EPHESIANS

What a wonderful morning of corporate worship. We’ve sung about God’s character, acknowledged him as master, King. We’ve confessed our sinfulness and received His forgiveness. We stood in support of Tracey and Gary as they dedicated themselves to raise Eli according to God’s plan. Four times today we’ve heard God’s Word for His people through the Bible. Now, we’re going to look at how His word shapes our lives. At every point in our time together, we have, in one way or another, acknowledged that God is the center, and source. We’ve declared that He is supreme and that His character is what shapes us to live.

Later today we’ll go home. Tomorrow the majority of us will go back to work. How will what we’ve done in corporate worship today be reflected by our lives later? This afternoon how will the way we parent our children reflect our worship this morning? How will the way we do our jobs on Monday reflect our corporate worship on Sunday? I guess what I’m really asking is, “Do you believe what we’ve just sung, prayed and heard?”

You’ve heard me say it before, “the way we live is a reflection of what we believe.” It’s easy for most to sing songs like we’ve sung today, or pray what we’ve prayed today, because we’re in a safe, likeminded environment. We need to be here, don’t get me wrong. In fact, this is the most important place you can be today. But the evidence that we believe this stuff is in the way we live between Sundays. That’s why Paul includes things like marriage, speech, parenting and work when he applies his teaching in Ephesians which, by the way, is a call to worship, a call to live all of life for God’s glory and fame.

So I ask again, do you believe what we’ve just sung, prayed and heard? Or put another way, can you see evidence of these truths in the way you parent your children, and work in your jobs?

Before applying the text, however, I want to remind us of the key ideas from Ephesians so far. It’s been a bit of a start and stop last few weeks and now that we come to the end of Ephesians over the next two weeks, we should be really familiar with what life as church for God’s glory and fame means.

Way back at the beginning of our journey through Ephesians, we made the discovery that everything we do in life can be a testimony to the character and nature of God—that’s one way to describe worship. I used the analogy of breathing oxygen—that at no time can we choose to breathe another gas and expect to live long. I asserted that oxygen was the only gas suitable for sustaining life. In the same way, only surrender to God’s way—breathing him, so to speak—can bring life.

We learned that the very reason God created Humankind in the first place was so that we might tell about him through word and deed. I affirmed John Piper’s statement that we exist to bring (God) a good reputation in the world and spread his fame (hence the title of this series, “For His Glory and Fame—Life as Church”).

Through Ephesians and our discoveries about our purpose as people, we have come to understand what worship is: the declaration of God as Infinite Center [i], the subject and object of our worship, and that we’re called to live all life with an awareness of God’s splendor and how his character shapes ours.

We’ve learned that church is not a place we go to but who we are as God’s people. To illustrate, I used my name as an analogy: I’m not just Shaun on Sunday, or in my house. I’m Shaun waking and sleeping; working and playing. I’m Shaun each and every moment of my life.

Church, therefore, is the context in which we worship. We are church and we look to God, declare his splendor and the Holy Spirit shapes our character as we do. So when we gather as church on a weekly basis for corporate worship we’re doing so, according to author, Marva Dawn, “(as) a royal waste of time that spirals into passion for living as Christians”[ii]. Together during corporate worship we learn about God’s character together, and together we are shaped to live as church in the world.

That’s why I asked the question about what we believe. Because today when Paul instructs on parenting and attitudes in the workplace, he does so assuming as church our character is being shaped by worship so that we can, in this case, parent and work for God’s glory.

Many here today are neither parents nor employees. However, every one of us is in relationships with others. We need to know that the overarching principal of the text this morning is about relationships with others. The sort of relationship doesn’t matter, though Paul singles out parents and children and employees and employers. What matters is that every relationship we have is an opportunity to worship Jesus Christ.

A life of worship means a life lived in the knowledge that “What we do and how we do it matters because all of life is lived in, to and for the LORD. By necessity we are to reflect his love and truth. People and tasks are to be handled with care, for that is what the LORD requires.”[iii]

This truth is applied to every relationship—married, widowed, childless, retired, or otherwise.

Paul writes, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. ‘Honor your father and mother’--which is the first commandment with a promise—‘that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth’. Fathers, do not exasperate (provoke) your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (6:1-3).

This text is an attempt to bring into the home the Christian ethic described throughout chapters 4 and 5. Humility, tolerant love and mutual submission belong first of all in the family. It is good thinking on God’s part that the place in which, generally, most of our time is spent is the place where our Christian ethic is rooted and grows.

In the home, a life of worship begins. For in the context of the relationship between parents and children, the character of Jesus must be the model.

We’ve all heard the stories of families having raging fights in the car on the way to Sunday worship. They pull up to the building and all of a sudden the fight ends and everyone goes in happy and cheerful. Anyone have an experience like that today?!

The car fight on the way to worship is common and largely innocuous. However, it does illustrate what Paul is warning against in this text. Sometimes Christians have a double persona—nice to everyone outside the family, but hostile to those inside. We are our own worst selves with the people closest to us—generally our family. I know, I’ve experienced it for myself. For some reason, I can slip back to the most juvenile behavior when I’m around my family. The worst in me can come out! I hate that!

Paul’s saying Christians are to have one persona, or we’re not living in the truth. We need to live tirelessly the humility, tolerant love and mutual submission both in public and in private. Our very ability to truly describe the nature of God to the world begins within family.

There’s a lot at stake for the church as a whole for god-centered parenting. Listen to what Paul teaches in 2 Timothy where he lists the qualifications for those who desire to lead in the church: “(They) must manage (their) own family well (referring to parents) and see that their children obey and give proper respect [If anyone does not know how to manage (their) own family, how can (they) take care of God’s church?]” (2Timothy 3:4-5, parenthesis added)

Again, the importance is placed on worship. If the family is bad, the witness of God’s character is bad, and therefore worship—which is about declaring God’s character—is also bad. When the church’s worship is bad, the world doesn’t get the right picture of who God is.

So, children, obey your parents. Parents don’t provoke and anger your kids! All that will do is lead to division and strife and our witness of God’s character is compromised. Instead, seek the Holy Spirit’s power to shape and change and build you into a united, humble and submissive group.

Children, regardless of age, we must honor our parents. God declared it so from the beginning. Honoring parents is so important to God that he wove it into the guidelines for living he gave to his people thousands of years ago (as part of the Ten Commandments). It doesn’t say obey your parents when it suits you, or when you agree with them, or on Mother’s or Father’s Day, it says simply, “obey”, “honor”.

Now we need a bit of clarification here. Honoring and obeying our parents is the right thing to do, it is godly and reflects the character of Jesus. However, this is not a blind obedience. The ideal situation within the text assumes that the parent’s requests are legitimate, but sometimes, parents are insensitive or misguided in what they ask. Children too must learn to speak the truth in love, and our obedience to parents cannot mean disobedience to Christ.

As we get older, we don’t show the same obligation to what our parents say or suggest, but even adult children must still honor their parents. Honor requires care and attention. Even totally independent children must learn from—and teach—their parents all through life. Granted, sometimes the relationships are strained to the point of breaking. Past sins, or present struggles can make those relationships intolerable, but, like it or not, our psyche is tied up with our parents. We are, as one writer says, “Rarely whole without being whole with them.”[v]

Admittedly, sometimes relationships are so bad that direct communication is impossible and even dangerous. In those cases, honoring mother and father—the sustained truth—means seeking the Holy Spirit’s healing so that we’re motivated by the love of God, rather than our desire for punishment, vengeance and bitterness, for those are incompatible with the cross of Christ.

The relationship between parent and child is the soil for discipleship in Christ. The way we relate in the home must reflect our worship of Christ.

We remember that no relation is merely a relation; it is the context for relating to Jesus Christ. Therefore, no job is merely work; it is a context for serving Christ. As Colossians tells us, “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the LORD Jesus…”, then repeating our text today, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the LORD, not for men…” (Colossians 3:17 , 23).

I know what it’s like to struggle in a job that you don’t like. Before going into ministry, I worked for nearly two years at IKEA in the customer service department. I was at the bottom of the food-chain in that I got people at their angriest. The same people who, often earlier that same day, skipped joyfully out of the store humming the Swedish national anthem, home to put together their press-board treasure, were now returning with smoke coming from their ears because a part was missing and they had to drive all the way back across town to pick up the missing part. Who do you think they came to? That’s right, me, in my pink pinstripe shirt, me who represented “Evil IKEA”, another “MegaCorp out to rip us off, rob us blind.” I know what it’s like to struggle in a job you don’t like.

So I know how hard it must be to hear Paul’s encouragement to do your job as if you were serving Christ, to obey your boss out of reverence for Jesus. Ha! That’s pie-in-the-sky, isn’t it? Well, not really. Not if we apply the principal that each moment of our life is an opportunity to worship, to declare the character of God. Not if every relationship is a chance to relate to Jesus.

Brother Lawrence, a Christian writer and monk who lived more than three hundred years ago spent his days doing menial tasks in the monastery. He was a cobbler and a kitchen grunt. Brother Lawrence is most famous to us for his book, The Practice of the Presence of God.

It is a book describing Brother Lawrence’s deep satisfaction with life because of his love for God. It was written about him that, “Although he once had a great dislike for kitchen work, he developed quite a facility for doing it…He attributed this to his doing everything for the love of God, asking as often as possible for grace to do his work.”

Later, Brother Lawrence himself writes, “We must trust in God and surrender completely to him. He will not deceive us. Never tire of doing even the smallest things for him, because He isn’t impressed so much with the dimensions of our work as with the love in which is done.”[vi]

For how many of us would it change the way we did our jobs, whatever jobs they are, if we did them with such an awareness of the presence and love of God? That we were serving Christ as we flipped burgers, filed papers, taught in the classroom? What about those who oversee employees? Do you view them as valuable people for God’s sake, opportunities to serve Jesus?

Some time ago I asked a woman whose husband does not attend worship with her why he stayed home while she went alone. She said, “He feels he needs to get his life straight, be better, before he can come.” Unfortunately that is a sentiment shared by many outside the church—that you have to be perfect to be loved by God.

It would be easy to just read this text this morning and get the same sense. In order to be loved by God, accepted in the church, you need to be a perfect parent, perfect child, perfect employee and perfect boss, to have your relationships smooth and growing.

Nothing could be further from the truth; nothing could be further from the message of Ephesians. Paul’s taught from the beginning that you are loved, you are accepted, and you are God’s creation. What we need to realize today is that this is not a call to be perfect—God’s love is not conditional on us being neat and tidy first. It is a call to continual surrender to the Holy Spirit—that is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine—changing us into better parents, better children, better employees and employers so that God’s glories can be shown in the world.

“Every hour of the day is holy. What matters is to live it as Jesus taught us.”[vii] It is the Holy Spirit that will transform us to live as such, from the board room to the bedroom; and from the playground to the sales presentation—each moment sacred, each moment an opportunity to worship, each relationship a chance to serve the risen Christ. Let’s pray.

[i]Marva Dawn, A Royal Waste of Time (USA: Eerdmans, 1999).

[ii]Ibid 17

[iii]Klyne Snodgrass’ commentary, “Ephesians”, from The NIV Application Commentary series, Terry Muck, Gen. Ed (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1996), 333.

[iv]The application of this text comes largely from Snodgrass, pp. 285-333.

[v]Ibid, 331.

[vi]Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1982).

[vii]Carlo Caretto, Letters From the Desert (Great Britain: Darton, Longman and Todd Ltd., 1972).

EPHESIANS: For His Glory & Fame—Life as Church

**EPHESIANS: For His Glory & Fame—Life as Church**