This morning we are going on in our study of Colossians.  We have come to Colossians 3:18.  To get us started we are going to begin with a short history quiz. 

(picture) Who is this?   Rodney Glen King.  Born where?  Sacramento.

On March 3, 1991 - after leading police on a long car chase - George Holliday videotaped 4 LAPD officers beating Rodney King.  The verdict in the trial of these 4 officers resulted in 3 days of rioting in LA - 55 people dead - 2,300 injured - over 1,000 buildings damaged - about $1 billion in property damage.

Do you remember the images?  The white truck driver, Reginald Denny being beaten.  Korean shop owners - carrying rifles and patrolling the roofs of their shops.  Buildings on fire everywhere.  Looters carrying merchandise out of stores in Hollywood while being broadcast live from television news helicopters.

In the middle of all that chaos in LA - Rodney King spoke five words that have stuck in people’s minds.  Remember these?  “Can We All Get Along?  “Can’t we all just get along?”

Rodney’s question resonates because his question expresses a desire that’s deep within everyone of us.  A desire that we all share in our relationships that way too often we find ourselves falling way too far short of.  What we long for and what we experience are way too often two very different realities.

Paul -  in Colossians - has been focusing on truth.  God’s Truth.  Jesus - God’s truth - the word of God made flesh.  How we do life.  How we understand life.  All that needs to be coming from a worldview grounded in God’s truth - Jesus.  The same is true with our relationships.

Coming to Colossians 3:18 - where Paul is going in these verses is  God’s truth in our relationships.  Meaning we need God’s truth - Jesus - at the heart of our relationships.  What can that look like?  How do we go there?

Colossians 3:18.  Let’s read these together and then we’ll go back and do some unpacking and applying.

Wives, submit to your husband, as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.  Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.  Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.  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 and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.  You are serving the Lord Christ.  For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.  Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

Let’s do some unpacking.  Two words we need to keep in mind as we go through these verses.

Word number one is horizontal.  Let’s say that together:  “Horizontal” - which describes our relationships with people.  Paul is gives us three sets of human relationships that are examples of pretty much every relationship we have with those around us.

Word number two is vertical.  Let’s say that together:  “Vertical” - which describes our relationship with God.  Which is about where our focus needs to be as we live out our horizontal relationships - focused on God and His truth - Jesus.

First relationships are… horizontal.  Second is… vertical.  What can that look like for us?

Paul begins with marriage - husbands and wives.  Verse 18:  Wives, submit to your husband, as is fitting in the Lord.  Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

“Be subject” is the Greek verb “upotassetai.”  By definition it’s a military term describing order of rank.  Commander in Chief down to privates.

A couple went to a marriage seminar where the teaching was really bad.  The kind of teaching where wives be subject to your husband meant wives become doormats.  The husband just drank all that in while his wife sat their fuming.

When they got home the husband went in the house trailed by his wife.  He pompously slammed the door shut.  While his wife just glared at him.  He declared, “I think that was great.  That’s the way its going to be around here from now on.  You got it?”

After that he didn’t see her for two weeks.  After two weeks, he could start to see her just a little bit out of one eye.

Wives and husbands are an example of a significant horizontal relationship.  A relationship where things don’t always go so good.  Right? 

Let’s be careful.  Paul is not saying that the husband is the commander in chief and the wife is the private - who blindly obeys every whim and order that’s barked out.

Paul takes the horizontal - which is hugely difficult - and focuses us on the vertical.  Submission is tied to what is “fitting in the Lord.”  “Fitting” has the idea of what’s appropriate.  It “fits” the example of submission and love that we’ve been given in Jesus Christ.  The truth of what God has shown us about true submission and love in Jesus.

Paul - in Ephesians 5 - starting at verse 22 - a familiar passage - expands on this teaching of submission and love and the example of Jesus.  “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.”  Paul goes on - verse 25 - “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”  (Ephesians 5:22,23,25)

That’s the example of “fitting” submitting and loving that we see in Jesus.

“To give up” means being handed over to someone else - especially in some kind of treacherous act. 

Jesus said, “No one is taking my life from Me.  I’m laying it down by choice.  I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.”  (John 10:18)

Judas kisses Him and Jesus hands Himself over to be arrested.

Jesus gave up everything for the Church.  He set aside all of His Godly attributes - was born in the humility of a manger - lived and experienced life like we do.  Jesus - in the Garden of Gethsemane - praying with blood sweating from His pores - looking ahead to His death on our behalf.  Jesus, who loved the Church so much that He sacrificially gave up His life for us - the mockery - the beatings - the crown of thorns - the nails - the crucifixion - death.

Husbands - that’s our example.  To sacrificially love our wives as Christ loved the Church.  Husbands are to voluntarily sacrifice themselves - give themselves up - for their wives.  Sacrificial headship.

It has been said:  “If a man expects his woman to be an angel in his life, then he should first create a heaven for her.”

The number one need of a woman is…  relational security.  Number one need of a man is...  respect.  Husbands taking the initiative to lead the marriage with sacrificial love creates relational security.  Relational security motivates the woman to submit to the leadership of her husband which demonstrates respect.

That’s only possible if our focus in vertical - not horizontal.

Paul’s second example is about children and parents - specifically fathers.  Verse 19:  Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.  Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.      

“To obey” - in the Greek - has the idea of being ready to hear and obey orders.  Meaning that children are to respect and honor their parents by listening to them and living in obedience to what they say.

(graphic) Take a look at this.  Do you see the seasons of life?  That’s hard to look at.  It would be easy to say, “Well, Paul is just talking about kids.”  But, we’re all kids.  How do we listen and obey our parents as we go through the different seasons of life?

When a father is absent a child is 5 times more likely to commit suicide or do drugs.  20 times more likely to end up in prison.  Children growing up without a father present are more likely to suffer physical, emotional, or educational neglect, engage in juvenile delinquency including violent crime, abuse drugs and alcohol, and become a teenage mom living in poverty.  90% of all homeless and runaway children come from fatherless homes.

Stats are one thing.  Reality is what we see around us where we live.  Families are messed up.  As the father goes so goes the home and so goes the society. 

Notice the vertical.  The reason children are to be obedient is not because we as parents demand it - but because it “pleases” God.  How does a child know what pleases God if they’ve never seen it lived out?

Known reality - if a mother comes to church that’s great.  The children will come too.  But, if a father comes - when that child becomes an adult - that child is significantly more likely to keep on following God through life.  Fathers are the primary hindrance or help to a child’s relationship with God. 

If dad is in “la la land” how is a child suppose to know what pleases God?  God can still reach that child.  Sure.  But the weight of what Paul is writing falls on fathers.  Fathers teaching their children to do instinctively what pleases God.  Do you hear vertical in that?

Paul writes  Fathers, do not provoke your children - don’t demand obedience in such a way that they’ll become discouraged - loose heart.  Hammering away at them about how they’re suppose to be living while there’s a lack of consistency in our own living “pleasing” to God.

Provoking can mean ignoring them - being busy with everything else but them.  By example teaching them that God - their Heavenly Father - like earthly father - God is too busy running creation to think about them.  God is detached from where they live their lives.  So why seek to understand and learn about God?  Or to follow His instructions?

Provoking can mean pampering them - giving them everything they want - whether they need it or not - indulge them.  Teaching them that God is some like Santa Claus.  God exists to serve us - to grant wishes and demand nothing in return - no commitment - no boundaries - no obedience.  When God doesn’t answer their prayers in the way they want its natural that they turn against God. 

Provoking can mean insulting them - calling them names and putting them down - subtly telling them that they’re worthless.  Words hurt.  If that’s the example why should they believe that God could ever love or accept them.  Why should the ever love and accept God.

Provoking can men being over committed as families to doing life.  So that church - worship - Bible study - Life Groups - serving God - giving - it all takes a back seat to recreation and sports and family and what its important to us.  Our priorities.  Our needs.  Our goals.  Teaching our children that while we may say God comes first, He really doesn’t.  And that’s okay.

2 weekends ago I was speaking at a men’s retreat.  Mostly about what it means to be a Godly man.  And a Godly father - mentoring the next generation.  A number of fathers were there with their sons.  There were other men - of various ages there as well.  The youngest was - I think 12 - the oldest was… well, really old.

At the end of our Saturday morning session - at the request of the men -  meaning I hadn’t planned this.  It was a God moment.  At the request of the men - knowing we we’re going to be late for lunch - the fathers gathered around their sons to pray over them.  The other men gathered to pray over the fathers and their sons.  Imagine this.  Small groups of men scattered around a room fervently engaged in prayer knowing they were missing lunch.  Praying over their sons - over each other - committing themselves to give everything to be the men God has created and called them to be.

Children are desperate for men - for fathers - to step up and do that.

Children and parents - family relationships - we are to treat our children - and live before them - in a way that teaches them to please God.  A Godly father is going to live Godly and lead Godly and prayerfully lead his children towards God.  And the result - we pray - will be obedience to us.  And most importantly - a life of obedience to God.  They will learn to follow Jesus as they see us following Jesus.  Or not.

Paul’s third example is Slaves and Masters.

In the Roman Empire there were perhaps 60 million plus slaves.  About half the inhabitants of the Roman Empire were slaves to the other half.  Conditions for many slaves was unbearable.  And yet some slaves were doctors and teachers and engineers and so on.  They had pretty responsible positions.

But slaves had masters.  Masters had slaves.  Masters had absolute authority over their slaves who had no rights.  Which is the picture Paul has in mind.

It wouldn’t be stretching Paul’s point to also include any relationship outside the family where someone has authority over us or we’re in a position of authority over others.  Even if that’s a citizen - government relationship.  You can decide which one is the slave and which one is the master.  Employee - employer relationships / Student - teacher relationships.

Paul tells slaves that they’re to sincerely obey their masters - from the heart.  Not just when the master’s were looking. 

Ray Stedman once told a story about a missionary in Africa who was responsible for getting nationals - natives - in his area to do certain jobs.  The missionary discovered that the nationals were really lazy and would only work when he was actually watching them.  When he left they would stop work and do nothing until he returned.

This missionary had a glass eye, and one day when his eye was irritating him he took it out and put it on a tree stump.  When he returned he found that everybody was still working because the “eye” - they thought - was watching them the whole time he was away.  (1)

That’s what Paul means here by “eye-service.”  Working only when the boss is watching.  Slaves are to sincerely obey at the heart level.

Masters are to treat their slaves justly and fairly.  Which in Greek those words mean… justly and fairly.  In a world where slaves had no rights - Christian masters were to treat their slaves with respect - rightly - with equity.

Its what Jesus taught:  “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them…”  (Matthew 7:12)  That would rock the master - slave relationship a bit.  Wouldn’t it?

Not too many years ago employers felt a responsibility towards their employees.  There was a realization that they were providing a job.  And a job meant an income - support for a family - food on the table - a roof overhead - the necessities of life. 

Not too many years ago employees felt a responsibility towards their employeers - to do quality work - to take pride in what was produced - to do their best for the company.  An employee felt gratitude for having a job.

We’ve made a lot of progress since then.

Today the bottom line motivation in business is greed - profit - keep the shareholders happy - pad the salaries of the execs at the top.  Employers want more production and more profit from their employees for less pay and fewer benefits.  Employees want more pay and greater benefits for less work.  Increase the minimum wage.  Pour on the benefits.

Who cares if the company goes under.  The bottom line is what I get - not what I give.

Meaning that in our relationships out there - in the horizontal - where we’re either in authority or under authority we tend to focus on ourselves.  What tilts things in our favor.  Even when we’re filling out our taxes - taking tests - helping ourselves to little perks.

Paul points us to the vertical.  The sincere heart of a slave comes from a fear of the Lord.  We serve God.  God is the one who rewards us.  God will take care of whatever injustice is being done to us.  Masters have a master - the Master - that they are accountable to for how they treat those they have authority over.

Ultimately - whatever our relationship outside of the home it all comes back to our relationship with God.  Who are we really serving anyway?

Paul’s point is very clear - we’re to work - not focused on serving men - but focused on serving the Lord.  Our employer may pay our salary - but ultimately we work for God - who sees our heart.

Let’s explore that a bit.

Remember Jesus calling His disciples?  “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  (Matthew 4:19) 

Someone said, "There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot."  

In Luke 14 - Jesus says that following Him means hating your family - even hating your own life.  Then Jesus says “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” 

These people knew crosses.  The cross is an instrument of humiliating torturous death.  Can you imagine how these people would have understood this?  “Pick up an instrument of torture and follow Me.”  Grab your electric chair and follow me.

We should try that as a suggestion for our church slogan - “Following Jesus in the Central Valley - Come and die with us.”  Not exactly seeker sensitive.

Jesus goes on:  “Anyone of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”  (Luke 14:26-33)

Are we tracking with Jesus?  Here’s what it takes to follow.  Become homeless.  Let someone else bury your dad.  Don’t even say good-bye to your family.  In fact, hate your family.  Give up everything you have.  Carry a cross.  To follow Jesus means abandoning everything - our needs - our desires - even our family.  Following Jesus requires total, superior, exclusive devotion. 

When Jesus calls us to follow Him, Jesus is interested in making disciples.  Leading men and women who’s desire is to follow Jesus at the level of the heart - from the core of who we are - regardless of what that may mean.  That’s vertical.  That’s all about who we’re really serving as our master.

When Jesus commands us:  “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you - even the carrying the cross part - and behold, I am with you always.”  He’s talking about what those who have died to themselves do.  They fish for disciples.  (Matthew 28:19,20) 

Here’s the point.  Whether we work for WalMart stocking shelves or running the whole store.  Or if for 20 years we’re teaching a class and then for the next 20 years we’re cooking at Chipotle.  Or, if we’re trying to survive High School or finally earn our Doctorate.  The bottom line of slaving and mastering is still the same.  Its all about Jesus - vertical.

Our career may change.  Our status may change.  But ultimately our calling to follow Jesus and serve Him - making disciples.  That never changes.  Wherever and whenever and in whatever we’re doing we’re always to do it with sincerity of heart serving the Lord Christ who is our Master.

Let’s pull together what Paul is writing and think about what happens when we head out of here into out there.

Two words.  The first is… horizontal - human relationships.  Second word… vertical - our relationship with God.  God’s truth in our relationships.  If we’re not fixed on the vertical with everything we are then the horizontal will never happen to the amazing depth or relationship that God desires for us to experience together.  That we desire to experience together.  Our relationships - and who we are in those relationships - will never happen in the way that glorifies God.  Life is about God.  Not us.

Paul - over and over and over and over again - as we’ve been working our way through his letter to the church in Colossae - Paul has been pleading with the Colossians to stay focused on Jesus.  Here in these verses - the same plea - Jesus is the Truth of God that we need to focus on in our relationships.

Remember Peter?  Jesus had spent some extra time praying up on a mountain.  So now its night and the boat with the disciples in it is a long ways off the shore.  So, Jesus just walks out to them - strolling across the water.  Peter says, “Lord, if its you, command me to come to you on the water.”  Jesus does.  Peter does.  Until he starts thinking horizontally - getting more focused on the wind and waves rather than Jesus.  Peter starts to sink.  (Matthew 14:22-33)

Which is what happens to us.  Wind and waves being people and personalities and circumstances.  Oh my.  We get focused on all that and we begin to drown in our relationships.  Drowning is pretty hopeless.  There is deep pain in that.

We’re tempted to let what’s going on in our relationships distract us from our relationship with God.  We get ourselves thinking that what’s going on in our relationships is what’s most important.

We find ourselves living in fear of what others think of us.  Living in fear of what we think others think of us.  We fear not living up to the expectations of others.

We get tempted to think that we see our problems.  Or least the problems other people have.  That we can fix our relationships.  That we have what it takes to make all that work.  And way too often we end up going on wounding and tearing each other apart.

The way to avoid drowning and self-destructing in our relationships -  are you ready - is to stay focused on the vertical.  Almost seems way too simplistic.  But, it really is a question of what we’re aiming at.  What are we really focused on life?  When it really comes down to it - in the day-to-day of our lives - what comes first - the horizontal or the vertical?

Paul’s plea:  Stay focused on the vertical because it is way too easy to get focused on the horizontal.

Remember Queequeg - Moby Dick - Herman Melville.  Queequeg was the what?  The guy with the harpoon.  The harpooner.  He has one job.  Which is what?  Harpoon the whale.  Which takes single minded - undistractable - totally committed - total dedication - focus.

No matter what the chaos or confusion - wind - waves - sinking boats - people drowning - or how psychotic the captain is.  Whatever could very easily get us off focus - hit the whale.  Singular focus.  Everything else is secondary.

That’s the way we need to be.  Doing whatever we need to do to hit the whale.  No matter what - stay focused on Jesus.  No matter how tempting - the vertical must always come before the horizontal.

Wives cannot submit themselves to their husbands unless they’ve first submitted themselves to God.  Husbands cannot sacrificially love their wives unless they’ve lovingly sacrificed themselves to God.  Children cannot obey their parents unless they’re learning to please God.  Parents cannot teach their children what it means to please God unless they themselves are living pleasing to God.  Slaves cannot serve their masters unless they’re serving God from the heart.  Masters cannot justly and fairly exercise authority unless they have first placed themselves under the authority of God.

Two questions.  What kind of relational chaos are you in?  Second question:  Where are you focused?

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1. Ray Stedman sermon from Colossians 3:18-4:6, “Living Christianly”

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®  (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.