Freedom from Control
Series: The Liberated Life (Colossians)
Brad Bailey – June 7, 2009
Theme: Apart from God, we are left to a cycle of chaos and control. Christ comes to reclaim and restore the divine nature of love… which is an inner voluntary life of serving others. Paul applies this to the roles in marriage, parenting, and work.
Let me begin by asking: ‘How effective is it to try and control other people?’
How well does trying to control others work?
Not very well?
Remember hearing of a little boy who finally sat down after first resisting his parents’ command to do so. He said to his parents, "I’m sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside."
If we stand back… I think the nature of control becomes even clearer. In fact I believe the whole of human history… the human drama… could be defined as a cycle of chaos and control.
Our human history is a story of two forces that rise up to take advantage of the chaos… those which rule by force… and become solidified into empires such as Rome was at the time… and those who which rule by claiming the authority of God… such as the religious leaders which Paul had been such a passionate part of.
And of course sometimes these two forces collude together… states will co-opt religion and religion will partner with the force of the state.
(I believe that when President Obama stood just three days ago in the Muslim world to address the sensitive relationships that are in such great tension… he was speaking into this cycle.)
It is a cycle because if we look at the history of controlling states collapsing… from Ceasar to Hitler to more recent communism… we see chaos follows… and out of chaos comes the acceptance of greater and greater outside control.
Into this cycle… God has come to restore an order that transcends personal control. The divine order has overcome the powers of his world. This is the liberated life that the apostle Paul declares as he writes to the community that gathered in Colossi… a written work we refer one of the Book of Colossians.
Quick review
Christ is the supreme revealer of God… and Redeemer of all… who has come to reclaim and restore the human order… in whose resurrected life we now have a new humanity which already exists in his eternal position… and which we now can seek to have live in us.
In the last section, Paul addressing the community in how it as a community is to live out and embody a new way of life realized in Christ… and concludes stating that whatever you do… do it in the name of Christ. This means in the nature and power of Christ.
Now he moves forward with just such application.
Colossians 3:18-4:1 (NIV)
18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. 22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. 25 Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism. 1 Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
There is a lot here to be challenged by.
For some… words like ‘submit’ and ‘obey’ can sound a bit oppressive. We’ll certainly need to consider what is really being implied or prescribed in it’s totality.
When he begins with ‘wives submit..’ we know this isn’t going to be easy… and by the time he is done… everyone seems challenged in their posture. We all read some part… and think yea… and then hit that one that describes our role and go ‘WHOOOOA… who’s laying this trip on me?’
Three pairs of relationships… each side of the pair is spoken to… and called to a responsibility to relate in a way that reflects the love he had just been discussing we should take on.
Three general truths about the new way of life…
1. Our new life in Christ sets a new posture for the roles and relationships of life.
‘Putting the life of the new age into practice begins at home.’ (NT Wright)
If we feel like his lofty declarations are winding down… into some very mundane rules… it’s probably because we’re missing what is so dynamic about this new life… which is that it does transform the most fundamental of relationships.
It becomes MOST meaningful when it affects the most defining relationships in life…where we are most ourselves.
Why is this so important?
> These are the relationships where we can learn to be most truly human… and help others to be truly human.
If we follow the spiritual tendency of our day… in which we make spirituality so much a private inner endeavor… it becomes about how to be supra human… to transcend our humanity. The reality is that we need to redeem and embrace our true humanity.
Jesus ushers in a new humanity that reorients how we relate humanly… and therefore can not be excluded from the relationships that are most basic to human life. Jesus made clear that the love of God and love of others cannot be separated… that the latter ‘is like’ the former.
2. Our new life in Christ reveals the essential worth of all… and thus reciprocal responsibility.
The instructions in our text show a special concern for those who were looked down upon in the first century: wives, children, and slaves. It’s striking that Paul would even give them attention since the culture denigrated these three groups of people. Christianity elevated women, valued children, and set things in motion to sabotage slavery. It’s also interesting to note that Paul admonishes those in authority as he tells husbands, fathers, and masters to be loving, kind, and fair. These pairs are to be studied together because the relationships are reciprocal.
But as he addresses each of these relationships… he never addresses anyone based on their rights… but rather their responsibilities. These are not words meant to be used to demand anything from anyone else… but rather words which each much choose to embrace as an inner posture for themselves. In Christ each person participates equally in redemption, and through Him all immoral inequalities and all injustices are undermined and destined to crumble.
3. Our new life in Christ liberates us from the false pursuit of outward control.
Hardly sounds like a declaration of liberation. Everyone is given obligations.
But consider what is really being countered… and subverted. It is the cycle of control and chaos.
The way of Christ is denouncing and defeating the false pretense of power that vies for control… or the counter-control of chaos.
Seeking to hold power and control over others is the most deceptive goals in all of life.
Of course there is a level of power and control that we have… but very limited. Relative control and relative power that are brought to bear in the service to others is virtuous.
But… The pursuit of self serving and ultimate control… is the most deceptive and vain pursuit in life.
It’s not easy to surrender our desire to control. Paul knew this. You may recall… he was gripped in his zeal to conform people to the traditions he lived for. When Jesus came along… he became an enemy of this revolutionary life. He was a leader in the persecution and even stoning of Christ’s followers.
All until God knocked him off his donkey with a blinding light. We all may need to get knocked off our … donkeys… to get us to stop our power struggles… and complicated means to control what we can’t control.
Paul knew that Jesus had been revolutionary on a social level… he had offended Paul’s own traditions.
• Jesus has stood up for women in various occasions that spoke of operating out of some other order of things. He stood up for women who were treated as objects of men’s prerogatives and treated unequally in divorce, adultery, social gatherings, honor in giving.
• Jesus had raised up children that were clearly being pushed aside.
• Jesus set his mission in the prophetic call to ‘set captives free.’
Paul was now able to grasp that nothing less than a new order of life was at hand… in which as he described it elsewhere, ‘there is no longer Jew and Greek, male or female, slave or free.’
> He clearly is not referring to there being no differences… he is referring to no difference in worth… no superiority…. and the control that comes from such a system.
His words do not imply that there is not an order to life… but that it is not an order rooted in hierarchy of worth or control… but rather rooted in love and responsibility… for all. There is still order… and maybe even needed appropriate consequences that help serve people’s growth in that order… but consequences are not the same as control… they don’t carry the assumption that I can ultimately control another… rather they reflect I can influence another.
So each person in these reciprocal relationships is given a new posture to be re-oriented around. What is being countered and subverted… .it is the tyranny of control… and what is being set forth is that which reflects the true humanity of all.
(NOTE: The consequences of the Fall described in Genesis 3:14-19 could be noted – When humanity sought to live unto their own way… they find themselves naked.. uncovered… and suddenly adversarial and blaming… to which God comes and tells them of the consequences that they have now set forth… what they will face…and they include the women experiencing the rule of men… and men the oppression of their labor.)
The new life in Christ in particular relationships…
Husband and Wife
18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.
We may naturally hear what we assume implies some sort of inequality… or forcing women into oppression. So let me help us consider what is and is not being implied.
• Nowhere does it say that a wife is to obey her husband. Children are to obey in verse 20 and slaves are to obey in verse 22, but wives are to submit. There’s a difference.
This has application to wives in a marriage relationship, not to women in general.
Both husbands and wives are to submit to the Lord and to each other.
•
• The truth is that the grand human power struggle was limited by the shear control of men in all affairs… throughout all the ancient world in varying degrees. For the husband to have an obligation to his wife and his children was a radical concept for the 1st-century world.
• It was the revolutionary nature of Jesus that broke through the whole of human relationships between rich and poor, slave and free, and … men and women. As Paul has made clear … in this new order of humanity.. there is no longer to be a subverting division between male and female… slave and free… Jew and Gentile.
• But the question that is left… is what does that mean? In the old fallen order… it would simply mean I’m free to assume control. We see it all the time. The underclass rises up and when they finally throw off the control of the oppressor… they form their own power structures… that prove to bear the same marks of control. When women finally gain greater freedom from the oppression they have felt for so long… they naturally can pursue a freedom to exercise their own control…and we are left with nothing better than a more just power struggle…with simply more controlling at hand.
The whole posture of ‘kill or be killed’… ‘control or be controlled’… seem to be transcended in the new life we enter with Christ.
> So the new issue… is how to be Christ like in a new order of humanity. The answer… is that of serving… and notable for husbands… this involves an end to self-serving control… and a new posture of valuing the needs of the wife above their own… and for wives… this involves an end to all the adversarial means of countering such control with their own control… and a new posture of aligning with what right and healthy initiative of the husband that reflects what God desires.
Now if we were to read all of Paul’s comments… we find reference to husbands and wives being called to submit to one another… and husbands and wives called to serve one another. (Ephesians 5:21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”)
So we shouldn’t make too much of the emphasis here for wives to submit.
However, there are a couple reasons why here and in another letter (Ephesians) we hear this special two sided statement…. of husbands serving and sacrificing as Christ did for her best interests rather than his own… and wives respecting and coming into alignment rather than adversarial independence… to that initiative.
As women found freedom, they may think that it meant they have no obligation. Paul wants to make it clear… that the way of Christ is not rebellion… but respect for .
The other potential to be understood in this is that there really is some kind of order that God has set in the roles of husbands and wives.
I am not going to be definitive here… it’s a subject I have studied at length and join many who lie in a spectrum of ideas. I will share that my personal read of both the God’s Word and our nature is that there is an order by which husbands are to take the lead and become servant leaders like Christ… and this is the call to love and lay down their lives… in other words… become the first in sacrifice. To this women are to follow the lead… submit and join this new way of life.
The fact that there is both a sense of mutual submission and sacrifice… yet an emphasis that gets addressed to each party is interesting. I believe is accentuates that this is not about an order of control but an order of responsibility. These are not words that are ever given to call the other to… they are only used to voluntarily shape one’s posture. And given that order of responsibility… it will be most important that husbands as the servant leaders embrace the needs of their wives above their won… such sacrificial love is the emphasis… it is the redemptive corrective to the world’s way of using their position of power. And in turn… women should respect such a responsibility… and bring themselves into it’s flow… which is the redemptive corrective to the world’s way of using their freedom for self rule.
I believe that we find this challenge in the very nature of marriage today. When husbands and wives are asked to list the ten most important things they desire in the marital partnership… essentially the same ten qualities are usually listed. But when asked to place them in order… at the top of the list… women desire to be valued… and men desire to be respected.
That is exactly what is being spoken into. This is NOT a matter of a rigid pattern where we can speak of sacrificial love and submission… love and respect… as rigid mandates… but as priorities of posture.
What is being dismantled is any notion that we can control the other.
Parent and Child
20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.
Note – ‘Father can refer to both parents.
NTW – ‘In addressing children as members of the church in their own right, and in giving them both responsibilities and rights, Paul is again allowing the Gospel to break new ground.’
In a couple of crisp sentences, Paul has said, in essence, what thousands of books on the upbringing of children have struggled to express.’
Sometimes the first statement is overly emphasized and used to justify parental discipline. Sometimes the second statement is overly emphasized and used to justify allowing children to rule the family… and the rights of children end of trampling the rights of others.
But held together… they support the reality that both children and parents need appropriate discipline.
Since this gathering involves more parents and potential parents than children… let me note:
Four ways in which parents can discourage their children…
(Three are from Ray Stedman and fourth added by Brian Bill; all noted in message ‘Making Your Relationships Work’)
- Ignore them. Children in these homes can grow up to feel unloved and unaccepted and may end up looking elsewhere to have their needs met.
• Indulge them. A child who is indulged all the time can become restless and dissatisfied.. and their own industriousness is hurt.
• Insult them. We ca n all become so frustrated that we criticize our kids and even call them names. Sarcasm and ridicule can both crush them and can cultivate a rebellious identity that just wants to fight back the antagonism they feel.
• Intimidate them. Threats and unfair expectations can can equally crush their spirit.. as they never feel acceptable for who they are.
Rather than such a posture… as N.T. Wright describes… ‘The parents duty is, in effect, to live out the gospel to the child; that is, to assure their children that they are loved and accepted and valued for who they are, not for who they ought to be, should have been, or might (if they would try a little harder) become. Obedience must never become the condition of parental ‘love’; a love so conditioned would not deserve the name.’ (N.T. Wright, p. 149)
I believe the root of such a love must embrace a love that does not control. This is beautifully expressed in the following prose…
A PARENT’S TRUE LOVE…
I gave you life, but cannot live it for you.
I can teach you things, but I cannot make you learn.
I can allow you freedom, but I cannot account for it.
I can take you to church, but I cannot make you believe.
I can teach you right from wrong, but I cannot always
decide for you.
I can buy you beautiful clothes, but I cannot make you
beautiful inside.
I can offer you advice, but I cannot accept it for you.
I can give you love, but I cannot force it upon you.
I can teach you to share, but I cannot make you unselfish.
I can teach you respect, but I cannot force you to show
honor.
I can advise you about friends, but cannot choose them
for you.
I can advise you about sex, but I cannot keep you pure.
I can tell you about the effects of substances, but I can’t say "no" for you.
I can tell you about lofty goals, but I can’t achieve them
for you.
I can teach you about kindness, but I can’t force you to
be gracious.
I can love you as a child, but I cannot place you in God’s
family.
I can teach you about God, but I cannot make God
your Lord.
(Adapted from unknown source)
Work Boss and Worker
22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. 25 Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.
The final application to slaves and masters may initially strike us as the hardest to accept or appreciate. It strikes us that slavery itself is being accepted. It’s important to understand that when Paul wrote these words the nature of one being a slave was both broader in what it looked like than modern day slavery… and a far more common part of life.
It was less about stealing people away from their own places in life… and more about how the indebtedness of one life came to be worked out… and certainly not in a system that was just by any means.
Most notably…in I Cor. 7:21 Paul did instruct slaves to gain their freedom if they could. But he did not encourage rebellion or overthrow of the existing order of things.
If we consider the inner posture being described… it is that which restores the true humanity of both slave and master… worker and boss.
Don’t try to reclaim control by just being lazy. Rather than just trying to control your bosses perception by only working according to their eye on you… change bosses and do your work for the Lord. The very work, no matter how simple, can be an act of worship when you consider your work as honoring him.
And to the master… the boss… he gets to the heart of things…
1 Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
To those with the economic power to control others… here is what must move us… fairness and justice… for these are what make you equally responsible… to a higher Master.
Conclusion:
We may naturally wonder… won’t one lose themselves in such self-sacrifice? At the very heart of such encouragement… isn’t so much that he wants people to follow rules.. but ‘he wants all people to follow the often paradoxical self-denying road to true and mature selfhood.’ (N.T. Wright, p.149) What a profound example that Christ is.
We may naturally wonder… what IF the other party doesn’t join in this way? Maybe this can be right IF the other part of the relationship is set to act according to their responsibility… but can it really be right if they don’t?
• There’s no ‘ifs’ in this calling.
• But we worry… then it isn’t going to work out fairly. It isn’t safe to stop trying to control the other person.
• Probably not. Perhaps the most profound truth of all… is that the new humanity does not start with what is fair and safe… but with what is right
• After all… it is about following Christ… who gave up his rights… and was crucified in our place.
Galatians 5:13-14
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."
Communion
Resources:
N.T. Wright, Tyndale New Testament Commentary (Colossians and Philemon)
Brian Bill (From Sermon Central)
