Thank you, Alex. And thank you, Gus, for. the singing today. This is week two of three where our associate pastor that typically leads worship, Wade Thomas and his wife, Sarah are in Africa, picking up the daughter Rose that they are adopting.

And so, we'll get to meet her soon enough, Lord willing. And also, greetings to those of you in the great room downstairs. Thank you for meeting down there so we can all have space to breathe a little bit up here. And my name is Michael. I'm the lead pastor here at Christ the King Church. And I'd love to have a chance to say hi to you.

If you would like to stop by, I'll try to hang out in the cafe after service and say hello. Quick updates about our building relocation effort. And let me pull this up here. So, here's where things are. I'll just give you this quick update. The purchase agreement for the new building has been signed that we are now in this due diligence period where we do building inspections and that sort of thing to see if there's anything wrong with the building that would need to be addressed.

And that will last for up to 60 days. And then the closing will take place within 30 days after that. So, we have roughly 90 days or so total during this time where we're between while they're doing this due diligence and then we'll close Lord willing at the end of that. The, this building that we're in currently should be listed on the market sometime in the next week or so.

And finally, if you've made a pledge and have not fulfilled that yet, this is a great chance to do here's an update on where we are financially. So, the number's a little rough here because now we're in the pledge fulfillment side of things and not the pledge making side of things. We have to line up pledges made with re, financial receipts and then how well does, some people have given more and that sort of thing.

So, I think this is fairly accurate. It, I don't think we, I don't think there's less raised. So, this is a, this is at least this much $877,322 at least that much has either been pledged or and that leaves $122,768 remaining to hit the $1,000,000 mark. And don't wait the whole 90 days if you're waiting to give.

It would be great to know before the end of that 90 days that we've hit our mark. If you're able to send your pledges in or if you haven't pledged or if you haven't donated yet. This is a great chance to do and to do so as quickly as possible would be a big help, but one way you could do it is going to this website that will direct you to our giving portal that goes directly to this fund.

Or you could just use the silver boxes in the back and just write the word Northern Kentucky or something like that in the memo to let us know where to allocate it. That's enough for that. Now let's move into the book of Colossians. We are doing a series in the book of Colossians. And today we're in Colossians chapter three.

And this text has been called by theologians “household codes” which is not very exciting title, but the actual content I think is super helpful. And I hope that it'll be helpful for you today. You can also think of it as house rules. And there's a number of places in the New Testament.

that has little sections of scripture that go through a series of commands or instructions for households. So, you have one in here in Colossians three, there's one in Ephesians chapter five. You see it also in first Timothy five, first Timothy two. There's a few other places that first Peter three, I think.

So, there's these little sections that do something similar in all of them. But the basic idea is this is how Christian households should operate. And it's an application of the fifth commandment. And that may not be the first thing you thought but these household codes are an application of the fifth commandment, but.

Because the fifth commandment doesn't just apply to children and their parents, but it applies to various relationships that exist within a household and even within society. So, here's the fifth commandment from Exodus chapter 20 verse 12. It says, honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that your, the Lord, your God is giving you.

That's the fifth commandment. But this text does not just apply to children and parents. This text applies to all relationships within a household. And the book of Exodus gives us in the fifth commandment, just a little, a snippet here in the fifth commandment, but in other places in the Old Testament, it develops it further and you, and the household codes in the New Testament, they all applied this text.

the fifth commandment. And the basic idea of the fifth commandment is to obey all authorities because all society in the ancient world was organized as a household. All society was organized as a household. So even now we might refer to our founding fathers. As those who wrote our, Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

We call them Founding Fathers and not Founding Writers or Founders but Founding Fathers because of this idea that all of society is organized as a household, even though we don't acknowledge that so overtly now. A lot of us don't even think that way. But biblically, that is very much how the Bible presents all the relationships within a society, is as a household.

Okay. So, all society is organized as a household, and this text this text is built on that understanding. So, it's the, as I'll read it here in a moment, and it's pretty straightforward what it says. So, there's not a whole lot of ambiguity in what the text itself says, but a lot of times people miss the bigger context.

They miss the bigger picture because they don't understand this idea of a household that undergirds the teaching. So, I want to focus a good bit of time on just unpacking this idea of a household, which can then inform the way we understand this text. So, I'll read the text, then I'll go, then I'll give you a good bit of cultural and theological background that can help us as we seek to apply it faithfully.

Okay. So, it's a little bit different. There's a, we're front loading some theology and then we'll get into some application towards the second part of the sermon. So, let's read the text. We're in Colossians chapter three. And I'm going to read verse 18 through chapter four, verse one.

Let's listen to God's word. Wives submit to your husbands 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. Bondservants, 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 bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you have a master in heaven.

This is God's word.

In the modern world, a typical family is what you got your mom. You got your dad, and you got your kids. That's typical family. And let's say even more traditionally, the way that it has often been done in our society, you'll have dad who works a job. Sometimes you have a mom who also works a job, or sometimes she's what we would call a stay-at-home mother, right?

Okay. And then you would have kids that would go off to school somewhere. And so, the household, as we think of it in the modern world, is we think of the household is a place of recreation, a place of rest. It's where we retreat from the work of the world, and we go home to rest. That's the most typical thing, the typical way we think of the household.

And we do not think of the household as a place where we do our primary work. We think of chores that we do in the household, work around the house, but we do not think of the house as the place where we do our primary work. The ancient household that this text was written to was very different.

And that difference is the thing that I really want us to highlight because I think it will unlock so much application in this text and will make this text seem less scary. To those of you who found it scary. That's what I want us to make sure we see that. So, in the ancient world, the household would include the extended family.

And a lot of people that would be living in close proximity to one another. The household in the biblical sense would include the father, and the mother, and the children, and the grandparents, and the aunts, and the uncles, and the cousins, and perhaps servants would also be part of the household.

And all of them together, every single one, they were all together corporately, they all contributed to the work of the household to make sure it was running smoothly. And for our purposes here, the biggest difference between the ancient household and the modern household that I want us to notice is work.

Work is a huge difference because in the ancient world, the household was the primary place of work. Everybody worked from home for the most part because work like your household, you worked for and in your household and that was that you saw when you talked about your household, you're thinking of this is a place of work business where you're working for yourselves, you're making your food, your clothing, your Children, you are providing for yourselves.

All of that was done in the context of the household. So, in the ancient household, they had to provide for their own food. They had to provide their own healthcare. They didn't have hospitals. They would educate their own children. They would protect themselves from threats. They didn't have the police to call.

They didn't have the fire department to call if they had a fire in the ancient world, your household was everything. So that was your place. That was like a little mini society that provided so much of what you needed and depend on, and it was absolutely necessary to survive. This is why widows and orphans were a crisis because widows and orphans are women and children that do not have a household they belong to.

So, they're much more vulnerable. And if you have a household, then you're protected. You're attached to an enterprise that can protect you and provide for you. But if you didn't have that, you're much more vulnerable. And so that was a big deal. Now, once we understand that this was the universal arrangement in the ancient world that was necessary for their survival.

And once we understand also that God created the world and designed the household to be able to function and even thrive in this arrangement, then the Bible's teaching about manhood and womanhood makes a lot more sense because they're working. And we can receive the wisdom of scripture. We can see the way God made things, and this is for the benefit of everybody.

This is what protects people. This is what makes sure everybody gets fed. Everyone is clothed. Everyone's interests are looked out for. Because there is a number of people, a larger extended family, working together, and their attachment together to the household is necessary for their own survival.

Now there's a whole lot more that I could say about this. And. We only have so much time. However, I will come into you a book that I wrote. So, if you know this, I wrote this book called God's good design and the perspective I'm sharing with you this morning is something that I've been thinking about for a number of years.

I did a lot of research on it and this book is meant to help you. present the theology that I'm talking about this morning, but also apply it to various different situations in the modern world. So basically, how do we take what God said to an ancient household context and apply it in a modern household context?

I have five copies here and I want to give them away for free. And what I'll do is I want to just sit them up here on the stage and after the service, if you would like a copy, all I ask if you take one of these free copies is that you commit to reading it. And by committing to read it, like actually open it up and read all the words in it and, like cover to cover, read the whole thing and if you hate it, then then just give it back to me and I'll give it to somebody else.

But I think that it, it's written with a very much a gentle pastor's heart to apply God's word to a situation that is different from the ancient times. So let me just say a few more things about this. This whole passage was written to instruct people about how Christian households should function.

And God's word is eternally true. God's word does not just apply in the ancient world, and then we get to change it in the modern times. cause their culture is different. Our context is different. No, that's not how it works. The God's word is true, and God's word needs to be applied and obeyed regardless of our cultural circumstance.

However, we have to account for how is our cultural circumstance different from the ancient world so we can apply it properly. So, what stands out? Whenever I read this passage a minute ago, what stood out right away? Probably the first five or six words stood out. Wives submit to your husbands, which often is enough to get people to just stand up and walk out right away.

And I've had that happen to me while preaching before. People literally got up and walked out just by reading a text of scripture. But this is what God's word says. Now, that can feel scary for people. For women especially, and there's a number of reasons why. That is, it can feel oppressive if they don't understand what's happening.

Another thing that stands out is that there's a number of relationships that are ordered around authority. You notice that? Somebody is supposed to submit to somebody else. And so, the structure of the household, there's authorities within this household of relationships depending on where you are in the relationship.

What else do we notice? You might have noticed that there are six commands given to six different Types of people, but I, each of those six commands are ordered pairs. So, you have husbands, wives, that's an ordered pair. You have parents, children, that's an ordered pair, and you have bond servants and masters, that's an ordered pair.

So, three different layers of authority, and then the two individuals or two categories of people within that ordered pair and how they relate to one another. So, each pair has someone who is under an authority. And the text says they should submit to the authority over them. And then the other side is you have the one who is in authority should not abuse the authority that they have.

So, everybody has somebody that they need to submit to and everybody who is in authority is commanded to not abuse the authority that was given to them. It's pretty simple, right? But we chafe at it. We chafe at this, and it can be pretty uncomfortable. Now why do we think that is? I think there's at least two reasons.

One is because the spirit of our age is anti-authority. We just hate the idea of being in authority, or we hate the idea of somebody being in authority over us. There's, it's part of the American spirit, just cast off the oppressor and, defy tyrants. We've heard that a lot in the election season.

There's this, just independent, throw off all forms of authority that's a big streak in our culture is anti-authority. Yeah. But I think another reason why we don't like it, and we chafe against it, is because we tend to miss the point about what is being said. We read our fears into the text, and we're not letting the text just speak on its own terms.

The point that we miss is this, is that ancient households were places of work, and places of work need good order to survive and to thrive. And even though modern households, we don't rely on each other the same way they did in the ancient household, the basic order of the household remains the same.

Because this is the way God made the world. This is the way God set it up from the beginning. So, the challenge that we have then is how do we apply these household codes that I just read to you in a cultural context that's very different from the one they were written to? A couple of options. Some people read, we call it an egalitarian option, or you might say the feminist option.

And the feminist option is to disregard all of it, to see it as an outdated relic of the oppressive patriarchy. And that these things were written as a way for men to subjugate women and to oppress them and hold them down. And so, they say we just have to get rid of that. And so basically, it's reading a fear into the text.

Another option could be a hyper patriarchal option. And a hyper patriarchal option is to treat the wife like she's a domestic servant. That she has no voice, she has no rights, she does not need to be considered, she's just supposed to do what she's told and sit off in the corner and have no authority in her own home.

These are errors. Both of these are errors. And both of these errors arise from a failure to acknowledge that these commands were given to working households. They had jobs to do. They were trying to accomplish a particular task that was necessary for the survival of all of them. And there needed to be some kind of order and structure to be able to do their work well.

So, let's think of it this way. Think of the verses I read a moment ago and think of these verses as instructions for running a small business. And let's say instead of household codes, it was family business codes. You're running a family business together. And now, assume that the family businesses are, it's you have a, the owner, the guy who owns it.

His whole extended family is working for him. So, you've got 20, 40, even 60 people, something like that, that belong to his family's extended family in this household. And they're all relying on one another for their survival. And they all need to play their part. They all need to contribute because they're counting on one another to be able to survive as a family.

And in such an arrangement, you've got to have some kind of structure. Who of you who has a job doesn't have a boss? Every job has a boss, unless you're self-employed and even then, you're accountable to your customers or your investors. Everybody's accountable to someone. So, everybody has a boss.

And whenever we think of work, nobody has a problem saying of course I've got a boss because it's at work and important things happen at work. But we don't think of home as the place where important things happen. We think of home. It's that's just where I go, and I do rest and recreation.

We just hang out and watch TV there. So why is the husband get to be in charge of that? There's nothing to be in charge of. You pick what show we watch. Do you get to just, dictate here's the food that the wife has to make. It's there's nothing to be in charge of there.

That's because the modern household is not productive. And so, there's, it's really, it's odd to think about the husband being in charge because there's, and that's where it gets scary because if you're not working, then it seems I'm not submitting to him in a work that I'm doing.

It's he's actually. The way you read it; it could be read as though he is dictating every little detail of my life. And that's how a lot of women read it. And that's why a lot of people react so strongly to it. And then a lot of men abuse the way that the tech, they'll abuse the text to do things that are harmful and cruel to their wives.

And. It's weird, it's I'll just speak to my experience as a pastor. So, we, here we are in Clifton, and Clifton's a pretty liberal neighborhood, and over the years we've had pretty liberal people that have come through our doors. And the emphasis of my preaching over the years has been to make sure we're correcting the errors of kind of the liberal mindset, where they just want to say, that doesn't mean anything, that doesn't mean anything.

But now, over the last couple of years our, we've had a different population coming into our church, and now there's people that come from environments that, they're scared because they believe what the Bible says, and they want to apply what the Bible says, but they've seen it abused in really just oppressive ways in very unhealthy environments.

It's got their type people, if you come from that world. Of course, you're going to have baggage. You're going to have baggage because of what you've seen, or at least what you've heard. And so, your temptation is to hear this text, but it doesn't mean that. And in that sense, you're going to lean towards the feminist reading of the text, but it doesn't mean anything.

And then you have other people that's always been your reading of the scripture and everything in your mind, men or women are in men and women are interchangeable. And so, you read a text like this. And you'd be like no everything has got to be the same. Everything has got to be totally equal.

And so, you're reading your own experience and your own preferences back into the text. And what I'm saying is we have to acknowledge where the errors are. So that way we can get to the heart of the text and to apply it in a way that is faithful. And the thing is it can be applied faithfully and.

To my knowledge, I don't see any abuses of this text that I've seen in this church. So, I'm preaching to the choir here, but I know this text just happened to line up on Baby Dedication Sunday. So, there's a lot of people here that may not be familiar with how we operate as a church, but what I'm going to describe to you today is as far as I know, I've not seen anything that, that concerns or troubles me.

And I've seen a lot that really encourages and inspires me because there are so many godly families that operate just the way I'm going to advocate to you this morning. I got off track here. Where am I at? Think of this. I hear talking about just having this idea of a chain of command. So, there's a restaurant in Newport.

Mexican restaurant and this Mexican restaurant, there's a, of course, typical Mexican restaurant. A lot of the people that are running the place are from Mexico. And so, in this restaurant, it's a pretty big restaurant and they're in a pretty big space. And then I was there on one occasion where I saw, there's like this little door in part of the restaurant and it just didn't it's not marked or labeled and somebody, when I was sitting there, somebody opened that door, and I was peeking around my corner.

I don't know what's back there and I noticed there's living quarters back there. And I'm like, Oh, that's interesting. I see like a bed against a wall and there's like a couch and a TV. And I'm like, what a strange thing to have in a restaurant. And so, I asked the server and I'm like, so what's that back there?

It looks like people live there. He said, oh yeah, we all do. And I was like, really, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, we all live there. And I'm like, how does that work? He goes we're all from the same family. There's a few of us come over here and they started the business and as they earned money, they would send money back to their family and that would pay for them to come over here.

Of course, this is a long time ago, back before they would just fly them in for free, but that's another story. But they would send money to bring their relatives over and then eventually they would come, and they would work in the restaurant and then there's probably some code violation, but I'm not going to turn them in, but there's a ton of people living inside this restaurant in the living quarters.

That is much closer to the ancient household and the text that we've read that we're looking at this morning makes a lot more sense. Whenever you realize they're doing stuff, and they are counting on everybody. It's like you got the younger kids will say you got a 15-year-old, 16-year-old boy or whatever, working in the kitchen.

He's you got to do the dishes. And we got bus boys over here and you got some of the young girls and they're waiting tables or they're being hostesses. And you've got, people that are line cooks, whatever. It's everybody's doing their job. And if somebody doesn't do their job, then it harms the business, and they can't make the money that they need.

And the, and that, that affects everybody. If you're not related to one another, and if it's not husbands and wives, then everybody's that's just a workplace. Of course, you gotta have that in a workplace. It's when you apply that idea to the household that people start to freak out, because now you're not saying, bosses be nice to your employees and employees submit your bosses.

You're saying like, wives submit your husbands. And that feels oh, that's a domestic oppression. That's harmful. That's cruel. But it's like, what if they're actually running a business together and he needs to be able to count on her to do her part. And she's counting on him to do his part.

Whenever we see this difference in context, it seems oh, that's not scary at all. That's just how, that's how things have to be whenever you're running a large operation. So, let's say okay this is just a long intro. Let me just move on. So, I want to go, I want to get into these six commands and then these six commands, there's these three complimentary pairs.

Now, just for the sake of time, I'm not going to be able to go through all of these different relationships and pairs. I want to focus on the first four and then I'm just make a couple of comments about the last two. Okay. So, let's start to walk through these verses one at a time. So now we're going to.

Go to verse 18, and this verse that terrifies people and sends them shrieking out of the room, hopefully doesn't sound so scary anymore. Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. So, we'll deal with the toughest one right away. The election just wrapped up. And You've probably noticed a lot of the propaganda from the Democratic campaign.

It was that conservatives want to turn the world into the Handmaid's Tale, right? Where you have these women that are domestic servants, sex slaves even. I've never seen the show, or I don't know the book so I'm assuming about what it's about. But it's basically conservatives want to enslave women and that's why they're such terrible people.

I don't know. And that's how so many people read this text. They read these words in verse 18, and immediately Handmaid's Tale pops into their minds as this sort of horrible thing where these women have no rights. They have no voice. They're just they're just treated, and that's what you get in Islam.

That's not what you get in Christianity, but Islam will certainly give you that. But in Christianity, Christianity upholds women. Christianity holds women in high regard and treats them as equals with dignity. But That's something that you only get from Christianity. You look at other around the world and other religions don't treat women this well.

So, it's totally a misnomer, but it isn't scary. And much of the application, if once you see it this way, much of the application falls into place because it assumes a working environment. So, let's say you have a woman who starts a brand-new job. She's working a job. And the HR department, this is welcome to new employee orientation.

And here today let me just go over some of the way things work. I'll introduce you to some of the staff. Oh, and here comes Mr. Smith, he's the CEO. You're going to be reporting to Mr. Smith. He's your new boss. He'll tell you what to do and you'll report to him. Who would have a problem with that?

Nobody would. That's just how businesses work. Nobody has a problem with a chain of command in a working environment. So that's not terrifying or controversial. Now let's suppose we change up the story a little bit. Let's say that the woman at this job is actually Mrs. Smith and Mr. Smith is her husband.

So, Mr. Smith is the CEO, and this is their business and she's not a new employee going to orientation. She is the one who was his partner in starting the business because they, this is a family business. They operate it together and they work as a team. Now, suppose this business has 50 employees. Many of whom are family members.

So, Mr. Smith, he's the president and CEO of the business. And then suppose as president and CEO, he tells his wife to do something. That's not a sex thing, is it? That's not a sex thing. That's a work thing because you expect people that work for you that in this business environment, you expect people to do what they're told because that's necessary for the business to function.

So, let's say the husband says, hey babe, can you run those sales reports from quarter one and send them over to accounting? Would she be like, how dare you oppress me? I'm not going to submit to you. What makes you the man given, who gives you the right to rule over me? She would not say that because she was like, of course.

He's trying to do his job. He's telling me what I need to do so we can function as a team. And somebody has to be the one kind of directing traffic. So, Paul says, think of it in those, think of it in those terms. Paul says, why submit to your husbands? Is this fitting in the Lord? Of course you would. Of course you would want to, because you're working as a team.

And the more efficiently, and the clearer the chain of command, the more easily you can succeed, the better things run, it's more smooth. And you'd be a fool if you see that as some kind of handmaid's tale. It's just how things have to work. If you're going to get the job done now, that's not most of us in our church, at least I want to speak to a segment of our population that where we're going to have to apply this most specifically.

So, there's a lot of stay-at-home mothers at Christ the King Church. So how do women who are stay at home mothers apply this text faithfully? And I'm not saying that it's wrong for a woman to have a job. Don't. Don't send me nasty emails. I'm just saying like for the purposes of this, I just want to talk to a large segment of our people here.

I want to read to you a text. This is Titus chapter two, verses three through five. So, this is a command given to the church. It says older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves too much wine. They are to teach what is good. And so, train the young women. So, we're talking older women are to train the young women to do what?

Okay. To love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working, at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. This text is a pretty good template for godly womanhood. It's easy to think that being a stay-at-home mother in our kind of Christian tribe, I see this thinking sometimes where being a stay-at-home mother is held up as the standard of godly womanhood. And so, you might think, if I'm a stay-at-home mother, then that's what it means to be faithful. I'm a faithful woman, since I'm a stay-at-home mom. But I want to challenge you that is not the standard of godliness. The standard of godliness is not simply staying at home. The standard of godliness is Working at home, staying as a location, staying is just not going anywhere.

Working is the standard and that is you're productive, you're industrious, you're busy, you're doing things and you're doing things with a particular goal in mind, and that is to build up your household. That is what a godly woman would do. So, here's the application point. Application point is simply don't be lazy.

If you're in a, say in a corporate environment with a job and a boss and employees, the expectation is that there's going to be some accountability. You're going to get performance reports. You're going to have the boss that'll write you up if you're late all the time, whatever it's like there's accountability structure that is expected and normal and good in a work environment, but in a home, we've lost this idea.

And Christian husbands, a lot of times they're a bit hesitant to even ask for much because they don't want to be the oppressive husband that they've been warned not to be. And so, there's a bit of an understanding to where if both husband knows, I want to give direction for my wife.

I want to help her say here's what I think, here's what I see our household needs. And then the wife says, I want to do what my husband is asking me to do and do it well. That's when we get to working at home. And that is a more. That is a more faithful application of this text. So just staying at home, that's a pretty low bar to reach.

Working at home is more of a bar that you should strive for. And so, a lot of women in women's Bible studies, especially, you'll hear about the Proverbs 31 woman and That is held up as exemplary and for good reason, but it's not just a lot of times. It is a taught as she's a Proverbs 31 woman is this corporate executive or something when if you just read the text, pretty straightforward It's like she's a mother and she is a wife and all that she is doing and all of her industriousness It's for the building up of her home.

And so that's that is an exemplary woman a godly woman and she's exceptional because of her industry. So, no husband should impede his wife's capacity and desire to build and to optimize and organize her home. He should want to do everything he can to free her and to resource her so that she can build the home that God has called her to build because that is her domain.

That is hers. Like I think in my view, like a husband should be You want to give her direction, but you want to let, you want to let a woman run her home because it's good for her. God made her for that. She is the domestic sphere. That's her sphere. And the wife should have the resources that is needed for her to be able to do that well.

So, in my opinion, a simple acknowledgement that the husband and wife can have with each other can go a long way. This acknowledgement is this, both of them acknowledge he's the head of the home. He's accountable to God for how this household operates, including how he leads his wife and how he leads the children.

And then the wife acknowledges that her job is to be the helper for him to build up and support her household and to help her husband. That's probably enough of a baseline. And remember, you're a team, you are building something together. It may not look like a family business, the way it did in the ancient world, but still the product of your household is the children you're raising.

And so, there's a lot of work to do and there's a lot, it takes a lot of effort to do it well. So, if a husband is barking orders at his wife all the time with this idea of submit to me, it's not a good sign. That's not a good sign. Oftentimes that's a pretty unhealthy environment, even though he could point to a verse in the Bible that might authorize him to do but if that is the, if that's the card he's playing, that's not a good sign of a healthy home. Most modern women, even Christian women were. We're not raised to think this way. And that's why there's some resistance to it. And there's a bit of a skill gap too. Because there's a lot of just domestic skills that used to be pretty common that mothers taught to their daughters, and they were passed down through the generations.

And a lot of those are lost. So, like my mother, she learned how to sew from her grandmother and that was a skill that was passed down. And then that didn't, my sisters, they do, they've done some quilting, but it wasn't, it died there. Because that was a skill that was pretty universal my mom could, she made my dad and I matching suits whenever I was a kid.

Because she just had the skill of sewing and it's cheaper to make her own, go to a fabric store and buy fabric and make a suit than it was to just go to, JCPenney or whatever the store was at the time to buy them. But now those skills are lost. And so, I think there needs to be a good bit of grace for women who desire to honor what the scripture says, but they have not been given the skills.

And that's where Titus two women are really key. If you have women that desire this, there are women here in this church body that have skills that they could teach you. And I think that if they'd be willing, and of course the Bible says older women, teach them. Right here, teach. So older women, teach it to the younger women.

And that's not, that very often could mean, or should mean, practical skills. How do you manage your budget? How do you do a meal plan? How do you make the most out of your food budget? Whatever. And that's what Mom Collective does. Some of you ladies, if you've never been to Mom Collective before it's wonderful.

It's one of my favorite things that we do as a church, because it equips women with skills and not just barking commands at them, but it gives women skills to put into practice what the Bible says.

Okay. I want to move to these; I want to move some of these quickly. Verse 19. So, we've already talked about the wives. Now husbands love your wives and do not be harsh with them. This is a counterpoint to the previous command. And this is where the wives are given protection from husbands who might over apply the first verse, which is wives submit to their husbands.

So, there's a positive and a negative, something husbands to do and something husbands to not do. So, what are they to do? They are to love their wives. That's the positive command. So, in our day, that's pretty obvious. Everybody would say a husband ought to love his wife. Not even if they're not Christians, everybody would say a husband's ought to love their wives.

But just don't let it be lost on us why that's obvious. And it's because that is one of the lingering memories of Christianity in the West that was this idea that husbands should love their wives was provided by Christianity. And Christianity, the memory of Christianity lives on in this perception that all husbands should love their wives.

So that came to us from Christianity. And so, Paul's command then is a reminder to husbands that your wife is a co-equal partner with you. You cherish her as a gift. And to love her is to seek what's best for her and to encourage her to consider her desires and feelings as you lead her. And here's a great text to, to flesh that out more.

First Corinthians 13 love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Husband, if you're loving your wife this way, probably have a pretty good marriage. She'll probably be pretty receptive to you and pretty receptive to your leadership. If you're loving her in this way.

Now there's a negative, which is do not be harsh. Do not be harsh with them. So that's something you must not do. What is that about? Harshness usually shows up in the way we speak. It's our words, it's our tone, it's our attitude, our mood. And men tend to be more angry, more grouchy than women. It's pretty common with men.

I don't know. I'm more grouchy than Laura is. She's sweet all the time. I'm, I can be pretty grouchy sometimes. And so, it's it is a discipline to speak tenderly to your wife. Be gentle with her. Don't you can't, you don't want to talk to your wife. Like you would talk to you to a male friend.

She's not a dude. You don't want to talk to her like a dude. You're going to hurt her. And you don't want to hurt your wife. You want to love her. And so just speak tenderly with her and don't be careless with your words. That doesn't mean don't be truthful with her, but even when you're being truthful with her, you want to do so with a sort of gentleness and tenderness that doesn't wound her.

All right, now let's move on to the next one. I want to talk to the children. Any kids that are in here that are They were able to listen up. So now we're here in verse 20, children, obey your parents and everything for here's the rationale. This pleases the Lord. This pleases the Lord. So, anybody who's a teenager or younger any kids in the room?

I'm talking to you now. This is like the old Baptist children's church; except I'm not going to have you come up to just stay where you are but listen to me for a second. God gave you parents, and he gave you parents to teach you what it is like to follow God. And so, it is their job to tell you what to do, to teach you and to train you and to discipline you.

And the Bible says it pleases the Lord whenever you obey them. So, when you obey your parents, if you want to do what pleases God, then obey mom and dad because obeying mom and dad is how you please God. So, whenever they tell you it's bedtime, go to bed. When they give you chores to do your chores. When they tell you what you're allowed to watch or not allowed to watch, follow the rules because this pleases the Lord.

God is happy Whenever children obey their parents, that makes God happy. And if you disobey your mom and dad, and if you break the rules, then God requires your parents to discipline you, to punish you, to impose a penalty, to make, to give you something that's painful, to teach you not to disobey. And God make, God requires them to do that.

They must do it because that's what God tells them to do. So, this is the way God set things up and obeying mom and dad will prepare you to obey God yourself when you get older. Now, there's a flip side to this. Let's talk to the fathers for a second. Fathers do not provoke your children unless they become discouraged.

Now, obviously this goes for both parents. But it's addressed to fathers because fathers are the head of their home, and I think fathers are more prone to do the thing that he's telling them not to do here. The Greek is erathidzo for provoke. And in our translation here, it says provoke, but in other translations, it says exasperate or embitter.

You ever seen a child exasperated, you know what it looks like. And maybe you remember being exasperated when you were a child by something that your parents or your father did. And it means causing someone to feel resentment. Or bitterness or anger. Now, obviously children are going to have temper tantrums.

They're going to show anger, but this is you’re doing it to provoke the anger to cause it. You're acting in a way that pushes them beyond what they're capable of handling. And so good fathers will push their kids. They'll push them to be the best they can be. Good fathers will have high standards for their kids.

They'll make their kids work hard, but sometimes fathers can push too hard and then. They become discouraged. Because you're pushing them beyond what they're capable of, and it exasperates them, exasperate. The feeling is just I can't do anything. I can't please this guy. There's nothing I can do.

They're overwhelmed. Exasperation is an overwhelmed feeling. And so, you'll, you don't want to exasperate your child. You don't want to push them to where they just give up because they know that they'll never be good enough. That's not good for a child. And a father has to, has to gauge this with the child.

And it's going to be different from one kid to the next. Some kids you can push them harder, and they respond well to it. Other kids, you need to find other ways to get through to them. And so, fathers need to be attentive to this, especially, mothers as well. And mother's Hey honey, you're pushing them too hard.

Or, hey honey, yeah, you're letting them get away with stuff here. Between mother and father, they can come up with a good strategy for how best to push the child to be the best they can be without exasperating them and pushing them too far. And so, every kid needs a dad to push them to do better and to do better even than they thought possible.

Because kids don't know what they're capable of. So, you need a dad, a good father to push you. And every kid also needs their dad to always give them his heart. Every kid needs to ne needs their dad's approval. And the thing that would definitely exasperate a child Is to feel as though their performance is what conditions whether or not dad approves of them or dad loves them.

So, if withholding love or affection from a child is the thing that you're using, if that's like the stick, the carrot and the stick that you're using to motivate the child, then you are going to exasperate the child because what motivates the child is pleasing their father is to know what makes dad happy.

I want to do what makes my dad happy. I want to please him. And so, if you are withholding affection until they perform well. You're going to exasperate them.

So, you don't want to withhold love as a leverage to improve their performance. Rather, you're going to let them know that you're pushing them to do better because you love them and because you believe in them. My dad always did this. I had a great dad. Not had still do have a great dad. He's still around.

But my dad was always at every ball game. If I had a piano recital, I'd play piano. He would always be at every piano recital. And he was always like, I believe in you. You can do this. He believed in me more than I believed in myself. And that inspired me. And he would push me too. My dad would push me pretty hard, and he had very high standards, but his standards were not, it wasn't like, he didn't love me until, I performed at a certain level.

I always knew he loved me, but I didn't want to let him down. It's I wanted to please my dad. I wanted to perform well because I wanted to see his pleasure in me doing well. And that's ironically the same thing God says in the previous verse, children, obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord.

That text says, hey children, do you want to please the Lord? Obey your parents. Do well at obeying your parents and that'll make God happy. That same kind of motivation, parents, you can learn from that. Like it pleases mom, it pleases dad whenever you perform well. So, get good grades, do well, work hard, try your best on the sports team or do well, whatever you do, and then let your pleasure be something that motivates them, but not the fear of withholding love that'll exasperate them.

So, dad, encourage your kids, tell them I'm pushing you because I believe in you and because I love you. Okay. I want to read the last couple of verses and I'm not going to make many comments on it, but we'll just, I'll read these. A couple comments and we'll finish, but this discussion of bond servants and masters is a whole other big topic, big can of worms, and we just, it's more than we can get into here, but there's plenty of good instruction here about how we approach our work.

Let me just read it. Bond servants obey and everything. Those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Amen. Whatever you do, there it is again, 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 bond servants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. These verses are useful for any Christian in any work environment and in any cultural context.

Because as Christians, we've got additional motivation to work hard and to do well, especially if it's work we don't like. And I know that's a lot of you. A lot of you work jobs that you don't like. You don't like your boss. You don't like the conditions of your work. You don't like the work itself. And so, this text.

These are your memory verses, apply these to heart, apply these to your situation, because we've got additional motivation. Verse 23, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. That's a radically new motivation for work. You're not merely working for a paycheck or for your boss or for your company, but you are ultimately working for the Lord, even if you don't like the work or your boss or your company, right?

Jesus is your boss. Amen. Amen. And the kingdom of God is your company and the good things that happen in your heart when you do your work joyfully with a servant's heart that is good for the kingdom of God, even if you don't like the job environment itself, verse 24 says you are serving the Lord Christ.

Jesus is your boss, right? You're working for Christ. No matter what kind of work you do, if you're changing a diaper, if you're making meals, if your work feels mundane and monotonous. Jesus is your boss, and you are serving the Lord Christ. You are loving your neighbor. You're loving the child You're doing whatever as unto the Lord and you can do work Dedicated to the Lord if your heart is serving Christ, even if the work itself is not that exciting verse 24, you will receive the inheritance as a reward.

So that's a, you're not working just for a paycheck, right? A lot of us think it's I'm doing this work and then so many hours or salary and then I get a paycheck. But this tells us, with, through faith, your work can be transformed because you are doing the work. You're looking forward to your inheritance as a Christian.

That's your reward. That's your paycheck. Spiritually speaking. That's your paycheck. If you're overworked and underpaid, that's hope. And your employer may not compensate you adequately, but Jesus will, and he's got unlimited resources. He loves to bless his people. No matter what kind of work you do, at job or at home, work as though you're serving Jesus.

Let me just conclude today with one more reminder about the importance of the household. And I just want to remind us about the importance of the household for God's purposes in the world. Redemption in Christ, in the gospel, comes to us in the shape of a household. Because God has ordered the universe this way.

This household structure is not just, the way it happens to work out, but this is the way God has, the whole universe is ordered around God's own cosmic household. So, God is a father, right? He is eternally the father, but he sent his only son, Jesus Christ. And he sent his son to redeem his bride. He's married to his church, right?

And he died to pay for her sins, to wash her. Ephesians five says the union between the husband and wife tells this story of the gospel. It's Paul says the mystery is profound and I'm saying it refers to Christ and the church. So, marriage is a picture of this cosmic universal household of Jesus's love and commitment to his bride, the church.

And then individual people, men and women, we become sons and daughters as we are adopted into the household of faith, the eternal household of God through faith in Christ. And we do that by confessing our sins and repenting and being forgiven. And then we live with him forever, and God's spirit then, through us, he proclaims this good news to the world, and then more people are born into his house as they are born again.

So, there is a sense of being born into the household of God by the spirit. And so, God's household grows as his kingdom grows, as more and more people are born again, and God gives them the right to become his children. And so, these are just, these are the spiritual reasons and there's so many more why we would want to order our human households and our families in the way that is prescribed in scripture because our households are telling a story.

They are proclaiming something good. They're telling the world about this is who God is, and this is how God has ordered his universe. So, it's more than just husbands and wives. It's more than just parents and kids and it's more than just work. It's about the way God designed the world patterned after Jesus.

His cosmic household. So well ordered Christian household testifies to the truth. They confess as for me and my house; we will serve the Lord. Amen. Let's pray our father and our God. We thank you that you are the eternal father and that you have ordered your house in such a way that. Redemption comes to us through the son, Jesus Christ.

And we are the bride, and we become sons and daughters adopted into your family. And Lord, all of these household images and themes are part of the gospel story and Lord, even as we feast now at the tape, the table, the, we feast on the bread and the wine. It's, it is a celebration of your body and your blood that was laid down to purchase your bride.

And we thank you that we are united. To Christ by faith and that at the end of all things, heaven comes to us in the form of a marriage supper of the lamb. And so, Lord, this household languages, these pictures of the household are throughout scripture to tell us this is the way you made the world. And so, Lord, I pray now for your wisdom to apply these things in our own lives in ways that honor you.

And we thank you and trust by faith that you've given us these things for our good and for your glory. Lord, I pray that you will convict our hearts. There's any place that we've covered or discussed this morning where we have sinned, I pray that you will show us how we can obey you. Lead us to faithfully apply what your word says so that we can be obedient and so that our lives and our households can testify to the goodness of Christ and the eternal household of God.

As we come to the table now, Lord, I pray that you will commune with us and that you will help us to enjoy fellowship with you. And we pray all of these things in the mighty name of Jesus, the father, son, and Holy spirit. Amen.