Join us as we unpack Ephesians chapter 6, delving into the challenging topics of spiritual obedience, law, and grace. From dissecting the ancient covenant of obedience and blessing to the revolutionary New Covenant of grace and inheritance, our discussion reframes Christian service in terms of personal belief and spiritual abundance. Additionally, we analyze the societal dynamics of masters and slaves and reflect on the divine impartiality that invites all into a shared spiritual wealth and responsibility.
00:12:42 Understanding God’s Gift Regardless of Status
00:15:53 Building a Spiritual Life as a Free Person or Slave
00:19:11 Responsibilities Between Masters and Servants
00:22:25 God’s Non-Partiality Between Master and Slave
SPEAKER 01 :
Shema Yisra’el Shema Yisra’el Join Aaron now as he reveals the reality foreshadowed and the new life we can now experience because of what the Lord Jesus accomplished for us.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m presenting a verse-by-verse study through Ephesians, and in the previous message, I was in Ephesians chapter 6, between verses 5 and 7. In verse 5, he said, “…be obedient to those who are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ.” In verse 5 again, be obedient to those as to Christ. And in the previous message, I was asking the question, what does it mean to be obedient to Christ? What does that really mean? How would we define that? Continuing into verse 7, he said, But what does it mean to do service to the Lord or for the Lord? What would that really represent? Because if we’re going to say that you are to be obedient, you are to do service for others as you would to the Lord, well, if you don’t know what it would mean to be obedient and to do service for the Lord and for Christ, then there’s no way to define this and there’s no way to really represent this. And this is a really important question that needs to be worked through because it is very difficult to find somebody who relates to the Lord in this way. It’s very difficult to find someone who is doing service for the Lord. It is difficult to find someone who is obedient to Christ. It is so difficult that it is much easier to find people who are obedient to their masters than it is to find someone who is obedient to God. And so a person could probably be tempted, you know, like Paul, if he’s writing something like this, why would he say to these people, serve others as you would serve the Lord? You know, maybe we should say something like, why don’t you serve the Lord? as you would serve others. You know, why don’t you serve God as well as you serve somebody else? You know, this could be understood in today’s context as well, in the context of the employee and the employer relationship. You probably will find that people are performing service for their employer a lot more than they’re performing service for God. you know, and that they are more obedient to their employer than they are to God. I think that you might find that to be the case, you know. And so this might be an interesting question to consider when you get off work, when you’re done with your responsibilities for someone else. Maybe then you could take some time to be of service to the Lord, right? But if you try to do that, there is great risk that you might find yourself living according to the old covenant instead of living by the new covenant. And this is what I was explaining in the previous message, that it’s important to recognize that the old covenant, the covenant that God established with the nation of Israel, was a covenant based on, be obedient and you will be blessed. Don’t and you will be cursed. That was the nature of the old covenant. And it was very important for God so that he could accomplish several important tasks through presenting the old covenant. But when the new covenant went into effect, that defined a different kind of relationship, a relationship based on be blessed and then go do with how you have been blessed. The New Covenant is definitely not like the Old, and this is one of the ways of understanding the differences between the two. It can be very easy for a person to consider what I just described about the fact that we will be more obedient and we will be of greater service to men, to other people, than we will be to God. It can be very tempting to then fall back into a system of law in order to try to balance that out a little bit better. in order to try to be more obedient to God, to serve Him more, to look for ways to do that, you can create a whole new law through which you will live. And it doesn’t have to be the law that’s described in the Old Covenant. People make up their own based on what they see in the New Testament and what they extract from things like the Sermon on the Mount and other things that Jesus taught. People can construct their own system of law that defines their repentance and obedience, believing that in that way they are serving God. Serving God has to do instead, and I explained this at the end of the previous message, it has to do with living with what he has given to you as your inheritance in Christ Jesus. that we are to live our lives, we are to build our lives, we are to increase our lives, we are to be participants in the creation of life through making use of what he has given to us. And this, of course, is going to be an individual concern, an individual manifestation or decision that people make. All I can do is speak about this in general terms. Because everyone’s life is different and everyone’s relationship with the Lord is different. Except, of course, for the fundamentals of salvation and receiving all that we need for life and godliness, things like that. There are some commonalities, of course. But in general, there is enough uniqueness that I can only speak about this in a general context. If I had to pick something, you know, if I had to pick something that a person may want to start with, if they don’t know where to start or where to begin in this regard, If I was to pick something, I probably would need to pick the idea of belief, that you are to believe your God, which can be quite an obstacle for a lot of people, just believing the truth that he has revealed, especially when it comes to things like forgiveness, you know, that the sin issue has been resolved so that you can be set free from the law, so that you can walk in the newness of life. And what is the newness of life about? So that you can be loved by your God, so that you can be accepted by your God. so that he can give you meaning and understanding and insights and purpose, that through his participation in your life and him allowing you to participate in his, there is the building of a personal relationship. This has its foundation in the truth and that we are to believe the truth. The work of God is to believe in your God and the Messiah who he sent. Because if we will believe the truth that he has revealed, then our decisions, our lives will be a reflection of of that belief. All right, now moving forward into verse eight. In verse eight, he says, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. All right, now verse eight can be a little bit awkward because there are three different phrases here in verse eight. And I think that the first two can be connected with one another easily, and the last two can be connected really well with each other. And so the second one, which is in the middle, which says, “…he will receive the same from the Lord…” can be related to both the first phrase and the third, but in a different way. And so I’m going to take this a piece at a time, starting with the first two phrases, and then I’ll go to the last two phrases and combine those together. And I think you will appreciate why I would not try to do it all at one time. All right, now this is in the context of verse 5 through 7, which is doing service. To the Lord and not to men, doing service to your master as if he was Christ. In verse 8, he says, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord. All right, now let’s start with whatever good anyone does. Now, it doesn’t say that a person does the maximum good. amount of good that they can do. It just says, you know, whatever, whatever good anyone does, that would be a representation of being of service to someone else that you should be of service to. And he just says this in an open ended way. All right. So whatever that is, you know, it doesn’t have to be complete and absolute. It just needs to be whatever that is. Whatever that is, he will receive the same from the Lord. All right. Now, when you put those two phrases together, the first thing that most people think about is they think about the law and that you will be compensated for whatever you do that is good. Whatever that is, if you will do good, you know, whatever good you do, you will receive the same compensation from the Lord. And this implies that maybe God is going to reward you for the good that you do to someone else. That’s usually how this is understood, that he is going to compensate you. He’s going to pay you. He will deliver to you what somebody else perhaps failed to deliver to you for all that you did for them. He will make sure that the exchange is proper, you know, it’s balanced. That when you do good for somebody else, you know, when you do that, God will make sure to make up the difference for where that person falls short when they fail to compensate you as much as they ought to for all the good that you did. This is what a lot of people think. Most people go in this direction, and the reason why is because it is more consistent with with the law, with the law of God, that if you will do that which is good, then you will be blessed. So we can read that in to verse 8 by saying, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord in a sense of compensation. But I don’t think that these two phrases are dependent on one another. I understand that most people who I have personally interacted with would like to take the position that that the second phrase describes the compensation for the good that you did in the first phrase. But I do personally see them as being disconnected. That whatever good someone does… God will also do good for them, but it doesn’t depend on how good they were. Otherwise, you’re living according to the law. And if you are going to live according to the law, then you have to do all that which is good. You have to do enough, which is impossible. So this is not a phrase or an opportunity to try to do a little bit, you know, to say that, well, you don’t have to do it all. You know, just whatever. If you do something, then God will compensate you. This is what people will start to think. Well, we’re not living by the law because the law says it has to be absolute. Instead, we’re going to invent this Levitical light, you know, a lighter version of living by the law. And we’re going to say, OK, well, you know, you just have to do whatever you can. And then God will bless you according to what you could do. And he will keep heavenly accounts properly so that he will reward you and make sure that you’re properly compensated. This is how the Christian life is for a lot of people. It really is. This is how they live. All right, but I see these things as being somewhat disconnected. Whatever you do that is good, remember that God also does good things for you. In fact, the real motive that enables us to do good for others, the real motive is The real dynamic is that we are loving to others as God is loving to us. We share with others what God has shared with us. We are able to participate in other people’s lives in a better way than how we were able to participate before because of the way that our God has participated in our lives and So we don’t start with the first phrase. We start with the second phrase. He will receive the same from the Lord. What? Whatever good. Whatever is good, you have received from the Lord already. You have already received whatever is good. from him in the sense that you have received him and all that is encompassing around your God, all that has to do with who he is as a person. You have already received all of this in Christ because you are a child of God, the recipient of the inheritance that has been given to you as a result of his death and the invocation of the will of God. He has already given to you a lot of good, and so you receive. You receive what he has given to you. And of what you receive, you will have an abundance to give to others, which is the transaction. That is the relational transaction. Our God loves us, fulfills the deepest needs that we have in our hearts, which gives us what we need to love others with the love that we have received from our God. The way that he forgives us is how we will then also be able to forgive others. Just as the Lord no longer holds our sins against us by recognizing that there is nothing that can be done outside of the shedding of the blood of God himself. So we also… can forgive others as he has forgiven us, recognizing that there really is nothing they can do to take away the sin that they committed against you. It doesn’t mean that you have to continue to allow them to abuse you or sin against you. It just means that there is a way that you can present forgiveness to someone else and get on with your life. Probably without them. But still, get on with your life. If not without them, then with them in a new way. So the beginning of verse 8 can be better understood when you understand the middle of it. That he will receive the same from the Lord you’re going to receive. all that you need, all goodness, you are going to receive the good that he has for you, regardless of whatever good you do for somebody else. You will receive what he has for you because of what he has done. What he has done for you, that is what determines his gift towards you. So knowing this, then whatever good you do to somebody else, That’s the beginning of verse 8, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord. You are going to receive goodness from the Lord, and so be free to do good for anyone else. Be free to do that. Okay, the third phrase in verse 8 says whether he is a slave or free. So let’s start with the second phrase, he will receive the same from the Lord, or whether he is a slave or free. Okay, this is important to understand that what we have received in Christ, the inheritance that we have in Christ as his children, is something that we will receive regardless of whether we are a slave or if we are a free person. It doesn’t matter what your status may be in the society that you are a part of. It doesn’t matter if you are a slave. It doesn’t matter if you are the master. It doesn’t matter when it comes to what the Lord gives to you because he gives himself. He gives himself to a person regardless of whether or not they are a slave. That’s what he does. He gives his goodness to anyone regardless of whether or not they are a slave. whether or not they are free. He gives his goodness to them so that they do have something that they can do good and give goodness to someone else, whatever good anyone does, as the beginning of verse 8. And so when it comes to building a person’s life, In the physical sense, there are obstacles for a person who is a slave because they don’t have ownership of the resources that are necessary for the building of physical life. But when it comes to the spiritual life that we have in Christ Jesus, the resources that are given by our God himself to each and every individual person Regardless of whether they are a slave or they are free, they can still build their spiritual life. They can increase their spiritual life. regardless of what their position may be in this example. A simple way to understand this is that if you are a slave in the household of a master, and if the master gets saved, if he believes in Jesus as the Messiah, and he believes in the new covenant, then he will be the recipient of of all of the goodness of God. And if one of his slaves believes in the gospel as well, believes in the living God, embraces the new covenant, is born again by the Spirit, then they also receive all the goodness that God has for them, and they can increase their spiritual life in the same way that the Master can increase his spiritual life. Another way to understand this is that a person can grow and mature in the faith regardless of whether or not they are a slave or free. That’s verse 8. Now, proceeding into verse 9, the continuation from verse 5. And you, masters, do the same things to them. Do what? Do goodness, just as the servants are. relate to the master in a good way, so the masters should also relate to their servants in a good way. In what way? Do the same things to them. What kinds of things? Well, the master is responsible to make sure that the servants, the slaves, have everything they need, and it’s okay to give them more than what they need. That the master is to embrace his responsibility to his slaves and to make sure that they are experiencing the goodness of life that the master can provide for them. That this is a good thing to keep in mind that you have a relationship with another person. And in this relationship, both people have responsibilities to for this relationship to function, for it to exist. They both have responsibilities. The master needs to provide for the needs of his servants, and he needs to provide them with work to do so that they can be productive and produce more than what they consume, and that the extra is something that the master will be able to utilize to take care of them better. to continually provide them with more work to do, to be of service in greater ways. This is the relationship. Masters, do good things for your servants. Keep in mind that you have a relationship with them that is understood that they need to be worth more. Being in the master’s life, as I explained in the previous message, if the master finds that the slave just simply is not worth having because they’re not receiving enough compensation for them to have those kinds of responsibilities for another person. then the master may just simply decide to exit the relationship. And I explained that the most common way to do that would be to sell the slave to another master, giving up threatening, knowing that your own master also is in heaven and there is no partiality with him. Now, this last phrase here that there is no partiality with him is a reminder that that you do not need to have partiality between the master and the slave. God doesn’t see any partiality. He doesn’t see any difference between the master or the slave in his eyes, in his world, in his life, in his existence. He doesn’t see any difference between these two people at all. And so the master is to relate himself. to the slave as if he is like an equal, not entirely like an equal, because we have to consider who has responsibility. The master has responsibility. They have to have the authority over the other person in order to fulfill their responsibilities. And I will continue into verse 10 in the next message.
SPEAKER 01 :
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