This morning's text is found in Paul's letter to the Ephesians.

Please follow along as I read the first four verses of chapter six.

Children Chapter 6. Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your Father and your

mother. This is the First commandment with a promise that it may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

I want to start right at the end of that verse four and look with you at the word Lord and ponder for a few minutes what it means.

Fathers do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the Lord.

Now the word Lord, as you know, has a very exalted meaning for the Apostle Paul. You can

hear it probably most clearly when you remember the words from Philippians chapter 2, where it says, therefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name that at the

name of Jesus every knee should bow, whether in heaven or on the earth or under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. When we confess Jesus Christ as Lord, we say that he is the rightful King

over all the universe. We confess that he is the ruler over all the world as we know it.

We confess that he's the commander of all the hosts of heaven, all the armies of heaven and all the

Christian soldiers on the earth.

When we say he's Lord, we mean that he is now raining

over all his enemies until he puts them under his feet

and that one day he's going to establish a kingdom in this earth

that will extend from horizon to horizon and be full of justice and peace and all evil and unrighteousness will be banished out of the world forever and ever.

To confess that Jesus Lord means that he's going to triumph over all things.

It means that he is not a small town God. He's greater than Reagan, he's greater than Gorbachev, greater than Kadafi or Komeni, or all the other rulers of the world put together, Jesus Christ is greater.

And one of these days he is going to come just as visibly in Minneapolis, just as real in Minneapolis as Michael Jackson at the Met Center.

And his audience is going to be bigger and his band is going to be louder and his laser show is going to be

...