Obeying in the Lord

When I wrote to you of the Spirit-filled life, I did not send you off into the clouds. I brought it down into the house, and now down into the field and the workshop. For the same Spirit who fills a heart fills a home, and the same submission I spoke of runs through wife and husband, and now through child and parent, servant and master. Every one of these belongs to Christ.

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right" (Ephesians 6:1). Notice the two anchors. It is right — written into the order of things, and sealed in the commandment, the first with a promise: "Honor your father and mother… that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land" (Ephesians 6:2-3). And it is in the Lord — not a cold duty but obedience offered up to the God who commands it. Yet I would not lay a whip on the young without laying a bridle on those over them: "Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). Authority is given to nourish, not to crush. A father who exasperates his child forgets his own Father in heaven, who leads him gently.

Then I turned to those who serve — and here I ask you to hear how the gospel reaches the lowest rung. "Bondservants, obey your earthly masters… as you would Christ" (Ephesians 6:5). Not with "eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart" (Ephesians 6:6). Do you see what I have done? I have taken the most invisible labor, the work no man praises, and I have set the eyes of Christ upon it. "Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord" (Ephesians 6:8). Your Master sees. Your reward is not in the wages men count.

And to those who hold power over others: "Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him" (Ephesians 6:9). There is the leveling word. Over every master stands a Master; before that throne the collar and the crown look the same.

So whatever your station this day — under authority or over it, in the home or at the work that grinds you — do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men. Christ has bought you; you serve him now, and he does not fail to see. Grace and peace to you.