Wholehearted Obedience (Part 1 of 2)

Welcome to Truth for Life. Today we continue our study in the book of Ephesians come to a passage that deals with how the gospel even transformed relationships between bond servants and their masters and we find that the apostle Paul's direction applies to our modern work relationships as well. Here's Alastair Begg continuing his series called life together.

Let's turn again to Ephesians this time to the passage which is before us now in Ephesians chapter 6 and we read from verse 51, servants or slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ not by the way of I services people pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart rending service with a goodwill as to the Lord and not to man knowing that whatever good anyone does this, he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free masters do the same to them and stop your threatening knowing that he who is both their master and viewers is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him. Father grand. Now that as we turn to the Bible that we might not only understand what it says but that we might live, transformed by grace in the light of its truth. Help us to this end, we pray for Jesus sake. Amen. The reason we gather in church is first, that we may hear and submit to the voice of God in his were he assembles us by his command and reassembled to listen to his word. The word of God is the driving force that shapes authentic church life. So much so that unless our first desire. When we gather is to hear and heed the voice of God in his word. We have missed the foundation point of the church in preaching the primary aim is not to achieve increased biblical understanding, along with a few practical ideas for applying it to life.

Often that's what people would say well why we study the Bible. Also you can find out some things and then hopefully the pastor teacher will build to give us some practical pointers. The aim is rather that after the text is proclaimed, we will encounter God himself in a life-changing way. In Paul's case he is seeking to see his listeners re-created in the image of God and as I sat down to write my notes for this. I found myself beginning actually waveguide with the shorter Scottish catechism and the very familiar question and in many cases, an equally familiar answer question what is the chief end of man. Answer man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever, the foremost commandment is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

So when we get up in the morning if we pay attention to the catechism and we say to ourselves.

Now what am I supposed to be doing today it's Sunday and I have the day before me, the answer is my chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy and how will that glorification take place while in the gathering of God's people in the hearing and heating of his word in the confession of my sins in the saying of his praise in my encouragement of those around me then how will that translate into Monday. When I supposed to do on Monday.

After all, I have all those appointments to keep the places to go. I have so much cleaning to do and so on. While on Monday I'm going to glorify God and enjoy him forever because it raises an immediate problem, doesn't it, and that is because my nature were not really interested in doing that some of you listening to me and you're saying what a strange thing, but I never once have thought about that. Be perturbed. You are surrounded by a great company.

I think if we went out from here today. We all scattered and said let's go out and see if we can find one person in the entire greater community that will be able to answer the question what is the chief end of man manager, then we would find very, very few, and of those who were able to answer the question, there might be many who said I am the foggiest idea what it means and have never really tried it.

Why is that while Paul explains why it is what he writes to the Romans. He says you see the reason that God made you is so that you might know him, glorify him, and by nature, you don't want to do that by nature. When you look at humanity. Men and women decided rather glorify themselves please themselves turn over the idea of a God to whom they are accountable for whom the artist to the other say thank you for everything, and instead create little substitute gods for themselves in Rome. Of course there were lots of little guards. That's what they had in the pantheon, and there were various places in shrines and metal objects in the creations of man's imagination. We probably are not engaged in that all that we do have our own mental guards, substitute gods that we have to go and do something with to try and unscramble the riddle of our lives to make sense of who and what we are just as it led to futility in Rome so it leads to futility in Cleveland.

It leads actually to futility everywhere because what it does is it explains who and what a man or woman is before God and what is that is an unpalatable word. What is the word the Bible uses man is by nature a sinner some time ago now in the earlier months of the year I was in the group setting where they were having what they refer to as a Bible study. You could never guess because nobody had a Bible at all, and they were talking about different things, but they got into a huge discussion about the nature of sin and it was absolute chaos. If you take in all the men and lay them into and they going to reach the conclusion between and eventually although I was not there to give any kind of direction at all. I couldn't say I couldn't contain myself. I know you will be surprised by that. But that's just the facts and I and I had to stand up and say no listener sinner is not simply a person who does things that he shouldn't do, but a sinner is primarily a man or woman who does not live for the glory of God, who doesn't live for the glory of God is even think about every so often he may think of God because of some happenstance, but by and large is not even a consideration. Why is that it is, as Luther says, because we by nature are curved in upon ourselves.

We are focused on who we are what we are what we want to be where were going to go, what we can achieve.

And so perfectly understandable and it is challenged by the Scriptures. Now you see Paul is writing here to people who had come to an understanding of the fight that they wear in the wrong with God.

They had then discovered that in Jesus, they were put in the right with God and having been put in the right with God. They were no longer in the wrong is really quite logical. If you turn next week to Ephesians 2 for just a moment, let's remind ourselves of the way in which Paul puts this. He's writing to those at the end of chapter 1 have. He said Herod the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation and they believed, so there is been a message proclaiming that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself that it that Jesus is common. Born the punishment that we as sinners deserve and he is live the life in perfection of God's law that we are supposed to live but cannot live and as we take our rest and our trust in our confidence in their so we are find ourselves in God's family but I was in the case. Chapter 2 verse one you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived. No exceptions. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind by nature children of wrath again noticed like the rest of mankind, while then we were stuck yes but God hears the gospel, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us even though we didn't love him even when we were dead in our trespasses and therefore could not make ourselves alive. He then made us alive together with Christ. So is by grace you been saved and is raised is up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing, it is the gift of God is not a result of works. If it where then you could grab and boast about. Now we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in but remarkable is that amazing account of life without Jesus and then life with Jesus and incentive contemporary terms. He describes the fact that we were all living in on on dead-end street there is a rerun of my vintage know the song living on dead-end street. The kinks and Ray Davis know he wrote that he said it was social, and on the lower classes of England and statement regarding their their physical and financial poverty, which of course I guess it was but unwittingly he made a classic statement of the spiritual condition of man outside of Christ, because outside of Christ were dead men living on dead-end street, trying to make sense of the whole journey of life.

Spiritual poverty you see is classless Ray Davis. I think he thought, you know, if we only fix the poverty, the physical poverty then everybody will be much better off will be much happier and and things will become swimmingly beautiful in England.

I lived in the 60s there I go back there in where we are now and the knife. The knife killings in London are epidemic and the problem is not financial poverty problem hits these guys are living on dead-end street, they don't know where they came from. They don't know why they're here. They don't know where they're going is the chief end of that we might glorify God and enjoy him forever. You see, Zacchaeus was on dead-end street, clever little businessman. Nobody liked him.

Five they hated him so much he had to climb up a tree for his own safety.

Apart from anything else.

Jesus brought them off that street Nicodemus, a religious man, knowing all the right kind of questions living on dead-end street lady who had five husbands and had a live-in lover living on dead-end street Saul of Tarsus, proud and arrogant Jewish intellectual living on dead-end street by God, who is rich in mercy, loved left.

I begin in this way this morning because you see one of the great dangers in the very practical nature of what we're dealing with is that some may call on diligently interestedly and miss interpret or at least miss imply what were doing member studying the Bible in this way, you might be tempted to think that what Paul is doing here is he's providing a kind of ethical code which relates in marriage and in the hall meant now in the workplace and if we could just get a hold of this and apply it as a work from the outside in, then perhaps God if he is a good garden exists he will reward us because were nice people and were trying our best know you see, would dead people and we need to be made alive. When Paul in a summary statement put it to the Philippians he said concerning what what it meant for him to me to live is Christ, six words to me to live is Christ to me something personal in my acceptance of Jesus in my allegiance to Jesus is Christ.

It is something practical every matter may be shared with him every moment may be spent with is Christ. It is something possible that I address you in this way this morning because I fear that some of you are not up tall in Christ know you have a nice car in a nice home under nice job, but you're a dead man or a dead one and only Christ can make you alive and until in Christ we are made alive. Then we remain in that condition, and that we do not have the dynamic that is required in order to live the life that is described for us here in the passage to which we now turn what you say will hurry up and get to the passage to its return. All right, I understand that entirely know what Paul is been saying really since chapter 4 is that being a Christian makes you different. Being a Christian makes you different. I think we are just acknowledge that now.

For once and for all.

Some of those are great pains to explain to our friends know were not different at all, and our friends if they concluded that that is an accurate statement find themselves saying to themselves was all part of the Christian thing in the first place.

Maybe leave you exactly as you were as a dead man or a dead woman. Why do you do this stuff so we have to say that what the Bible says about his is what we must acknowledge about ourselves that were that we are different that we are peculiar that we are no longer what we once were. In Jesus we are different and that that difference is then manifested not because we all wear funny clothes or our pyroclastic nose but because in engaging in the everyday events of life in marriage ended family and in the workplace.

There is a dimension that is ours in Jesus, and that that difference although it may only be embryonic in many cases, is nevertheless a real difference and a bold program of the Christian life is that we would be increasingly conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus alone. Hopefully in Jesus were to be better to do better tomorrow at work that we were on Friday when we left work that will be a better husband to my wife to him today on Mother's Day that I was yesterday when I can hardly help her at all that I will be a more obedient boy to my mom that I was when I told her I don't want to make my bed and your horrible mother and then it was Saturday and today is Mother's Day and you feel so wretched. Don't you sure you should you little rascal.

The fact of the matter is that if you're professing to be a Christian boy or a Christian girl then you realize God's major different and you are to be different by his grace he sees what is being worked out. Here is the grace of the gospel.

What is the gospel doing a marriage. What is the gospel doing a family. What is the gospel doing a workplace if it doesn't do anything that is irrelevant is transformative. Now that is why we have tried constantly to make sure that we don't get disengaged from the end of chapter 5 for midway through chapter 5 where Paul is saying to these individuals who are now the followers of Jesus. Make sure that you are filled with the Holy Spirit be filled with the Holy Spirit.

The present continuous dance go on being filled with the Holy Spirit.

God the father has sent Jesus. Jesus has accomplished the work of the father. He is ascended to heaven he has sent the Spirit. I will go away. He says to his followers, and the one who calms will be with you and will be in you, and how will that then be manifested while in love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and self-control and so on. And that will then be revealed in our submissive spirit.

A spirit of submission. First of all to Jesus and then to the responsibilities within the home and then to the responsibilities within the workplace and so it is that we are here in the passage that we began last time slaves and masters. People always ask me for my title.

I told him two weeks ago was called slaves and masters one and so today is slaves and masters to. I'm very good at that and I humbly acknowledges yes because I can't think of any good title spread there we have it now let me do this one slight reverse. Let's acknowledge the particular switch. Paul is referring here are in some senses unique slaves and masters. We are ready identify the fight at approximately 1/3 of the Roman Empire was worth was part and parcel of slavery. If you remove slavery from the Empire would be like removing machinery from the manufacturing industry in the United States of America. The whole thing would be shut down in an instant, and it is in that context that Paul is addressing Paul could not of removed slavery. Even if you try that Christianity was regarded as the off scouring of humanity. It had no influence whatsoever. They could not of brought down a system that was so fundamental to the structure of the Roman Empire that is not to say that the gospel didn't affect because it did, but is just acknowledge that and throughout all of history.

Everyone who has looked on the circumstances has condemned slavery and for every right reason Calvin in the 16th century referred to slavery in terms of original sin.

The whole notion of enslavement and he said it is a thing totally against all the order of nature that human beings fashioned after the image of God should ever be put to such reproach. Paul says to Philemon. He says I am sending an SMS back to you. No longer is a slave by more than a slave. I'm sending them back to you as a beloved brother. So you see the gospel has already begun to undermine the institution of context, such as that it took a long time for it to happen, which is a matter of some shame. I think, but we are to be very, very glad that when eventually slavery is abolished at the very heart of it is the Bible is the gospel and our evangelical Christians, such as William Wilberforce history affirms this, and in most recent terms in the United States of America. The civil rights leader Martin Luther King was clearly driven by his Christian principles and what he did but I don't want to delay any further on that whole issue itself, it will reward your own consideration. So the particulars that he's addressing in Ephesus are unique.

The principles are timeless listening to Truth for Life.

Alister Briggs titled today's message wholehearted obedience, broken relationships wherever they occur, are a tragic reminder that we live in a fallen world. We continue to feel the effects of sin in countless ways in our lives in a world full of trouble. What is it mean to embrace Jesus promise of abundant life, to question all of us wrestle with. It's the subject of Tim Savage's latest book, discovering the good life. The surprising riches available in Christ all the culture around us keeps pushing materialism and self achievement is the path to fulfillment this book, discovering the good life presents the Christian life as a refreshing alternative would love to send you a copy of the book today is an expression of our thanks when you join the essential team of truth partners whose monthly support brings Truth for Life to listeners all around the world. If you been encouraged and strengthened by Alister's teaching.

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Hope you have a refreshing weekend and I hope you can join us Monday as we continue our study of Ephesians called life together. Today's program was furnished by truth for like Learning is for Living