Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Ephesians

By Nature Children of Wrath

About this sermon

Paul reminds the Ephesians that they were dead in trespasses and sins, following the course of this world and the prince of the power of the air, and by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Romans 5 explains why: through one man’s sin, condemnation and death came to all. But God, rich in mercy, made them alive together with Christ, raised them up, and seated them with him in the heavenly places. As one transgression brought condemnation, one act of righteousness brings justification and life.

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Sermon transcript

Turn with me to Romans chapter five, verse 12 through 21. Romans chapter five, starting at verse 12, we’ll really be looking this morning at Ephesians chapter two, verses one through three, but this passage in Romans has much to do with that. This then is God’s word.

Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, for until the law, sin was in the world, but sin was not imputed when there was no law. Nevertheless, death reign from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sent in the likeness of Adam’s offense, who is a type of him who is to come.

But the free gift is not like the transgression for if by the transgression of the one, the many died much more did the grace of God and the grace of the, of the one man, Jesus Christ abound to the many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned.

For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression, resulting in condemnation. But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions, resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, Much more, those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. So then, as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men, even so, one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men through one act of righteousness. Whereas through the one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many were made righteous. The law came in that their transgression might increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

That as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And then in Ephesians chapter two, verses one through three. And you are dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air of the spirit that’s now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Let us pray. Our Father, we pray now that you would open our minds to understand your word, Would you grant us the illumination of your Holy Spirit so that we might know and be able to believe what is being taught in your word. We pray particularly for that quickening of the spirit and making alive of the spirit. for otherwise we are dead in our trespasses and sins. Bless us, we pray. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

In the first chapter of Ephesians, Paul writes to the saints in Ephesus, and he speaks of the great blessings that is theirs as Christians. God had, before the foundation of the world, foreordained them as sons through Jesus Christ. And he had poured on them the riches of his grace so that they abounded in every good thing. In the last part of chapter one of Ephesians, Paul says in verses 15 and 16, For this reason, because I’ve heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you. Remembering you in your, in my prayers. And then we have laid out before us what Paul prays for when he prays for the Ephesians.

What is it? that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him. Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. What are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places.

Now there’s more, but I want you, I want you to think of this prayer of Paul as we look this morning at the second chapter versus one through three. Paul and this prayer is asking that the Lord would enlighten the eyes of their heart. And he’s praying further board that the Ephesians might know and understand just what God has done for them. He’s desires that they should know certain things.

And I want to stress the fact that Paul prays that his readers might know his incomparable great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his whole mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised them from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.

You see what we’re to look at this morning in the first three verses of chapter two is a description of a totally hopeless situation. We all find ourselves in apart from God’s power. apart from that power demonstrated in the resurrection and ascension of our Lord. So we need then to pray Paul’s prayer for ourselves that we might have those eyes of our understanding enlightened to understand what is our true nature, what is our nature, our condition as being dead people, dead men in sin and trespasses, Unless, of course, God works his mighty power in resurrection power. Paul says in Ephesians chapter two, as we read, you were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

The ESV year is more faithful in its translation than some other versions. The King James starts out by saying, you have the quickened who were dead and the old American standard Bible says, And you did he make alive when you were dead. But the words hath he quickened, or did he make alive, are in italics in both versions, which is indication that they’re not there in the original. They are correct.

Paul is going to get to the fact that these people have been made alive in Christ, certainly, and if you go on in verse four, you’ll find that. but in the verses that we have before us today, he’s speaking of those who were dead. The fact he speaks to the Ephesians in the past tense as dead gives us a glimpse of hope, but at first Paul wants to set forth a very important and much denied truth that all men by nature are dead. You, he says, were dead in your trespasses and sins. Now the question we have to ask then is who are the you? Well, in verse 11 and 12, he says, therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision. which is made by the flesh by hands, remember that you were at one time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope without God in the world. Evidently, in Ephesus, most of the church was made up of Gentile converts, people who were born as were not Jews, but were Gentiles, were we could call heathens.

They were not members of the covenant community. They had no birthright with God’s people. They couldn’t claim citizenship in Israel. They had not received the sign and the seal of circumcision. And that meant that they were not included in the covenant community. These people were without hope. and without God in the world. They were far away from God. They were, if you will, lost ones.

Now in our text, Paul describes the you that he’s writing to and he says, you are dead or dead in your trespasses and sins. What are trespasses? It’s the outward breaking of the law. You see a sign that says, do not trespass. It means stay out of the area that’s so designated.

If you enter that area, you’ve gone over the law line, you have broken the law and you deserve to be punished. What does Paul mean by sins? It’s a much broader term in which the law is broken, not simply by an outward act, but It is broken by our own very nature. Paul says that his readers were dead in transgressions and sins when they followed the course of this world and of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

These people were rebels. They were worldly people. The original says they walked according to the age of this world. You know how we talk of people being part of a certain age, a certain way of thinking, a certain way of acting. Well, these people were not only men of their age, but they could be characterized as people of this present evil age.

They were part of a fallen world. To use the terminology of Romans chapter 12 verse two, they were conformed to this world. They followed the way of thinking of the thinking of the world and their ruler was, as the NIV has it, the ruler of the kingdom of the air. They were under the dominion of darkness as Paul describes the situation in Colossians chapter one verse 13.

These people were slaves. under the rule of Satan. These were those who have perhaps worshiped at the famous temple of Diana in Ephesus and who had engaged in some of the orgies that were carried on there. These were people caught up in the debauchery of the Roman Empire. You might think of them as modern day devil worshipers in Africa or spiritual worshipers, spirit worshipers in Asia.

A while back I was watching a PBS program about a United States aircraft carrier. Such an aircraft carrier is a small city. It’s got thousands of people on it. And I was struck when they talked about the various religions on board. And they said that they even had a Wicca group or a coven of witches meeting regularly on the aircraft carrier.

Now, of course, it doesn’t have to be those who outly worship the power of the prince of the air that we are talking about. But it could be, it doesn’t have to be just witches and covens. that he’s, that Paul’s talking about. He’s talking also of course about the typical man of the world of today, of modern USA.

It could very well be your next door neighbor. All of these are living dead, dead in trespasses and sins. But wait a minute. The shocker comes when Paul says, what Paul has to say in verse three, he says, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature, children of wrath, just or like the rest of mankind. Paul says we are all in the same boat. All of us were dead men. That includes Paul. Think of that.

Paul could describe himself in Philippians chapter three verses five through six as circumcised in the eighth day of the people of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew, the Hebrew, with regarding to law, a Pharisee as to zeal, persecuting the church as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.

He was a citizen of Israel. He wasn’t a foreigner to the covenant of the promise, the covenants of the promise. He had received the covenant sign and seal of circumcision. He was a Pharisee and not a publican and center. No one had better credentials than Paul to claim he was a son of God.

And yet Paul in our text says that he was as dead and as lost as were the Ephesians before they became Christians. Before regeneration and conversion, everyone, Paul included, gratified the cravings of our simple nature and followed its desires and thoughts. Let me quote from the old American Standard Bible.

We also all once lived in the lust of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And King James says we all had our conversation in times past in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind. This Paul, this is what Paul says characterizes our conduct, all of our conduct, the conduct of every one of us. What are these lusts of the flesh which characterize ourselves?

Paul actually uses the word flesh in this verse twice, with different meanings. Flesh in the Bible can have various meanings. It can mean just the covering, of your bones, the meat that is on your bones. It’s used in the Bible often with ethical connotations.

One such usage is fairly general, and it means that which stands opposed to the spirit. And by that, I mean spirit with a capital S, namely the Holy Spirit. So you read, for instance, in Galatians chapter five, verse 17, the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. Flesh then is everything that is opposed to the working of the Holy Spirit.

It is our sinful nature, the total man in his sinful and unregenerate state. I think that’s why the NIV has translated this as the living in the lust of the flesh, or the idea of living in the lust of the flesh as gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature. Flesh can also be used in a more restrictive sense. That’s the way that it’s used when Paul spells out what he means by living in the lust of our flesh, namely the doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind. Here he’s speaking, he’s using flesh to speak of our animal or physical nature. Perhaps that’s why the ESV translates it as our body.

Paul is thinking of appetites, of desires for food, drink, sleep, sex, and the like. And these All of these things, of course, are not bad in themselves, but they can become obsessions and drives that are sinful. It’s not simply our bodies that can get us into trouble, but our minds, of course, as well.

I referred a bit ago to Galatians 5.17 to show that the lust of the flesh is opposed to the spirit. In that same passage, in verse 19 through 21, we read, now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envians, Murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of which I tell you before and have also told you in times past that they who do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

This, Paul says, is the way all of us once lived. This is a very bleak picture. But you may say, okay, we’re in very bad shape. We all sin. We’re all in the same boat, whether those who have grown up in the church knew and learned about the Bible, or whether we didn’t grow up in the church and never had lived a very loose and simple life. Somehow our nature gets the best of us and we fall into sin. We’ve not learned to corral the lust of the flesh.

Maybe though there’s still hope for mankind. Maybe we can learn to correct enough things in the world so that we won’t be tempted so much to sin. If we could just educate people the right way or legislate in such a way as to remove temptation or find some process of social action where we can improve man’s lot so dramatically that he doesn’t have to sin, things would be better. But Paul doesn’t let his readers or himself off so easily.

He says in verse three, like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. Paul saying here that it’s not just that man came into the world and then get off the right track and fall into sin. There’s something more fundamental being said here. He’s saying by nature, we’re objects of God’s wrath. That is justice. That is just as soon as we begin to be, to exist.

We are under God’s condemnation as sinners. As such, we’re dead men from the beginning. Or another way of putting it, we are all born stillborn. The picture for all mankind is bleak, as bleak as can be imagined. We don’t come into the world in a state of innocence. And after that, we sin and come under the wrath of God. We come into the world under God’s condemnation, under the punishment of an eternal death penalty. And why that is so is spelled out in the passage we read from Romans chapter five.

In verse 12, we read, sin entered the world through one man and death through sin. And then this way, death came to all men because all sinned. In verse 15, he says, the many died by the trespass of the one man. In verse 17, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man. And in verse 18, we read further, as a result of one trespass was condemnation for all men. What’s Paul talking about in these verses?

He’s talking about the sin of Adam. Adam, who represented all mankind, sinned, and we sinned in him. The Lord God commanded the man, Adam, in the guard, saying, you are free to eat of any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, When you eat of it, you will surely die. Adam, as we know, ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and as a consequence, he died, but we all died with him. That’s why Paul says in our text, like the rest, we were by nature objects. We are by nature objects of wrath.

When I was a teenager growing up in Calvary Church in Glenside, Pennsylvania, Mr. Atwell was the pastor. And he would sometimes call upon people when he was preaching, call upon particularly community members or those that were in his community class to answer a catechism question. I’m very happy to sit in your Sunday school and see Sunday by Sunday that you are going through the catechism. I’m not going to ask you to answer the catechism questions, but I am going to read them to you because I think they do summarize things very well. In question 15, what was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created? The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created was their eating the forbidden fruit.

Did all mankind fall in Adam’s first transgression? A covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, all mankind, notice all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generations, sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression. into what a state did the fall bring mankind. The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery, wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell. The sinfulness of that estate wherein to man fell consists in the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature which is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. What is the misery of that estate wherein the man fell?

All mankind, once again, all mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, and the pains of hell forever. This is the absolutely deplorable condition of all mankind entering the world.

It is news that the natural man does not want to hear and cannot comprehend. I’m supposed to, as a minister of the gospel, to preach the gospel. And gospel means good news. And there is good news to be proclaimed. But before any of us can fully understand the good news, we must understand the very bad news. If the doctor says you’re sick, maybe very sick, you’re still at least alive. And maybe, just maybe, there’s a cure to be found for you.

But if the doctor pronounces you dead, Then all hope is gone. There’s no cure. Paul in our text, like a doctor, pronounces all men in their natural state as dead. From a human standpoint, the situation of all man is utterly hopeless. It’s worse than having a terminal disease, for in our natural state, we are already dead.

Now I purposely chose just the first three verses of Ephesians chapter two this morning, and not a larger portion of the text. I want you to know and to understand the true desperate situation of the natural man. I want you to understand it includes you and me. All mankind are not just sick, but in their natural state, they’re dead. It’s essential we Not only hear this, but we understand it. We must be frank. We must be honest with ourselves and with others about our condition. But while I want to stress this awful condition of the natural man, I must close with words of hope.

As I said at the beginning, there’s a glimmer of hope found even in these first three verses because Paul is writing to those who were dead. In the following verses, he’s going on to talk about God, who is rich in mercy, and how out of his great love for us, even though we are dead in trespasses and sins, he has done something truly remarkable.

He’s made us alive together with Christ. I would remind you of what Paul said in his prayer in chapter one, of God’s incomparable power for us who believe. and how that power and strength was exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. God, in raising Christ from the dead, has defeated the prince of the power of the air. He’s defeated death and hell. He has raised Christ to eternal life and glory. And the good news is that through faith we are united with Christ. And thus we’re raised from the dead and we’re seated with him in the heavenly places.

For Paul says, God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And raise us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of your doing, it is the gift of God. not the result of works so that no one may boast.

I speak to you today, not as dead people, but those who are alive in Christ. That is, if you believe in him, if you trust in him alone for your salvation. Another way of putting this is saying that I can speak to you today as resurrected people made alive together with Christ. You were dead, but you have been made alive in him.

If you are united with him by faith and further bore, I would encourage you to boldly preach the gospel here in Swickly. and in the surrounding area. I know it’s like preaching in a cemetery to the dead. That’s part of the foolishness of the gospel message. That’s the foolishness of preaching.

But it’s also the power of God, and God can give new life to dead people. He gives new life in regeneration. He gives new life through the work of the Holy Spirit. God and only God can make dead man alive. He did it for Paul. He did it for the Ephesians of old. He can make you alive. He can make others in this place alive as well. He can take the preaching of his word and he can take that foolish message, at least as the world sees it, and he can use it to liven people, to make them alive and bring them to faith in Jesus Christ.

And our task is to earnestly pray that God would do his mighty work in raising people from their state of death to new life in Christ, in Christ our Lord, and that he would build the church, he would build this church and other churches, he would build it of living stones into a spiritual temple fit for his praise.

Let us pray. Our Father, we would with Paul pray that the eyes of our heart might be enlightened. that we might know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us who believe. We pray, our Father, that we might know of that greatness that our God has displayed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the one who he raised from the dead and seated with Him at the right hand in the heavenly places. We pray, our Father, that we might be raised then from the dead. We might know that. We might understand that. And that we might rejoice together in being seated with Christ in the heavenly places. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. Let us turn to hymn number 500, I’m sorry, 415.

On Thy grace I rest my plea. Plenteous in compassion Thou, Bought out my transgressions now. Wash me, make me pure within, And so cleanse me from my sin. I confess my judgment just, speechless by thy mercy. Thou desirest truth within. Thou alone my Savior art. Teach Thy wisdom to my heart. Make me pure Thy grace bestow.

Are she whiter than the snow? Broken, tumbled to the dust by thy wrath. Let thy contrite heart rejoice, and in gladness hear thy voice. From thy sins, O God, thy face, love and love in boundless praise. Gracious God, my heart renewed, Make my spirit bright and true. Let my spirit dwell in thee. Thy salvation’s glory, Lord, steadfast make my willing heart. shall learn from thee, and return, O God, to thee. Oh.

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

October 7, 2012
The Pursuit of Happiness

About this sermon

Everyone wants to be happy, but godly happiness is not the pursuit of pleasure on our own terms. Ephesians 5 forbids sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, and crude talk, for those who live in them have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Believers were once darkness but are now light in the Lord, so they walk as children of light. True happiness comes from knowing the greatness of our sin, being delivered from it in Christ, and living in thankfulness to God.

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Sermon transcript

Speak to you this evening on the subject of happiness. I’ve entitled the sermon, The Pursuit of Happiness. It seems to me most people are trying to be happy or to live in a lifestyle that leads to some form of happiness in their own terms. But we want to consider happiness in biblical terms and the terms that God has set out for us. And so one of the texts that commends itself to us in this regard is Ephesians chapter five, and I would read verses one through 14. Ephesians chapter five, verses one through 14. Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness or foolish talk or crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Therefore, do not become partners with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. And therefore it says, awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Our attention is called immediately to the statement right at the beginning of this passage, therefore be imitators of God. And that sounds to be like a tall order, to be an imitator of God. How can we go about imitating God? And we’ll be discussing that shortly. But notice that it begins, the passage begins with a word therefore. And every time you see a therefore, you have to ask yourself, what is the therefore therefore? It’s therefore because there’s something important that precedes it. And that is given to us in the verses just before that.

In chapter four and verse 30, we read, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God.

Some years ago, in his commencement address at Grove City College, Senator Rick Santorum spoke on the pursuit of happiness. He began by reminding us of the view held by most people in our country, that it doesn’t really matter what you believe or what you do, as long as you’re happy. He went on to urge the new graduates to be good, pointing out that no one can be truly happy if they’re doing evil or if they’re breaking the law of God. He said that we would benefit ourselves and our nation much more if we pursue goodness instead of seeking to make ourselves happy with pleasure. Now this evening, I want to consider the pursuit of happiness. It’s not wrong, of course, to pursue happiness if we do so on God’s terms.

And indeed, our personal happiness must not be our chief end. Of course, you all know, being Orthodox Presbyterians, what our chief end is, do you not? Our chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. So it is not our personal happiness that is our chief end. As Paul puts it, we are to imitate God as beloved children.

And the practice of godliness will enable us to live and to die happily. And it’s just as the apostle Paul notes in 1 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 8. For while bodily training he says, is of some value. Godliness is of value in every way, and it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. This is one of the faithful sayings in Timothy and Titus. While bodily training is of some value, like working out in the fitness center, Godliness is of value in every way, and it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

Another source for our understanding of these things is the Heidelberg Catechism. Granted, the Heidelberg Catechism is not the doctrinal standard of our church. But nevertheless, it is a very valuable resource for our understanding of biblical things. And the emphasis, of course, in the Heidelberg is rather the practical application of theology to our lives, whereas the Westminster Standards are systematic They help us to organize our understanding of the topics of theology found in the Bible. Well, question one in the Heidelberg Catechism has been of immense help to me personally. And I know that those of you who are familiar with that catechism find great comfort in this too.

The question, of course, is what is thy only comfort in life and death? And the answer, that I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who in his precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins and delivered me from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head. Indeed, all things that must be subservient to my salvation, therefore by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life and makes me sincerely willing and ready henceforth to live unto him. Now, how many things, the catechism continues to ask, how many things are necessary for you to know that you, enjoying this comfort, might live and die happily? And the answer is, there are three things. The first, how great my sins and miseries are. The second, how I may be delivered from all my sins and miseries. And third, how I shall express my gratitude to God for such deliverance.

Now, as it turns out, those are the points that Paul is making here in Ephesians chapter five. So summarizing what the Bible teaches, the Heidelberg Catechism informs us that we belong to Jesus because he redeemed us with his own blood. He bought us. And this brings us the ultimate happiness, namely fellowship with God in life and life in the presence of God for eternity.

Happiness in this life, however, is a matter of degree in all of us. Our Westminster standards deal with this in the chapter on assurance. Assurance of salvation is a matter of degree in all of us. And happiness in this life is a matter of degree in all of us. The degree of happiness that we personally enjoy depends on how well we understand these three questions raised by the Heidelberg Catechism.

According to the comic strip, Peanuts, I know this day and age you don’t read the comics anymore and some of you may be too young to even remember Peanuts and Snoopy. But according to the comic strip, Peanuts, happiness to Charlie Brown was a warm puppy. To others, it may be food, shelter, and clothing, or freedom from tyranny, or a new car, or a big screen TV, and so on and so forth.

The Declaration of Independence terms the pursuit of happiness an inalienable right. John Adams stated that the happiness of society is the end of government. That is, that it’s the main task of government. Happiness, he said, is the main task of government. And godly happiness, however, is not happiness on human terms.

We have no right to pursue a hedonist’s happiness. Hugh Hefner and Playboy magazine are hedonistic. That is, his motto is, if it feels good, do it. And I say we have no right to pursue a hedonist’s happiness. We have no right to pursue a homosexual’s happiness. Because those things are fraught with sin. They’re forbidden by the law of God. And so we have no right to pursue happiness on those terms.

The happiness we have the right to pursue is God’s happiness. One of the passages of scripture that tells us, informs us of things that make us happy, or that bring happiness to us, are found in the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5 and verses 3 to 11. We have the blessed there.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of God. And blessed are you when men cast insults at you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely on account of me.

Now, most of our modern translations translate this word makarios in the Greek language. I’m sure you all understand that the New Testament was translated from Greek manuscripts. The Hebrew underlies the text of the Old Testament. But the word that is translated blessed in Greek is makarios. And in most contexts, it really means happy. So we could translate this.

These beatitudes, happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are those who mourn. Happy are the gentile, the gentle. Happy are the gentle. Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Happy are the merciful. Happy are the pure in heart. Happy are the peacemakers. Happy are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

Happy are you when men cast insults at you and persecute you. That’s happiness on God’s terms, you see. So to be happy in the first place, we must know how great our sins and miseries are. How can we ever be truly happy if we do not know the enormity of our offense against God? How can we be happy if we don’t know what offends God? If we take the view of the New Age movement that we are all basically good, and that to be happy, what we need to do is raise our self-esteem, we will never know the happiness contemplated by the Bible. And though we may raise our self-esteem, we retain the inherent guilt of sin, like a dead body chained to us And we cannot be happy.

It’s the same kind of thing that Paul was referring to. Uh, this body of sin that is chained to him like it. It’s dead, dead body that they, they often did chain the bodies that murderers, uh, put to death. They chain them as a punishment to the murderer and make him walk around with the thing.

There’s this whole idea of transcendental meditation. Another example would be hypnosis to remove the body of sin with which we are all beset. Well, these things, of course, are presented to us by the society around us as being ways to get happy. Transcendental meditation, hypnosis.

Well, of course these things cannot possibly bring us happiness in biblical terms. Paul writes in Romans 7, 24, wretched man that I am. Who will set me free from the body of death, the body of this death? And his answer is in Romans chapter eight and verse one. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

James Hitchcock, in his essay, What Went Wrong in the 50s, asserts that even in the midst of the church’s popularity boom after World War II, a spiritual dry rot had set in. Christian belief was dissolving into a placid broth of feeling positive about others. Guideposts magazine became the church’s devotional reading. The post-war world was wholesome and sunny. Neighbors were generous and kind, and there seemed nothing to repent about.

Original sin appeared to be a quaint doctrine, unnecessarily pessimistic. And this has been the gospel of all the mainline churches that are now in serious decline. So we cannot be happy if we do not No, the heinousness of our sin, how bad our sins really are.

The Presbyterian layman, which is a publication of the Presbyterian church USA, uh, had this article some years ago in it. The pursuit of happiness for some in the PCUSA has been to attempt a reimagining of God. National staff and committee members from the Presbyterian Church USA gathered with leaders of other World Council of Churches denominations in Minneapolis last November, that would be November in 1993, For a feminist convocation called Reimagining 1993, declaring their allegiance to the goddess Sophia, participants catapulted their rhetoric well beyond commonplace themes of women’s equality. Instead, they heralded a more radical agenda to promote a new religion with a new God.

And this is in the Presbyterian Church. This may sound ludicrous, and we may be tempted to dismiss Sophia worship as a passing fad, but this movement continues to be influential in all of the mainline denominations, and it is said to be the vanguard of feminist theology, and it’s the most prominent trend on our seminary campuses today.

We can never be happy, and we can never be good, for that matter, if we are living in heathen darkness. We read in Ephesians chapter five verses three to six, this is our text, but sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk or crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words.

For because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. And that, of course, does not lead to happiness. How can you be happy when the wrath of God comes on you? Our sins and miseries are great in three ways according to Paul, and they are very significant because all who are not God’s people are given to sinful things, and because no immoral person has an inheritance in the kingdom of God, and because the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. The three ways, according to Paul, that lead to unhappiness are people that are given to sinful things, and the fact that no immoral person has an inheritance in the kingdom of God, and because the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

And this hardly leads to happiness, as I’ve said. We either belong to our faithful savior, Jesus Christ, or we belong to Satan. We are either reckoned as saints because the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to us by grace, or we are enemies of God. There’s no halfway. You’re the one or the other. And this is true for every human society.

No one who does not know the enormity of his sin and misery will ever turn from it onto the true and living God. And therefore, no one apart from belonging to Christ will ever be happy. And although they may have the facade of prosperity and happiness, they must live with inner guilt, and they must live with darkened understanding, and how dreadful it is to be hardened in sin, to be reprobate. But how happy is the one who recognizes his sinful condition and comes to Christ for grace. Well, to be happy, we must also know how to be delivered from our sins and miseries. We have to know how sinful these things are. And now we need to know how to be delivered from them.

Jesus provides to his people the only relief from the guilt of sin. In John 17, three, we read, this is eternal life. that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. There is no other deliverance from the guilt of sin but saving knowledge of the true God and of his Christ. No psychotherapy, no favorable position of the stars, no behavioral modification drugs, no meditation, no yoga, can ever remove the burden of sin.

And our only hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteous, active obedience to God as he bore our sins on the cross. And here is what we were before Christ delivered us. This too from our text in Ephesians chapter five, verses seven to eight. Here’s what we were before Christ delivered us. Verses seven and eight.

Therefore, do not become partakers with them, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And verses 11 and 12, take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.

And that’s what we were, you see, before Christ delivered us. And here is the result of conversion and deliverance. Look at verse eight of our text in Ephesians five. Here is the result of conversion and deliverance. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children in light. And verses 13 and 14. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light.

And therefore it says, awake, O sleeper. and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. In Isaiah chapter 26 and verse 19, continuing in our understanding of the result of conversion and deliverance, we read that the dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy, for your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead. Isaiah 51, 17, wake yourself, wake yourself, stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath, who have drunk in the dregs of the bowl the cup of staggering. Wake up, wake yourself, and stand up. That’s the result, you will do that as the result of conversion and the deliverance that God provides to his people. Again in Isaiah 52 in verse one, awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion, put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city, for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.

Well, how is it that the dead will live, that corpses will rise? And where do the beautiful garments come from with which the saints clothe themselves? How is it that unclean cannot come into the city of God? It is because our light has come. And these things are true because the glory of Yahweh has risen upon us. Indeed, God has raised us up from the dead and delivered us by his grace.

The spiritually dead people cannot be happy. They know nothing of the surpassing riches of the grace of God in his kindness toward us in Christ. And they have not been saved. They have not been delivered through faith. They are not the workmanship of God created in Christ Jesus for good works.

And how am I delivered from the guilt of my sin? It’s only through saving faith in Christ. This is eternal life, the Lord said, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. The Heidelberg Catechism reminds us, too, that in order to be happy, we need to know how to express our gratitude to God. We need to know the enormity of our sin how to be delivered from it, and then thirdly, we need to express our gratitude to God for deliverance, to be happy. Paul teaches us in our text, in Ephesians 5 and verses 8 through 10, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord.

One’s self is not in view here. It cannot be, I can handle it, I can make it happen, I am me, I’m enough. It cannot be as it was put by Frank Sinatra in that song that he made popular. For what is a man, what has he got, he sings. If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels, the record shows I took the blows and did it my way. It’s not that. One’s self is not in view here.

We must try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Any ability we have to imitate the holiness of God as beloved children is the direct result of conversion, of being light in the Lord. The shackles of our mind have been removed and we begin to know what it is to please the Lord and therefore to be happy. The prophet urges us, awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. By the grace of God, his people are no longer darkness, but light. And in order to properly express our gratitude to God, we must strive for goodness, righteousness, and truth. We must always be trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord, and in this manner, we will pursue true happiness.

Our Father, we thank you for this reminder from your word of that which pleases you and that which leads to our personal happiness. How can we be happy if we continue in sin? but we bless your name for bringing us out of the miseries of our sin and unrighteousness into the blessed fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ through our faith in him and through the work of your Holy Spirit in us. We thank you that we have every reason and every ground to be happy. as we look forward to a life with Christ, both in this life and in the life to come. We thank you for your matchless grace to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray it in his name, amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

February 20, 2011
A Supernaturalized Existence

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 12, 1997.

About this sermon

Christianity, this closing sermon insists, is a supernaturalized existence from top to bottom, no natural life with religious accessories added on. Every imperative reviewed across Ephesians 5:21-6:9 depends on that supernatural reality rather than standing as independent moral advice. A proper view of law and imperative, the series’ whole burden, comes down finally to this: obedience is supernatural or it isn’t real obedience at all.

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Sermon transcript

We are reading from Ephesians chapter 5 and 6, and we begin in the 21st verse of the 5th chapter. This is Ephesians 5 verse 21. Give your attention to the word of God. Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord.

The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church, and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it. that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So watch men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself, for no man ever yet tainted his own flesh, yet nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church. For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.

Nevertheless, let every one of you, in particular, so love his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Children, obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Slaves, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as unto Christ, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will, doing service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is there any respect of persons with him.”

As you minister to us, O God, by your word, we are concerned that this word which you have given to us would minister to others. And, Father, you have called us to pray, and we do so, that you would raise up laborers for your harvest. and that they would be many who bring your word to the world.

And even now, this day, as that word is brought, there would be transformation. Those who are dead would be brought to life. Those who are lost in corruption would be found and revived in righteousness, even the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord, these things. as we continue to look to you for the ministry of your work in our lives. Amen.

It should be clear to us by now, given this series on living the Christian life, it should be clear to us by now the way in which Paul, the Apostle, directs us to see Christian living. This made particularly evident to us with one more reading of the text that has been before us in this series. in Ephesians 5 and 6.

Putting it simply, according to the Apostle Paul, the Christian life is a supernaturalized existence. It is a supernaturalized existence. Now, it is important for us to realize in saying this that Such an approach to Christian living is not concerned among us, much less the Ephesians, with what some might have thought. That is, the supernaturalized life is not concerned with the interjection of the miraculous, as if we might continue to expect rose and fish multiplied, men walking on water, herds of swine cascading demon-possessed into the sea, and bodies raised after four days dead in the tomb. I might also say that the supernaturalized life for the Ephesians and for us, is not looking toward those special endowments, those special gifts of the Spirit which Paul had spoken about earlier in his ministry to the Corinthian church, particularly 1 Corinthians, chapters 12 through 14. Actually, Paul’s concern here with the supernaturalized life is to impress upon his hearers, impress upon his readers, the fact that they always live in the presence of the living Christ, in the presence of the resurrected living Lord. here principally is that supernaturalized existence Paul has in mind.

Not the occasional miraculous occurrence, nor the experience of part of the Church in those periodic and selective visitations of the gifts of the Spirit, but in the constant environment which has been established for the Church in Christ, in which now the Church is to live. And by mentioning constant with regard to this environment, certainly eternity is brought into view.

Paul’s point in this regard is apparent from the latter part of the text we’ve read this morning, from Ephesians 6, verses 5 through 9. In verse 5, the apostle tells the slaves to be obedient to their masters as to Christ. He addresses them as slaves of Christ in verse 6. He implores them to render service as unto the Lord, that is, as unto the Lord Jesus Christ, in verse 7. Verse 8 finds the slaves receiving their wages even from the Lord, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ.

In verse 9, without spelling out all the details, the Apostle calls those who are masters to the same sort of considerations. That’s the force of Paul’s word to the masters. Do the same things to your slaves, or better possibly, pursue the same kind of life with them that I have asked the slaves to pursue with you, that is, pursue the supernaturalized life.

But what is this supernaturalized life specifically? We have said that it’s life in the presence of the risen Christ, but can we be more specific about it? Such a life is the direct consequence of the saving work of God in Christ. This means that it has nothing to do with the nondescript, mindless mysticism that informs much religiosity of our time. Likewise, it has nothing to do with a retreatist monasticism. Much less does it have anything to do with that philosophical bent of mind which believes in an invisible world behind the visible, and commends itself as inherently superior to all materialistic competitors and worldviews.

This supernaturalized life has everything to do with the specific reality of the heaven which the Bible describes, that place which has become resident for the once-crucified, now-risen Christ, who is at the Father’s right hand, the true and only destiny of the saints in glory. Even though the saints have not as yet been raised in their bodies to it, has been described earlier by Paul in Ephesians as the realm in which they already live.

This is the place of their residence because of the choice and predestination of God. Ephesians 1, verses 4, 5, and 11. This is their residence because of their inclusion. through that choice and predestination in Christ, by whom they have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Chapter 1, verse 3. This participation in things heavenly does not belong exclusively to the future, as Paul makes it clear in Ephesians 2, verses 5 and 6.

Even when we were dead in our sins, God made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with him. and yes, even seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ as a done deal. Because of God’s eternal will and due to the effectual working of Jesus Christ in keeping with that will, our lives have been subjected to a change of venue. As Paul says in Philippians 3 verse 20, our citizenship is in heaven. And as he says also in Colossians 1 verse 13, we have been translated out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God’s own dear Son. Because our living Lord lives in heaven, we live with him and in him there.

And this is all of grace. not of worse. Our faith, if genuine, being the confirmation of our election and God’s predestination of us, such faith the means by which God has been pleased to seal our union with Christ in our heavenly life, since that faith in no way, if rightly understood, contradicts or challenges His sovereign grace by which we have been brought to glory. The supernaturalized life, therefore, according to the Scriptures, is the heavenly life in Christ, the doing of God for which we can take no credit.

As it shall be in the day in which we and our bodies shall be brought before the face of God, so it is now. Can you imagine yourself in that day suggesting to God that you are there because of something good in you or something that you have accomplished? I challenge the Arminians. to conjure in his mind his presence before God in the great day, and I ask him if he can generate from within himself any form of suggestion that the reason that he is there is because of him in any respect.

Now it is this supernaturalized life of heaven which informs all our actions and all our relationships. No, even more, it is this supernaturalized life in the risen Christ, life in and from the heavenly places, which is our life now. We have no other life. I dare say, I want no other life. And if we want to get into testimonies, this is mine. Consider the text again.

The relationship of a slave to a master is no mere matter of an inferior’s relationship to a superior in the social scale of things, although in the social scale of things there are inferiors and there are superiors. Nor is it a mere matter of citing law codes with regard to the relationship between slaves and masters. For those blessed with heavenly life, are called to see this relationship, even the relationship of slaves and masters, in the light of glory itself. My relationship as a slave to my master is informed by the fact that my labor is not simply for the sake of Christ here on earth, that is, to the end that I might please him and be rewarded by him one day in glory, much more, my labor is to Christ, before Christ, in Christ, as if performed in his very presence in glory already.

It’s as if I’m there, working before him. That’s the effect. of what Paul is stating here in Ephesians 6. Your labor is performed before him. Now, how are you going to work? Paul, who describes himself as Christ’s bond slave, none lower, has this very perspective in view with respect to his own labors in the ministry. He says about his preaching ministry, I speak in Christ in the sight of God. That’s how he conceives of his preaching ministry.

2 Corinthians 2.17. It’s as if he’s there. And what might we say about the circumstances of the Apostle? he’s presently a prisoner of Rome. He makes mention of that repeatedly, but is he really a prisoner of Rome?

According to Ephesians 3.1 and 4.1, he’s the prisoner of Christ.

You see, all relationships and circumstances are subjected to this supernaturalizing vision with respect to life. And if this is the perspective The supernaturalized life brings the slaves, what about masters? Is not their position likewise affected by their office considered in the full view of Christ in glory? Slaves motivated and disciplined by Christ and the environment of heaven have their counterpart in masters motivated and disciplined in the very same way. But I judge for you It is now blatantly evident that Paul has been prosecuting the case for this supernaturalized life all along, in everything that he has been saying, whether it is with respect to masters or slaves, parents or children, husbands or wives.

Paul subjects each of the relationships from Ephesians 5.22 to Ephesians 6.9 to the identical scrutiny. Parents, for example, in the supernaturalized life. must see the children of God in front of their Heavenly Father, in their own children, standing before them. Husbands, according to the supernaturalized life, must see the bride of Christ, the Church, standing before her Lord, in their own wives, standing before them.

That’s what’s happening. These relationships, then, are part of a total life view, thoroughly, completely informed by the work of Christ, his present position, and by heaven itself. being raised with Christ, how do I treat my wife? How do I treat my children? How do I treat my employer? It’s all different. I’m telling you about another world. But now I must add to this in conclusion. This view of life further helps us to appreciate the positive force of the law. Now I know it may sound as if I’m pulling something out of the air here. And you’re thinking to yourself, how did he get to the law from where he is presently?

But I want to remind you that we started this series in an effort to consider Paul’s imperatives. Now, we are convinced, are we not, that we can never disassociate the indicatives of the apostle from his imperatives. The accomplishment of redemption from its application to us and our responsibility to God with respect to that salvation. But now, here, at the conclusion of the series, we must return to the issue of the imperatives, even the issue of commandment and law.

I said the positive force of law, commandment, of imperative. We are all aware of the way in which the apostle negatively assesses the law and the commandment. We are not under law, so says the apostle. But now there is this positive assessment of things.

Paul, here, to the Ephesians, is laying down the law in a series of imperatives. And such is the nature of our life in this world that we are not going to be able to escape imperatives. We are not going to be able to escape commandment and law. In fact, you will note that he specifically quotes from the law the Fifth Commandment in Ephesians 6, 2 and 3.

Although Paul’s perspective has in view more than motivation and discipline from the law, that is to be sure, the law maintains its usefulness for us. in our present situation. Yes, heaven is a place in which the constraint upon our moral and spiritual obedience is not by external command, neither is heaven a place in which we will need the plotting of the apostles’ imperatives and reminders. Still, the commandments, like the apostles’ imperatives, are testimony to the present paradox of our current existence.

On the one hand, we are placed in glory in Christ. On the other hand, because we still live here in this world and must do so until we leave this world at death or at Christ’s return, we have to be reminded, we must be reminded, about our true home and about our proper orientation and the way in which we are to appropriate that home and that orientation and be faithful to them. Therefore, we cannot dismiss, much less do we want to neglect, We must remember that they themselves render service to our goal in which they will have exhausted their purpose. It could well be that at Ephesus there were many in need of this reminder, many in need of the commandment.

Possibly they had so caught the bug of heaven that they imagined themselves free from all moral and ordinary relationships and responsibilities in this world. Possibly they even imagined that the world had ended, or that it was about to end. Paul puts the record straight.

True heavenly-mindedness and proper living out of the heavenly life now does not run from relationships and responsibilities, but sees them and pursues them in full, brilliant, gracious, supernatural life. Such an outlook does not abominate the law. or the reminders that are given to us with respect to the law, but see them serving their proper function as servants to the full possession of our inheritance above our heavenly goal. Won’t you take to heart, then, the nature of our true life in Christ, the supernaturalized life of glory already in your possession of which you are hereby reminded in the gospel and its commandments.

And although yours is a heaven in life, one by which you are made to share in Christ’s very own exalted life and glory, remember that this one, to whom you are united, loved you according to Ephesians 5.2, gave himself for you in offering any sacrifice of God, not only so that you might be granted life in heaven, so that you might live a heavenly life here, even as you submit yourself to one another in the fear of Christ.

And having worked our way back to Ephesians 5.21, we bring this series to a close. Our Father would never be a matter of us conjuring up or inventing the world into which Christ has ascended, the world to which we are destined, even predestined. Father, as we have not invented it, as we have not manufactured it as it stands, and that even in keeping with the work which he has performed at the present rule and session from that realm, we glory, O God, that by our union with him, we are brought to that world already. Father, we pray that in keeping with the imperatives, with the commandments, with the law itself, we would persevere in our responsibilities, in our obligations, in our duties But Father, as we do so, may it be a matter of us seeing that this great blessing and gift which has been given to us informs us in all of our actions and relationships. Here then, O God, is a fulfilling of the law and the commandments in us, and we pray our that we might live with a full consciousness of our reign with Christ and our service in this world to him. Bless us as your people. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

January 12, 1997
Apart From a Slave and a Master

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 29, 1996.

About this sermon

The common claim that Paul simply opposed slavery does not match the Bible, and the text’s real complications remain. 1 Timothy 1 condemns ‘manstealing,’ which differs from the household slavery Ephesians 6 addresses. Believers cannot rightly think of themselves apart from Christ as a slave and God as a master, categories modern readers resist and Paul assumes.

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Sermon transcript

We begin our scripture reading this morning in the book of Exodus, chapter 21, and we are reading from that chapter a single verse, verse 16. This is Exodus 21, verse 16. Give your attention to God’s word. And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.”

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Savior and of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope unto Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord, as I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some. that they teach no other doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith, so do. Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfamed, from which some, having swerved, have turned aside unto vain jangling. desiring to be teachers of the law, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm. But we know that the law is good if a man uses it lawfully, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for poor mongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for men stealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God which was committed to my trust. And then finally, turning over to Ephesians chapter 6, returning to our messages on Ephesians 6, picking up Then at verse 5, servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as unto Christ, not with thy service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free, and he masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him.

Our Father, our hope is for the consummation of all things, and we look to the blessed hope of the return of our Savior in the clouds of glory, bringing to a conclusion this world and its history. But Lord, in order that we might face that event rightly and well, we plead with you, O God, that our faith may be strong and our obedience sincere. To this end, Lord, would you bless this congregation, even in its giving and in its praying? even in its worshiping, even in its living. And Father, in the center of these things that are of concern for you, as far as our lives go, we ask that we might be devoted to one another. Even more, O God, may we be devoted to the wide extent of your church, and intercede faithfully after the pattern and power of your Son for those who are beloved of you, called by you throughout the world. And may it please you, Lord, to save many today. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

How do we gracefully approach a text like the one that is before us this morning, Ephesians 6, 5-9? We have been convinced, through the force of historic events, Through an enlightened assessment of political realities, and through what we have judged the sheer weight of common Christian decency, that the institution of slavery as such is more than simpliness guided and improper, it is much the rather inherently evil. Therefore, slavery, or the economic and social relationship in which someone has property in another, someone has ownership of another, is wicked, always and ever wicked, to be viewed negatively. And that, without exception, case closed. But this being the case, what in heaven’s name do we do with Ephesians 6, verses 5 through 9?

A text that speaks explicitly about slaves and masters. And what do we do with any number of other texts? in the New Testament and in the Old Testament that speak about the same thing. Obviously, we cannot make this text here in Ephesians say something that it does not say. We cannot, for instance, turn this text into a diatribe against slavery. or even an overt prescription for slavery’s deconstruction.

How then do we retain the text? Much more, how do we retain the apostle and the integrity of the scriptures, and at the same time do justice to the way in which we have been taught to read history, appreciate political reality, and express Christian sensitivities about such matters as justice and freedom.

Well, one way some have endeavored to resolve this problem is to suggest that the Bible, and particularly now the Apostle Paul, were conditioned by their times, and therefore only expressing the social attitudes of the cultural environment in which they appeared.

Furthermore, so it is said, although Paul’s statements do not expressly challenge or refute the institution of slavery, they do so implicitly. For the slaves and the masters here are addressed as members, collaterally and equally, of the Church of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the overall effect of Paul’s words was really the undermining of slavery, even its abolition. Not its protection, certainly not its promotion. However, it has not gone unnoticed that this position, which I have just stated, creates its own tensions.

For example, can we avoid the power of the parallel between these verses, which we’ve read in Ephesians 6, verses 5 through 9, and what appeared previously, in Ephesians 5.22, to Ephesians 6.4. In other words, we find in Paul not just remarks in this context about slaves and masters, but also about children and parents, verses 1-4 in chapter 6, and wives and husbands, verses 22-33 of that fifth chapter. Since Paul’s comments in each of these units are deliberately in sync, since they parallel each other, it would seem abundantly evident that we have to treat each unit in the very same way. In fact, it is the force of this observation that has now, of late, driven some to suggest about parents and children, and his views about husbands and wives are just as arcane, are just as culture-bound and outmoded as his views on masters and slaves.

And just as the Gospel set in motion the message concerning the abolition of slavery, even saintly honoring the institution, so also that gospel has set in motion the message about children’s rights, and that message prescription for anti-discipline and the promotion of a self-esteem evangel for child rearing. That gospel also set in motion, so we are told, the message about female co-headship in marriage, together with a redefinition of the nature of the family and a new understanding of the relationship between wives and husbands.

Those who have suggested this approach have this going for them. They have labored to be consistent in the application of their method, and they have labored to maintain what they consider to be a credible biblical message in the modern world. They feel that if they go in a contrary direction, not only they, but their gospel becomes an embarrassment. How can we hold up our heads? in modern society. Our question this morning is whether these who have suggested this route have been either biblical or consistent. Have they been successful in their pursuit of a unified view of the Christian life? with respect to these three areas of interest marked out by Paul—marriage, family, slaves and masters. And have they been biblical, in tune with the Apostle Paul’s intention as he addresses the leaders then and by the Spirit now?

Let’s begin with the issue of consistency. Yes, there is a consistency in method applied by these people of whom we’ve spoken that sees each of these three areas now—marriage, family, and labor—affected by the gospel. But should we also expect to see a consistency of effect upon all three areas? What I mean is this, if all three relationships are parallel, shouldn’t we expect the same impact from the gospel across the board?

And if in one area, the area of masters and slaves, the goal is actually abolition, would not the impact of the gospel in the other areas be equal? Shouldn’t we expect abolition in them as well? And if the abolition in the one area is actually the abolition of the institution in view, do we not expect then the abolition of the institutions in the other instances? That is to say, if Paul’s message about masters and slaves really means the abolition of the institution of slavery, doesn’t his message about children and parents Wives and husbands really mean the abolition of marriage and the family.

And tragically, isn’t this precisely the way in which a growing number of Christians have begun to live? repulsive, rampant divorce, abandonment, abortion, abuse, financial unaccountability, and absolute irresponsibility and perversions of all kinds. The consequences within the confessing Christian public, which both consciously and subconsciously lives as if Paul’s imperatives to Husbands and wives, parents and children are no more binding on them than his imperatives to masters and slaves.

Of course there is ample justification offered for this attitude from within the Christian community. That justification summed up in the vain and misguided confession. I believe, I believe, this is my credo, I believe God wants me to be free. After all, my personal freedom is God’s greatest concern. And I am determined that no patriarchal notions, no antiquarian views of marriage, no old-fashioned opinions about a child’s place or a parent’s responsibility, no unwanted pregnancy, no financial obligation, no sexual identity or stereotype shall restrict my free movement to be in concert then with God’s chief interest for me, my personal freedom within this world.

It would seem, would it not, that those who have thought themselves consistent in the application of their method inevitably fall beneath the weight of a position they have sought to maintain in the interests of their assured convictions that Paul’s position must mean the abolition of slavery, otherwise Paul’s credibility and the credibility of the Bible. are lost. But this failure on the part of these people, of course, is the result of a more serious failure still, that of not truly grasping the Bible’s intention, the Apostle’s meaning. Now it is very important to say at this point Paul’s comments are not meant to vindicate the modern institution of slavery based upon the notion that slavery is the solution to political dissent, such as has been practiced under communism. Nor do Paul’s statements vindicate the infamous system, the infamous system built up by Christians, built upon the practice of slave trading, which lay at the root of the slavery institution as practiced in this country for so many years.

That institution depended upon what the Bible calls man-stealing. Exodus 21 verse 16. 1 Timothy 1 verse 10. Man-stealing. A sin, which you will note from that Exodus text, punished in the Old Testament by death. Oh, we got death, didn’t we? We have blood running from one end of this country to the other. horrible sufferings and his judgment. When John Newton, the slave trader, the man-stealer, came to Christ, he repented of all of his sins, including his sin of man-stealing. He later wrote, Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, could save a wretch like me.

But if now Paul, when he speaks about slaves and their masters in Ephesians 6 verses 5 through 9, doesn’t mean a solution to political dissent or that slavery which belongs to the wicked world of slave trading, what does he mean? He means what we suggested at the beginning of this message. He means that essentially economic and social arrangement in which someone has property in another, in which someone has ownership in another. That’s what he means.

Now, you might find yourself recoiling from this definition as much as you did from any other. But before you recoil too far, let me suggest to you that what I am proposing offers you a consistent line for Paul’s argument, namely that the apostle means the institution of which he speaks in chapter 6, verses 5 through 9, to be just as perpetual, just as constant in Christian experience and within the world as he means the institutions of marriage and family to be. All three are treated alike, all three are affirmed. But how, you ask, is this possible? How is it possible for him, for the Apostle, for the Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, to affirm slavery, to affirm this distinction between slaves and masters, by any definition? because he understands that that of which he speaks is as common and as inescapable to life in this world as marriage and family. It is inescapable for us as it was for the Ephesians to whom Paul wrote. As inescapable today as it was then. Paul’s words therefore include us. We are in view.

How so? You ask. I’m no slave. I’m no master. Let me ask you. Do you have a mortgage? I don’t care how you cut it. The bank owns you. I don’t care how you dress it up, how you finesse the language, the bank has ownership in you. You’re working for the bank. Do you have debts? Yes, it’s true. People actually do have property in others. It’s unavoidable. You cannot escape it. People do actually have ownership of others. It’s inescapable. That is at the heart of what Paul is saying. And what do we make of bankruptcy court?

Being a little bit more general, are you an employee? Then someone has property in you. I don’t care how you dress it up. I don’t care what language you use. Someone has property in you. On the other hand, are you an employer? Have you purchased the labor of another? Then you are a master, and have property in those who serve you. The arrangement is inevitable. It is as automatic and as natural as the sun in the sky. You’re going to have to make a completely different universe in order to escape it.

But notice now, in conclusion, What Paul says about slaves and masters is as well consistent with what he has said about marriage and family. Slaves and masters, just like children and parents and wives and husbands, are subjected to the gospel and informed in all of their relationships by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

The husband cannot consider himself now apart from his Savior and his Savior’s love for his church. The wife cannot consider herself apart from the church and Christ’s love for his bride. A child must not consider his or her parent apart from the God and Father who stands behind that parent. And a parent cannot consider their children apart from the way in which the heavenly parent has dealt with his children. So also with slaves and masters. Is it not true? The slave cannot consider himself apart from that one who was the Lord who made himself the bond slave. And masters cannot consider themselves apart from that humbling activity of Christ and the consideration that they have. a master in heaven.”

Truly then, we affirm the consistency of the apostle and the word of God, and rightly divided, it offers up rich reward. blessing for all of us, we God’s children, that we might live as we should. Father, we may chafe at your word. We might find ourselves emotionally in severe disagreement. We might rebel for a time, but we do ask you, Lord, that you would bring us to your feet. That in our submission to you, there would be that beautiful and wonderful submission to your word, that we might live in a way that is pleasing to you, even in a way in which Jesus Christ is evident in us and foremost for all of our considerations. Lord, bless your church even as she struggles in these matters and forgive her for her sins. We plead on our behalf, on behalf of others.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

December 29, 1996
Fathers Who Know the Father

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 1, 1996.

About this sermon

Christ’s own ministry focuses, at its center, on revealing the heavenly Father, a focus liberal theology has tended to flatten into a vague universal fatherhood available to anyone. Ephesians 6:4’s instruction to fathers assumes something more specific: fathers who actually know God the Father are the ones equipped to correct their own children rightly. What the verse is really asking for is knowing the Father, more than disciplinary technique.

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Sermon transcript

John also taught his disciples, and he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone that is indebted to us. and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’

And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves? For a friend of mine is in his journey, and he is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. And he from within shall answer and say, Trouble me not, The door is now shut, my children are with me in bed, I cannot rise and give thee. I say unto you, though he will not rise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his importunity he will rise and give him as many as he needed. And I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh, receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit? to them that ask him. And turning over to Ephesians chapter 6, reading at verse 4.

And he fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Lord, we know the power of your word. And Father, we yearn for the fullness of that power at work in us, even as we give ourselves willingly and lovingly to that Word. Father, we are mindful of the labors in the interests of the Word throughout the world. We pray, Lord, that you would profit the Word and increase it here in this country and throughout the nations, even as you call those whom you have ordained unto everlasting life unto yourself by that word. Father, bless us in our prayers on behalf of the ministry of the Word, and bless us, Lord, in our giving, that we, out of our prosperity would direct our gifts, even sacrificially, to the work of the kingdom. And bless the gifts, O God, and multiply them in ways that are pleasing to you. We ask this through Christ, who is himself your gift to us. Amen.

Jesus’ ministry can be called the revelation about the Heavenly Father. If you have been in the habit of thinking that Jesus’ ministry is above all else, at least as it is reported to us in the first three Gospels, the revelation about the kingdom of God, I ask you to place alongside the reality of the coming of the kingdom this revelation about God, our Heavenly Father. Now, it is quite important that we are aware of what is being said at this point.

First of all, I am no friend, and neither is the Orthodox Presbyterian Church a friend of the liberal position of what has been called modernism, that position that has clamored so incessantly for its doctrine of the eternal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. This position, the liberal position, claims that Jesus simply uncovered a monumental religious truth that had always been available to humanity. But until Jesus arrived, had remained buried beneath the religious primitivism and tribalism enshrouding the world’s population. Jesus’ message about the fatherhood of God, therefore, according to the liberal, announced an unprecedented advance in the evolutionary development of humanity’s religious consciousness. I’m merely quoting from Harry Emerson Fosdick. Before Jesus, according to Fosdick, God was thought to be a local warrior deity who guided and judged his people from the top of the mountain.

But after Jesus, God became the Heavenly Father who cares indiscriminately, equally, and I might add non-judgmentally, for everyone. As I said, I am no friend, neither is the Orthodox Presbyterian Church a friend of the liberal position and its caricatures of both the Old and New Testaments, and its reconstruction of Jesus into the guise of a modern humanitarian. But at the same time, I am no friend, and neither is the Orthodox Presbyterian Church a friend of that conservative Christianity. that so emphasizes what God is from all eternity that it has absolutely no understanding of what God has done uniquely in the gospel.

Yes, God is eternally king. Yes, he has been the Father from all eternity. And yes, the Old Testament does speak about God’s kingship and his fatherhood in both general and also in specific terms. But as much as we acknowledge these truths, still, with the coming of Christ, God’s kingdom and his message about God’s fatherhood literally explode upon the scene as if they had not formerly existed. The force of what Jesus declares and presents startles us, for it seems that his message about the kingdom and about his own Father in heaven are totally new, as if previously absent but now present. In this regard, concerning the kingdom, you will remember Jesus’ own words.

Mark 1.15. The kingdom of God is at hand, as if it had not been present previously. He also says, Matthew 12, 28, the kingdom of God has come upon you, speaking of it as if it were a recent event. And Luke 17, verse 21. the kingdom of God is in your midst, having recently arrived.

Along the same line, and equally, this concerning God’s fatherhood, Jesus announces an entirely new day, a new day of intimacy and access. are now given the overwhelmingly powerful invitation to address God directly as their Father, the force and the power of the opening for the Lord’s Prayer.

But further, although these disciples are Jews, It is as if they have become now the children of God for the very first time. God’s great and new action in the dawning of the kingdom takes sinners, these Jewish sinners, who in their sin have trusted in their native heritage, and made of them sons of God in truth. God has come. and has taken ruined, stained sinners who, despite their pedigree, were, as Paul says, children of wrath, even as the rest, and made of them saints, belonging to their Heavenly Father’s realm. These newly born children of glory then are blessed with unheard-of nourishment and fatherly oversight, but even more, such access to God’s presence as has been never before known.

Need I remind you of what the writer to the Hebrews says about all this, a text which we read this morning? in our call to worship. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh. And having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. and our bodies washed with pure water.” Even though Jesus in his ministry speaks before the actual accomplishment of all of these things, about which the writer to the Hebrews speaks, Jesus himself assumes the full gamut, the totality of the ministry, in issuing his invitation to all who are the children of God.

Jesus says, ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you. Luke 11, verse 9. In this context, Jesus expounds the meaning of the revelation about the Heavenly Father. In the previous verses, 5 through 8 in that eleventh chapter in Luke, Jesus tells us, even close friends may be put out by a request for help from you at midnight. Still, though grudgingly, they rise and help you because of your persistence.

The implication being, your Heavenly Father is even more accessible, being perfectly willing to respond to the children of the kingdom. But further in this context, Jesus says, verses 11 through 13, Your earthly fathers, while sinners, give you good gifts. How much more your Heavenly Father now gives the Holy Spirit to all who ask Him.

In this day, then, this day of the arrival of the Kingdom and the unveiling of the Father of Glory as never before, in this day of new and unparalleled access to our Father in Heaven, We live confidently and even boldly in the sure and certain knowledge that our gracious, loving Father, who has made us his children, will receive us gladly and lovingly respond to us. In another passage in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus encourages his disciples and us through those disciples by telling them, that our Heavenly Father will not long delay in responding to their cries for help, those who cry for him day and night in faith. But you should know, the action of God in sending his only begotten Son into this world means more, of course, than the change in the ages, that transition by which the Kingdom now appears and advances towards its inevitable consummation, by which the fatherhood of our God wonderfully opens up for us as never before. Included in this change of the age is also a change in us. One aspect of this change in us and for us is that this new revelation of the Father of Glory creates anew fathers who now know how to be fathers because they have fellowship with their Father in Heaven.

Here is what informs the Apostle Paul in his statement in Ephesians 6.4. Fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

It is very important that we are clear as to what is behind the Apostle’s statement. Paul’s appeal to these Ephesian fathers does not rest upon the basis of some general notion about the way things ought to be for the preserving of civilization. Nor does his appeal rest upon the basis of some automatically operative natural law undergirding a society at launch. Nor does his appeal rest upon the basis of some agreed-upon definition for family values and what would produce the most efficient and morally sound domestic operation and tranquility.

And most certainly, his position does not rest upon the basis of an inspiring moment, one that someone might have had while attending a mass gathering when, in a filled stadium, fathers together with other males in an act of male bonding have regained their manhood by discovering that they don’t have to be embarrassed about singing real loud, hugging one another, and saying the name Jesus out loud in public.

Now, the appeal that Paul makes to these Ephesian fathers is on the basis that they know the who because of our Lord Jesus Christ have been revealed to them as never before. The real promise keepers are those who are serious in the keeping of their vows made to the Father in light of the full, brilliant range of that revelation that has come in Jesus Christ, such revelation as is not disassociated from Christ and his work and the totality of it, including the Church. The real promise-keepers do not make the Church an afterthought, do not make the Church a subordinate category in their position. It is at the very forefront of their consciousness and who they are. And it is within that context they have made their vows, and they are determined to keep them as they have presented those vows before the Father in the name of the Son. The real promise keepers, then, are those who are serious in the keeping of their vows made to the Father in light of the full, brilliant range of the revelation that has come in Christ. and that which cannot be separated from Him, namely His Church.

The fathers from this company of the real promise keepers respond to their children in the manner the Heavenly Father responds to His children. The Heavenly Father does not exasperate or frustrate His children, driving them to rage but rather makes himself easily, openly accessible to them, inviting their approach, giving to them graciously and even sacrificially. Fathers who know the Heavenly Father do the same. But further, as the text makes plain, seeing that which is behind it, the Heavenly Father does not make a mockery of his generosity by being the indulgent parent who feeds his children’s greed and selfishness. Instead, he disciplines and admonishes his children in keeping with the truth that has revealed his very own son and in the realm over which his Son presides, namely, the Church.

When you read nurture and admonition in the Lord, or of the Lord, you must also understand that what the Apostle means is nurture and admonition of and in the Church, which belongs to the Lord. This does not diminish your home in its importance. This does not diminish your family. It provides merely the proper orientation for you to understand your family. Good fathers learn how to be good fathers at church. Fathers who know the Heavenly Father follow the Heavenly Father, imitate the Heavenly Father.

Christian fathers must not allow their generosity to obliterate the appropriate nurture and correction found in the Lord himself and within his assembly. And they certainly must not teach their children to despise the authority in Christ’s Church. But notice now, in conclusion, the fact that this nurture and correction are specifically of the Lord and His Church, and that this fact is of the greatest encouragement to us. This is the case, first of all, because it means that we who are fathers are not alone in our calling to be good fathers, but are supported by others in this company of Christ’s assembly. Secondly, this is the case because the Lord Jesus Christ, in the full range of his own obedience, has not only been the perfect son of the Father, but the one in whom the perfection of the Father’s love and care is manifest for his own children.

Therefore, you fathers must not despair of your performance as fathers, for even though you are called to repent of your failures, you must also realize that the God who now makes himself known as your Father and gladly grants you access to him for glorious communion, is the same God who gladly supplies you, as fathers, all you need for life and godliness through and in Jesus Christ your Savior. May God the Father grant to you fathers the full realization of these things. even as you resist provoking your children to wrath, and commit yourself to bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

What a blessing, O God, your great and glorious work in sending your Son. How wonderful, O God, your mercy to us in granting us the Kingdom of Heaven. But Lord, we are also moved by this truth that as the kingdom has been given to us, so also you have given us yourself as a father, and you are a father to us, we your children. O God, this is instructive, and we pray that the instruction would not be lost to us, that as you are a father to us, and this recently revealed in Jesus Christ. We also recently have been enabled through Christ and by your grace to be fathers who are formed after your image and mottled by your love and your care. Lord, may it please you to grant the fathers of this congregation a love for you, such as the very magnificence of your graciousness to them is now seen in them as they relate to their children and to their families. This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

December 1, 1996
Grace Grounded in Eternal Love

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 24, 1996.

About this sermon

The gospel begins with a gift, grace itself, which means it begins with Christ and never with a demand. Ephesians 2:4 grounds God’s mercy in his own eternal love, apart from anything in the one who receives it. Covenant children inherit that same grace, and grace never licenses sin.

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Sermon transcript

We are reading from Ephesians chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2 beginning in verse 1. Ephesians 2 verse 1. Give your attention now to the reading of God’s word. And you were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prints of the power of the air, the spirit now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

But God, who is rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Then turning over to chapter 6 in Ephesians, verse 1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth. Lord, may it please you to help your people in their hearing, that they may be helped in their doing. And Father, may it please you also to help me in my preaching, that indeed, by your Spirit, your people may be ministered to. Father, may it be my desire to minister to your people, and may it be your people’s desire to receive your word, that gladly that they might obey. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

It has been my contention in preaching to you on Ephesians 5.22-6.9, and now as we focus on the opening verses of chapter 6, it has been my contention that in living the Christian life, we must begin with the gift.

This is that common confession that has come down to us through the ages, testifying to us that when this truth has been grasped, there has been an explosion of piety and righteous spirituality. from Augustine, to Luther and Calvin, to the Westminster Divines, in their company by century, John Bunyan, John Newton, in our own time, J. Gresham Machen. When there has been a grasp of this truth, there has been an explosion of piety and righteous spirituality. In our own lives, can you not yourself testify to the fact, when grace struck you, there was an internal explosion for you? We cannot, therefore, begin with our own efforts, with our own strivings, with our own merit.

We must begin with the gift of God. This gift, as I have said to you throughout the course of these messages, is the most amazing gift. Indeed, amazing grace. For it is a gift into which we enter, into which we have been placed, more like a house than a present presented to us, a treasured item wrapped that we unwrap, then appreciate and keep by us. But this gift is even more marvelous than a house in which we might live, for it is actually a person whose life has been given to us and for us, in which the totality and the completion of our existence now finds orientation and expression. Simply put, the gift is Christ. We live in Him and in His perfect, complete life for us.

When Paul, therefore, tells the wives of Ephesus, submit yourself to your own husbands as to the Lord, as he does in chapter 5, verse 22, he has in mind nothing less than these women living in the gift, living in Christ, who has been given for them and to them, while this Christ, in all the superlative nature of his perfect and complete submissiveness, lives in them. And when Paul tells the husbands of Ephesus to love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, as he does in chapter 5, verse 25 of Ephesians. He has in mind nothing less than these men living in the gift, living in Christ himself, who has been given for them and to them, while this Christ, in all the spectacular radiance of his own perfect and complete sacrifice for his bride lives in them. And when Paul tells the children of Ephesus to obey your parents and the Lord, for this is right, as he does in the first verse of the sixth chapter, he has in mind nothing less than these children living in the gift, living in Christ. who has been given to them and for them, while this Christ, in all the wonderful beauty of his own perfect and complete obedience as a child to his Father, lives in them.”

So yes, I cannot say it too emphatically. or underscore it too much with my emotion. We must begin with the gift, with grace, with Christ himself in living the Christian life. And equally obvious to us by now, I trust, is this collateral truth. For me to progress in the Christian life I must continue with and abide in that gift, which is nothing less than Christ my Lord. Now, as glorious, as great, as compelling, refreshing, assuring, as positive as this It has this overwhelming brilliance for us precisely because of a truth of similar magnitude, but one as distressingly dark and awful as this truth is bright and hopeful.

And in order that we might understand this better, I have read to you this morning from Ephesians chapter 2, and I ask you to look at the beginning of that chapter at verse 1. Here Paul says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. I want you to consider the importance of this statement, and that in context with respect to what has preceded, but especially this morning, with respect to what follows. For it is precisely against the background of this statement that Paul will now build, by contrast, his presentation of the gift of grace. For into this desperate darkness of our transgressions and sins, God’s luminous love shines. Consider, then, the death of which Paul speaks, this death which is ours.

This death in which we lived left us intimately bound, not to God, but to our sin. And as the dead have no power to escape their condition, so we have no power to escape our condition. And how comprehensive, how complete our circumstance and situation not simply weighted down thoroughly by my own personal offenses against God, but as Paul goes on to say, we were dead in an age of sin, an age that is characterized by him as this world, in which every molecule of the atmosphere is dominated by the prince of sin, the prince of the power of the air. who exercises his authority over all his servants, not just the sons who disobey, but the children born to disobedience, born into the family of disobedience. I believe that you will agree with me. It is difficult to imagine a more devastating and depressing description as this. I am dead to God because of my personal sin, living in an age of sin, enveloped in an atmosphere of sin, ruled over by the prince of sin, with a family tree belonging to the line of sin.” But as Paul goes on to say in the third verse of the second chapter, This devastating and depressing description doesn’t apply simply to those that he’s addressing here presently in this Gentile congregation in Ephesus.

It is not something that applies merely to the nations, separated as they are from Israel. For Paul could not be more forthright and brutally frank in his description of himself and his fellow Jews. Verse 3, Among whom, that is, among these sons of disobedience that he has just described, these sons of disobedience of Gentile stock As if from the same family tree, we Jews, all of us, also formerly lived in the lusts of our transgressions and sins, giving ourselves over to the spirit of this age in the flesh, the thoughts of our minds likewise subject to the ruinous air we breathe. So that we, the Jews, must be reckoned by our own very nature. since our lineage has provided us no escape as children of wrath. Not children born to wrath, but for wrath, for condemnation, just as all the Gentiles.

I tell you that the distressingly dark and awful description of the human condition could not be more complete. All, Gentile and Jew, sealed within a tomb-like existence, transgressions and sins our coffin in which we by nature are born, that coffin belonging to the world of the flesh and its desires, that coffin filled with the stifling air of Paul as if it had come from the very lungs of Satan himself, our minds deprived then of spiritual oxygen, and we buried in the deepest depth With the marker over our grave reading, here lies a son of disobedience, a child of wrath, hellbound just like everyone else. No escape, no exit, no possibility of anything any different, because, after all, the dead can do nothing.

Unless you get the point, you can’t go on. Unless you get the point, you don’t have the gift. You haven’t received a gift. You don’t understand. But Paul goes on, marvelously, wonderfully. He goes on. The description that I have just given is not the conclusion. It is prelude. And now comes the symphony. Hearing what has just been declared, you are able better to appreciate what Paul has said in the first chapter of this epistle, and especially now what comes next. Particularly what he says at the opening of verse four.

But God. But God. I do not know a more sublime transition in all of Scripture. So powerful, so profound, so concentrated is it, over against the utter hopelessness and helplessness of humanity. Jew, Gentile, black, white, Asian, Indian, stands God himself, the only one who can bring the dead to life.

And this he has done, says Paul, as the expression of his rich mercy, a holy compassion, a holy pity, which he has directed towards us in our miserable estate. But you must not think that this holy compassion, this pity, for us in our misery, the sole and sufficient ground for moving God to do that which is impossible, respecting us.

For to suggest such a thing allows His action, then, to rest in a sort of negative merit. In other words, because of the magnitude of my misery, God, in His pity, has counted me worthy of His kindness. Furthermore, to leave God’s action rest in His compassion and His pity suggests that when our misery is removed and resolved, He has no further ground for His affections toward us. Is love being only to the extent of our misery? But Paul will have none of us. To be sure, he doesn’t dismiss God’s compassion and His pity for us in our miserable estate, but he sees that compassion and pity grounded in God’s great love. This means, then, that the pity is neither the ground nor the extent of that love, but rather the cause of that pity and compassion which he demonstrates.

He is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He has loved us. This love is inscrutable, the reasons for it being specifically directed toward us, being directed toward you or toward me, being hidden in God Himself and in His counsels of eternity from before the foundation of the world. God shows the riches of his mercy then because of his eternal love for his elect, known to him from all eternity. But now, while the elect are dead in their sins, they are given life, the gift of life from the dead, through the action of God in raising them with Christ in Christ’s own resurrection. Verse 5 spells out the way in which he has done this.

Such is the gift that is not the type to be unwrapped, examined, depreciated, and set on the table beside us. This gift is one in which we find ourselves. Such is its nature that we are placed inside of it. This gift is Christ himself, the one in whom we have been made alive, raised with him from the dead. the very one whose life is perfect and complete and even secure in glory. For by grace, for by the gift of God, for by Jesus Christ, you have been saved.

But now let me return to Ephesians chapter 6, the opening verses. and say a few things against the background of what has been stated concerning what Paul has to say here. First of all, the full lesson about our spiritual deadness and the transition to life through and in Christ’s resurrection must be appropriated by all of us, even by you children. Paul has not forgot what he has stated earlier when he comes to the sixth chapter to make his points with regard to the children. What he has to say assumes all that he has said before.

This means that even though you, a child, have been raised in a Christian home, and never known a time when you didn’t believe in Jesus, you must decidedly acknowledge that you too were dead in your transgressions and sins, and that one with a common humanity in the most desperate of spiritual conditions. You dare not presume upon your position within a Christian family. You dare not presume upon a Christian upbringing.

You must rest in Christ. as all must rest in Christ. And therefore, you must decidedly acknowledge that you too were dead in your sins, and at one with a common humanity in the most desperate of spiritual conditions. You children must acknowledge Paul’s description of human depravity to be a description of you in order for his description of God’s grace in Christ to include you. It behooves us as parents, with respect to our children, to labor with them that they understand this, and that they understand it clearly. Grace, be it for an adult or child, makes no sense except against the background of our unworthiness and our hopelessness.

Secondly, and finally, there is no justification for you, a child, to think that because you now have the gift that you can ignore God’s commandments. Just as God’s law must not be used as a shield for self-righteousness, God’s grace must not be used as an excuse for license. I’m in, and therefore I’m at liberty to disregard the law of God. I’m at liberty to disregard His commandments. For even if I break them, I am in.”

Paul reminds the children of Ephesus of this very thing in quoting to them the fifth commandment in verses 2 and 3 of that sixth chapter. Therefore, as children of the great King, through Jesus Christ, you children Even the children of this church must grow up understanding more and more perfectly the nature and the extent of God’s grace, His gift to you, and your privilege to live by His law.

Father, we ask for a strong fellowship in this congregation, one in which parents and children are agreed. They are agreed about your grace. They are agreed about their own depravity and sinfulness. They are agreed about the greatness of Jesus Christ, the hope of salvation to be found in him, and they are agreed that they must live by your commandments.

Father, grant us mercy even as we consider these things, and as we do, may we be proved your children. Lord, in our love for you, may we obey. and that in gratitude for the salvation which you have brought to us. You have given us a gift. You have heaped upon us your mercy and that because of your great love for us. Hear us, O God. We ask this in Jesus name, in the name of the one who is

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

November 24, 1996
Grand Theology for Children

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 17, 1996.

About this sermon

A simple-looking exhortation to children carries grand theology, and the common split of Ephesians into doctrine and application is superficial. The phrase ‘in the Lord’ in 6:1 does the real work. Children can obey because Christ has already obeyed on their behalf.

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Sermon transcript

And we are reading from verse 41. Luke 2, verse 41. This is the Word of God. Now, his parents went up to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem, and Joseph and his mother knew not of it.

But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey, and they saw him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. And when they saw him, they were amazed.

And his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Know ye not that I must be about my father’s business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. But his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.

And then turning over to Ephesians chapter 6, verse 1. Ephesians 6, verse 1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

Pray with me now. Oh God, deal with our hearts Indeed, O Father, we pray, we who are of faith, that our faith would be active and exercised in and by your Word. And we have come, O God, to your Word, that we might be built up in this, our most precious faith. And Father, we would also ask on behalf of those who struggle with the faith, or as yet find themselves outside the faith. Again, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Lord, may you be gracious and grant faith today, here and in many places. for Jesus’ sake.

Amen. despite their simple, direct, and practical tone, Paul’s words to children in Ephesians 6, 1 through 3, should never be allowed to slip from their grand, exalted, doctrinal, theologically vital heights. By this I mean, these words should never descend to the barren, sterile level of moralistic instruction. We must not suppose that we have touched in these words the bedrock of, or the promise for, all future health, wealth, and long life. accrued to us because of our behavior and because of our moral effort. These words are not meant to be a mere reminder of common-sense family values.

True in and of themselves, and quite capable of functioning for us, relatively free of the powerfully expressed gospel that is laid throughout the entirety of this letter from Paul to the Ephesians. Paul, therefore, does not mean Ephesians 6, 1 through 3 to be any less severely or profoundly theological. that he does, for instance, Ephesians 2 verses 8-10, a passage which many of you have committed to memory, where Paul speaks about salvation through faith, that salvation being a gift of God communicated exclusively according to God’s grace. Or Ephesians 2 verses 14 through 16, where Paul speaks about the creation of one new man, beyond Jew and Gentile, through the cross of Jesus Christ. This means then that we cannot fall into the usual partitioning of the letter to the Ephesians, by which we are told that the first three chapters deal with doctrine and the last with the ordinary, more practical matters of Christian life. You should be aware that Paul’s position is not even doctrine leads to life, as sound and as orthodox as that may seem. Rather, Paul’s position is this.

Doctrine is life. and life is doctrine. Doctrine is life, and life is doctrine. Let me ask you, is this doctrine or life? There is one body and one spirit. just as also you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

Given the ordinary division of the letter to the Ephesians, since these lines which I’ve just read to you come from chapter 4, verses 4 through 6, then they must be about life and not about doctrine. So goes the ordinary interpretation. Or how are these words to be taken? Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Doctrine or life? Well, since I just read to you Ephesians 5, verse 25, from the latter part of Ephesians, these words, according to the common interpretation, must be about life, not about doctrine. Or what about finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, put on the full honor of God, that ye may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. Doctrine or life?

Well, naturally, life, since these verses and lines which I’ve read to you come from Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 and 11. I’m being facetious, as you know. Each of these quotations is no less doctrinal than practical in orientation, no more concerned with the life situation of God’s people than with their doctrinal integrity.

But sadly, we have encouraged the doctrinally ignorant the doctrinally indifferent, and the doctrinally lazy, with an all-too-willing, all-too-easy surrender to the superficial division of the epistle to the Ephesians. And in this we have encouraged those whose hearts and heads are telling them, you know, you really have no doctrinal aptitude. You have no real doctrinal interest. You have no doctrinal predisposition.

Therefore, you should dispense with all this cumbersome, intellectualistic, heavy, boring doctrine and get on with some more practical directives, the action items for real Christian living. Don’t delay long, then, in what you judge to be doctrinal sections of Scripture. Hurry on to practical advice. Now, I hope I’m not being too harsh. But such an attitude of heart and mind doesn’t come from God. So you tell me, from whence does it come? All of this only reveals a deep and basic misunderstanding of the apostles’ ministry and message.

He intends no separation between doctrine and life, between theory and practice, between intellectual theology and application. For him, doctrine is life, and life is doctrine. While both are expressive, not of a division, of ideas in the brain on the one hand, and moral actions on the other, but of a unified existence of the whole, the entire person, and that because of the intrusive, gracious, gloriously breathtaking work of God in Jesus Christ. That’s the foundation of it all. The Apostle is not idea-centered, he’s not even morality-centered. He is event-centered. God has done something. And all ideas and all moral attitudes and estimations flow forth from that.

This means, then, that for Paul, as he writes Ephesians 6, 1 through 3, He is giving us testimony supercharged with witness concerning the intrusive, gracious, gloriously breathtaking work of God in Jesus Christ. Yes, Paul’s instruction to children are filled with theology. Paul’s instruction to children preaches, proclaims gospel. And I might point out in this regard, in speaking this way to the children, Paul expects fully to be understood by them.

He expects fully to be understood by them, not by their parents, but by them. Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Paul therefore will have none of this parental or ecclesiastical intervention from those claiming to be wiser than God. He will have none of this protective coddling but suggests our children must be shielded from the doctrinal level of religious living, because these matters are too confusing and beyond.

Better that we simply tell our children that they should obey us, we their parents, and be done with it. And if they challenge us and ask us why, we should convince them. that this is best for the better working of the family unit, in which everyone has his proper place. And if God enters the discussion at all, as well he might to shore up our case as parents, we should say that God likes nice children, and most certainly will reward obedient children.

Do I need to ask you to imagine the consequences of generation after generation raised on such drivel? Tragically, you don’t have to imagine at all, do you? Because you see the consequences everywhere around you. In a culture, supposedly one-time Christian, that first decided not to speak to its children about the gospel, but increasingly can’t even speak to its children about God.

We are living in a macrocosmic Mr. Rogers neighborhood. I’m tempted to say it. Oh, why not? Our nation, as far as children are concerned, are going to U.P. Sunday School. mainline church Sunday school. We are now faced with a broad-based church and a society informed by that church which can no longer present its children with the biblical environment and constraint for their moral actions.

I’m reminded in this context of my brother Jim’s experience while he was a graduate student years ago in Cleveland at Western Reserve University. His lab partner in an anatomy class was a professed Christian, a young lady who confessed to him and then constantly bugged him about the fact that she couldn’t make up her mind whether to sleep with her boyfriend. This went on for days and weeks. Finally, Jim shut her up by asking her, why don’t you? Jim later said that he never saw anything so tragic and desperate as the vacant look on that young woman’s face. Indeed, Why didn’t she? She had no answer.

We are now faced with a broad-based church and a society informed by that church which can no longer present its children with the gospel environment and constraint for their moral actions. The past stands contrary to all of this, and to us as well, if somehow we, in all of our conservative refinement and orthodox self-assurance, have allowed the gospel’s doctrinal vibrancy and living theology to be read out, to be dismissed from our appropriation of texts like Ephesians 6, 1 through 3. Shame on us! Shame on us if, while we are wrapping ourselves in our orthodoxy, we have reduced this passage to a bare principle, a law for guaranteed God-sanctioned domestic success and tranquility. That this might not happen to us. But it might not happen to you children who are addressed directly by this text.

It is of greatest importance that you be alert to the doctrinal vibrancy and the living theology of Paul’s words. And to this end, you must know what Paul means by his words in the Lord. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. First of all, you must know to whom these words refer.

Yes, we all call God, in the totality of his person, the Lord. We find this title used concerning God throughout the whole of Scripture, Old and New Testaments. However, more often than not, Paul uses this title, Lord, and specifically this phrase, In the Lord, to describe Jesus Christ. In chapter 3, verse 11 of this very epistle, Paul speaks about God’s eternal purpose which he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord. There’s the phrase, there’s the explication of it. And that’s Paul’s meaning here. He is referring to Jesus Christ as Lord. But secondly, you must know, if you are to grasp the vibrant doctrinal significance of Paul’s words, you must grasp what these words in the Lord describe.

Do they describe the children? Do they describe the parents or someone or something else? Well, of course, now Paul is assuming the children in this text, those whom he is addressing, he is assuming that they are in the Lord. That’s the basis upon which he addresses them.

They are in the church. They are baptized, they are receiving the instruction of the ministry of the Word, and they are expected to respond to it. So, yes, Paul assumes that these children are in the Lord, they are of the Church, they belong in the Church, they are members of the Church.

And more than likely, their parents also are in the Lord. Their parents have brought them. So yes, the children are in the Lord, the parents are in the Lord, but Paul in this context, in this instance, doesn’t mean his words in the Lord to describe either the children or the parents.

Instead, he means his words to describe the obedience. of the children. Their obedience is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, you might be taken aback. You might be asking yourself, what could he possibly mean by this? In order to answer that question, we must decide what Paul specifically means by the connection, the connection of the children’s obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. Does he mean, for instance, to call attention to the limits which children owe to their parents when it comes to obedience? Well, yes.

There is certainly something of that in what Paul is saying. You children are not obliged to obey your parents when they command you to sin, when they command you to commit a crime, when they command you to do something that is heinously wicked or just plain wicked. But hopefully neither you nor these children to whom Paul writes were often faced or ever faced with such a situation as that. Well then, if Paul is not primarily interested in the limits of obedience, what is his concern?

Does he have in mind an obedience that is in the Lord because it is an obedience that is as unto the Lord? This too might be a helpful way of looking at the matter. For surely there is that relationship between the Lord, even the Lord Jesus Christ, and our parents, in which we are to see the pattern and the authority of the Lord himself in the figures of our parents. And we should love and honor and respect and even fear our parents as we do the Lord. But as proper as this is, Paul’s thought runs in a different direction.

You see, this obedience that is in the Lord is the obedience that is found in the Lord himself. And it is at this point we are brought home in the text. and all the marvels of the gospel began to spill out. And you begin to become amazed afresh at the full provision of grace in God and his salvation for us. The obedience that is in the Lord is the obedience found in the Lord himself, who according to the gospel not only obeyed perfectly his earthly parents, and while on earth is heavenly Father, for us, for us, that obedience was for us.

But this one who is now called the Lord is alive, raised from the dead, forever living, obediently in his Father’s glorious presence. And it is this which is placed at your disposal. Hear them. The Bibles of the Gospel are read out of the text, and you begin to see just how much even matters as ordinary and as common as obedience to parents. cannot be disassociated from the glorious, vital theology and doctrine that emanates from the gospel.

You cannot do it. You cannot lose the gospel when you come to these texts, because if you lose the gospel, you lose the power. You lose the effectiveness. And all of your efforts are empty. And in the end, they are utterly vain. The gospel then is found for you, you children, in this command. Even as you consider your inability even as you consider your failure, even as you consider your sin and your disobedience against your earthly parents and against your Heavenly Father.

But the obedience you say, to which you have been called, and into which you have entered, is the already perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, because he is living now, continues to be one, into whom you may enter by faith, through whom and by whose gospel his obedience avails for you.

And you are impelled, because you are in him, to obey as he obeys. You love him, don’t you? You love your Lord, don’t you? Out of this love and the effectual union that you sustain with him, your obedience flows. But at the end of the day, you know It is really His obedience that is at work in you.

So it is all of Him. Ephesians 6, 1-3 preaches high doctrine. It is filled with theological vibrancy. He declares to you the gospel environment and constraint upon your moral action in all respects. And that gospel environment and that constraint is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Himself.

Amen. Our God, we who are older, and parents, We who are adults, beyond the years of our childhood, may look back upon our childhood with even a measure of shame and a deep sense of disgrace. And Father, we who are presently children not yet adults, are those also who may look upon our situation and condition and be struck in the heart because of our sin. Yet Lord, how gracious you are, for Jesus has come He has lived through the whole of our life, from childhood to adulthood.

And He is without sin. And not only so, He lives now in your presence. In such righteousness that is His, He is able to dispense. And He gives it to us. And we in delight, O God, live for him. Our sins are covered, and our obedience is invigorated. And we thank you for that, even as we obey our parents in the Lord, knowing that this is right. through Christ, your Son, who is at your right hand, who serves obediently even now. Amen. In conclusion, we are singing 656. Okay. Yeah. you

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

November 17, 1996
Even Children in the Heavenly Battle

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 17, 1996.

About this sermon

Believers’ heavenly life with Christ is a present reality as well as a future hope, as Ephesians 1:3 and 2:5-6 say explicitly. ‘Heavenly places,’ the phrase of 1:20-21 and 6:12, means the same thing in both places. Even children stand in the spiritual battle those heavenly places describe, and their age shields them from none of it.

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Sermon transcript

Tonight we are returning to Ephesians, and we are in Ephesians 2, beginning at verse 1. This is God’s word. And you were dabbed in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now is working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he has loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not as a result of works, that no one should boast. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

Then turning over to chapter 6, at verse 1, Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Our God, even now, in distant places, your people are taking heart because of your word. And Father, it is pleasing you to establish for yourself witness to the power of your name and the glory of your son.

Oh, God, build your church, even as you have committed yourself to build it in and through Jesus Christ and that by the spirit. Hear us, O God, that we would not be left behind in the matter of edification. But rather, Lord, be encouraged all the more as we see others, as we hear about others, built up in the faith. May this come as refreshment to our souls, and may we delight, O God, in such a way that our joy is joined to theirs, even as they celebrate your goodness. O Lord, hear for we would have your work in our souls, even the work of your word, to the full. We pray this through the one who is the living word, Jesus Christ. Amen.

This morning I started down a trail that I intend to follow this evening. It was my plan to continue with my series by way of reminder and its concern to summarize the message coming from this pulpit over the years. My intention with that series is to conclude it with sermons on the subjects of the Covenant and then on the five points of Calvinism. But this evening I ask you to indulge me as I pursue further the issue I addressed this morning, namely the grand, exalted, doctrinal, theologically vital heights belonging to and informing texts like Ephesians 6, 1 through 3. My interest tonight is very broad, and has to do with the radiant, beaming expansiveness of glory, and our lives which belong to the realm of glory.

What I want you to see is that Paul in no way intends for us to lose sight of or lose our grip upon that glory, to lose sight of or lose our grip upon the heavens themselves when he speaks to us about those matters that concern our daily living. For Paul, children know less than adults. must appreciate the heavenly vantage point from which the Apostle speaks. For this one, the Apostle, conceives of himself as speaking in Christ in the sight of God, as one who is already positioned in heaven and speaking from that vantage point even as he declares God’s message to those who are in the earth. But it’s not just a matter of his own proclamation. It is also a matter of the living of the people of God, the lives of the people of God. For they, no less than he, are positioned in glory. For Paul then, children no less than adults are to appreciate that which has been given to them by grace in Christ.

Namely, a repositioning so that we also have the vantage point of glory as we live. Now Ephesians is the letter. Ephesians is the letter to have before us when dealing with this subject. For you will remember how Paul begins things in the very first chapter at the outset of this letter. It’s hard to imagine anything more glorious than that third verse of the first chapter. Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. I plead with you not to hurry over those words. I implore with you that you meditate upon them.

You must not think that Paul is making here some general reference about the heavenly places being our goal eventually, as if he were referring to the common biblical hope that we shall march through life, much like Christian in Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress, and shall arrive at the celestial city at the end of the matter. at the close of the day. This, of course, is true, as Bunyan saw and understood. And I was powerfully reminded of this very truth this morning, when Peter Jansch, I believe, was finishing out his memorization of the Children’s Catechism. Question 144, what will become of the righteous in the day of judgment? Answer, they shall be taken to heaven. Question 145, what is heaven? Answer, a glorious and happy place where the righteous shall be forever with the Lord.

Now, I don’t know about you. But when I hear those questions and answers, I want to sit down and think about it for a while. Or should I say, I want to sit down and meditate on it for a while, on what has been affirmed and confessed in these words. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m liable in that meditation to get a little choked up.

But as wonderful as this is, this affirmation and confession, this marvelous truth that is right at the center of Bunyan’s vision as he writes Pilgrim’s Promise, to consider our pilgrimage and to think of ourselves as being taken to heaven by Jesus to live in that place of glory at the conclusion of the day, the end of the matter.

Paul, yet, has something else in mind when he speaks as he does in Ephesians 1.3, when he speaks there about the heavenly places.

For Paul, you see, heaven is not only a future hope to which he, by grace from God, presses until he attains to the resurrection of the dead. Heaven is not only a future hope, it is also present reality. And it is in this precise sense of the matter that Paul speaks of blessings in the heavenly places in Christ. The heavenly places, therefore, are not only the destination to which we shall be brought at death or at the end of the world, but those places into which we have been already brought, that we might begin to enjoy the full complement of blessings belonging to the Holy Spirit. It is Paul’s corollary conviction, as is brought out in what follows that third verse in the first chapter, it is Paul’s corollary conviction that God, having brought us to this point, to spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ, that we, by this route and in this reality, have actually touched the eternal purpose of God for us. and that for which we were chosen and predestined from before the foundation of the world. Our present spiritual blessing in the heavenly places belongs to the administration of God, who by His Spirit brings us into the full redemption of His own possession at the resurrection.

I have just surveyed for you verses 3 through 14 of that first chapter. Now, if you have any doubt about the fact that Paul means anything less than present contact with heaven and even an abiding contact in heaven, as a contemporary blessing for Christian life, I invite you to look then at Ephesians 2, verses 5 and 6, a text which we read this evening. Paul, in this context, speaks to the fact that we were dead in our trespasses and in our sins. But God, that fourth verse, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive with Christ.

That is, when Christ was brought to life from the dead in the resurrection, we were counted with him. We were numbered with him, we were in him, and this in keeping with God’s eternal plan who brought Christ to life in that resurrection and us with him. But in being raised up with Christ, we who share in his resurrection have likewise become participants in his exultation into the heavens, there to enjoy the blessings at his Father’s right hand. He seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

Paul clearly means, therefore, for these saints in Ephesus and us through them, that we are to realize the environmental and atmospheric change which, by grace, has been brought about because of God’s work in Christ. Because of our union with Christ, we have entered into this new heavenly environment and atmosphere. And it is this heavenly environment and atmosphere which is the primary arena for our existence. Now it is even the prior arena for our existence.

We live in and from heaven, and all our activities bear the stamp of the transcendent culture of glory. even as we give ourselves back to life in this world, and that in imitation of Christ himself, in manifest servanthood for sacrificial labors in this world to the glory of God, be it in worship or work, labors of necessity or labors of charity. graciousness and clear-eyed wisdom for my home, or responsibilities with respect to my job, whether I am a wife or a husband, a child or a parent, a slave or a master.

The point of origination is heaven, not the earth. You must begin from above. You must start from the end, and you work backwards, and you work down. Any other direction is the contradiction of grace. You are forfeiting what has been given you in Christ. If you don’t start with heaven, you don’t get there.

Because what you are saying is, you can actually work yourself, in some fashion, to that destination. obtaining unto the resurrection and gaining glory, is merely coming into possession of what we have been already given. That’s the irony of the Gospel, and that is its power. It is not then, you see, that the Apostle Paul is caught up in what some have said is a heavenly-mindedness that makes him of no earthly value. That is far afield from anything that the Apostle Paul would recognize as belonging to the gospel that he proclaims.

You see what is happening to the man. He realizes that in the death, resurrection, and ascension, He, an object of God’s love, has been so united to Christ that he actually participates in those events, and that he presently is seated with Christ in glory.

But who is this one to whom he is bound? It is the one who bears the wound marks of his own humiliation. the one who gave up his position in glory and made himself of no reputation, taking upon himself the form of the servant and gave himself back into the world that he might there suffer the death of the cross. What then might be expected of us who are united to this Christ? We are united to the one who bears the wound marks of his own humiliation, and we are compelled by that to give up whatever position we have, and whatever claim we have, to sacrifice ourselves by condescension back to this world for service in it under God’s glory.

As you know, I trust none of what I have said to you this evening is inconsistent with what Paul says elsewhere. In Philippians 3, verse 20, he tells his readers about their citizenship in heaven. He says our citizenship is there, by which he informs them and us about the prior and primary arena in which we in all our rights of citizenship function. Colossians 3 verse 3 tells us that our life presently is hid with Christ in God. And Paul’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit makes it plain that the Spirit himself ministers to us in such a way so as to introduce us in our salvation to the higher and ultimate world of transcendent glory, the Spirit being the down payment of our inheritance. communicating the very substance of that inheritance presently.

Paul speaks of this in 2 Corinthians 1.22 and also in Ephesians 1.14. But before we end tonight, I want to ground what I have been saying to you from Ephesians a bit more firmly in the history of salvation. I want to open up for you a little better Paul’s use of the term, the heavenly places, as it is used in the letter to the Ephesians, and show you that it has its roots in Old Testament history, and what Paul is actually telling us is that what was anticipated in that history is now fulfilled in what has been accomplished in Christ. All of this is opened up for us when we relate the heavenly places, to which Paul refers repeatedly in Ephesians, when we relate the heavenly places to the word inheritance, which also appears a number of times in this epistle. Now, I want you to think about it.

In the Old Testament, what was the inheritance? that stood foremost to the minds of most Jews. Inheritance was, in fact, viewed to be the land of Canaan, into which Joshua brought the children of Israel. In fact, no book in the Old Testament more concerns itself with the issue of inheritance than the book of Joshua. You might recall the stories of that book about the entrance into the land and then the struggle which Joshua and the tribes had in gaining completed dominion over that inheritance. In the end, we are told about Israel’s possession of the inheritance, yet how they struggled.

Yes, they have dominion, it seems, but yet there are portions that are not under their control. Ephesians is the New Testament book of Joshua. But now, in this book, the inheritance, as Paul is making it clear, is no longer the land of Canaan, nor anywhere else in the present earth. And the leader is no longer that one who came after Moses, that Jew who died so long ago, but in actual fact the Son of God who was resurrected, who enters into his inheritance not by walking between the parted waves of the Jordan River, but by undergoing the baptism of the death on the cross, whose warfare is not with Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Gergesites, Anorites, Jebusites, or any other earthly item. Now, I hope you remember that.

But as Ephesians is prosecuting its case, and as Paul is preaching to us from it, he is endeavoring to convince us that Christ’s warfare is against rulers, authorities, powers, dominions, and names in the heavenly places. And that’s what he stresses in chapter 1, verses 20 and 21.

These opposing spiritual powers he brings into subjection under his speech. Nor is Paul’s position now, as it works itself out, that the final eschatological Joshua directs his attention to the heavenly places and its usurpatious rulers, while we, living in this world, give ourselves over for the sake of a new Canaan here. Namely, instead of just a piece of real estate in the Mediterranean world, we have the whole and that our battles are pursued against earthly, hostile governments, governments that resist the claims of King Jesus, as our obedience to the demands of our exalted Lord procures conquest for us over the entire earth. In fact, Paul makes the point, just as the inheritance is heavenly, so also is the enemy. This is what he says, not just with respect to Christ, but with respect to us also.

And that’s how he concludes in the sixth chapter of the twelfth verse. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, powers, wicked forces of darkness, spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. I plead with you in this regard. For the Reformed Church has been flagged in its history with those who have said to us, though there is this spiritual dimension to Christ’s battle against spiritual forces, And there is that spiritual dimension to our own struggle.

Yet the real and true and vital battle is with flesh and blood opponents to the gospel and the claims of King Jesus. It is my judgment that that flies directly in the face of what the Apostle tells us in Ephesians. And I judge that there is no competent exposition of Ephesians that can hold to that position. If there is to be any battle with regard to flesh and blood opponents, it must first of all begin with a clear-headed, clear-eyed understanding of the heavenly arena.

The sad truth is that I fear those who wish so much to conquer the world for Jesus don’t give heaven much of a thought at all. In fact, it functions as an afterthought. You have to give it up. And that is a message that needs to be read out loud and clear over the Reformed Church throughout the world. You have to give it up.

Even then, the call for children to obey their parents concerns the battle against such hostile forces as are arrayed in heavenly places. Unseen threats. Those then that intrude upon that inheritance which is theirs they then learning to stand in their Savior against all encroachment, even be that encroachment from hell. A child standing up to hell and winning Yes.

And I say to you, a child standing up to hell and winning, what earthly power or force is his match? None. Do you know who you are? Do you understand that the whole world turns for you? That you are at the center of the heart of the God of the universe. And because you are secure in heavenly places, you don’t have to be afraid. and that’s the glory. It is truly better than anything Joshua could give us. We all should praise God for this one who is greater than, better than, Joshua. breath.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

November 17, 1996
Christ Draws the Children Near

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 3, 1996.

About this sermon

Paul’s brief instruction to children in Ephesians 6:1-3 is theologically brilliant, and no afterthought to the household code. Christ draws children near to himself even amid the temple’s chaos in Matthew 21, and that gives the pattern behind Paul’s instruction. Paul addresses children directly with the gospel.

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Sermon transcript

This morning our scripture reading begins in Matthew 21. We are reading from verse 12. This is God’s word. Jesus went into the temple of God and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple. and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers and the seat of them that sold dogs, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. And when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David, they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? Jesus saith unto them, Yea, have ye never read? Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise. And he left them, and went out to the city of Bethany, and he lodged there.”

Then turning over to Ephesians chapter Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. I want to suggest to you this morning that what you have in front of you in Ephesians 6, verses 1 through 3, is a piece of apostolic brilliance, a gem calculated and generated by the Holy Spirit to be a most glorious blessing to the Church of Jesus Christ until he comes again.

So brilliant is it that its light reaches out to the previous section in Paul’s letter, the section dealing with wives and husbands. This section will help them to illuminate that previous section and also the following section in which Paul deals with slaves and masters.

But unfortunately, few passages are looked at so often and in such a lackluster pedestrian fashion as this one. Few passages are treated as this one is. Few passages are treated pedantically as this passage is, generating a bit of somnolent rather than responsible exegesis.

First of all, we must realize the force of the address. Paul is speaking to the children of the Church. This, then, is a public letter. It is to be read in the Church. It wasn’t coming to the Church as just another piece of correspondence to be filed away by the pastor of the congregation, or even as a missionary communique, as welcome as that might be.

Instead, this is in a letter from the Apostle Paul, and it comes with the authority all the authority of his office. Have you thought recently about what it meant for the apostle Paul to be so described, for him to bear that title? The word apostle means one who is sent, one who is commissioned. It is even used with respect to Jesus Christ himself in Hebrews 3 verse 1, where Jesus Christ is called the apostle of our confession. It has the general sense of an ambassador, an envoy, an emissary.

Specifically in its New Testament sense, it has in view those who carry the office within the Church, Those who had seen, yes, seen, the risen Christ, and had been directly commissioned by him for service. Therefore, not all preachers and teachers in the New Testament are apostles. There is everyone who saw the risen Christ an apostle. Mary Magdalene saw the risen Christ. She is not an apostle. But notice the environment out of which the term apostle rises.

I remind you of the words that I mentioned earlier—ambassador, envoy, emissary. Those words suggest a governmental background, a regal and a royal setting, as the king sends out his emissary to deliver his message. And that is the dimension so often missed by messages on this text.

Paul is delivering a message from the king, the great king, the glorious ruler of the universe and his exalted son to those who are the privileged subjects of his realm. And in this case, Who might those subjects be? They are the children. Think of it. The apostle of God the Father, the ambassador of Jesus Christ, comes with a message from the throne, a message to children. The children themselves. are addressed. But now I want you to consider once more where they are addressed.

To be sure, what they are called may well be judged appropriate for a domestic setting and for their domestic relations. Those that they sustain in their own homes. Children of their parents. However, the place in which they hear this command is not in their homes, but in the church. What do you think? As nice as that would have been, that each of these children in the congregation at Ephesus received their own personalized letter from the Apostle Paul. Maybe they could get it by e-mail. Well, of course not.

They heard Paul’s message in church. They came to church, and there they received the apostles’ message. These children were in church where the apostolic word coming from the throne of the king was delivered. They were able to comprehend what was being said.

Children, obey your parents. And they were in church, not in some junior church or some children’s church, God forbid. You actually think that the Apostle Paul went around on his missionary circuit organizing children’s churches in those congregations that he formed. I plead with you for a little sanity. In fact, there may well be some connection between the command that children obey their parents and the place. Could it be that some of the children in the Ephesian church were giving their parents a hard time about going to church? Therefore, the command, children, obey your parents and stop giving your parents a difficult time about being where both they and you know you ought to be.

At the same time, be aware of how the setting of the Church heightens the glory of the entire matter. You see, the Church has already in this letter been described as Christ’s body. It has been described as the fullness of Him who fills all in all. You can check that out in the first chapter, verses 22 and 23. The Church has already been described in this letter as God’s household, chapter 2, verse 19. A holy temple in the Lord, verse 21 of that second chapter. A dwelling of God in the Spirit, chapter 2, verse 22. And in chapter 3, verse 21, God’s glory is inseparably connected to the Church and to Christ’s very own person, the implication being that the two cannot be separated when it comes to the manifestation of God’s glory. And in chapter 5, verses 25 through 33, Paul has already described the Church as Christ’s bride. the extension of himself.

It would seem that the message from the apostles, from this ambassador, doesn’t simply come from the throne, there is that sense in which it comes to the throne. In fact, The Spirit, together with the Word itself, have effected this monumental reversal. The place in which the King’s words are heard is the place to which the King, by his Word, has come. And the presence of the King makes of the setting a throne room, no, even more, a holy sanctuary, a royal and a holy place. Thus the Church.

This is why the current habit of so many in interpreting this text trivializes this text. This is why the current habit of so many in interpreting this text is so misguided and so utterly common, the heights and the glory are never seen. All we have here, so we are told, is Paul’s use of contemporary domestic household curves, to which he adds a couple of catchphrases like, in the Lord, some gospel allusions, and a few Old Testament quotations.

He does this in order to draw upon the common practical wisdom of the Greco-Roman society concerning daily living, in order to not offend his culture, but at the same time provide a Christian flavoring to all that he has to say. Now, if you pick up commentaries on this text, I suggest to you that that is what you are going to find invariably. that nothing could be further from the Apostle’s intention and from the truth of the passage. Paul may very well take the pattern of the domestic and household codes of the Greco-Roman world, but not so as to leave them at that level. Rather, he translates them, he transforms them by his apostolic service into the royal, sacred setting of the Church. You learn how to be an obedient child, first of all, at church, not at home.

What am I saying? Why, I have just uttered heresy. For everyone knows that the basic social unit for all civilization is the home. Let me tell you what the heresy is. I have just outed it. The basic social unit of human civilization is not the home. It is the church. The family of God. In fact.

You may be forced to make decisions against your home in the interests of the church, which comes first. There are many of you here without your parents. Some of you are here without your children. Because you have had to make those choices. He who does not hate father and mother, brother and sister. Cannot be my disciple. I didn’t say that. Jesus did.

The whole discussion then is elevated, is exalted into the presence of God, and these children find themselves in the most exalted, earthly setting imaginable. Even while here in this world, our environment, our children’s environment, has been permeated by the heavenly light. Our children enjoy access to that. We have some marvelous pictures of this very truth in the Gospels, don’t we? In the Gospel of Matthew, which we have read this morning, we have the account of Jesus’ triumphal entry, and we find this marvelous accounting of things.

Verse 15, And the children were crying out in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David. And the chief priests and the scribes were indignant. What is alarming about this passage and shocking to the Jewish leaders was the fact that the children had stormed the temple. They came right inside the temple. By Jewish law, they weren’t allowed to do that. They were always kept at a distance from the temple, but here they are right inside the temple, and whom are they praising? Surely it is a picture, is it not, as Matthew telegraphs it to the Church? It is a picture of the coming Church, wherein the new temple of God, the voices of the children who draw near to Christ, are heard in praise of Him.

Jesus will teach us this very same truth when He blesses the children even as he links, through children, heaven and its glory to the earthly gathering of those who congregate before him. Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for as such is the kingdom of heaven.” The Old Testament had its own appeals to children. Psalm 34, verse 11, finds David saying, “‘Come, you children, listen to me, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord,’ as the Book of Proverbs has been interpreted as an extended appeal to children. Still, these appeals only anticipate a greater day to come. since they are uttered in an era in which the children are still kept at bay, kept from the royal sanctuary of God.

But now, in this new day of access, in this new day of their access, what about in and through Jesus Christ, whose ministry, death, resurrection, opens the doors for them? They are present in the new royal sanctuary of God. there to hear directly for themselves the message of their glorious God and King, Jesus Christ.

Children, obey your parents. That’s what the King says. The environment of this new royal sanctuary of God is therefore not simply for adults, As the Jews and even Jesus’ disciples said, thought, imagined, prosecuted the case for, that it is also for children and all those who are like them, for such is the kingdom of heaven. Such children who receive the command and by grace act upon it. Children, here, I ask you. Do you see where you have been positioned by the grace of God? In a sanctuary, in a holy place, in a royal dwelling, before the face of the King. But there is one more thing we have to say before we close this message.

The command itself, children obey your parents, is a reminder to you children, not just of your glorious new privilege, but that you are sinners. The teaching of the Bible is not that you are a special class of people. in yourselves, innocent of corruption and sin, you, too, need a Savior. And having been brought to the one true Savior from sin, you must fight like your parents against the sin that pursues you. One very important way in which you fight against that sin is by giving yourself to this biblical passage. Children, obey your parents.

The strength to do this does not come from yourself, but in keeping with the gospel, which I hope you cherish and understand more and more, your strength to obey comes from the Lord, for your obedience is in the Lord. In fact, before the Lord Jesus Christ calls you as members of His Church to obey, He has obeyed for you and on your behalf, being the perfect child of His parents and the perfect son of His Father. If you want to know how you ought to behave as a child, And what obedience looks like, I plead with you children to look to Jesus unto his obedience, which is more than example to you, it is saving grace and power. But I will be saying more about this in the coming messages. and I trust that you children will be here, aware of your sin and your need of a Savior, willingly obeying your parents as they bring you to church, delighting in your privilege to enter into this royal sanctuary, the royal sanctuary of your great God and King, the throne room where Jesus Christ, in whom all perfect obedience resides, sits enthroned at his Father’s right hand.

Our God, though we be small and young, yet you have given to us ears, and you have blessed us in this covenant relationship that we sustain with you, with our parents, an opportunity to sit under your word and to profit from the message that comes from the throne. even as you transform our humble surroundings into a royal dwelling, a holy sanctuary. Lord, we who are small and yet young ask of you that you will work in our souls, that we will see the glory of the surroundings in the church more perfectly, even as those surroundings and that glory are joined to what is above. where Christ sits, yes, that one who is your obedient son, at your right hand.

Bless us, O God, in this day of privilege that is ours. If we had been kept at a distance formerly, now we walk right into the sanctuary, and we bless you for this privilege. But, Father, we plead with you that you will keep us from sin. Lord help us to obey our parents.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

November 3, 1996
The Blessedness of Singlehood

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Ephesians 5-6” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, October 27, 1996.

About this sermon

Ephesians 4-6 develops one sustained theme, the Christian walk, and within it singlehood has real standing as a calling of its own. Heaven has no marriage, and that fact frees the single believer. Marriage and children point toward heaven in the meantime, and they do not compete with it.

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Sermon transcript

This morning we are beginning our scripture reading in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, and we are at verse 17. This is 1 Corinthians chapter 7, and we are reading from verse 17. This is the word of God. I am reading from the New American Standard this morning. Only as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each in this manner, let him walk. And thus I direct in all the churches. Was any man called already circumcised, let him not become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing.

But what matters is the keeping of the commandments of God. Let each man remain in that condition in which he was called. Were you called while a slave? Do not worry about it. But if you are able also to become free, rather do that. For he who was called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise, he who was called while free is Christ’s slave. You were bought for the price. Do not become slaves of men.

Brethren, let each man remain with God in that condition in which he was called. Now, concerning virgins, have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy. I think, then, that this is good in view of the present distress, that it is good for a man to remain as he is.

Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife. But if you should marry, you have not sinned. And if a virgin should marry, she has not sinned, yet such will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you. But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened so that from now on both those who have wives should be as those who had none, and those who weep as though they did not weep, and those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice. And those who buy as though they did not possess, and those who use the world as though they did not make full use of it, for the form of this world is passing away. But I want you to be free from concern.

One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. and his interests are divided. And the woman who is unmarried and the virgin is concerned about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit. But one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. And this I say for your own benefit, not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is seemly and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.

Then turning over to Ephesians chapter 5, reading from verse 25, Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that that she should be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, for no one has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ also does the Church, because we are members of his body. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let each individual among you also love his own wife, even as himself. and let the wife see to it that she respects her husband.

Our Father, teach us the meekness of Christ the one who submitted himself fully and completely to you while in this world, thereby providing us the very foundation of such neatness as should come to expression in us. Lord, you are patient with us, but Father, as you are patient with us by your Spirit you direct our attention to our Savior, that we might live in and from his meekness. Lord, at this time, we are before your word. And Lord, we ask that our hearing would be that kind of hearing that is also obeying. Bless us, O God, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Now, it is very easy when messages from the pulpit turn to the subject of marriage for some to feel left out. single folk, single parents, the divorced, the unmarried, the widowed. As one woman, whose husband died a number of years ago, said to me as she left the church building after my sermon on husbands and wives last week, you didn’t have anything to say to me this morning.

It is greatly important that we be very careful when we find ourselves talking like this. For we must guard against that spirit that says within us, I don’t have to listen because the preacher isn’t saying anything that applies to me. We do well to take note of the extensiveness of the concerns for biblical texts and sermons based on them, for they have a wider context than the immediate words, much less our immediate situation, may suggest.

For instance, the passage we have been dealing with presently, specifically Ephesians 5, verse 22 through chapter 6, verse 9, is part of a section in this letter from Paul that begins in chapter 4, verse 1, for wider context. A section that has as its theme the Christian rock. Hear what Paul says at that point.

I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called. But notice how this theme is furthered as the apostle continues. Chapter 4, verse 17. This I say, therefore, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer as the Gentiles also walk in the futility of their mind. But join these two texts to what we find closer to the passage that concerns us. Ephesians 5 verse 15, Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise, but wise.

Paul’s theme in this section to his letter is the Christian rock. Or, of course, more colloquially, the Christian life. A matter, I may remind you, from which none of us is exempt. About which we can say at no point the apostle isn’t speaking to me, or this doesn’t apply to my situation. But, of course, the relevance of Paul’s words lies even closer at hand, for the capstone statement hanging immediately above That section that concerns us most, beginning with the 22nd verse of that fifth chapter, is what we find in verse 21, where Paul says, be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Surely we are not exempt from that statement.

Paul intends, then, his remarks in the succeeding verses to be representative of the way in which the call to mutual subjection works itself out in the Christian’s life. This means, therefore, that all of us in the Church, in one way or another, are addressed by each of Paul’s pairings in the successive verses.

Regardless of the advancements of our culture and our economic and social ideology, the work world will always be defined by bosses and workers. Or, as Paul puts it in chapter 6, verses 5 through 9, masters and slaves. Shall we go further? Children will always have parents. There will always be parents of children. These categories involving each other, necessarily, and marriage working backwards through the and marriage similarly.

It engages our energies, be it with respect to our own or others, or be it simply with respect to the idea of marriage and its institution. Paul himself was not married, and from what we can tell by his writings, he had no desire to be married. Yet his energies were engaged by the subject. They could not help but be. He was alive and breathing in this world. and he was intimately bound to others who were married. Shall I speak about the Lord Jesus Christ? He also was not married. He had no wife. in this world, nor did he generate any children, yet he was absorbed in a righteous concern for marriage and for children.

The mutual submission to which the Lord calls us through the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5.21 has something to say even to retired persons who have removed themselves from the workaday world situation of their former occupations. It has something to say to people without children. It has something to say to orphans. It has something to say to the unmarried, the previously married, about their outlook and their estimation.

So please, for the sake of Christ and in light of the Word of God, don’t imagine yourself left out of a text of Scripture or a sermon because the words don’t appear immediately germane to your particular situation. And whatever you do, don’t succumb to the selfish heart that is always demanding the easiest and most transparent applications. before it would admit to any profit from a Scripture passage or from a sermon. But now, having gone to such great lengths to relate all of us to the relationships listed by Paul in Ephesians 5 and 6, particularly with respect to the institution most immediately in view in his writing Marriage, let me turn the tables on you by laboring to relate us all to the inversion of these relationships, particularly to the estate or condition of the unmarried, the single estate.

Now here we have a subject. How shocked we are to learn, when we are facing things as we ought, how shocked we are to learn that the New Testament ideal is not marriage. but the undistracted, unencumbered, single devotion to the Lord of which the Apostle speaks in 1 Corinthians 7. Let me remind you of some other texts in this regard.

Matthew 22.30, Jesus’ words to the Sadducees.

This is what he says, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. This comment from our Savior makes it clear, does it not, marriage is for this world, not for the next. may be made in heaven, but they do not carry over into heaven. Marriage relationships, therefore, are temporary. They have a transitory significance.

But faced with the difficulty of what Christ says in this particular text, we are also faced with the difficulties concerning the implications of His thought. For Christ’s words affect not only marriage, but those realities of life most closely tied to it. For instance, sexual relations.

Sexual relations, according to the Bible, always belong within the bounds of marriage. I cannot say that too loudly. I fear that sexual relations have become epidemic outside of the bounds of marriage, not only among unbelievers, but among believers. Sexual relations, according to the Bible, always belong within the bounds of marriage.

Marriage However, being transitory and temporary spells the same with respect to sexual expression. Sexual expression is transitory and temporary. This means, yes, it may be a revelation to many, this means that sex is not eternal. Much less is it the power and energy of life, as was suggested by D. H. Lawrence, as if it were some kind of deity to be served with the most absolute devotion. We might also get that idea from what is communicated to us through the popular media. And what might we say about children, the product of marriage and human sexuality?

Have you ever wondered about the relative absence of genealogical lists in the New Testament? Now, I know that you are aware of them in the Old Testament. In fact, you skip over them regionally. But in the New Testament, we have only two genealogical lists, and they occur very early in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. And then we see them no more.

Why? Why? Because, from the Bible’s perspective, there is that sense in which the production of children has reached a most definitive and definite endpoint in the birth of the Messiah. The seed promised to the woman has come. He has arrived. So there is that sense, as you come to the New Testament, there’s that sense in which the genealogies cease in him, for his is the last generation. There are very eloquent ways in which both Matthew and Luke communicate that in their genealogies. We can’t go into that this morning. But I just give you that aside. But considering this point now, do you grasp what this means? Do you understand what this means? It means this. The end point having been reached, something of the eternal heavenly estate intrudes upon us. that a state of glory where children are no longer being conceived and born. However, we may say even more at this point.

For you see, the conception and birth of children themselves have within them the message about this higher world to which we are called. The conception and birth of children through human parents are an analogy in which we see higher things. our birth by the creative and regenerative power of God, that we might be His spiritual children, living already in this world as we look forward to the arrival of the next. Children born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” According to John, in his Gospel, chapter 1, verse 13. Now you’re really upset. Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here. The full message, and I underscore it, this is the full message of the Word.

This full message from the Bible is not designed to provide us with an easy excuse for not having children. That is not its intention, much less an excuse to ignore or abuse the ones we have, because after all, we’ve arrived at the end point, and these children are important. Nor is this full biblical message intention the removal or denigration of the natural desire for children, much less the removal of all pain when we cannot have children. Nor is it justification for those who have arisen in the Church from time to time, who have legislated for all or for some in the monastic orders against the conception of children. Much less justification for those who, once the child is conceived, would destroy that child in a fetal cycle of madness, in murderous abortion.

But at the same time, this full biblical message sets before us our true situation in light of the conclusive work of God in Christ, by whom a genealogical end has been reached, and in whom the reality of the eternal order has been introduced in which there are no children conceived or born. What we have said here about children, we can echo in our comments about marriage itself.

You see where I’m going. As noted earlier, Jesus in Matthew 22, verse 30, has nudged us in this direction with his comment about there being no marriage in heaven. But he directly connects the kingdom of heaven’s future to its present earthly reality when he says in Matthew 19 verse 12, there are also eunuchs who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Jesus has in mind at this point not actual physical units, nor members of monastic orders, but spiritual units who have become those in whom we perceive the eternal world where no one marries or is given in marriage.

It is now this background that provides us our entrance into what many have judged the strange and even unnatural world of the Apostle Paul, as he opens himself up in 1 Corinthians 7, making such a point about not marrying. His advice to the Corinthians does not rise simply, as he says in verse 26, because of the present distress that has overtaken the Church in Corinth. Rather, his advice rises just as much because, as he says in verse 31, the form of this world is passing away. In other words, the form of the world to come is making itself felt, is it pressing itself upon our present world order. And particularly, we are able to see something of that world, something of that eternal world, in the undivided, undistracted devotion of the unmarried, those who are presently for the kingdom’s sake, what we all shall be in glory.

You dare not look down upon the single person as if they were a secondary citizen in the kingdom of heaven. You must not scorn them. You must not hold them in contempt. You must not become suspicious of them, they being members of the body of Christ, with regard to their sexual orientation.

It may well be that it is a strain for them to live under their present condition. They may well wish to be married. We may pray with them and for them with regard to their condition, and hope with regard to the best concerning that expectation of theirs. But, at the same time, we must be prepared to see and to recognize the glories that are appearing before our eyes in the single person. But in conclusion, we also need to remember what is so obvious in Ephesians 5. Even for those of us who marry, the institution itself carries within it the message of something higher.

I have often thought that the smallness of this congregation is somehow related to this message. I understand the passions. I understand the drives. I understand the ambitions of men. And the high hopes of women. But coming to this church week after week and being told There is something more than a piece of real estate, a house, children, and a good retirement plan.

It’s very difficult to take. You may find yourself in the course of this message very upset My contention is that you are upset with God and his gospel and not me. I cannot preach to you your family. I cannot tell you to worship your wife, much less your children. That is idolatry.

By God’s design, the institution of marriage carries within it the message of something higher. The conception and birth of children carries this message, and so does marriage itself. In marriage, we see a greater and more ultimate reality, the blessed relationship between God and His people, between Christ and His Church.

Paul finds this testimony to the higher and more ultimate relationship even at the beginning, in Genesis 2.24, and the commentary on Eve’s creation for Adam. Marriage, as wonderful as it was for Adam and Eve in the garden, as wonderful as it may be for us, was never intended as an end in itself, but a mirror in which we behold the dynamics of the covenantal bond between God and His people. Putting it in its most trenchant New Testament form, Paul says, this is a great mystery, but I am speaking about Christ and His Church. Or as John puts it in the most sublime New Testament expression, And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

None of this which I have told you this day will make you a worse husband or wife. I can say to you on the authority of the word of God, it will make you the best husband and wife. He loves his wife best who loves God first. I dare say that this gospel makes us all better citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. We, then, free as sons of God, and not in slavery to anything of this world.

Father, your son presses us in light of the coming of the kingdom. Your apostle presses us in light of the coming of the kingdom. And father, we ask that in our hearts, we might first of all be ready to let everything go. For your sake, and for the sake of that thing. Yes, even marriage and children. Help us, Lord, bless us. We know your will, sir, superintendence, and therefore we acknowledge your will may well be for us that we marry and that we have children. And in that event, oh, God, may we give ourselves to our families as a blessing to them. And may we help them also see. And the things they experience in the institutions that they are acquainted with in this world, how all things are for you. For your greater glory. And for a higher destination.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

October 27, 1996