Saturday Trinity 23 – Colossians 3:18-4:18 | Fr. Charles Erlandson Erlandson

Colossians 3:18-4:18

Today St. Paul confronts us with one of the most difficult but most important of Christian teachings: humility and contentment. Verse 18 through 4:1 are really part 2 of what Paul had to say yesterday in verse 17 regarding doing all things in the name of the Lord and giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

“Whatever you do,” Paul counsels in verse 23, “do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Jesus Christ.”

This is another key to practicing the presence of Christ and doing all things in the name of Christ: that we recognize that in serving the people God has put in our lives, we are in fact serving Jesus Christ. In fact, the way you serve those God has put in your life is the way you are serving Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ doesn’t come abstractly to us, so that we can have the illusion we are doing fine. No, he comes to us through the people and circumstances He has sovereignly put in our life, and the way we treat them is the way we are treating Him.

For the wife, then, submission to Jesus Christ and doing all things heartily unto Him involves submitting to her husband. This is a difficult thing for modern, “liberated” women to hear, but it is God’s truth, repeated several times throughout the New Testament in the clearest of terms. We can make up all sorts of fancy justifications for why a Christian wife isn’t to submit to her husband, but the fact remains that it is a commandment of the Lord.

Just as difficult, though at present without the political edge to it, is the commandment to husbands to love their wives. I think that when men hear this (and the accompanying commandment of the wife to submit to them) some of them secretly go, “Woo-Hoo! Yes!!” Not so much because they want to dominate their wives but because they think they’ve gotten the easy part of the bargain. But they haven’t. The commandment to love is all-encompassing, and often a husband’s idea of love stops far short of God’s. Loving your wife means a lot more than just providing material necessities and luxuries for her. It means caring for her above yourself. It even means the dreaded listening to her tell you how she is feeling in great detail, and taking this seriously.

Children are to obey their parents, for this is well pleasing to the Lord. Every time Christian children obey their parents, they are obeying the Lord, and when they are disobedient, it is really to their Lord that they are disobedient. The commandment for children to obey and honor parents is the first commandment with a promise. More than this, the way children relate to their parents is how they learn to relate to God. The most fundamental act of a Christian is obedience and humility before God, and this is first learned as a child in relation to our parents. Perhaps nowhere more closely than in the parent-child relationship do we see the immediate relationship between how we submit to the people in our lives and how we submit to God.

I told you men that you didn’t get the light end of the load, especially if you’re a father. Fathers are not to provoke their children but are to make sure they don’t become discouraged. They have an obligation to guard the little ones the Lord has entrusted to them. They are to nurture them. Fathers, if you like the idea of being head of the household, then start acting like one. Christian fathers have a history of leaving the spiritual nurture of the children to the mothers, and yet they are to be the spiritual heads of the household. Untold damage is done to a child’s soul when the father doesn’t seem to take an interest in spiritual things, and the odds that a child won’t remain in the faith are much greater when the father doesn’t go to church.

We don’t have many slaves anymore, but what if we substituted “employer” and “employee” for “slave”? Each of us should labor at our place of work as if we were working for Jesus Christ. How would each of you work if you knew that behind the human face you sometimes disrespect or regret was the face of your Lord?

The submission and humility we are to have is first and foremost a submission and humility before the Lord. This means that we must trust the means that He has given us to live out our humility before Him.

God desires and demands your loving submission to Him, but He does this by desiring and demanding your loving submission to Him in the relationships He has put in your life. It is easy to love and obey God in the abstract, but God, who became man for you, is asking you to love and obey Him through the relationships He has given you. It is no use wishing for another relationship than the one God has given you because a heart that is not submitted to God in one circumstance is a heart that will not be submitted to God in other circumstances. One who is not handling poverty well will not handle riches well, and one who has not learned humility as a child will not make a very godly parent.

It is not just our relationships in which God is asking us to submit to Him: it is in all of our circumstances. I firmly believe that every aspect of our lives is intended by God to lovingly lead us back to Him, if only we would humble ourselves before Him. If you are in a submissive position in a human relationship, here’s your chance to show how much you love the Lord and are humble before Him – by serving the one He has lovingly placed above you. If you are in a position of authority in a human relationship, here’s your chance to show how much you love the Lord and are humble before Him – by using your authority as one who is himself under submission to the Lord.

If you are sick, use that as a means of acknowledging your weakness that leads you back to God. If you are healthy, then turn to the Lord with thanksgiving. If there is a particular trial in your life, use it as a means of humbling you and leading you back to the Lord. Every single circumstance of your life is something that God means to lead you back to Him. Even if the source of some suffering in your life was in and of itself evil, God intends it as a means of you humbling yourself and relying on His strength and grace.

If we saw the little frustrations in life, the selfish and reckless drivers, the traffic jams, the constant interruptions in our carefully planned schedule, the stupid things that people say and do to us, etc. as a means of remembering God, we’d never forget Him. Likewise, if we accepted every good gift in our life, the morning coffee, the clear skies, our spouse or children or best friend in our day, etc. as a means to give thanks to God, we’d never forget Him.

Whatever you do, do heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, for it is the Lord that you serve. And if you humble yourself before Him, He will exalt you and give you the reward of inheritance, which is His presence with you. And that is the very thing we’re after.

Prayer: Father, I know You are the giver of every good gift. Please help me accept everything in my life as from You, as a means of leading me closer to You. Help me to submit to every person to whom You have asked me to submit and to exercise authority, always remembering that I am serving You. Use every part of my life, Lord, as a means of drawing me closer to You in true humility. Amen.

Resolution and Point for Meditation: I resolve today to practice one of the following means of serving and remembering the Lord.

1. To remind myself throughout the day, in a particular relationship, that I am serving Jesus Christ in that relationship.

2. To accept every setback, disappointment, and pain today as a means of me learning to cry out to God and return to Him.

3. To receive every good gift with a brief, verbal thanksgiving to God.