Healthy Body 2

It’s been pointed out many times that the Beatles said “All you need is love” and then they broke up. We all come into the world with a desperate desire to be loved. We also think we know what love is, and what it means to love. We fall in love. We’re overcome with love for our children and grandchildren. True love. We think we can “make love.” We “love” lasagna and ice cream. Chips are a bag full of love. We love our new car, or our new shoes, we love the smell of BBQ.

And then Jesus says everything God wants us to understand can be summed up with that same four letter word. Love. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength—and the second greatest commandment is pretty much the same thing: love your neighbor as yourself. Love God. Love others. At NewChurch we say “Worship God. Love people.”

So we take the strange understanding of love that we got from the Beatles and BBQ, and apply it to what Jesus told us to do. Love with no follow-through, love that depends on feelings and pleasure, love that is completely based on what’s in it for us. No wonder the church is in such a mess, you know?

But when Jesus talks about love, He’s talking about unconditional love. He’s talking about sacrificial love. He said, “there’s no greater love than someone who will lay down their life for another.” He said He wants us to love each other the way He loves us—then He showed us what He means by that. He laid down His life for us on the cross, suffered and died. He wants us to love each other like that.

But we don’t. We don’t get it. We’re always looking for an angle. What’s in it for me? I’ll love you if you love me first. You scratch my back, then I’ll scratch yours. We demand our own way. We get mad at people when we think they disrespect us. If we feel like we’re not getting something out of a relationship, then we break the relationship off.

The most revolutionary thing about Jesus is the way He wants us to understand love. It’s upside-down from the world’s perspective. Love means the first shall be last and the last shall be first. That if you want to be great you have to make yourself the least. And He showed us how it’s done, so there wouldn’t be any questions—Almighty God, ruler of heaven and earth, Creator of the universe became a helpless baby, born in a barn, in complete poverty to a young couple who were social outcasts. If that’s not a picture of the greatest becoming the least, I don’t know what is. Then, as a man, Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate, the local Roman official, and when Pilate asked if He was the King of the Jews, Jesus said, “Yeah, but my kingdom is not of this world.” So, Pilate beat Him half to death and then crucified Him. The most powerful man in the world let a Roman thug humiliate Him and kill him. Can you imagine a movie where Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson would let that happen to himself? We’ve got a very different idea of what strength and power is supposed to look like. And we have a completely distorted idea of what love is supposed to look like.

I say all that because today in our “Healthy Body” series we’re looking at relationships. The church is the body of Christ, the presence of God in the world. The way we treat each other, and the way we treat people outside the church, is supposed to be a representation of Jesus to them. If we want to be a healthy body, a healthy church, we’re gonna have to get a healthy idea of what it means to love people.

Today’s text is Ephesians 5:21-6:10, it’s one of the most detailed passages in the whole Bible about how we’re supposed to deal with each other. This comes right after the Scripture we opened the service with today about being filled with the Holy Spirit, singing to each other and being thankful for everything in the name of God the Father and the Lord Jesus. Then St Paul says this — and sometimes we act like the Bible is so hard to understand, like we need a PHD get what it’s saying, but I think the problem is more that we don’t want to understand than we’re not able to understand. St Paul says this,

“And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do. “Honor your father and mother.” This is the first commandment with a promise: If you honor your father and mother, “things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.” Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger by the way you treat them. Rather, bring them up with the discipline and instruction that comes from the Lord. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. As slaves of Christ, do the will of God with all your heart. Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will reward each one of us for the good we do, whether we are slaves or free. Masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Don’t threaten them; remember, you both have the same Master in heaven, and he has no favorites. A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.”

This is the Word of the Lord—Thanks be to God.

Now, there should have been something in there to make every one of us squirm a little. Most people listen to that big ol chunk of obligations and immediately turn it into either “Yeah! That’s how they ought to treat me. Respect me. Submit to me. Love me.” Or, we get stubborn and think, “Don’t tell me to submit! Don’t tell me to obey! Nobody’s gonna take advantage of me!” 

But this passage is about mutual submission. It’s about how we’re to treat people. The church has almost always gotten this passage wrong. It’s not a club to bash each other over the head with, this isn’t for other people—this is for us to apply to ourselves. It’s a tool to understand our place in the body of Christ. Don’t listen to this passage and think of how you can use it to get what you want from other people—that’s exactly the opposite of what it’s saying. Listen to this passage and try to understand what God is telling you to do—as a member of the body of Christ, His presence in the world—this is how He wants you to love the people in your life. Healthy relationships submit, love doesn’t dominate.

Here’s the key to the whole passage, it’s right in the middle, verse 23:

“This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.”

People think that’s only talking about marriage, but it’s not. It’s the key to this whole passage. We’re the body of Christ, Christ and the church are one, and this is how Jesus—if He was a wife, or a husband, or a father, or a child, or a slave, or a master—this is how He would treat people. It’s how He wants us to treat each other.

We are to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Love each other out of reverence for Christ. That’s what it means to be a “Christian.”

Let’s walk through what he says real quick.

Wives are to submit to their husbands.

Husbands are to love their wives sacrificially.

Children are to obey their parents.

Fathers are to discipline their children without making them angry.

Slaves are to obey and respect their masters.

And masters are to treat their slaves the way God treats us, without partiality.

Healthy relationships submit, love doesn’t dominate.

It’s pretty straight ahead, but we’re sinfully stubborn at getting this wrong so this is not what it means:

It doesn’t mean husbands are the boss of the wife, doesn’t mean they can point to the Bible and say, “It is written, you have to submit to me woman! Go make me a cobbler!” Nope. This is about how the wife is to look at her husband not how the husband it to look at his wife. It doesn’t mean the wife doesn’t get to have opinions or that her opinions don’t matter. Everyone has opinions, this is about how we don’t insist on getting our way at the expense of others. Wives are told to submit to their husbands but husbands are told to love their wives sacrificially—that’s pretty heavy, too.

But it doesn’t mean wives can get grandma’s 50 LB King James Bible off the shelf and beat her husband over the head with it. “You’re gonna be the spiritual head of this household! Bam! And I’m gonna tell you exactly what that’s gonna look like. Bam!”

It doesn’t mean she gets to underline verse 25 and bludgeon him to death with it saying, “You’re supposed to love me like Christ loved the church—so why don’t you go lie down in a ditch somewhere and die.” We don’t get to use this passage against each other.

It doesn’t mean parents can throw Jesus at their kids to force them to do what they want. You do that and you’ll just make them hate God. Don’t blame God for your bad parenting. But is also doesn’t mean that our kids can try to silence us by saying, “you need to take it down a notch because the Bible says not to provoke me to anger.” Actually kids, go ahead and try that—see how that works out for you. Ha.

Healthy relationships submit, love doesn’t dominate. I’m not saying you should stay in an abusive relationship, there are evil people in the world and sometimes the right answer is lawyers and guns. Sometimes you have to get away from people for your safety and for theirs.

Then there’s that last little section on slaves and masters. What are we supposed to do with that? We don’t have slavery in this country anymore, right? Does this mean the Bible is okay with slavery?

If we’re going to understand our Bibles, we need to dig into this a little. The word here for “slave” is the Greek word “doulos”—it actually means “unfree,” sometimes translated as “bond-servant.” Kemper’s got a song and a whole thing where he explains what  “doulos” means and the history of freed slaves, and slaves that choose to remain slaves because they love their master. I’ll let Kemper tell you all about that another time—he’s gonna play the song for us at the end of the message today.

In the Biblical world, a “slave” was just a person who wasn’t free—there’s all kinds of reasons why a person might have lost their freedom. But in the Bible, it wouldn’t have had anything to do with the color of their skin.

The modern equivalent to Biblical slavery would be someone who owed someone a debt that they’re working to pay back. You know, like a mortgage. Or someone who has to get up every day and go to work for someone else. I don’t think I’m overstating this—we’re all pretty much slaves.

St Paul certainly thinks so. First, he said that we were all born as slaves to the world, the flesh and the devil. Then he tells us that Jesus paid our debt and set us free. In response we pledge our eternal faithfulness to Him—we become volunteer slaves of the Lord. Chapter 6 verse 6 says we are, “bond-servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man.”

So, this little section on how slaves should obey and respect their masters and how masters should treat their slaves—it really does apply directly to us. In the first place, it makes the kind of slavery that was practiced in the United States before the Civil War a complete abomination. And then, secondly, as employees, debtors, supervisors, bosses, teachers and students—this is how Jesus expects His people, His body, to treat each other. With respect, with a sincere heart, doing our work as if we were doing it directly for God. If we’re told to do something, Jesus wants us to do it with a thankful heart—if we’re the boss and we tell people what to do, then we’re to do it respectfully, without threatening them, and without favoritism. And if you’re thinking, “but I don’t want to be a slave”—well, you’re either a slave of the Lord or a slave of the devil. Like Joshua (the leader who took over after Moses) said, “Choose your master. As for me and my house, we’ll serve the Lord.” Being a slave of Jesus is the only way to be free in this world—another of those upside down things.

So, we’re the body of Christ. God’s presence in the world. This is how He wants us to treat each other. He wants us to love each other—we’re supposed to worship God and love people—we’re supposed to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Jesus did it all for us. Here’s the Gospel, this is the part of the sermon the devil doesn’t want you to hear: Jesus descended from heaven and came to earth, took on the form of a slave, and humbled Himself. He submitted Himself to the Father’s will all the way to death and humiliation on a cross. He did that for you because He loves you. He rose on the third day—and He promises that when you die, you’re also gonna rise from the dead. This is our great hope: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again! You will die, but you will also rise when Jesus comes again. 

Jesus is the Lamb of God. The once and for all sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. The thing about being a sacrifice is the sacrifice has to die. So He did. Jesus died. But then He did something that no sacrifice had ever done before—He came back from the dead. He became the first ever living sacrifice. 

So now, as His body, the church—we’re supposed to do the same thing. Be a living sacrifice. That’s what this is all about. That’s what love actually means. A living sacrifice. Loving people is the good things God prepared for you to do.

The world doesn’t understand any of this. To them, love means getting what they want— something to make them happy, something to complete them.

But that’s not what love means to us, the body of Christ, love means giving ourselves for others. Sacrifice. Submitting to each other. A slave to Christ. Servants serving each other. Doing for others what we wish they would do for us. Kindness. Mercy. Forgiveness. Being patient, humble. Listening instead of speaking. Giving instead of taking. Living in a perpetual state of “no, after you…” 

Remember, “This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.” We’re His body. If we want to be a healthy body, we have to love each other. In all our relationships, in all our vocations, in all our callings. We have to submit to each other, Healthy relationships submit, love doesn’t dominate.

Love. Wives, husbands, children, parents, slaves, masters… you know what you have to do. You have to love one another. Members of NewChurch… you have to serve one another. Worship God and love people. Your life is a living sacrifice, as a member of the body of Christ, your acts of love and service are offered to Jesus, and made acceptable in Jesus who is the perfect and complete living sacrifice. It’s incredibly beautiful if you think about it. 

Peace be with you, dear brothers and sisters, and may God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you love with faithfulness. May God’s grace be eternally upon all who love our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 6:23-24)

And may we love one another the way He has loved us. A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. AMEN