul up here on stage and we just requested of him some commentary, you know? Please clarify this tiny little half sentence. Well guess what? You can in a way, because Paul, you could say, wrote commentary on this sentence in the book of Ephesians, which is also in the Bible. Check this out. Paul wrote the letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians at the same time. And the letter to the Ephesians is a little bit more detailed than the letter to the Colossians on the same exact subjects in almost the same exact order.

What in Colossians might just be half a line gets a paragraph in Ephesians. And in Ephesians, Paul starts this whole discussion about relationships with this overarching umbrella statement, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. One another. And so we all need to practice submission to each other. In other words, the gospel, if we understand what Jesus Christ did for us in grace, we want to be grace-filled to other people too, and not be all about elbowing other people aside, not be all about looking out for number one, not be all about being the dominant person in every relationship at home and at work and with all of our friends.

We're going to submit to one another just like Jesus did because we're grace-filled. And once he has established this, Paul as an example of this, a few verses later in Ephesians says, "Each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." Respect. So that's his clarification. That's the angle. That's what he's getting at. Wives show grace-filled respect for your husband.

The point is in a grace-filled marriage, the wife doesn't domineer over the husband, and the husband doesn't either. That's the second point, the very next sentence. "As a husband, I need to show grace-filled love for my wife." Colossians 3:19, Paul says, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them." Now check this out. Again, let me just put this into historical context. This is a totally new view of marriage.

As we talked about, at the time Paul is writing to the Greco-Roman world, "Dad is king." He sits on his throne and look how happy the women in his life appear in this picture, right? One Roman writer, Cato, says, "Roman husbands have the right to kill their wives and daughters for adultery." But that whole adultery killing thing, that was a double standard because Demosthenes, a Greco-Roman writer, said, "Yeah, we have wives for the purposes of bearing legitimate heirs and having a household manager, but we have prostitutes for pleasure and concubines for daily sex." So when Paul says, "Love your wife and don't even be harsh," this is something radical. This is something brand new.

But listen, both of these two ingredients are so important. Love and respect. Let me recommend a book to you. We're not able, because of time, to do the series of messages that I'd love to hear just on these two verses. But there's a whole book about this. Dr. Emerson Egrich is a child and family therapist who's written a book on marriage based on these verses called "Love and Respect." And he says that these two things in this verse, "Love and respect," are exactly the two deepest needs of most husbands and wives.

Husbands long for respect, respect of how hard they work, respect of what they're trying to do as a man from the most important person in their lives, their wives. They might never know how to articulate that. They might never say that out loud. But boy, do they just bask in it when they get honor and respect from their wives and wives long for sacrificial love, tender love from their husbands.

In fact, in a 20-year study of 2,000 couples by Dr. John Gottman and his team at the University of Washington published by Princeton Press, the researchers concluded, "The two most ingredients to a happy marriage," or guess what, "love and respect," the Bible 2,000 years ahead of its time. The problem is we often say, "Yeah, well, I'll show her love when she shows me respect, right? Or I'll love him when he, you know, I'll respect him when he loves me." But Paul is saying what grace is about is taking the initiative, choosing to make the first move like God did.

Again, in the parallel passage in Ephesians, Paul elaborates, "Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her as Christ loved the church." Listen, Paul is saying that in the Roman first century Roman Empire, the role model that husbands had for how to be a husband, how to be a father, it was their gods, okay? Roman gods like Jupiter and Mars and, you know, Neptune, excuse me, and these Roman gods, how do they treat their wives? How do they treat their children? Think back to the stories of mythology that you have learned. Were they faithful to their wives? No. Were they nice to their children all the time? No. They'd kick them around, they'd manipulate them, they'd cheat on their wives, they'd be the king of the castle throwing around their macho weight, right?

And so that's the role model. These were the gods in their society and that's how they modeled their, and you know what? In any society, men are going to model themselves after their gods, whether you call them gods or movie stars or rock stars. You're going to model yourself after those cultural role models, whether you try to or not. And so Paul is saying here to these guys in essence, there's a new role model in town. Model your marriage, not after Jupiter but after Jesus.

Now my question to you guys that are here today who are married, if someone were to look at how you treat your wife and your children, would they suspect that your role model was Jupiter or Jesus? Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Now I used to read that and think, okay so what I need to do is be willing to you know take a bullet for my wife. If a train is coming and she's stuck on the tracks, I will push her off the tracks, boom, and take the train if I have to. You know like if North Korea invades and soldiers point their guns at her, I will jump in front at the last minute and take the bullet for her.

I know I would do that so my job as a husband is covered, you know. I'm good, I'm done. But you know what? Those scenarios will probably never happen. So guys, forget the heroics and focus on the daily giving up of yourself, the daily gestures. You know I was taking a walk with my mom along the cliffs here in Santa Cruz on Friday and I was thinking about how in California we always talk about the danger of the big one, right? The big earthquake. I wonder when the next big one's gonna happen once every 50 or 100 years. But of course the biggest danger to our beautiful seaside cliffs is not the big one. It's what? It's erosion. Just regular daily erosion.

And the same thing is true of marriage, including my marriage. It is definitely threatened by erosion just like your marriage. You know sometimes people say to me, "Oh it must be easy for you to René to talk about marriage, you know, because you got a great marriage." Well I do have a great marriage, but it has not always been easy. It has not been without its challenges and most of them are my fault. I've been told. No, just kidding. Just kidding. My point is my wife and I are no different than anybody else. And sometimes I realize suddenly there's been slow erosion.

And I think wait a minute I ask myself and I challenge all of you husbands here ask yourself these questions too. When was the last time I prayed with my wife and didn't fall asleep? When's the last time I took her out? When's the last time I bought her a gift when it wasn't a special occasion? How about this one? When's the last time I sacrificed doing something I really wanted to do on my day off and instead did something that she really wanted me to do but had never said anything about? I'll do anything she asked me to do but I'm sure that's the tip of the iceberg. She's got a list of things in her head that she'd love for me to help with that she never says out loud because she doesn't want to be nagging.

Am I sensitive enough to notice those things? Am I even looking for the clues? Or how about just writing a note or just calling to say I love you? When's the last time I did that? When's the last time you did that? Have you ever done that? It's these daily giving up of yourself. A man named Walter Trobisch said when a man says to his wife I love you and he means it as Christ loved his church it means you, you, you. I choose you because see this is what Jesus Christ says to all of us and he says all these next lines you shall dwell in my heart and I in yours. I will give up everything for you. I will give everything to you myself as well as all I possess. I will work for you and wait for you. I want to guard you and protect you and keep you safe. I want to remain always at your side. I will die for you. That's grace-oriented love. That's looking at your spouse the way Jesus Christ looks at you.

You see for Paul it always comes back to Jesus Christ. Tell you a story. Some of you know I came out of the radio world before I became a pastor. I was a rock DJ mostly at rock and roll stations for many years. My air name was Ben Stone but that's another story. But there was a woman named Liz Curtis Higgs who was one of the best known DJs in America back in the 80s when I was on the radio and she was on one of the biggest stations in the country at that time. WWWW in Detroit Michigan.

Liz Curtis Higgs did afternoon drive and the morning drive show was done by a guy you may have heard of named Howard Stern. Many of you know him. I won't ask how you know him but Howard Stern. Liz Curtis Higgs was legendary at the station for living a wild rock and roll lifestyle. Sex, drugs, rock and roll that's what she was all about to the point where one day after his shift Howard Stern went and found her in the production studio and he said Liz I have to talk to you. She said what is it? He said I am very concerned for you. I really think you need to get your act together because your lifestyle is too wild. Now when Howard Stern says that to you you know you have an issue okay.

She also described herself as a very militant feminist. She hated the church and all that she imagined that it stood for but she had a good Christian friend at the station who kept inviting her to church so after many invitations she says all right I'll go to church with you one time and one time only. So Liz Curtis Higgs goes to church sits up there probably in the very last row you know and that week the pastor just happens to be teaching on guess what yeah Colossians 3:18 wives submit to your husbands and she sits there and goes I knew it and she gets so angry she almost leaves but she says I promise my friend it's going to be over in an hour right so she continues to listen and she hears the pastor quote the verse I just quoted to you that says that husbands ought to give themselves for their wives just as Christ sacrificed himself.

And she leans over to her friend and whispers cynically I wish some men I've known would decide to die for me and her friend whispers but Liz that's the point there is someone who loves you so much he died for you and his name is Jesus Christ and Liz says for some reason that just hit her right in her heart stopped her in her tracks and it was not long after that that Liz surrendered her life to God in love and became a believer in Jesus and today she's actually a well-known Christian author and speaker and I love her style she has a great series of books out the first one was called the bad girls of the Bible the second one was called the really bad girls of the Bible and the third one was called the slightly bad girls of the Bible.

And I love it because she says somebody from her background needed a book about all the women and she goes all I ever heard about was the blessed virgin Mary which is awesome but she says I needed a book about all the women I started to discover in the Bible who came from what we would call today a sex drugs and rock and roll lifestyle and became followers of God and of Jesus Christ so she wrote the series of books about this woman but see that's the point here the grace of Jesus is always the point for Paul in whatever he writes this don't rip this out of context and make either one of these verses a try harder message directed at husbands or wives you know submit better love better.

Now these verses have been twisted to reinforce the same Roman culture style patriarchal status quo that they were really meant to replace but the point to this passage is that when we understand Jesus love for us it undermines all the looking out for number one it undercuts all the striving to be the dominant person and makes us Christ like.

Well we could talk for weeks just about husband and wives right but Paul moves on quickly to another relationship parents and children no family is perfect right we all need help in this area I saw a cartoon once that I haven't been able to get out of my head it was a drawing of a hotel convention center and there was a huge banner up on the wall that said welcome adult children of normal parents convention and in the whole big giant room there were two people sitting and smiling at each other.

No family's perfect but Paul says here's how to make yours better from kids grace filled obedience of my parents Colossians 3:20 children obey your parents and everything for this pleases the Lord. Why should we obey as children again the parallel passage in Ephesians helps elaborate that it may go well with you that you may enjoy long life so two reasons to obey your parents prosperity and longevity.

How do those two things come from learning to get along with your parents? Listen 80 percent of your success in life they say is based on how well you get along with other people your EQ so learn to obey parents and then coaches and teachers and bosses are that much easier and get along with your coaches teachers and bosses less stress longer life more prosperity all things being equal.

Now all the parents are going that's right Paul preach it but again he turns right around and says now you parents practice grace filled encouragement of your children grace filled encouragement of your children specifically he says fathers do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged.

Now check this out I want you to make some notes on that verse in your notes when it says embitter that's a great word it can also be translated exasperate and irritate. Now again think of the culture that Paul's writing to one scholar says a Roman father had absolute control over his children he could sell them as slaves he could make them work in chains he could even inflict the death penalty and Paul says no don't even irritate them.

Now of course this first century verse does not apply in any way to the 21st century right how could people how could parents possibly irritate or embitter their children today? Well let me give you a list of ways and not a complete list but if you really want to embitter or irritate your children try these things you might want to jot these down in your margins or something.

How about over discipline over disciplining your kids everything they do wrong yell at them god forbid you know beat them discipline is essential but over discipline does damage another way to irritate or embitter your children over protection over protection no trust all rules you never allow them any liberty you draw the line so narrow that they feel you don't trust them and so they give up and they say what's the difference anyway no matter what I do I get the same reaction from my parents give them a sense of trust.

Listen your rules don't have to cover every single detail of every single thing they've ever done or might do on every single day be grace filled. How about unpleasability no matter what their grades are it's never enough no matter how well they do it's never enough no rewards no honors listen parents who are unpleasable create kids who think their heavenly father is unpleasable but you know what I read recently that research shows is the worst thing for children the perceived inaccessibility of one or both parents the perceived inaccessibility of one or both parents.

So go play with your kids you know take a half an hour to throw a frisbee go down to the beach for a walk 90 percent of the time spent in your lifetime with your children will be before they turn 12 so use that time now see look at this list grace is the opposite of all these things god's grace is the opposite of this so be grace filled.

And then finally the third relationship he talks about what grace looks like between bosses and workers bosses and workers first workers I need to show grace filled diligence for my employer grace filled diligence for my employer Paul says slaves and if he's saying this to slaves certainly it applies to any occupational situation obey your earthly masters in everything and do it not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the lord.

Whatever you do work at it with all your heart as working for the lord not for men since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the lord as a reward it is the lord Christ you are serving not only when their eye is on you somebody told me between services of a study that they just read that said that some estimates are that workers today the average worker spends about three hours a day at work online doing non-work related activities shopping ordering a book on amazon surfing the web three hours a day you think this verse applies not only when their eye is on you but as working for the lord not for.

Now notice you're not being gracious because your boss is a nice guy why are you being gracious toward him and being diligent? Well he says it four different ways you are working for the lord for the lord for a reward from the lord it is the lord you are serving.

So do you notice what Paul's doing here in all these relationships don't miss the big picture please he talks about three different relationships and they're all in pairs right then I want you to notice that he talks to the what in that society was the weaker the victimized part of the pair first he says wives children servants right and he does not ask them to do anything than basically the bare minimum of what their culture already expected of them right respect and working well and obedience.

But then don't miss this when he talks to the second member of each pair that is the stronger the dominant member of that relationship in that society and he's asking them to do something that's 180 degrees different than what their society expected of them.

For example here he says masters provide grace-filled justice for my workers masters provide your slaves with what is right and fair why? Because you know that you also have a master in heaven he says do you see what he's saying here he's saying uh you're working for the same boss he's saying their boss is the lord your boss is the lord in god's eyes same thing again radical change from society in the roman world slaves were not just sold but rented out like you might rent a bulldozer or something here they were branded with a hot iron or wore inscribed metal collars treated like dogs and since they were seen as property they could be disposed of killed at any time and in any way but paul says no do what's right and fair for them.

And of course ultimately that means setting the slaves free which is a fact not lost on paul there's a book of the bible called philemon which was another letter that was sent along with this book of colossians to a man in the church at colossi and the whole letter you can read it in your bible the book of philemon very short one-page letter and basically it's the apostle paul at the same time that he wrote these words imploring a man at the church in colossi named philemon to set his slave named onissimus free paul says please treat him like a brother not as a slave treat him like you would treat me set him free.

You see paul's point is that grace changes every relationship you know there was a book out a few years ago that had a great title ideas have consequences write that down somewhere in your notes and that's paul's big idea here the idea of grace has consequences in every area of your life in every relationship you've got not just the ones he talks about here but grace the fact that you've been graced ought to change the way you respond to the guy that you drive on the freeway next to ought to change the way you respond to the person who's ringing up your latte at the coffee shop because you've been graced that changes the way you respond to everybody else in your life.

Now I'll admit that there have been times in the history of Christianity when the church didn't shine in this area but there have been literally millions of people millions who've gotten this and have said wow because I've been graced I'm going to reach out in grace to those around me.

And let me close with just a few examples go through Christian history in the 1600s a man named Anthony Ashley Cooper an aristocrat was the first earl of shaftsbury in England and he describes himself in one of his writings as an evangelical of the evangelicals but because he was nobility he said the bible here in colossians called him to be just and fair and so he tirelessly promoted legislation to cut the hours of factory labors in half to prohibit the use of children in factories to transfer mentally disabled people from prisons to special houses where they'd really get care and he anchored all of his actions in this one verse that those in power need to do what is right and fair and just for those without power and by the way he paid for it with his life he was charged with treason basically because he advocated so much for the rights of the poor I call him a hero.

Or in the next century the 1700s a woman named Elizabeth Fry at the age of 18 she was deeply moved by a sermon that she heard about showing grace and the next day as a teenager she started collecting old clothes for the poor visited those who were sick in her neighborhood starting a Sunday school to teach neighborhood kids how to read and then one day still as an 18 year old she visits the local prison because she reads how Jesus said visit those who are sicker in prison and she's horrified at how they're overcrowded with women and children some of whom had not even received a trial and she starts at 18 years old the first prison reform movement ever.

She would actually stay the nights in some of the prisons sometimes and invite nobility to come and stay for themselves and see the conditions that the prisoners lived in and her actions changed her whole country skip another century 1800s William Wilberforce led the abolition of the slave trade in England all based he said on his understanding of God's amazing grace and it continues today.

I think of the daughter of one of our own pastors here Dave Hicks Wendy Daily with her ministry partner she co-started a group called I sanctuary she helps Wendy helps women and children mainly in India escape forced prostitution and torture they're literally slaves and she helps them escape and gets them relocated in a safe house and then they teach the girls how to make jewelry and Wendy sells the jewelry the girls make right here in the United States and the profit from the sales is then given back to the girls and they're able to save money and begin to make a living.

Now what do you think motivated Wendy? Wendy was a teacher here at Twin Lakes Christian School when she went on a two-week mission trip to India and saw the conditions and her heart just went out and said I've got to do something what motivated her was not a try harder message what motivated her was knowing God has set me free from stuff in my own life and so I want to reach out and treat other people who are enslaved with the grace that God gives to every single one of us.

And I believe so much in this ministry I actually asked them to set out a table in the lobby you can get more info there and they have some of the jewelry these are earrings that one of the girls who was rescued from slavery actually made and I want to give these to you because I just want everybody to kind of get that these are real people who are making real pieces of jewelry that are really setting them free.

I gotta tell you they ask each girl that they rescued to fill out a questionnaire and I was looking over some of them that they have online and this one just touched me. I'll read you part of it it says name Raki spelled R-a-a-k-h-i Raki from India age 15 rescued in January 2009 so she was 12 when she was rescued from this kind of a life listen to this favorite thing to do I like to eat grapes dreams she writes one sentence I want to tell the world I am not less than anyone else.

And you see, as Paul talks about relationships, he's saying that that is exactly what Jesus tells her, and what Jesus tells you. And what Jesus tells all of the women, and all of the children, and all of the slaves, and all of the husbands, and all of the fathers, and mothers, and all of the masters, and bosses, and the whole world. You are not less than anyone else, and you are not more than anyone else. The ground at the foot of the cross is level. Jesus gave all of himself for all of you. So treat one another with grace. And it all starts in the household.

How are you going to apply this? Look at the prayer there in your notes. Put in there the name of somebody that you need to practice grace with. Maybe your spouse, or parent, or child, or boss, or the world at large. For many of you, this could be a real turning point in a relationship that you've been struggling with for a long time. Let's come to God with this prayer together. Would you bow your heads in prayer with me? But I'll give you permission to peek, okay? With your head bowed, look at that prayer. And just silently with me in your heart, pray that prayer to God right now.

Heavenly Father, I pray that the grace-filled attitude of Jesus Christ would be expressed in my relationship with, and then silently whisper to God a name right there. Thank you for your grace for me. And I pray that you would teach and empower me to live filled with grace in all my relationships. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.