Colossians - Chapter 3 Review

and what I've done and I like this approach I mean this is what I like and I know everybody you know but so we're just going to look at all the verses in chapter 3 and I just created some questions and hopefully you know think of the questions as not I don't necessarily want a theological answer I want to just share what you remember from the class and that idea is review is to kind of go back and remember what we We're taught, you know, in the in the past week. So in the questions that are asked, sometimes they're pretty easy. Sometimes they're not as easy.

But so I looked at I love, you know, I love McCauley. I appreciate McCauley the better way. I know. I love my guitar. I love my Mustang. Alright, with that said, so Macaulay, I have his outline in chapter 3. He starts off, verses 1-4. I have a ton of questions on those. They're just so special. They're just so neat about our union with Christ and his future. His past, present, and future.

He has a mental obligation, which sounds a little bit I don't know, academic. That's that part where we're setting our minds on things above. I don't see that as an obligation. I see it as a blessing that we can actually do that and not focus on this world situation because this world has its... you know, desires and plans and they're not, you know, they're in opposition to God. Sure. Sure, absolutely, absolutely. And as we see the end approaching, we see it more and more.

Okay, and then the section starting in Heath's label, Our Inward Life, it talks about the idea of being dead to immorality and immaturity and passions. And then there's these two phrases, putting off and putting on, we're going to look at. Putting off is what Heath has in negative aspects and the putting on is He calls them duties. Sometimes, you know, I enjoy Macaulay, sometimes I would use different words, but that's just me.

So, and then we get down toward the end of the last couple of verses that we talked about our family life. Wife to husband, husband to wife, children to parents, and parents to children, and then slaves to masters. As Monty was looking through this, he says, well, Roger, you got the and between the husband and wife and the children and parents. Well, he only talks about the slave. In this part, we get to chapter 1, he addresses the master. So we'll get to see the master in chapter 1. Chapter 1. Chapter 4. Thank you. All right. OK. So let's look at, would someone like to read these first four verses?

That you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above. When Christ is, set at the right hand of God, set your minds on things above, a lot of things on the earth. When you die, your life is hid with Christ and God. When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also appear with Him in joy. Okay, so my first question was, how and why were you raised up with Christ?

So what do you remember? What does the verse say? Does it give us any indication of why that's the case or from other verses that we talked about? There's a multitude of verses that talk about this. This isn't the only place this truth is talked about, being raised up with Christ. The how of it is simply our trusting Him as our Savior. How that was accomplished. Okay, so there's this phrase, things above. So why, in looking at the verse and what we were told, why keep seeking the things above?

I think that's where we are. Good, good. Yeah, position, right. And that's our home, right? That's home territory, home ground, familiar ground. So just like you would in the earthly sense, you remember your home as a child, you remember growing up, and many times hopefully fond memories of that.

So this is our heavenly home, why wouldn't we want to think about the things above? So what are these things? He doesn't explicitly come out and say it, but I think from looking at other parts of scripture you can kind of deduce that. So what are your thoughts about the things above? And don't make it too technical. What's your first thought? What are the things above?

No, it was the same joy I said before Jesus that we're going to get into that too. Okay, okay. You're talking about the fact that we're in the presence of the Lord and that kind of stuff? Okay. Are there other details that scripture tells us about the things above? We're going to be sitting at the right hand. That sounds good. Okay. Fantastic. I agree.

Amen. Or spiritual blessings in Christ by commission in Ephesians 1? That's what occurred to me. Chafer is categorized in 33 riches of God's grace. And just the person. Think about when the Lord left. He says, I'm going to give you another helper. And he'll bring to your remembrance all the things. All these things. And so the things that the Holy Spirit brings to our remembrance from the Word. You know, that's all wrapped up in the things above. In my mind, they describe the person of Christ, the work of Christ, all the blessings we have of Christ.

Bob? Yeah, in the absence of the sin nature. Right. Amen. Fully righteous. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Additionally, we're there now. Right. And this maybe is kind of redundant. Why is your focus to be on the things above and not on the things of the earth? We kind of already answered that, maybe. But he makes a specific point of that. If you look at the set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth.

And then actually, the next one, if you look carefully, how does verse 3 It explains part of the previous verses, right? It talks about... What's the main fact of our... When you say we've died with Christ, what comes to mind about how you operate now? How about your life? Where is the source of your life coming from?

Okay, that's great. I was looking for one other thing. To me it's crystal clear because I thought of it, right? Why wouldn't you see that? I saw that. I was thinking about the freedom from the sin nature. We died, we've been separated. It's a biggie. That's a biggie.

And I often thought that we ought to almost keep this, you know, if you talk about refrigerator lists, if you want one to keep your spirits high and on the right, you know, glance at this guy occasionally, these four verses. Bob? which worketh for us a far more eternal and exceeding way to glory, while we look not at things that are seen, but the things that are not seen, or the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal. I mean, talking about things above causes my light affliction. We should identify with that.

Well, you also, you kind of give them other characteristics of things that they're not seeing. You can't see God's love. You can experience God's love, and you can see acts of God's love. The things that we're talking about are things that are a relationship that you can't see it.

Why did you die, and when did you die? And we kind of already have answered part of this already. The why part we answered already, right? One part of that is to free us from the sin nature. And the when? You can get different dates, right? Okay, that's certainly one. But then if you think about... It doesn't say we... Well, it says we were chosen Him before the foundation of the world. I don't think it says we died with Him before the foundation of the world. That's a point in time.

So that's good, Mike. What does it mean to be hidden? This is really cool. In fact, actually, I sent my son Mark. He's having a real problem with tinnitus. And he's also having a problem with really bad headaches. So I sent him part of this verse as an encouragement. And I tried to explain a couple words.

So hidden is kind of a cool word. For you have died, and your life is hidden. with Christ. Remember the double blessing we have, we're hidden with Christ and that's in God. I had concentric circles in that like that, kind of a cool deal. So what does hidden mean?

And we gave a definition, I don't know if you remember it or not. I wasn't here that week, and to me it makes me feel like I'm completely encased in that and nothing can take me away from that. Okay, that's good. Well there's a particular term, I think Andrew alluded to part of this too, it's the clothing term. I think the hidden word is the idea of being clothed with Christ, but certainly covered up or encapsulated. And we couldn't escape, like people who say, with the use of salvation. We're so enclosed.

Right. And the point here, who's doing this? Who's performing this? Who's maintaining this? This is nothing, is it saying we have to do something to be hidden? It just makes a statement. You are. Go ahead, Bob. And personalizing that seems so relevant. Just you and Christ. It doesn't relate to anybody else. It does relate to others. Isn't that amazing? It's sort of like thinking of your parents or somebody super special to you and you think, wow, being with them is just so special. And this is even light years ahead of that. Light years beyond that. And it does just bring a tremendous sense of security. How do we know that Christ is our life? How do we know He's our life? Does He send us a text message? A thumbs up?

That's good. I thought about the Holy Spirit witnessing with our spirit. Yeah, that's a good one. Other thoughts? Because it says so. Exactly. You're similar to the daughter of Mike. It says it right there. It's in the contract. That's cool. That's really cool. Anything else you want to say? I know what I was going to say. I have another question that kind of came to mind.

You see raised, you see died, and you see seated. You see raised, seated, and died. Do you remember what is kind of special about those words? Those are special words that we were raised up with him, we were seated with him, we died with him. Do you remember there's a little prefix that's in the Greek that's attached to that guy that makes it even pretty special? I'm getting things that really turn me on. It's co-raised, right? It says you're raised up with him, but then it puts a co on top of that. It's like it's emphasizing that even more. You're co-raised, you're co-seeded, and you co-died.

His death is our death. All that intimate information about our relationship with our Savior is all wrapped up in this. We've gone through this. I've gone through it a bunch of times. I go back through it and I find even more goodies in there, too. How about Holy Wheel? Okay. We're going to sit there. Okay. Saint Christ, Holy Wheel, Holy Wheel. That's good. Excellent. Right. Right. That's great. That's great.

What you find out, since Christ is our life, what has happened to him, happens to us. And we benefit from all that. The blessings are ours as a result of that. Any last gems you see in here? And if you think about later, actually, I'm going to quote this verse at the end again. I can't get away from it. And a different translation. Just because I think it's so special. OK. So let's go on.

Could someone read these five through seven? Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways in the life you once lived.

Great, thank you. So, quite a contrast. He stated these wonderful truths about us, a lot of positional stuff. And then he's going to say, we kind of get into the practical stuff. So, the first question I had was, how can you consider your members dead to the list in verse 5?

I think about the verse in Romans 6.11. Reckon yourself dead to thee, the sin nature. The source of all those things, immorality, impurity, passions and so on, are the sin nature. Why must God's wrath come because of these things? A holy God has to deal with those, right? He so had to deal with them, His Son had to die. All those evil and sinful things had to be dealt with. So God dealt with him and he dealt with him through the death of his son. Who are the sons of disobedience? Is that a gang out here hanging out in Aurora someplace?

And we're not necessarily told, but I think from other parts of scripture you can kind of deduce what that is. Go ahead, somebody has a thought. I have my thought. Are those people who have heard and turned away? Well, I mean, the biggest category you can put them in is all unbelievers, right? Right. That's the biggest category. Now you could possibly subdivide that. I don't know. I don't know.

But the biggest category would be unbelievers. And I like where Paul says, and such were some of you, not exactly sons of disobedience, but you had that list of characteristics, right? And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were cleansed by the blood of Christ. It sounds stronger than just unbelievers.

I mean, I don't know. I don't know. Actually, I've forgotten what we said about Sons of Disobedience. To me, it sounds stronger. That's all. I don't know what the Greek is. But we're joint heirs, right? So we're true sons. We're true sons. Right. Right. Right. And the thing is, we're obedient in Christ because we trusted him. We don't have to worry. Obedience is no longer a question. It's only faith. The old nature is still capable of any of these things, but it's really a life. When did you walk and live in these things? Paul is putting you in this case, and in them you once walked. So when did that happen? This is not hard again either. I can't see anything else. A lot of you have tried to ask the obvious questions. And that's actually that's that's the end of that one.

OK, go ahead. Telling him to put off these things. Yes, exactly. Well, and what is going to be key, especially in the next section here, the putting on and putting off is going to be key about position and condition. That's that's that's really going to be key in that. OK.

OK, so eight through 11. Someone read that. But now ye also put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filth, communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him. Good. Thanks. OK. All right.

So so one thing is that this is a new American standard translation and it doesn't it actually kind of hides. Unfortunately it kind of hides some of the some of the you know the the King James and other translations kind of have the put on and put off it kind of in the text. So this one uses put them aside, put them aside, put off, and then put on. It's down here. It actually has put on there. So it's kind of hidden. Also new man versus old man versus self and a couple other things. So there's some things in here that make it a little bit harder to see some of these things.

Okay, so let's first question. What does it mean to put them all aside? Or put them, or actually it says put them off? Quit doing it. Okay, okay. You know, in a sense, I mean, Phil's right, but you know, that seems like it's, They put you under law. I'm not supposed to think this, but I'm thinking it anyway. I'm not obeying the law. We're going to see all these put on and put off.

And it's interesting, none of them are in the present tense. After going back and looking at it again, Bob taught part of this, and I think Andrew taught part of this. I think Andrew taught this part, and I think Bob taught the second part. And after going back and looking at all those, none are in the present tense. They're all in what's called the Aorist tense, which can be a toughie, because they're in the Aorist imperative. So you say, well, if you think about Aorist, it's like God is love. God's the love of the world. That's an Aorist tense. He loved the world by sending his son.

But in this case, so what I'm trying to get to here, and without getting too deep in the weeds here, is that if I read this, what does it mean by putting them all aside? This happens to be an heiress, heiress imperative middle, which means for your benefit. So I like this. I kind of stumbled across this. Darby, J.N. Darby actually has a translation and a footnote there. He has the heiress tense for that. be in the state of having done it.

So what I kind of see here is that he's saying, remember that you have, they have been put off, right? You're now in Christ, they have been put aside, and make your condition equal to your position. So it's still the same, you still have to do something, it's still an action. But put them all aside is to remember that they already have been.

So I thought that helped me as I went through here. And all these are not, no present tenses. They're all remembering what you did, what's happened to you in your position. So anyway, that's my... So it's almost like you reckon yourself to be in Christ, and because you are, Be who you are.

To me that makes it an easier thing. I'm under a law that says, wait a minute, anger, wrath, malice, I've already been separated from those. Well now live in your position. Actually look at Wayne to get his comment on that. That was the same thing. So that's kind of where I came to with these guys.

This is incredibly labeled as advanced doctrine, isn't it? What we're discussing here is how one does this. How do you accomplish what the scripture says? Because I would say most of the believers just feel like they've got to do this. This is my will. I'm not going to think about this. I'm not going to do it anyway. What would Jesus do? And then they're all upset when They don't do that because they don't understand that they still have that sin nature. They think they should be just doing it all the time without a problem. But isn't this also referring to a complete reliance on the Lord? Absolutely.

Because you realize you can get anger, wrath, malice all show up in all of us. I think Wayne had another question back there. Paul came to the same conclusion when he said, O wretched man, where did I end? And so he struggled with the same thing. And that's kind of encouraging for us.

Absolutely, absolutely. So I found that, looking back, a second look at this, he's saying, remember, and it sounds so cool, I come across, I look at Darby and this little thing, after it says, Darby says, put off, he has in parens, he says, be in the state of having done it. I said, wow! Wow! That's remembering what I have. It's already happened.

And he has that for multiple words here. I'll point them out as we go down through here. For multiple words, he has that. Darby has that. I said, wow! Even back in Darby's time. That was a few years ago. They knew this stuff. They were rejoicing in that. Pretty cool stuff. Okay. All right.

Now, this is kind of a trick question, because based upon what I said, when did you, you're going to ask me positionally or conditionally, right? When did you lay aside the old self? And actually, if you look in here, in the text here, it said, let's get down here, do not lie to one another since you've laid aside. laid aside the old self. That actually kind of brings it out right there. You laid aside that looking back to something that's happened, and that's another heiress, another one that has the idea of something that you're remembering something that's already happened. You've already laid it aside.

Well, act in accordance with that. You have put on. And we're going to get there, too. It's coming. It's coming. Well, in a sense, I was thinking 15 seconds ago. So, do not lie. So you laid aside the old self. And then, when have you put on the new self?

Another kind of trick question. Has this happened positionally for you? But the Lord desires that it happen conditionally for us too. Another one of those words, arist. Not a present. I thought, boy, if these are all present, That would be laying the law on me. But what he's saying is, remember what you have. And boy, that is so consistent with so much of scripture. Remember where you came from. Remember what you have. And then you can exercise faith in that. You say, Lord, you separated me from that. Why am I going there again? And you probably say that a few times in an hour or so, if you're like me. Why am I going there again?

How is the new self being renewed? That's kind of an interesting one. There's a bunch of verses that come to mind with this. How is a new self being renewed? What comes to mind? How is that happening? That's part of that being conformed. And he's doing it. He's conforming us to him. Excellent.

How about growing in grace and the knowledge of him? As we interact with scripture, we grow and we learn more about his grace. Actually, there are several verses that talk about renewing of your mind. That shows up in a bunch of verses, the renewing of your mind, the renewing of your mind. And the Holy Spirit is involved in that, certainly, in the Word.

What does it mean that Christ is all and in all? Well, that's my job, that's my job, right? Well, I ask easy questions, you know, you'd be snoozing off. Tom, go ahead. It doesn't matter what your nationality is or your political persuasion or any of that, it's just in Jesus. Okay, okay. There is none of those things in heaven. It says the things that are not in heaven. There's not these kind of relationships where each person is individually in a relationship with the Savior.

I looked at a few of the translations, which is kind of my tendency. we surrenders this, he puts our things in there of course. But Christ is all things and in all things. He adds the word things in there. And that kind of helped me a little bit. I said, you're right. He's the cohesive force that holds everything together. At the atomic level, or beyond that, or farther down than that, Christ is our life and there's just so many aspects you could make it, say this from. John 17. Christ who is all I am. He is in the Father.

What's that relationship? That's got to be all things. Right. And we get to be part of that relationship, which is even more. Some people say, what are we going to be doing in heaven? I don't think we really have an idea, but I don't think we really grasp what it's going to be like. I'm going to be the dog sitter.

OK. OK. All right. Well, then there's a question that I don't want to go. I want to go there with a reference. We know Andrew's going to be eating donuts. Yeah. Yeah. He says I mean, that's true. He just said something about that. OK. All right. Any other thoughts about, I actually skipped some parts in here, like the part of verse 11 I didn't do too much with. But anyway, just think about the fact that putting off and putting on, he's asking us to remember something. And I think that's just really cool. It's really, really special. Yes, go ahead. Sure, sure. Tom probably can.

It's probably derived from many past wars. It's coincided with people who harvest wheat. And that's the Ukraine and part of what's the USSR and now part of Russia. But you get the idea. It's kind of like that part of Europe. It was not an unknown factor in the Roman Empire. I mean, they knew what was beyond their borders and they were watching out. I've got a little note here. It says Scythian represents the lowest type of untouched barbarian nomads of southern Russia. In Christ, distinctions of race, class, and culture are transcended. Wow. OK. Thanks. Thanks, class. That's great. Well, he is talking about, you know. And there's no distinction among all those. That was your point earlier. Okay, alright.

Twelve through fourteen. Someone read, please. So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. And on all these things put our love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Great. Okay. I have a different question. Who is chosen by God? Everyone. Okay. What does He choose everybody? Anybody else have a thought?

Let's turn to the Book of Life. And actually, from that perspective, and I know our brother Hal taught that, the Book of Life, only names removed from the Book of Life, everybody's names in the Book of Life, only names removed. But we find in the description of believers and unbelievers in scripture, we find that the chosen part only shows up in the column for believers.

Only a believer can say he's chosen. That's why I was kind of hedging on my agreeing with you. The resume of the believer chosen is one of the elements of your resume. They weren't chosen to be believers, the believers were chosen to It says they were chosen by God. They were chosen to be believers.

That means he's excluding someone. He's not doing that. And the verses for the unbeliever are, I'm not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance. So we have two sides of the... If you're making columns, you've got two sides of information. And the believer is the only one that can say that scripture declares that he's chosen. Well, doesn't it say too that... since he knows everything in the whole scheme of time. He knows who will choose, but yet everyone is offered. Exactly that. I know. Isn't that amazing?

It's a very kind of mind-bending... Actually, you have to be careful because you're going to put human attributes into describing God. Exactly. God never says, oh, I forgot something. Oh! Well, and also, You have those denominations who, you know, the predestination. Exactly, exactly. And then that takes out the fact that everyone is offered. Exactly. The ability to choose. Yes, right. So you have to, you know. It's part of a mind bending thing. Right, exactly, exactly.

You know, every believer is chosen, but we choose. I mean, it sounds contradictory, but that's what scripture teaches. Could you bring in Romans the first chapter there where it's placed in the heart of man to know that there is a God? Okay, that's good. Well, that would go back to the fact that man knows. We kind of think, well, there's going to be a big shock to them when they get to the Great White Throne Judgment. I don't think it is. Actually, it cannot be.

Otherwise, God would be would be remiss, whatever. Well, think of all the other religions of the world. If there's not one god like Allah for the Islam, it's, you know, Judaism is one god, the same god we ultimately are called to. And like all these other Hinduism and Buddhism is more of a philosophy rather than a religion. They all have gods of some sort, the Greek and the mythological gods. And I mean, everybody looks at something beyond the ghost, right, in some way. How can we be holy and be loved of God?

You've got a list. Are you keeping that list? My answer was, you're in Christ, right? OK, so now we're back to the put-on thing again. And actually, this put-on is not in the present tense. It's in the aorist tense, aorist imperative. And that's what got me onto this. All these put-on, put-off are all in the aorist tense. Is that telling me something? And once again, Darby is really cool. Right in the text, he has, be in the state of having done it. Be in the state of having put-on. Boy, that is just really cool. Huge.

So actually, I'm going to answer the question before I even start. So how do we put on this list of qualities? We say, I already have those qualities because I'm in Christ. By faith, we walk by faith and let his life be lived out through us. What are these lists of qualities called in Galatians?

Good. Good. OK. This wasn't hard. OK. OK. What is the perfect bond of unity? If you read the text, you'll know. Good. OK. See if you're awake and reading. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. OK. OK. All right. 15 through 17. to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Great, thank you. Okay, so my first question is, What is meant by the peace of Christ ruling in your hearts?

And Bob can't answer. Because he's talking. You guys remember what that was? There's kind of a cool analogy that I liked. Remember what the analogy was to the... Who does... Well, I'm going to give it away, I say it. The Holy Spirit. That's certainly part of it.

I was thinking back to the class a little bit and that word ruling is a particular word in the Greek that kind of has an interesting term and we see it in different events that you might go to. Maybe Bob can add to this too. So basically, it says that peace of Christ is ruling as an umpire. Actually, I like it better as an arbitrator.

I was thinking about this. When the Lord said in John 14, He says, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. So I was kind of thinking about this. So here comes the world at us, and it's just disarray. Everything's a disaster. But what Christ says, you have my peace. Let that be ruling in your heart. Let that be where you're focusing. It's almost back to set your mind on things above. The peace of Christ ruling is almost like Remembering that you have his peace and his peace is not subject to the things of the world.

But if you think a little further there in terms of umpiring, there's no instant replay here. True. True. I mean, you know, look at this was a passive affair. And the cool thing is, from the John 14 passage, we have that peace. We have that because we're in Christ. We have His peace. So I'm thinking, wow, we have His peace. Shouldn't that be called safe? I can't think of the right analogy with umpire, but that should be the ruling thing in our life, His peace. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Very much so. I don't think there's a pass interference. I think there is the NFL. We play this year. Sorry.

How should the word of Christ richly dwell in you? Can you think of some verses that might describe how that's supposed to happen? Actually, that's not bad. Listing the fruits of the Spirit. I think it's pointing out the fact that the Word of Christ, or God's Word, is to be...

Actually, the word for richly is actually abundantly. There ought to be a big storehouse there. If there is a big storehouse, that's going to be very helpful. If there's a small storehouse, And you could argue that as you grow, hopefully the storehouse is increasing, you're remembering more of his word, and more experience of his word, you've come to understand passages, whatever. Along with that, you know, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word. Exactly. That's the word. Right. I would grow in grace, not only by experience, but getting back to the word. Right. Okay. What does it mean? What does the song say? Well, she kind of asked me, says, Roger, how's it? How's this verse sound?

Something like that. Not exactly. Let's change some words. Go ahead. I think the idea of dwell also makes me think of being at home. That's good. Very good. And that's a wonderful thing. It's kind of amazing sometimes when, just out of the blue, certain scriptures will just kind of come into your mind. You'll think, boy, you know. And you'll look at certain situations and you'll remember something. It's wonderful.

What does it mean to do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus? Should we say that after everything we say? I'm doing this. If the Lord is your life, then you live your life in Him. I agree. It's pretty simple. I'm doing these things I'm doing these things for the Lord, and there's other things that are, I don't know, that's just life. And actually we're going to see, we get into the relationship between husband and wife and children and parents and so on. That comes up again. Okay. Alright. Alright. Somebody read this one?

Why be subject to your husband as if it's been your Husbands, love your wives, and do not be indifferent to them. Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is what is placed in you by the Lord. Father, if you have not asked for it, you have done something that is not. Great. Okay. So we taught this.

What does it mean to be subject to your husband? Or how about this, what doesn't it mean? Not to be a doorman. I kind of like the analogy, or actually some of the words, not only in Colossians, but also in Ephesians. It's a military picture, there's a ranking, and you're lining up under your husband, and this is God's order. That's part of it, certainly. And I think this is a close companion.

Why is it fitting in the Lord? Why is fitting in the Lord so important? So it says basically, wise be subject to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. So why did he add that last part, do you think? The Lord certainly has an order to do this, as you pointed out. But also, I think Bob talked about this too, it's also a spiritual leadership. The Lord really puts on the husband to lead the family in spiritual things. Good, good. Okay. So why is love the most important quality toward his wife? Isn't it interesting that he never tells his wife to love her husband? Well, basically. But he does add a little... I found that this morning I was kind of thinking about this. So he adds a little caveat at the end.

Be careful about, do not embitter them against them. Embitter is the idea to provoke, to stir up. Why do you think he adds, he tells them to love their wives. Of course the love is not a love that he can actually, it's Christ's love that he's talking about. Unconditional love. But then he says, knowing man, knowing Adam, he knows that that's going to show up. And I was trying to think, Is that an issue? It can be, I guess. It must be. He said it. But it's interesting.

You look at these and you say, he tells the wife to be in subjection, to sing the Lord. He says, love your wife. Love is the most important, but don't embitter them. Well, don't you think it's because he doesn't tell the wife to love her husband unconditionally? No. So, what that tells me is, The Lord understood that wives would, in some cases, if the husband didn't step up, might in fact challenge him. And if the husband is challenged...

Give me a long car ride home. But I think that's what it is. Because if the husband is challenged by the wife, he could become embittered. And I think probably the Lord saw that right from the beginning. I agree. God has an order. We talked about it last week. He has an order in the Godhead. The Son says, I only do what I see the Father doing. So there's an order in the Godhead. There's an order in His creation. But what's going to happen is, because both parties, husband and wife, have sin natures, it's not going to be a perfect thing. So the wife is to do it as it's fitting in the Lord and the husband is not to be tripped up. That's over the top what she did. I can't love her anymore. That's it. That's the last straw. No, that's not to be, you know.

But it gets back to a very simple principle. We love God because He approached us. Exactly. I mean, it's kind of that same relationship that the husband and the wife have. Right, exactly. It's not called the love, but I think the principle plays. No, no. Roger, if you go back to the last three verses that we looked at, Right. And that's good. Actually, you know, if we put I put it in chunks, but you're right. If you read before that, that's right.

If that's if that's ruling in your heart, then these these won't be issues. OK, so remember, obedient is that I love the it's a cool to listen under. I really like that. I always try to remember that definition for obedience. Obedience is not. A heavy hand, boom, you will obey me. Come, listen to what I have to say. It's so appropriate with children. Listen to what I'm trying to say. You don't speak the same language. That's the problem right there. Margaret, have you told him to listen under? She's paying no attention. She's not listening. Do not exasperate your children. Exasperate, provoke, excite. So they will not lose heart.

This is last week, so I'm not sure there's much. Slaves and masters. We didn't really cover, just one thing before we close here. This is talking about slaves and masters and the slaves had no choice. But obviously in the employee boss situation, you do have a choice. You can leave the company, right? But a lot of the principles that we saw last week in slaves and masters kind of fold over. I think you guys already saw that from last week. And you're doing it to the Lord rather than men.

External service is actually eye service. They have the other trans-men pleasers. Actually, there's two aspects I kind of come to realize. Well, I guess, no, actually, I service those. One is that you work real hard when the boss is around. And the other one is you do something special to catch his eye. That's the other part of it. You say, well, I know how to get a better raise. I'll do this special thing and that will get me a couple of extra, you know, you do your work to the Lord and not to men. Okay, so then, actually my final thoughts were, I'll just read this, this is the Weiss translation.

In view of the fact, therefore, that you were raised up with Christ, the things above be constantly seeking where Christ is, on the right hand of God, seated I like that, on the right hand of God, seated. The things above be constantly setting your mind upon, not the things on the earth. For you died and your life has been hidden with Christ in God. Whenever Christ is made visible, our life, then also you with him shall be manifested in glory. So you were raised, you died, you're raised, your life is hidden, and you shall be manifested.

Pretty cool stuff. Alright, so let's close. We thank you, Father. Thank you for this day, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have, Father. We thank you for our time in chapter 3, Lord. It's been a real blessing. We pray for the rest of our time in Ephesians. We would learn the things you'd have us learn. In Christ's name, Amen.