The Relationship Revolution

Well good evening everybody welcome to church again tonight my name is René one of the pastors here. How's everybody doing tonight? Hope you're doing well. By the way, that is such a cool video intro to the sermon, isn't it? I love that. Let's give a big shout out to our video team. They do such a good job with that.

So that was actually edited put together by the leader of our video team Jamie Rama. Or at least she was the leader of our video team until last week when she left for a very very good reason. Last night Jamie and her husband Steve welcomed their first child Oliver Jesse into the world. Congratulations Jamie. We love you so much. She really worked up until like the very last second. It was absolutely amazing and I expect that of all of my employees.

Okay also Hey Listen, I before we plunge into the message I just want to thank the army of volunteers who made this whole past week an amazing Week of fellowship at Twin Lakes Church. You might remember last weekend. We had our independence day barbecue hundreds of people I should call it independence weekend barbecue. People hung out after church for hot dogs and chili and red white and blue dessert and just had a blast. It was so great to see young and old hanging out just fellowshipping in the summer Sun.

I am so grateful for the many many wonderful people who helped out. Let's put our hands together and thank everybody who worked so hard to put that together. Then today our young families get together at Willowbrook Park. It's great to see so many young families at TLC and also today our hot rods on the green car show. Listen to this we had a hundred and forty three classic cars here. Hundreds probably thousands of people came out both TLCers who were just enjoying Fellowship and also a ton of people who've never ever been on our campus before.

I met so many new people and this is just a way to have fellowship but also invite people to our house and show hospitality. Have fun. We added something new a big wheel race for kids. That was a huge hit and listen, I just want to thank our church car Club the Kingsman for doing an awesome job putting that together. It was absolutely amazing.

All right, let's dive in. Psychologists say that they are seeing an epidemic right now of fractured friendships. Have you noticed that too? Friends, family, neighbors, parents, children not even talking to each other anymore. Why? Because of tension, division over beliefs and over politics and all sorts of things. But why are people fracturing their friendships and family relationships and not even talking to each other anymore?

There has always been tension, always been disagreements over politics, over religion and so on. What's different now? Well, they say what's so different now is that people don't even seem to want to restore relationships. They're choosing being right and being alone over disagreeing and being together, choosing me over we. This is a drastic shift. Psychology today article was all about this. The title self-centered the new normal quote societal trends have drifted from an emphasis on community and the common good and moved toward the need to take care of self, perfect oneself even to the point of self aggrandizement.

The article quotes a researcher from Stanford named Dr. Audrey Longson. She says rising narcissism and pride and vanity and again a focus on oneself even at the expense of others. The drive to have power over others is what people are seeing these days. This is not like a pastor talking about this. These are secular psychologists in one of their journals saying this is a problem right now.

So here's a question. Is there an alternative to the world's increasingly narcissistic culture? Yes, and it was a solution coined 2,000 years ago. Let's look at the relationship Revolution as we continue our series verse by verse through the book of Ephesians in the Bible today Ephesians 5:21 through chapter 6:9. Amazing passage of the Bible. So Daryl Johnson is a Bible expert. He says the Revolution that Paul starts in this Revolutionary passage of the Bible was revolutionary when Christians first heard it in the first century and it is still revolutionary in the 21st century. That's a lot of revolution.

Now why was this passage of the Bible so revolutionary? Well, you got to understand the culture way back then 2,000 years ago in the Roman Empire. PBS recently had a documentary on Rome and it said ancient Rome was a man's world in politics, society, and the family. Men held both the power and the purse strings. They even decided whether a baby would live or die. They go on families were dominated by men and dominated as a key phrase there. The father had absolute rule over his household and children. If they angered him he had the legal right to disown them, sell them into slavery or even kill them.

One respected historian said that if you could summarize the whole Roman interpersonal ethic in one word it would be dominate. It was expected that was a virtue for those days for masters to dominate slaves, for fathers to dominate their children, for men to dominate women. And then the New Jesus movement started teaching the exact opposite. The same secular historian says one word could summarize the Christian interpersonal ethic serve. Masters serve, slaves, fathers serving children, husbands serving wives.

Now where in the world in First century Rome with the Christians possibly get this counter culture revolutionary concept from? Today's Bible passage. This passage has a principle at its heart that if you dare to let this loose at work, at home, in all of your personal relationships, it will absolutely revolutionize every single one. And the revolutionary era starts with Ephesians 5:21 submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Say that out loud with me submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. If I say nothing else for this entire teaching time and you remember nothing else, this one verse says it all.

So here's what I want to do. I want to spend most of our time this morning kind of peeling back the layers of this. All right, this is gonna be deep. Anybody willing to go deep tonight? This is gonna be some serious Bible study tonight. Ready for this? Are you ready for this? Are you really ready for this? Okay, let's start with the words submit. All right in the original Greek the word is hupotasso and that's made of two words hupo which means under and tasso which means to stand. So literally means to stand under. All right, meaning what? Well, I'm gonna get a little nerdy on you here but one real authority when you want to find out the meaning of an ancient Greek word or a coin a Greek word the language that the New Testament was written in is a big thick book called Thayer's Greek lexicon and what they do is they research every single time that any Greek word is used in the Bible or any Greek literature at the time it's written so you have an understanding of how people understood this word.

So Thayer's Greek lexicon gives two definitions of this word. One a Greek military term meaning to arrange troop divisions in a military fashion under the command of a military leader. Now when I was growing up in church that's the only definition of submit that I ever heard. However, there's another equally possible definition according to these experts. They go on in military use it was a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility and carrying a burden. So which of these two is it in this passage? Can we even figure out which of these two was meant? Well a clue is in the next phrase to one another, right? Submit to one another, to each other. So does that work with the military sense? Does an army drill sergeant tell recruits at boot camp? Obey one another? No, what does he say? Obey me. So one another, each other, it probably implies the non-military meaning of voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility and carrying a burden. Be like this to one another.

Now in English the word submit has accrued some weird baggage, right? Submit? Kind of like what you say to your dog. So I think it's kind of helpful to think of some synonyms that might reflect this meaning. How about the word defer? Defer to one another or serve, serve one another. But there's one more phrase in that verse out of reverence for Christ which helps us understand this. It's interesting that Paul does not say submit to one another out of reverence for each other. That would have been fine. In fact, that's the golden rule. So that's not bad advice. Submit to one another out of reverence for one another. But he doesn't say that. What he says is out of reverence for Christ. Why does he say it like that? How is submitting to one another kind of out of respect and honor of Jesus?

Well, I think he's referring back to a teaching by Jesus in Mark 10. Do you remember the story? It's kind of a funny story. Two of Jesus's disciples James and John come up to him and say, Lord, excuse me. Can we have your attention, please? We want to we have a question for you. What's your question? We want to ask you to do whatever it is that we ask of you. Okay, and Jesus very graciously says, well, what do you want me to do for you? And they say, okay here it is. We want to sit on your right and your left in the kingdom. Like here's your throne and then here's me and here's my bro. We want to be like your vice presidents, like vice messiahs. We want the top spots. We want to be over any of the other ten disciples.

Okay, and when the other disciples hear about it understandably they get upset with them. Now there's conflict and Jesus has to have a staff meeting and calm everybody down and he says, listen, nobody is going to rule over anybody else. All right guys, he says listen, you know those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials dominate them. And the phrase translated lord it over in English is actually one word in Greek that means to master, to control, to subjugate, to dominate. And Jesus says not so with you. You will not control and master and subjugate and dominate. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the son of man and that's the way he referred it's the most common way Jesus referred to himself, the Messiah, the son of man did not come to be served but to serve. And this was ultimately fleshed out literally when he gave his life as a ransom for many and he gave his life for the life of the world on the cross.

So out of reverence for Christ, this is a callback to Mark 10. He's saying Jesus not only taught this Jesus live this out. So submit to one another as he taught us, slave of all in Christ's name, out of reverence for Christ. You could say this is the principle of mutual submission. Mutual submission each one to the other. Okay, we've done a lot of Bible study there. What does this actually mean practically in your relationships? Well, Andy Stanley says this can all be summarized really with one question. How can I help you today? How can I carry your burden today? How can I make your life easier today? Just name it. How can I prioritize your thing over my thing? How can I put you over me? How can I make life easier for you? What can I do to help you today?

This is such a powerful question in any environment, work environment, but especially at home. I mean between husbands and wives and kids and parents. If you're a teenager listening right now, if you're like a junior higher or a high schooler, let me just tell you, you want to see your parents faint over dead? Ask, how can I help you today? Just try using this at home. Just walk right up without being asked. Hey mom, dad, is there anything I can do, anything at all to help you today? They will probably buy you a car. I'm just telling you right now.

So I just want to practice this out loud. All right. Here's what let's say this out loud together. How can I help you today? Now turn to one or two people next to you, look them in the eyes and say how can I help you today? Go ahead. How can I help you today? One more time, find somebody else, find somebody else, look them in the eyes. How can I help you today?

All right, you know, you know why you don't really want to ask that question? Because the people you're asking the question of might have an answer. Well, yes, in fact, I've been waiting for you to ask the question. I've got a list. Can I just be real honest with you? When I do this with Laurie, the best days ever. Because I do try to ask this every day. But the best days are the days when I go, what can I do to help today? And she says nothing, I got a cover today. Love that. Because I get credit and I didn't even get an assignment. I'm just letting you in on my sinful nature.

So but this is the principle of mutual submission. Now, here's why I took so much time peeling back the layers of one tiny little verse. Because this is Paul's theme for the whole rest of the passage. And what Paul does next is he gives us examples of how this principle of mutual submission actually works out in three relationship pairs: wives and husbands, children and fathers, and slaves and masters. And this was revolutionary because in those days in most cases the three on the right here were all the same guy. They were what was called the pater familias, the one who as we saw from that PBS documentary just ruled over the whole household.

The way it worked in Roman culture submission only went one way from this side to this side, right? Well, I've submitted a husband's children to father, slaves to masters. But Paul is about to say that there are aspects in which submission for Christ followers is never one way. It is two-way. It is mutual submission. Okay, great but then the very next verse Paul writes is the verse people misinterpret to mean in the exact opposite of this. The next verse of the Bible is a powder keg. A lot of pastors won't even touch this verse. I am going to get emails about what I say about this verse again, my email address Adrian at TLC org, but so are you ready for this verse? Are you ready for this verse? Are you sure it's dangerous? Here we go, verse 22 wives submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.

Well, I think that's pretty clear. Let's close in a word of prayer now. I am, you know, I've noticed no matter how you feel about this verse, I've noticed this verse does not make it onto a lot of refrigerator magnets. This verse is not on a lot of license plate frames, you know. No woman I know says that is my favorite verse of the Bible. What are we supposed to make of this verse? Please remember that context is important to any sentence in any language. Let me just give you one example. This is our cat Nani. When our daughter Elizabeth was living in Hawaii, she adopted Nani from the animal shelter in Kona. And she named her Nani which in Hawaiian means beautiful.

Now for a variety of reasons that I still don't fully understand nor am I told to have a right to question, Nani now lives with us and Nani has a very set routine. Every morning when Nani hears that we are awake and usually I'm an early riser, so usually it's me, Nani walks, I should say waddles over to her food bowl. She plops down right in front of it and meows incessantly, communicating as clearly and urgently as she possibly can she must be fed now or she may die. And every single morning I always say, you want to eat Nani? Want to eat Nani? Want to eat Nani?

Now here's why I bring this up. Look at that sentence. Context is very important, right? Grammar is important. Commas are important. Sentence structure is important. Imagine if I were put on trial. René, you encourage people to eat a cat. We have a verbal transcript. Well, yes. Yes, I said that. You're not denying you said those words? Yes, I said those words, but don't try to explain yourself away. I'm not explaining myself away. I'm just explaining myself because you're missing the context. You want to eat comma Nani is very different from you want to eat Nani with no context.

Well, the same principle applies to this verse of the Bible. We do not need to explain this away. It says what it says. But we do have to explain it. Remember the context. What's the verse right before this? The principle of mutual submission which is Paul's theme. Submit to one another that undergirds everything else he says next. Plus in the Greek text submit yourselves doesn't even appear in verse 22. That's right, it's not in there. It says wives to your own husbands kind of like for example. In other words, a literal translation of verses 21 through 22 which are one sentence would read something like this: submit to one another in reverence of Christ, for example wives to your own husbands as to the Lord. And if you keep reading that's just one example of six. He goes on to husbands and kids and dads and so on.

You might say, hey René, I can buy that but what about what comes next? For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Wait, so apparently you're supposed to submit to your husbands as basically to God. What kind of advice is that and how did it get in the Bible? You probably have heard people argue male domination and female subjugation from this verse. Sadly as a pastor, I've heard many abusive men use this verse as a club.

But again, in context it cannot possibly mean domination and subjugation because that's exactly the idea that this whole passage and the teaching of Jesus in Mark 10 completely undermines. The clue is as Christ is head. How was Christ our head? Well, what did we just read? Jesus said he came not to be served but to serve. So what this means is serve your husbands just as your husbands serve you, just as Jesus served us all, mutual submission. Now does this idea of mutual submission really mean the husband must submit to the wife as well in some way? Yes, and in fact Paul ratchets it up. This is how husbands apply the submit to one another idea. Husbands love your wives, but you don't get to decide what that looks like. Here's what it looks like just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

Gave himself up for her. That means a willingness to sacrifice everything for her. Now I know plenty of guys who say totally agree with that man I would give my life for my wife. Some guy walks in here, you know, I would take a bullet for her. Well first that's unlikely to ever happen. In the meantime, you're not even helping with the dishes. Okay? Remember this means asking how can I help you today? She probably won't say will you take a bullet for me today? Although if your relationship is really bad that day she just might suggest it. But she probably will say something like, you know what, do the dishes. But honey, you don't understand Scripture do you? All I am commanded to do is sacrifice my life not load the dishwasher. You know Jesus washed the disciples' feet, be grateful all you have to do is wash the dishes.

All right, verse 28 in the same way husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. Man, how un-Roman is this idea? He who loves his wife loves himself. Indeed nobody ever hated their own body. They feed it, care for it just as Christ does the church, for we are members of his body. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two will become one flesh. One. Your wife is not on your staff as your junior assistant. You are one. This is a profound mystery, but I'm speaking about Christ and the church. He's saying marriage is a signpost toward a deeper reality with the unity of Christ and the church, his bride, is meant to be like. Nevertheless, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband. Two things that make any relationship work: love and respect, right?

Now listen, I want to make something really clear here. There are typically in human society a couple of ways of looking at marriage. Either one person is head of the household. That's the patriarchal matriarchal way of looking at marriage and you often find this model in traditional cultures: Latino culture, Asian culture, African culture, Mediterranean culture, Greek, Italian. Usually it's the male but sometimes it's matriarchal. It's the female. Now today in a lot of Western cultures you see more of what you could call a co-pilot model. This has nothing to do with any of that. The idea of mutual submission applies no matter what view you hold. You see this is about servant leadership 100%. Both people mutually deferring and serving and asking how can I say no to me so I can say yes to you? Whatever view you hold: patriarchal, matriarchal or co-pilot, this applies. You don't get to dodge a bullet on this one.

All right, then Paul gets to show how this works out with fathers and kids. He says children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. This is how kids submit to their parents. Honor your father and mother which is the first commandment with a promise so that it may go well with you and you may enjoy long life on the earth. And that's totally true if you learn servant leadership it will go better with you professionally, career-wise, relationally, you know learning how not to snarl at authority is an essential life skill.

And then Paul turns to the fathers. Remember what we saw in that PBS documentary? This is totally revolutionary. Fathers do not exasperate. Can you imagine how a Roman dad was hearing this? Don't exasperate. I legally have the right to kill them and you're telling me I have to be concerned about their feelings? That's right. You know so many people have dad issues because their dads emotionally exasperated them, not saying I love you, withholding approval, making their love performance oriented, ignoring them. Don't do that. Instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Say that with me, of the Lord. That means be concerned with their spiritual growth and their relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ more than anything else. More than whether they can throw a football or shoot a basketball, more than whether they agree with you on politics, more than what schools they go to, more than what grades they get, more than what they major in. You teach them about Jesus, disciple them, nurture them.

And then finally Paul turns to the last pair: slaves and masters. And this is another interesting passage here. Slaves obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart just as you would obey Christ. Now it has to be said that Roman slavery was different than American slavery. Not saying it was some humanitarian institution, definitely was not. But Roman slavery was not race-based at all and slaves had many more rights than the American slaves had in the, you know, 16th, 17th, 18th centuries, 19th century. Slaves in Roman society could join colleges, could join professional guilds. Many slaves became educated and became doctors and teachers and accountants. They were still slaves, but those became their professions. Slaves could earn money, slaves could buy their own freedom. But slaves while they were slaves were still not seen as fully human. Then the relationship of free citizens to their slaves was something like droids in a Star Wars movie.

All right, yet Paul addresses them as fully human here. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eyes on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord and not people because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they're slave or free.

Now did you notice he says three times a version of as if you were serving Jesus Christ himself? That master who thinks he's dictating to you? Yeah, nobody dictates you. Jesus Christ dictates to you. So you serve him as if you were serving your actual Lord, which I'm sure all the masters hearing this so far were completely fine with. I'm sure they are all that's right, look at me like I'm Jesus. But then comes the most socially revolutionary line in this book of the Bible. Oh and masters treat your slaves the same way. The same way. What same way? As if the slaves were Jesus Christ himself. Do not threaten them. Do not threaten. They're my property. I've total control over them. Don't even threaten them. Not anymore since you know he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and there's no favoritism with him. God, he didn't see any distinction between slave and master.

So what does that tell you? Some people say Paul endorses slavery somehow in these verses. Absolutely not. The Apostle Paul never endorses that. In fact, there's not a single verse in the Bible, older New Testament, that ever endorses slavery. In fact, Paul explicitly tells slaves in 1 Corinthians 12 Slaves if you can gain your freedom, do it. So he's not endorsing slavery here and American slave owners who argued that this does condone slavery were abusing scripture. But let me just prove it to you. Go back in time and ask yourself, how did the very earliest Christians who like first heard these words like pre-Constantine Christians that the first, you know, 250 years when they were living under the Roman Empire, how did the Christians understand these words?

Remember at the time this tiny Christian movement had zero political power to end the vast Roman institution of slavery. But how did Christians understand these verses? How did they end up treating slaves? Well, it was revolutionary. Churches started using their own funds to liberate slaves. Very exciting letter from a man named Augustine who was one of the leaders of the early church. He led a church in North Africa, what's now Libya, but it was a Roman colony. And when a large ship was being loaded with North African slaves bound for Rome, here's what he says in his letter. A member of our church became aware of it and knowing our policy of helping with money in such circumstances wished to tell us immediately. Our faithful liberated 120 people and by the way, they didn't just stop on the slave ship, some from the ship on which they were already loaded and some from private prisons where the slaves were hidden. And he talks about kind of like this detective work that the Christians did to find out where are the rest of slaves and they're like went to the masters, how much? Okay, this from our church, we're buying that slave. We're setting him free. Using their funds to set them free.

Slaves also became leaders in early churches. In fact, at least two ex-slaves became Popes in the first two centuries of Christianity. Christians even, this is the most incredible thing, sold themselves into slavery. We know this from one of the earliest letters of Clement and he was one of the very very early leaders of the Christian Church in the next century, the second century. They sold themselves into slavery and with the money they got, they set other slaves free. They put themselves into slavery so that other people could be free from slavery. Why in the world would somebody do something like that? Because of the phrase that keeps popping up in this passage as if you were serving the Lord. And that is the key to the whole idea of mutual submission. That's the heart of the whole idea.

I like the way Daryl Johnson puts it. The people in your life are appointed agents authorized to receive the love you want to pour on Jesus. Now just think about it for a minute. Wives, your husbands are the appointed agents authorized to receive the love that you would want to pour on Jesus. And husbands, your wives are the appointed agents to receive the love that you want to pour on Jesus. And children, it's your parents, and parents, it's your children. And employees, it's your bosses, and bosses, it's your employees who are the authorized agents appointed to receive the love you want to pour on Jesus.

See this is the heart behind mutual submission. When you understand how much Jesus loved you and who he is and what he did, that the Son of Man came not to serve but to be, then not to be served but to serve, and then how he served by dying for your sins on the cross and rising again. When you're overcome with that kind of love and then you read this chapter in the book of Ephesians that keeps directing yourself to see these people as if they were Jesus, to respond to them as if they were Jesus, then you just go man, I will do anything for you. It is we over me. In fact, it's you over me in the name of Jesus.

I'll close with this. This is what this looks like in real life. I've shown some of you this before but it's such a perfect demonstration of this to me, the servant heart. Dr. Robertson McQuilkin, he was president of Columbia Bible College for 30 years and toward the end his wife Muriel developed Alzheimer's disease. And he tried to take care of her while he was doing his job. But eventually it just was impossible and he resigned his prestigious post to take care of Muriel. And he spoke about it years and years ago now at a banquet and here's some black-and-white photographs of him and a recording of his remarks.

I haven't in my life experienced easy decision-making on major decisions. But one of the simplest and clearest decisions I've had to make is this one because circumstances dictated it. Muriel now in the last couple of months seems to be almost happy when with me and almost never happy when not with me. In fact, she seems to feel trapped, becomes very fearful sometimes, almost terror. And when she can't get to me there can be anger. She's in distress. But when I'm with her, she's happy and contented and so I must be with her at all times. And you see it's not only that I promised in sickness and in health till death do us part and I'm a man of my word. But as I have said I don't know with this group, but I've said publicly it's the only fair thing. She sacrificed for me for 40 years to make my life possible. So if I cared for her for 40 years, I'd still be in debt. However, there's much more. It's not that I have to, that I get to. I love her very dearly and you can tell it's not easy to talk about. She's a delight. It's a great honor to care for such a wonderful person.

You know I've seen that probably a dozen times and I cry every single time and I look at it and I think to myself, it's funny because the way my thoughts go is I want to be a man like Robertson McQuilkin and then what I realize I'm saying is I want to be a man like Jesus. Because that's how much Jesus loves you. And that's what Paul's, that's just what Paul's saying. It's kind of our brand as Christians is that we stand so far apart from the clamoring to the top of the pyramid attitude of the world. We treat each other like Jesus treated us and like they were Jesus. That's how much we love them and that's how much we serve them. And when people see that, they're drawn to the Jesus whose love we echo.

So I dare you go to the important relationships in your life and ask them this week, how can I serve you today? Let's close in a word of prayer, would you bow with me? Father thank you so much. Thank you for inspiring the Apostle Paul to initiate this groundbreaking idea. And please help us apply what we just heard. Help us not to dominate but to serve and to make it our daily habit to ask what can I do to serve you today? But most of all, thank you so much for sending your son to do that for us in the most dramatic painful way imaginable. And I pray that if there are those here who have been thinking about becoming Christians but they have been put off by the kind of the domineering self-seeking version of that that we often see in the news or somewhere that they would hear this and would opt into following Jesus who saved us by being the servant of all. And I pray that you would raise up more and more people here at TLC who understand the power of serving others as we all live in submission to our Father in heaven. In Jesus name, Amen.