This is one of my high school yearbooks.

You remember what it’s like getting a yearbook, right? What’s the first thing you do, what’s the first thing you did when you got a yearbook? [ASK]

I’ll tell you what I did, and I’m betting that most of you did it too. I looked in the index in the back, found my name, and looked up every picture of me in the yearbook. Come on, you did this too, didn’t you?

Because the thing we want to know first of all is, how are we going to be remembered? Did we show up at all? Did we look good? Or are we going to regret one of these pictures for the rest of our lives? [Hold up picture of me in cheerleading outfit]

When you get a yearbook, the first thing you worry about is YOU. It’s all about YOU. First, how do I look, and only THEN do I look at how other people look.

This is the Newberg Graphic.

You know how they always print out the police stuff and the court stuff? All the people that got caught speeding and caught with drugs?

I’ve had two different mothers, dear, sweet mothers in this congregation, who have told me the first thing they do when the Wednesday paper comes is look at this section and make sure none of their kids’ names appear there.

When it comes to the Graphic police blotter, it’s all about other people. Are they there, or not?

When the bible is the focus, how do you approach it?

Do you treat it like a yearbook, or the police blotter?

Are you looking for where you show up… or are you looking for someone else?

This is a big deal all the time, but it’s an especially big deal in this passage we’re looking at today. Everything in us wants to look for what applies to somebody else. Husbands want to point out submission to their wives. Kids want to remind their dads not to provoke them. If we think of the master/slave relationship as similar to our work relationship, bosses want to tell their workers to do their best and work hard all the time, not just when the boss is watching.

We always want to read it for somebody else; but the truth is, we’ve got to read this like what we do when we first get our yearbooks. Where am I in this? What is it saying to me? And do I look pretty good in light of what it’s saying to me, or is the truth that is written here show me up to look pretty foolish?

Would you take the chance today to be brave?

Will you wrestle with this passage and invite God to apply it to YOU…not anyone else?

So, today ought to put an end to those rumors that I skip town for the hard passages.

Yeah, this is one of those tough ones.

There’s something hard in this passage for everybody. Paul is getting practical about the day to day relationships in households of his time, and it’s our job to translate each of these into the day to day households of our time. We may not be married or still a kid at home, but we all live in some household relationship.

This, friends, is where the rubber meets the road.

What’s this saying to ME?

What’s this saying to YOU? Because this is where all the stuff we’ve been talking about for weeks comes down to practicalities.

How do I stack up to what it says about husbands, fathers, and masters? And how do you stack up to what it says about the roles you live?

Part of figuring out how we stack up is to look at the bigger picture of the entire third chapter in this letter. Let’s look back at where we’ve been over the past few weeks.

Paul begins chapter 3 with a grand, theological, metaphorical statement: Set your hearts and minds on things above, not below.

You died with Christ, now live with him too.

Preachers love this stuff, this metaphor and symbolism and deep thinking. Most normal people go, “Huh? What? Give it to me in plain English.”

And Paul understands this. So he gets practical about character traits. Get rid of the bad stuff, he says. Get rid of lust, slander, malice, greed; and then put on the good stuff…forgiveness, compassion, humility, gentleness, kindness.

Then Paul sums it all up in v. 17: Whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” Beautiful. Practical. Perfect. Now we’re getting somewhere.

But just in case we still haven’t got it, Paul takes it a step further. He shows us specifically what it looks like to do things “in the Lord” within the household, within the common social units of his time. What does it look like for husbands and wives to live “in the Lord”? For parents and children? For slaves and masters?

How, practically, can we live this out in day to day life?

This is hard stuff. Impossible stuff, actually, without God in our lives.

But it’s worth the work. This is what makes life with God worth living. If we can be changed to the point that it makes a difference at home, where we live day in and day out, our lives and our world become much better.

This is what we hold up as the ideal we’re aiming for.

Can I use that as a big disclaimer?

This is what Paul holds up as the ideal. And some of you are not living in the ideal. As children, some in this room were abused and wounded by parents, and it’s causing huge damage even today.

Some marriages are so marked by selfishness and woundedness that talk of submission or selfless love would mean physical and emotional abuse and pain that many of us can’t even imagine.

There are other places we can go in the bible that talk about what to do when, for instance, you’re married to someone who isn’t following God. There are times when a wife should not submit, when a child should not obey; when physical or emotional abuse are involved, you are not living in the ideal.

What we want to focus on today is what, together, are we aiming for? And what is this saying to ME about MY behavior, first and foremost?

So let’s dive in to this picture of community in the household.

These verses are in a pattern that is found several other places in the bible and even a few places outside the bible around Paul’s time. There’s a neat coupling of wives AND husbands, children AND fathers, slaves AND masters.

Ephesians 5 is a more elaborate expression of this same idea; 1 Peter has this pattern as well. What’s interesting is that in most of the examples found outside of the bible, we don’t see this “dual charge”. These sorts of lists of the codes of conduct for the household are usually aimed only at the wives, the children, and the slaves.

So right off the bat, just in the way Paul sets this up, we see that something is different about the code of conduct for the person who follows Jesus.

Everybody has responsibility.

Paul makes it crystal clear that following Jesus isn’t just about getting the so-called “weaker” member of society to behave and be nice. Following Jesus and establishing a code of conduct for living means every member of the society has a responsibility to live and act with integrity.

Nobody gets a free pass! Nobody gets to read this and apply it to somebody else. All of us have a place, all of us have a responsibility and a code of conduct.

Verse 18. [READ]

Submit is a loaded word. For some women, this brings up all kinds of baggage, baggage that comes from a world where women are still expected to serve and step aside for the men.

It’s important to say up front that this verse has been used by some men as a club, as a weapon, as a way to get what they want. Part of the reason this is such a loaded word is that men have used this incorrectly; men, and even some women, have used this to place women under submission, when the very word that is used here forbids it from being used that way.

The reality is that for all of the good strides we have made toward equality and women’s rights, it is still a man’s world. There is still a glass ceiling in the work place, there is still a double standard in homes where both the wife and the husband work when it comes to things like housework.

As a man, earlier in life, I’m sad to say that only bothered me a little. As a father of three girls, it now angers me a lot. And I see the inequities of our world much more often now that I see it through my girls’ eyes.

I read the studies that say teachers pay more attention to boys than girls; that good grades for boys are most often attributed to “being smart” and good grades for girls are most often attributed to “working hard.”

I see all that and I just want to erase this from my daughters’ bibles and say, “You girls don’t listen to this!”

That may seem really extreme. You may think I’m over reacting, that the world isn’t really as bad as all that.

But I don’t want them to hear another voice that seems to say, “Step aside! Get out of the way! Let the man have his say.” I want to have Paul encourage them, speak strength to them. I want him to help them have strong identities.

Here’s what’s amazing: in this one little sentence that has been so abused, in this one little sentence that makes many women squeamish and uncomfortable, Paul is actually empowering women to choose a life like Christ.

He uses a verb form that only makes sense with an active subject choosing to submit voluntarily. It’s not imposing submission from the outside. It’s asking wives, as a choice of their will, to submit to their husbands.

Paul assumes wives make their own choices and are their own subjects, not the subjects of their husbands.

Even more strikingly, this word Paul uses in this form is also the same form he uses to describe Christ’s relationship to the Father. Jesus chose to submit his will to the Father.

Wives are asked to follow Christ’s example. Not cowed into obedience. Not treated as a lesser being who must obey. Addressed with dignity and asked to follow Christ’s example and choose to submit.

Now, that doesn’t make the act of submission any easier! But this is not language to put down and subordinate. This is language that is very consistent with what Paul has so clearly said in this letter: in Christ, everything is new and our divisions are gone. We stand before God, forgiven by Jesus, and we all are asked to follow Jesus’ example in our words and our deeds.

There’s more to be said than we have time for.

This submission word is an ordering word, one used often in the military, for getting a proper ordering of troops. Wives, you are not off the hook. This is not a carte blanche to abdicate all authority and then blame your husband if things go wrong.

As a follower of Jesus, live as Jesus would, using your gifts, being who God made you to be…and be willing to submit, to bend your desires out of love for God and for your husband.

One last thing before we go to the hard husband stuff. In Ephesians, where Paul goes into much greater detail for each of these sections, he also leads off the whole thing with a charge to everyone: Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Submission is very hard work, and it’s not limited to wives.

On to verse 19. [READ]

I think one of the reasons men in the past have flung the submission stuff at the women is that they don’t want to face into THIS verse. Husbands, LOVE your wives.

The Greek language has multiple words for love, and husbands, we get stuck with the biggie in this verse.

This is not simply a matter of affectionate feeling, of fond companionship…there’s another Greek word for that, and it’s not the word used here. This is not simply sexual attraction; too many husbands WISH that’s all there was, but that’s not the “love” word used here either.

The word used here is agape. Great. This is going to be tough stuff!

Agape love involves our “unceasing care and loving service for our wives’ entire well-being.”

We are called to the highest standard.

We are to want what is best for our wives, and to do everything in our power to discover what that is and make it possible. We are not to consider only our own desires, but we are to think of every part of who God has made our wives to be and make it possible for her to live into who and what God desires for her.

I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’ve got way too many selfish bones in my body to come very close to that ideal.

Do I love my wife enough to work unceasingly for her entire well-being? This is what it looks like to live out life with God.

Part of what I had hoped to do today was a video, where I would interview people and ask questions related to these verses. I wanted to ask some wives, “How does your husband show you he loves you?”

Because, frankly, many of us husbands need a list. We need it spelled out. We need to hear that taking out the garbage and putting the seat down on the toilet and actually listening to our wives and respecting their opinions are the ways our wives feel LOVED.

Husbands…it is our job to figure out what our wives need for their well being, and to unceasingly and lovingly work to bring it about!

I didn’t do the video, but here’s a shockingly easy homework assignment that you can do all by yourself today. Ready? Go home and ask your wife, “What things can I do that will make you feel loved? What do you need?”

Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. That second part is a little hard to translate, because it has so much implied in it. Don’t be harsh, don’t act in a way that will cause her to be bitter. Don’t take out your other frustrations on your wife. And don’t you get bitter either, holding grudges and nursing them along.

I told you, guys…we got the hard end of the deal. Because we, too, are being asked to follow Jesus’ example. We’re asked to love selflessly and holistically, and frankly that’s a whole lot of hard work.

But this is how to have the life you always wanted, how to live as God intended. This is how marriage was designed to work: each partner following Jesus’ example, each partner being transformed by God.

Verse 20. [READ]

This is very straightforward. Kids, do what your parents tell you. It’s different, much stronger language than how wives are asked to submit to their husbands. This is a straight out command-do what your parents ask you to do.

It’s spoken to children who are still in the home; Paul doesn’t use a word that would imply grown children respond in the same way always to their parents. Growing up as a kid with parents, ideally, is supposed to teach and train us how to obey, to submit, to give up our own desires and to what someone else says.

Maybe the fact that kids don’t do this as well as kids used to is also part of why we find it easier and easier to treat God’s commands as suggestions. But that’s for another day.

Verse 21. [READ]

Fathers, don’t irritate, nag, or deride your children’s efforts. Don’t provoke them to anger. Kids are expected to obey their parents, but dads, don’t take advantage of that. Don’t make your kids bitter.

This is directed specifically at fathers. Men, we get challenged today…are we going to live up to it?

Dads, don’t leave parenting to the moms! This is a joint effort. Don’t destroy your kids with your irritation, your sense that they never live up to your expectations. Your approval of your kids is the biggest thing they seek, and your approval is one of the most important things you can give your children to build a strong identity in life.

Give it to them! Don’t embitter them and discourage them. Give them the gift of your blessing and approval and love.

We just don’t have time today to unpack all the slave/master stuff in the same way.

Our work relationships are probably the closest connection to our culture, and this might be the place where the spotlight gets shined on you today.

Don’t just do what your boss wants when it benefits you, when it’s flashy, when it shows everyone how amazing you are. Do it all the time. In everything we do, act as if we’re doing it for Jesus himself. Verse 23 is so much like verse 17, so much drawing us back to EACH ONE of us having the responsibility to live every moment of every day for God.

And for those of us who have boss or master responsibilities, who are managers and leaders in our places of work: there is no favoritism. We’re held to the same standard, because we have the same master as everyone else. Jesus is our master, and it’s our responsibility to live for him.

We live for him, and in him.

When the rubber meets the road in the relationships that we live every day, we are called to the highest example and standard-follow Jesus’ example.

Where is God bringing conviction to you and your actions today?