Lord of the Household

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“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. 

Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.

Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”

Lord, thank you for your word that touches every single area of our life, every relationship. It goes down to the granular level of every human experience, and you are touching, liberating, renewing all of these areas by your mercy, your grace, your goodness, your love. Help us to open our lives, our minds to your love, your will, your way.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

I was sitting in this room several years ago as, I guess, a young man. I’m no longer a young man, I don’t think. I guess it depends on your perspective. How not a young man you are, you might see me as a young man. But I was a younger man in my mid-20s, and I was in this building feeling a strong call of God into the neighborhood in which we now live—the International District of Albuquerque.

And I remember wanting to move there so badly, feeling that God called us to live in that particular place of town, and going through all kinds of internal struggle. My faith was being challenged. My way of understanding God and the gospel was being challenged. My way of understanding marriage and relationships was being challenged.

I felt strongly that we needed to move to this area of the city, and Joanna did not feel as strongly. She did not sign up. Number one, she never wanted to marry a pastor, so I convinced her to do that. And then we were in this nice little building, this church, and the youth pastor—it’s so great to be a youth pastor, guys. It’s pretty fun. You just eat pizza. You don’t allow oranges, okay? And you just have fun.

So I’m having fun, but I’m feeling this call, this invitation to this part of the city that isn’t as comfortable, has dynamics that are hard to navigate. And Joanna was like, “What are you talking about?”

Now, to be fair, it was not for a lack of desire to be with the poor, the hurting. It was because we were. And I did every single thing you can do wrong in this season of life as a husband. I really did.

We were going through infertility. We had had a miscarriage. There was an ache and a longing in her heart that was just hungry for a child, and navigating all the pain and the doubt and the struggle of, “What’s God doing? How is it happening?” And here I am saying, “Let’s move to this place,” very insensitive.

Then I was pressuring it. I was like, “Man, we need to do this. We need to do this. We need to do this.”

So fast forward several months of having this conversation. There was a community in the neighborhood, kind of an intentional community called Casa Shalom. And I was like, “Man, this is where we’re supposed to move. We’re supposed to live there. It’s going to be awesome.”

And Joanna was like, “No. I’m not feeling it.”

So I remember writing an email to the leaders of this little community, and I said, “Hey, I really feel like God has called us to move here, and I need to lead my family. Even though Joanna isn’t on board, I need…” I was playing the headship card. I was playing it and playing it. “She’s got to submit.”

So I hit send. And within seconds I get a reply from John, and I’m so thankful for this. He says, “Don’t do that. Let’s have breakfast.”

I go to breakfast with him and his dad, and they sit me down. He says, “Jesse, to move into this neighborhood is a decision that you need to have unity on, that you need to both have clarity from the Lord. You need to follow and hear the voice of your wife in this. Do not move without unity. Do not play the headship card.”

I went home convicted—convicted, pierced. And I realized. I saw clearly.

And I remember really being on my knees in our bedroom, repenting to Joanna and saying, “I have pushed you. I’ve pressured you. I’ve downgraded you and your opinion and your perspective. I’ve devalued you because I feel so strongly about moving here. I have not loved you well. Please forgive me.”

And I said, “I will not bring this up again. All I ask is that you seek the Lord. But I’m not going to ask if you’re seeking the Lord. I’m not going to remind you to seek the Lord. I’m not going to put little notes to remind you to seek the Lord. I’m not going to be passive-aggressive. I’m done.”

So it was still a strong desire of my heart, and I was praying that it would be of hers. But I was convicted that we had to move together. And one thing I told Joanna was, “I want to trust the Holy Spirit’s voice in your life. I trust that you have a relationship with God, and I trust that you’re listening to God, and I trust you to lead us in that way.”

I want to declare this morning that there is no part of the human existence that remains untouched by the loving, liberating rule of Jesus Christ. That is what Colossians is all about. It is about the lordship of Jesus that is liberating and loving and frees us to live lives as we were intended to live.

And this includes our relationships. It includes how we relate to one another. It includes how women and men relate to each other, how parents and children relate to each other. It relates to how slaves and masters relate to one another—and I’ll get back to that.

When Jesus is Lord—listen to this—when Jesus is Lord, abusive power structures are turned upside down. And the family unit is no exception. In fact, that’s ground zero of transformation of the status quo.

We are desperate in this world—all over the world, in this nation, in this city—we are desperate for the loving, liberating rule of Jesus to grip our homes, to transform our households, to change the family dynamics that we have.

Did you know that one in every three women in this nation experience intimate partner violence? Over a third of children in the world—this is reported; it’s much higher than this—experience abuse in their families, silently suffering. And millions more of us are not experiencing the full extent of God’s design for our households to be lovingly led and liberated by Jesus. We’re not fully experiencing all the life and the love and the flourishing that God designed.

So Paul here is speaking to that, and he’s speaking into a world that is really abusive and really bound by authoritarian hierarchy that is suffocating women and men and children and servants.

And Paul makes some radical claims here. Now, it doesn’t seem super radical, right? Because we’re talking about slavery—“slaves,” “submit,” “women submit.” In our day and age, it does not sound like Paul is speaking a radical, liberating truth, because we have actually benefited from 2,000 years of these teachings shaping laws, cultures, policies, and conscience.

These teachings have been working their way through our societies worldwide as the church and the gospel spread.

But in the first-century Greco-Roman world, there was essentially no category for abuse in the family dynamic. The man had absolute power and authority, and what the man did was right. So if you want to know what’s right, just look at what the man does, and that’s right. That’s your standard.

Every household is defined by the paterfamilias. Anyone seen O Brother, Where Art Thou? “I’m the paterfamilias.” That’s the head of the household. That’s Latin for “the father of the family.”

And the household was not just biological relationships, but it included extended family and servants. Often there was business related to this. It’s called the oikos—the household—biological and non-biological relationships around which commerce was built and relationships formed. The family system contained all of that, and the paterfamilias is the absolute authority.

Women did not have legal rights. Children did not have legal rights. Slaves—servants—did not have any legal rights. They were seen as property.

So when we look at the cultural context in which Paul lived and wrote to the Colossians, we see that he is subverting and challenging the existing social systems radically. This would have been very disturbing to people.

1. T. Wright notes that Paul is not simply giving timeless domestic advice. He is announcing Jesus’ lordship and how it reshapes every human relationship because the Messiah’s kingdom has arrived. Jesus is here. God has shown up in our world, and he has something to say about how we relate to one another.

Just to give you an idea of the Greco-Roman household codes: this section of Scripture is something like a household code—a document that existed. Aristotle and other philosophers had household codes that told people how to arrange and order their homes.

Paul is playing off this household code, and people have certain expectations around it, but they are founded on these perspectives.

Aristotle: “The male is by nature superior and the female inferior, and the one rules and the other is ruled.” Amen? All right. Lord Jesus. No—that’s Aristotle, not Jesus.

“A slave is a living tool, a piece of property.” That’s the Greco-Roman household code built on this idea of the paterfamilias having absolute authority.

Children had no rights. Wives were subordinate. Slaves were property.

So when Paul writes in Colossians 3:17–4:1, he is speaking directly into a world structured by patriarchal, hierarchical systems of domination.

What we need to remember here is that the loving, liberating rule of Jesus radically reorganizes the way we relate to one another.

Now, I am speaking to you as an interim pastor, okay? You are Foothills Fellowship. I grew up here. And so Foothills has a long history of kind of living on a spectrum of views on the Scriptures in this realm, right?

So I recognize that people will have differing views and opinions as to how this—to what extent Paul liberates, and to what extent his teaching impacts what Paul is saying here and how we understand it today.

So let me just set that out there and tell you that I have committed to the—well, I have my opinion, and I’ll strongly state it today. But also, there is a wide spectrum of opinion that is permitted, and lots of scholars debate and talk about it.

The two main views here are complementarian and egalitarian.

In the complementarian view, Paul reshapes existing household structures with Christ-centered love. Cultural setting matters, but the marriage pattern remains broadly normative. What does that mean? Paul is challenging the way in which the paterfamilias relates to his family. He’s infusing it with the power of God’s liberating love. He’s saying you cannot treat women as inferior. You cannot treat slaves as property. You cannot treat children as less than human.

According to this view, the structure remains the same, where the man is still the head, but he’s being challenged to live and lead like Christ. And this is largely the tradition that this church has grown out of.

The egalitarian view—this is where I am currently, and this is what I will show why I believe this—the egalitarian view says Paul speaks within patriarchy while planting seeds of gospel equality. Scripture’s trajectory moves toward restored mutual partnership.

So Paul not only wants to work within the system; he eventually wants to plant seeds that disrupt the system entirely, that change the way that we relate to one another in these ways.

Here are some ways this practically shows up in marriage.

Leadership: in complementarianism, the husband practices servant leadership. In egalitarianism, it’s shared leadership.

Submission: in complementarianism, the wife offers responsive submission. In egalitarianism, it’s mutual submission. It goes both ways.

Decision-making: often, in complementarianism, husbands bear the final responsibility. In egalitarianism, it’s consensus and shared authority and shared responsibility.

So as you can see, when I was pressuring and pushing Joanna—and even as I repented to Joanna—I was operating under a more complementarian view. Now, coming back and repenting to Joanna, that was much better than before, right? And since then, that trajectory has continued to a more egalitarian understanding of a relationship.

Does that make sense? So we’re on the same page here.

The point that I want to emphasize here is that Paul’s words dismantle abusive, coercive, controlling authority structures, period.

If you are complementarian and you think that gives you permission to be abusive, to be controlling, to be coercive, to make demands, to silence people, you are not hearing the gospel. The gospel is not hitting your life.

You can hold a complementarian view and hear your tendency toward authoritarian control and manipulation and be convicted, repent, and lovingly allow the love and liberation of Jesus’ rule to lead you into healthier ways of leadership.

And also, it might lead some of us further to go a little bit further and say, “You know what? Actually, I think Jesus blows up the structure and moves us into mutuality—mutual submission, shared leadership.”

I honestly want you to follow Jesus wherever he’s leading you and however you read Scripture. I trust the Holy Spirit will do that.

So let’s continue. Let’s look at this.

Oh. Why did I do that? I’m not ready for that slide. Go back. Sorry for the unsmooth slide transitions.

All right. So he starts: “Whatever you do…” This Jesus, liberating, loving rule impacts every area of human life. “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

And then he goes, “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.”

Now, Paul starting with women in the household codes is strategic. Paul is writing a letter to a group of Greco-Roman people, newly converted to Jesus, living in a culture that has these Aristotelian assumptions.

So Paul starts with the women, just like a household code would. He says, “Submit to the paterfamilias.”

The man hears this and says, “Yep, that’s right. Wives, submit to your husbands. All right. All good. I can trust this guy Paul. Yep. He’s saying what I’m hearing. Amen, brother. Amen.”

And then he goes, “And husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.”

Now, at that moment, maybe he’s like, “Whoa. Wait a minute. Husbands?” Why? Because in the household codes, it did not address the paterfamilias. They didn’t even give them any instructions. Why? Because what they do is right.

So all of a sudden, to hold the man to a standard—it’s like, “Hold on there, dude. What are you doing? What are you calling me into? My wife needs to hear this. My children need to hear this. My slave needs to hear this. I do what I want to do.”

And so that is the challenge and the radicalness of this letter. He gets his audience engaged—“Wives, submit”—and then he throws a curveball. And husbands are like, “Whoa, wait. What are you talking about? Love your wife?” Radical. Radical. That would be their thought.

They freak out. “Who is this guy?”

Then Paul says, “Children, obey your parents in everything.”

“Okay. Okay. That’s good.” And he’s back on top.

And then he goes, “Fathers…”

“What? Don’t exasperate your children.”

“What do you mean? They’re less than human. They don’t have brains. What are you talking about? Don’t exasperate them? I have absolute authority.”

Again, what is he saying?

And then he goes, “Slaves, obey your masters.”

“Oh, thank goodness, Paul. I was about to kick you out and stone you.”

If Paul ever got stoned, I wonder why. It’s not just because he had an intellectual thought about Jesus. It’s because when you follow Jesus, it changes how you relate to people, and it disrupts society. And people who are in power don’t like that. And you get stoned.

So, “Slaves, obey your masters.” And then: “Masters—what? Treat your slaves… Provide your slaves with what is right and fair.”

There is no right and fair with property.

Because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

So radically, he’s revolutionizing the way we relate to one another. And this is what Jesus’ lordship does. When you follow Jesus, it changes how you relate to one another.

All are called to follow Jesus and submit to him. All are called to relate to God in love, and God is for all equally—children, those viewed as property, women. All are made equal.

And it relativizes every claim to superiority that is based on ethnicity, that is based on race, that is based on social status, that is based on gender, that’s based on intelligence—that we are made one in Christ.

So this is something that Paul does in other letters as well. Ephesians 5—oh yeah, I forgot—Ephesians 5 starts that household code in Ephesians where it says, “Wives, submit to your husbands.” But it actually starts in verse 21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Again, radical.

The verse preceding the household code in Ephesians is a general call to all to submit to one another. Again, radical, subversive.

And then the word “submit” is not even in the next verse. It’s borrowed from the previous one. It says, “Wives, submit to your husbands.”

And then remember in Ephesians it gives a paragraph to husbands: “Love your wives as Christ loved the church.” And what else does it say? “As yourself.”

Now this is radical. Jesus loves pretty radically, and we’re going to talk about that in a minute. But to say to love as yourself—what’s happening there? He’s elevating the woman to equal status with the paterfamilias.

If you love her as you love yourself, that person has equal worth, equal value, equal dignity, equal right to have needs met—not just about my needs, not just about my sexual needs, not just about my appetite, not about my comfort. I love her as I love myself.

And how do you do it? You do it like Christ.

In Philippians 2:1–7—remember, this is the precursor to that beautiful passage on how Christ loved the church and we are to imitate Christ—and he speaks to all Christians, male and female, women and children:

“Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.”

And then it says, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God”—who has claim to absolute authority, God—“did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.”

This is kenosis—the Greek word—self-emptying.

So we are to love. “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church”—a self-emptying love. And since you know I’m the egalitarian in the room: wives, love your husbands as Christ loved the church—self-emptying, self-sacrificial, mutual love.

This is a call to all of us. Because remember, it says, “All of you look not only to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.”

So he’s radically revolutionizing relationships from a hierarchical, patriarchal idea. He’s moving from that to mutual submission.

All of us are set free and loved and liberated by Jesus. And now, in light of that, we all live in mutual, self-giving, non-coercive, non-controlling love toward one another as Christ.

So we submit to one another as human beings made by our Creator without distinction.

As Paul says in Galatians, remember? “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

He’s relativizing distinction and inferiority based on gender, race, status of any kind.

So how Paul subverts the system—remember, this applies to both egalitarian and complementarian views.

First, he subverts the system by naming Jesus as the ultimate authority.

Did you notice how often Jesus is referred to in this passage? There are seven verses, and seven times in seven verses Jesus is named as Lord or Master. So we are getting a sense that Paul is challenging the leadership, the absolute claim to authority of the man in the household. And he’s saying, “Everyone has a Master, including the paterfamilias. And that is Jesus.”

Jesus is Lord.

And therefore Jesus is above every member of the household, including the man.

One theologian, David Powell, points out that Paul relocates authority from the social hierarchy into the lordship of Jesus, making every believer accountable to Jesus. So everyone is accountable to the good, loving, liberating rule of Jesus.

We follow Jesus as Lord. It means that the head of the household—this is where it’s radical—is no longer absolute in his authority. He is accountable. He’s accountable to someone higher than himself.

And those under him—wives, children, servants—they ultimately answer to Jesus.

Greg Boyd emphasizes that the kingdom of God undermines coercive power by redefining authority through Christlike love rather than domination.

He’s redefining how power works.

So Jesus is Lord, and therefore even the master has a Master. We all have the same Master. We’re all accountable to him.

Second, Paul subverts the system by addressing the powerful directly and publicly.

This letter is taken into a community with these Aristotelian Greco-Roman assumptions, and it is read out loud—men and women present. And so when the father is given instructions publicly, it brings about accountability.

The head of the household hears the commands to love, to be gentle, to avoid exasperating, to treat others justly. And these words are spoken in the presence of those under his authority.

I don’t know about you, but when I’m in charge, in my flesh I don’t want those underneath me to know what I’m accountable to. I’ll decide if I’m going to do it or not.

But if it’s publicly stated and I’m given accountability to treat someone with love and dignity and worth and to be fair, then I’m held accountable to it in public. It raises the standard and publicly places him under the authority of Christ.

He’s accountable to someone.

Third, it’s a radical vision of human dignity.

He calls for the head of the household to recognize the humanity, dignity, and equal worth of his spouse, of his children, of even his slaves. This is radical. It’s a vision of human dignity that the ancient world had not seen.

Paul’s ethic grows out of this new creation reality—that Jesus has come and risen from the dead, defeated Satan, sin, and death. And with that comes new creation—heaven breaking into the world.

And we’re called to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

So if in heaven every tribe, tongue, and nation worship Jesus as equally made in the image and dignity of God, equally having claim to the love of Jesus—there’s no VIP section—all of us are there.

If that’s the case, then as followers of Jesus, the Lord Jesus, we live with the principles of heaven on earth. The future is now, and we begin to live as if it were true.

It’s a slow but powerful dismantling of domination.

Next: agency under the lordship of Jesus.

Finally, the loving, liberating rule of Jesus gives agency.

What do I mean?

Women, children, and slaves are addressed as moral agents, which means that they have choice and agency in their own life. They can obey or disobey.

And you know who they can obey or disobey? The paterfamilias when he goes against his higher authority, Jesus. When he leads in a way that isn’t consistent with the good news and gospel of Jesus, they can choose: “You know what? I have a higher authority. I’m going with Jesus.”

Moral agency.

They are called to serve the Lord, and they also have agency to submit. We have agency to lay down our life for the sake of someone else. That is their choice.

Now some would say that Paul does not go far enough here. When I preach this at my church this afternoon, that will be most of the people at my church. It’s a little bit of a different audience, and I don’t know who is here, but they’re going to be like, “Yeah, Paul didn’t say enough. What is he doing? He’s saying words like ‘submit.’ He’s still calling them slaves. He’s not calling for revolution. This isn’t far enough. God, blow it up.”

And I think I have argued that he is blowing it up. But some say Paul did not go far enough. Why didn’t he directly overthrow the system? Why didn’t he lead a revolt?

I would say, in one sense, he did. I mentioned this already. Christians were persecuted precisely because their allegiance to Jesus disrupted social structures. If you start living like this, you disrupt. You threaten authority everywhere across the Roman Empire. And this is why Christianity begins to be squashed and persecuted, and people lose their lives, because they’re calling Jesus Lord—not just “Jesus in my heart.” Jesus is my Lord privately. Jesus is my Lord, and he leads me into a life that radically reorganizes how I relate to people, how I relate to authority, how I relate to people who are weaker than me, how I relate to my enemies, how I spend my money, where I spend my money, if I go to war or not, if I serve the empire or not. It changes everything.

What are you going to do when you lose control of the people because they’re following a different king? Caesar gets upset, and he starts killing people. He starts imprisoning people.

So I would say that there was a revolution here. He did disrupt social structures, and it did have consequences. Their faith changed how they lived, worked, and related. They threatened the status quo.

But here’s the thing: a violent revolution is also not the way of Jesus. We resist evil, but not with evil.

So the early church practiced a revolution of cruciform love, a nonviolent uprising. They started living the way of Jesus and resisting, and they accepted the consequences of not following in the footsteps of Caesar and the status quo.

So Paul works from within this cultural moment, and he plants seeds of transformation, and they begin to grow. And we see that the trajectory of Scripture moves from hierarchy to mutuality, toward the declaration that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female. All are one in Christ Jesus.

And so I believe that the strength and the foundation of the abolition movement—now one thing that makes me uncomfortable is that it seems to validate the institution of slavery here. It challenges it significantly because it raises those who were considered slaves as co-equals and as human beings worthy of rights and good treatment. But it doesn’t say, “Stop having slaves. Free the slaves.” And I don’t like that. I honestly don’t like that. But there’s nothing I can do about it.

What I do see is that the trajectory—because Paul plants the subversive seeds and he names these things—has found a foundational level, and the liberation continues. And we see the foundation of abolition movements largely as a movement of the church. The women’s suffrage movement—largely a movement of the church. Freeing people currently from sex trafficking and all the ways of bondage—very often followers of Jesus are spearheading those movements.

The church gets a bad rap, and we should. We deserve it. But we also need some credit for some of the beautiful things we’ve done. We’ve liberated people because we have been liberated by Jesus.

So this is where we are going. The trajectory of Scripture, if we continue to follow the thread, moves toward liberation and freedom and equality.

So quick application for us.

We need to remember: Jesus is the head of your household. Jesus is the authority. Every member is accountable to him.

A man is not the absolute authority. Parents are not dictators. Employers are not ultimate rulers. All of us live under King Jesus. And King Jesus has invited us into a beautiful way of love.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. If your leadership doesn’t bear the fruit of that, you need to question your leadership. You need to find—are you following the Lord Jesus?

A word to husbands, then, if you’re a man.

These household codes do not give you absolute authority. They do not permit harshness, control, or degradation. The command to husbands is actually a deeper submission than it gives to the wife. We talked about it in Ephesians: “Love your wives as Christ loved the church.”

In my mind, that sounds like Jesus pretty much submitted his entire life to the point of death—even death on a cross—to serve, to lift up, to care for his wife, the church.

So the call is a call to deep submission. Regardless of your view of complementarianism versus egalitarianism, this is a call to deep love. And you can’t call anything love that doesn’t bear the fruit of the Spirit.

You can say, “I’m loving you,” and if it’s bearing fruit that is not the fruit of the Spirit, you need to question it.

So we are called to submit our desires and needs to the needs and edification of our family—wives, children, everyone under us.

And then a word to wives.

Your call is the same. It’s a call to submission. Hopefully in the context it’s a beautiful invitation—the invitation of Jesus.

Wives, submit. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, which is a call to deep submission. Wives also submit to your husbands. Serve them mutually. Mutually submit. Love one another. You’re called to Christlike love.

Now, I hope you feel, as a woman, empowered to follow Jesus. Because you are empowered, and you do not need to stay in an abusive situation. You have agency to leave.

There are some times where we get this teaching—especially in very conservative understandings of complementarianism—where women are encouraged to stay in abusive marriages.

Please. I will say that even—I don’t think Foothills says that. No, we don’t say that. Thank you. For the record, Foothills does not say that, and neither do I.

I will boldly say that regardless of what anyone says, you have agency. Your first allegiance is to Christ. And your husband follows Jesus, and you follow Jesus.

So to finish this off: the loving, liberating rule of Jesus radically reorganizes the way we relate to one another.

Several months after my conversation with Joanna, when I repented and said, “Please forgive me. I have led you in a way that is harmful to you, that has not valued you. I will not bring it up again.”

I was standing right where Ben is—right there. My wife and I were here. Mike preached a sermon. I don’t remember what it was about, but I’m sure it was awesome. And Angela DiPrima was leading worship.

After the song of response, she said, “You know what? I’m feeling like if anyone feels like they are ready to step into something that God has been calling them into, would you stand up?”

And I stood up.

And Joanna stood up.

And I was like, “What does that mean? Why is she standing up?”

We got in the car, and I was like—because remember all the promises I made, I wouldn’t bring it up—but I said, “So you stood up. What was going on?”

She said, “All I could think about was the International District. All I could see was us moving to the International District.”

And that week we started looking for houses. And within a month we moved—not to the place I wanted to move—but to a place we both wanted to move, which ultimately is so much better. So much better than what we would have had.

And I’ve learned to trust the voice of God speaking to me through my wife.

Now you can do that as a complementarian or an egalitarian, but I have trust that I can submit my desires, and we can follow Jesus as we both submit to one another. As we submit to Jesus, we will follow him.

You know what? I was so gung-ho, and I don’t know that I was ready. And the first few weeks we moved into the neighborhood, it was really violent. Our neighbor has cycles of violence. The first few weeks we moved in, someone got stabbed. Another person got shot—right around our street.

And then one day I’m looking out my window in the apartment, and there are people fighting each other with bats. That was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I get down on my knees, and I’m like, “What did I do? How did we move to this place? I wanted to lead my family into this.”

And Joanna, with absolute peace, absolute confidence, absolute authority, says, “Jesse, this is where God led us. I have absolute peace that we are to be here now.”

That’s the result of following Jesus together. That’s the result of loving Jesus together, encouraging one another, submitting to one another, leading one another.

Nothing is left untouched by the loving, liberating rule of Jesus—not our homes, not our marriages, not our parenting, not our workplaces.

Jesus is Lord, and his lordship transforms power into love, authority into service, and households into spaces of new creation and loving liberation.

This is what God is doing in our world.

So the question is: will you receive his life-giving invitation to live under his loving, liberating lordship?

Let’s pray.

Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you, God, how you revolutionize the way we relate to one another. God, I pray that we would all hear this call, this invitation to submit ourselves to you, Jesus.

When we follow you, we are safe. When we follow you, we have purpose and meaning. When we follow you, we have confidence.

I pray that we would all follow you in whatever area of our life we’re being invited to trust you.

In Jesus’ name, amen.