Let me have you turn in your Bibles, if you would, please, this morning to Ephesians chapter 6, and we are going to begin in verse 5 and carry on down in our reading this morning to verse 8.
And then we will pray together. Slaves, students, mothers at home, workers at Meijer and Walmart, police officers, all of you, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ.
Not by the way of eye service as people pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a goodwill as to the Lord and not to man.
Knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is slave or free.
Let us pray.
Our Father, we do not pray out of habit or out of ritual or because it's something that we have kind of structured in our order of service and so it's appropriate.
We pray because we pray because we love you and we pray because we need you and we pray because we are aware that apart from you we can do nothing.
And so, it is my call and responsibility to preach the Word faithfully and I trust that your Spirit will enable me to do that.
And it is the responsibility of your people to listen with the power of the Spirit of God energizing and affecting their thinking that as a result of our listening to the Word that you have given to us,
that our lives and our hearts would be shaped and formed to be more like Christ.
We want you to be glorified.
Not just in the moment of emotion or affection at this hour, but Lord, really in the week to come that the thing that would be exceptional in the lives of those who are believers
is that our work ethic would be something that reflects favorably on the cross, that you who are in heaven would be pleased.
And so, I ask for your Spirit's power in my life and in the lives of your people.
And I ask, Lord, that those who are here today that do not know Christ would be under the convicting power of the cross
that wherever and at what moment in the time we have remaining, your Spirit would work in their heart to draw them to see their need for salvation
and they would cry out and say, I need Jesus to be my Savior.
And Lord, we ask that you would be glorified in your precious name.
Amen.
One of the questions I really want you to start out with and just kind of think to yourself,
every one of us here are involved in work at one form or another.
We're either working at home or we're working in our studies or we're working in a place where other people are dependent upon our performance and our output.
And so, I want to begin by asking a couple questions and I want you to note them.
And actually, you don't have to raise your hand and wave at me and say, here's why I'm working.
But I want you to know for sure, this is the fact.
So, here's the question to start with.
Why do you work?
Now, I've seen bumper stickers that say, I owe, I owe, and off to work I go.
Okay.
So, I'll come back again.
Why do you work?
Second question is this, is what really motivates you?
What really motivates you?
I remember years ago when I went from being an independent pain contractor, which is what I did when I was in seminary.
That's kind of how I paid my way through.
And without getting into all the ugly details, I remember when I had a friend say to me, how about working at International Harvester?
And I said, well, might as well try it.
And I prayed about it and I thought it was the appropriate thing to do.
And I went and showed up for the interview.
And as the interview was progressing, the individual that was talking to me said, well, we'd like you to work for us.
And I said, well, okay.
And he said, well, here's what we would pay you.
Now, listen to me.
It was a threefold increase on my annual income.
Threefold.
Now, do the math on where you are and figure out.
Poker face, that was me.
He said, is that okay?
And I was like, yeah.
Threefold.
One, two, three.
Threefold.
And I didn't realize that, you know, as an independent contractor, I worked from O Dark 30 to whenever it was over.
And after that, I was on the phone hoping that I would have some other people that desperately wanted me to paint their house.
And I'd take any call that I could get.
And so, about three or four weeks into this, I'm not real good with math.
And that's a new thing.
Some of you note that down.
Pastors are not real good with math.
But I remember about three or four weeks into it, I started getting checks.
And I noticed that there was something.
I mean, I understand what threefold was.
But the rate I was going at, they seemed to be paying me for overtime.
I'd never heard about that before.
Overtime.
I mean, you know what?
I worked a real 40 hours.
And then every time I worked beyond that, I got time and a half.
And then when they asked me to work on Saturdays or Sundays, that happened occasionally, I'd get double time.
And holidays, you know what I got?
I got three times the pay.
I mean, it was like, I remember looking at the first $1,000 check I'd ever seen in my life.
And I thought, this is too good to be true.
But it kept on happening.
And then there I was standing around a bunch of other workers.
And I had one of these guys say, and he was one of the lazier guys that I had there on the crew, 27 men.
And I'm trying to motivate him with, you know, a little bit of spiritual encouragement, right?
Do you follow that?
I mean, I came from seminary into UAW plant.
And it took me a while to kind of adapt to the vocabulary and other things.
And I was explaining to them that I would appreciate it if he'd do a little more work.
And he said, I can't work any harder for what you're paying me.
I thought, what?
I worked hard for one-third the payment without overtime.
So why are you working?
What motivates you?
Paul, when he wrote this letter to the church in Ephesus, he wrote to a group of people so different than us today in a church.
At one point in the Roman Empire, almost every other person was a slave.
I mean, you didn't have tractors.
You didn't have lawnmowers.
You didn't have, you know, everything was done by hand.
Everything.
And Judith and I had our Internet fried yesterday.
And it's amazing what you go through when you discover that what you normally rely upon is not available to you.
Well, I think I'll check email.
No, you won't.
I think I'll call a friend.
No, you won't.
I think, stop.
In the ancient world, about one-half, one-third to one-half, depending on where you were, were actually slaves.
And so I would imagine that when Paul said to the early church, slaves, obey your earthly masters,
it was a stunning thing to hear said.
And so I want you to listen with me this morning.
And really, as you walk out of here, I trust that as a result of you hearing the Spirit-enabled preaching of the Word of God,
and you, under the convicting power of the Spirit of God, walk out of here saying,
man, I am a Christian, and I want everybody to watch my work ethic and say, I don't know what it is about you, but I want some of it.
And I want your employer to come around and say, do you have any other people you know that are like you?
Because there's something about the way you work.
I need other people like you.
Now, bear with me just for a moment as we get a little bit of background, because I think background is important.
And so if I were to summarize Ephesians in one word, I would use the word Christocentric.
The book of Ephesians, by the way, any book in the Bible is ultimately about who?
It's about Christ.
But Ephesians is kind of on steroids.
I mean, everywhere you go, you're going to find it.
You can't miss it.
And we're going to see it this morning.
It's there.
Ephesians overflows with the evidence of the glory and the power and the wonder of Christ.
And Paul says, in essence, that all of life is about him.
I love Ephesians 3, verse 21, where it says, unto him be glory.
And if you back up just a little bit, in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 23, as Paul comes to the end of the first chapter, he makes this statement about Christ.
He says, he is the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Jesus is the great I am.
He is the one that completely encompasses all that is worthy and significant.
And so, understandably, you would have to admit that the recurring theme of the first three chapters in particular is that everything, everything redounds.
I like that word, so I'll say it again.
Redounds to the glory of Christ.
In other words, it reflects back on.
It comes back on Jesus.
At the heart of his grace in saving us is his glory.
And so, if you would just follow with me just for a moment, we're going to take a look at only the first part of Ephesians.
And look at Ephesians chapter 1, verse 6.
It explains salvation.
Go ahead and turn there.
Keep your finger in 6 because we're back in just a minute.
But I want you to understand this issue.
It's about Jesus.
Ephesians 1, 6 explains salvation as being for the praise of his glorious grace.
Do you follow that?
You stop and think about why you were saved.
It's so that Jesus looks good.
People looking at you and saying, I can't believe he did that.
What did he save you for?
So that I make him look good.
Ephesians chapter 1, 7 through 12.
Kind of work our way through a little longer passage.
And it explains his redemption and his forgiveness, his predestination as being to the praise of his glory.
Why did he do all that?
That he would receive glory.
And then as we mark in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 14, it says, it explains the seal of the Holy Spirit and our eventual joy in heaven.
And it is explained again in the light of the fact that we are all of this is to the praise of his glory.
So as you're sitting here and you're ready to hear the word of God, let me summarize our lesson from the very start by saying it is aimed at coaching those who are believers how to live and act so that Jesus looks good.
That's pretty simple, isn't it?
That's all it's all about.
It's saying to you who know Christ, hey, you were hired by someone who's more important than who you think.
Your main boss is not who you see Monday morning.
The main boss is the one that someday you are going to see in eternity.
And it is important, it is important, it is important that whether you are a student or a housewife, whatever it is that you are doing, that you are driven by the reality and the certainty of your eventual presence with the Lord and your readiness to answer him and say, I did my part for you.
Now, I do want to take a moment as we're working our way through this to look at verse 5 to begin with and it says, slaves, obey your earthly masters.
And so I want to kind of push this together and if you'll throw it up there, what we find here in this opening statement is a comment on the gospel and social justice.
You could put it this way and Alistair Begg says it, you probably have heard him in one of his sermons, he says, keep the main thing the plain thing.
Stay focused on the things that really count.
And so here you are, you're reading in the book of Ephesians and you come to chapter 6 and all of us would probably say, hey, listen, slavery is not a good thing.
It's not something that I would recommend and it's not just because I wouldn't recommend it.
It's not something that the Bible advocates, but the Bible does chronicle the fact that slavery was going on.
And so as we take up our text this morning, allow me to note several things from the start.
For one, probably some of you have some translations, English translations, that use the word bondservant or servant.
How many of you have one of those?
It says bondservant, okay?
Now I'm not suggesting you write through that necessarily, but the real word in the Greek is doulos, which means slave.
And a slave in Roman or Greek culture was flat out the property of somebody else.
He only lived and existed at the will and the pleasure and for the output that he had to give to his master.
And a little bit like, I don't know for a fact, but we've had, all of us have had pets that eventually they reached their youthful lifespan.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
It becomes, and so what do you do when it reaches that point?
I love the euphemism.
We put them down.
Do you follow that?
A slave was kept so long as he was productive.
And when he wasn't productive, what?
You didn't hover him around in a hospital bed.
Well, I mean, he can't tote water.
He's not doing good chopping wood, so gone.
I want you to recognize that Paul did not focus on slavery.
In fact, the Scriptures do not have much to say at all about the subject of slavery.
And that's not because God is indifferent to how men treat one another.
The reason is, is that the greatest concern in the Bible is for our relationship with Christ or with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And nothing deters Christ from being center place.
And those who are actively engaged in declaring the supremacy of Christ do not get sidetracked by that.
Everything in life ultimately revolves around our relationship through God or to God through Christ.
Isn't that right?
At the end, it's about who you are in relationship with the Lord of glory and with Christ.
And Paul is not primarily concerned about all the travesties and wickedness that was taking place in the messy world back then.
Nor is the Spirit of God primarily concerned about some of the messy stuff we see around us.
He is interested in our own relationship with Him.
And so, here we are as believers, and I want to tell you something.
We are not to be distracted from secondary issues or bi-secondary issues away from what is the primary thing.
We're not to be all over things like missing airplanes or creeping socialism or health care or income redistribution.
A social good works gospel or the Second Amendment for that matter.
I want you to understand that the one thing that God wants us to be passionate about is the sufficiency of the gospel and the supremacy of Christ in the life of every man and woman.
So, I want you to think with me just for a moment back to 1 Corinthians 2, verse 1 through 4, and mark what Paul was clearly focused on.
Turn back in your Bible to 1 Corinthians 2.
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I had a conversation the other day with an individual who actually had spent a number of years in an evangelical church.
I was, as the momentary contact was playing out, I was praying as I was listening.
How many of you do that?
How many of you learn that it's usually smarter to pray while you listen?
I'd rather take some time and ask God to help me not say stupid things because I can do that without practice.
And so I was praying, Lord, give me an opportunity.
Give me an opportunity.
And this guy kind of out of his own mouth, he said, you know, I used to go because I had filled out a little form that said I was a pastor, you know, pastor in a Baptist church.
Okay, I got it.
So he'd figured that out.
And so he kind of drifted over to make conversation with me and I let him go.
I let him go.
Let him go.
And once we'd gone far enough, it was like, hmm.
So if you were to die today and God were to ask you why he's let you into heaven, what would you say?
Well, I'm not all into that judgmental business about judgment and hell and blah, blah, blah.
And he knew all the vocabulary.
And he announced that he was just flat not interested.
I said, I appreciate that.
But what do you do with Putin?
How many of you know who Putin is?
Just checking, okay?
I said, what do you do with Putin?
Anyway, the conversation did not go very far, but I got to tell you something.
My heart and my interest is in people knowing the Lord Jesus Christ.
I did not talk to him about social welfare.
I did not talk to him about the Second Amendment.
I did not talk to him about anything but, you know who?
You know who?
About Jesus.
Because at the end of the day, that's what counts forever.
And I appreciate the fact that Paul stayed focused on the one thing that can change a person's relationship with God.
Is that the way you are?
Question.
Is that the way you are?
When it really boils down to it, if you have a choice, what is the one thing that you are focused on?
Well, let's come back practically now to Ephesians chapter 6.
And here's Paul.
He's talking to believers.
He's not...
If you're here this morning and you don't know Christ yet, and you've never yet trusted in the Lord Jesus,
I got to tell you, one of the prayers that I have been praying prior to coming here,
and I know there are people here praying that.
They're praying, hey, Lord, I want people saved this morning.
That's one of the things we'd be doing.
But Christians can multitask so you can be listening and praying at the same time.
You got that?
So talking to Christians, if you're not a Christian here, people are praying for you.
I want you to know that.
But to you who are Christians, you're praying and listening, and here's what you need to listen to.
Look at what it says.
We need to talk about how to serve.
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling,
with a sincere heart as you would Christ.
Now, spirit-filled believer, and I think we need to back it.
We need to be very clear about this.
How many of you recognize that sometimes we're not spirit-filled?
Come on, smile at me so I know you understand what we're talking about.
Sometimes we're not spirit-filled.
How many of you occasionally, rarely get anxious about things you really can't control?
My father's been in the hospital.
I got to tell you, I'm a little bit of a...
What do you call it?
What's the word?
I can be anxious without warm-up.
Do you follow that?
I don't have to stretch.
I'm right on it right now.
And I've been doing a little bit of special work on anxiety and prayer,
trying to come over on the right side of this thing.
And I want you to understand that I had to remind myself,
hey, Tim, you can't pull this off without being spirit-filled.
Now, if I can't be less than anxious apart from the spirit,
I can't be a good worker apart from the spirit.
So keep that in mind.
A spirit-filled believer is to serve by following instructions.
We'd live in a day where the idea of being subordinate to anybody is almost just a supreme offense.
What do you mean I got to listen to you?
What?
You mean you're not paying me here just to do whatever I think is a good idea for the day?
Paul puts it clearly.
He says, hey, obey your superiors.
So, as long as the instruction, the command, is lawful,
in other words, if your boss comes up to you and says,
I really don't like Tim, would you kill him?
Going back to an international harvester, I remember one of the lessons I learned very early.
So long as you were giving a command that was not a direct violation of safety
and the person's well-being, they had to do it.
Every smile.
They had to do it.
Now, if it was contrary to the contract, guess what happened after that?
I had a visit from the union steward.
Did you happen to read what's on page 49?
The guy can't use a broom around his own area, even though he's up to his knees in chips.
It's like, that's the sweep.
That's an L-154's job, and you're breaking somebody else's rice bowl.
I said, oh, okay.
Well, if it's a lawful instruction, do it.
Now, we may not think that what our boss is asking us to do is logical.
Now, smile.
Yeah, you know that.
Or reasonable.
Or intelligent.
But you know what?
Just do it.
Not only should you do it, so long as it's not a violation of the law, you know, I want you to understand that you are to do it with a certain kind of attitude.
Look at the passage again.
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with sincere heart, as you would Christ.
Now, it's not saying that you walk into work, you know, like this.
That's not what the fear and trembling is referencing, I believe.
I believe the reference is to the fact that Jesus made this statement in the Gospels.
He says, hey, don't fear those who can kill you.
Fear the one who can deal with your soul and send you to hell.
So, the real fear and trembling is I ought to be thinking about Christ even as I am responding to my master, my boss.
I want to please him, but I want to please him because I am sensitive to Jesus and the day that I'm going to see him.
Now, look at what it says here.
It says, you serve with fear and trembling with a sincere heart as you would Christ.
Does Christ give us instructions in the workforce?
He actually does.
He gives them through superiors.
He just happens to hire somebody else to communicate to you and say, hey, listen, in order to make me look good,
I want you to pick up this load of bricks and move it over here.
And once you get that pile over there, I want you to move it over here.
So, why don't I use a forklift?
You know, I mean, there are a lot smarter ways to move bricks.
In fact, the smartest thing to do would be ask you to move them while I watch.
Just do it.
And here's what it says.
Do it with a sincere heart as you would Christ.
You ask me, Jesus, I'll do it.
Now, look at something else here.
Read in verse 6.
It says that our service is not to be one that changes in the presence of the boss.
I think about when I, for some strange reason, I decided working two jobs was better than one job.
Now, that was all about money.
I want you to know that up front.
I was in college.
And I had a very interesting experience.
I worked with people that were slavishly attentive to where the boss was.
I mean, when the boss walked into the environment, guess what happened to their performance?
I mean, it was just like...
When the boss walked out...
You know, it was like night and day.
I really was kind of entertained by that.
But I'll remember when I went to Harvester and started working there, I had a couple people that always knew where I was in the proximity.
How they could work doing this.
And so, I have a little bit of perverse nature in my heart.
I want you to understand that it's not entirely sanctified, this little heart that I have.
And so, what I would do is I would duck around a corner and then pop right back out.
It was entertaining, you know.
I mean, it was just like fun.
I mean, follow that?
I was having a lot of pleasure at their anxiety.
When is Tim going to show up?
I'll never tell.
Now, here's what the Spirit wants you to understand.
He says, hey, since you're working for Jesus and He's always there, don't be doing this thing.
You know, eye service is talking about kind of doing it just because the person's there or, as it says here, a people pleaser.
People pleasers are recognized readily, particularly in restaurants.
You know, you're sitting there with your wife.
You're sitting there with your son-in-law.
You're sitting there with your daughter or whatever.
And so, when it comes time to order on the menu, the person uses the same phrase four times.
Excellent choice.
I mean, I know.
If it's on the menu, it's got to be excellent.
But the truth of the matter is, is that have you ever had anybody in a restaurant that's hoping for a decent tip say, that's dumb?
Okay?
Now, I happen to love liver.
I don't want to go any further than that.
I just tell you, I happen to love liver.
So, when I go into a restaurant and I say, and Cap City actually will fix me liver even if it's not on the menu, I'll say, could I have fried liver and onions?
Excellent choice.
Yeah.
I actually, honestly, truly love liver.
But I would venture to say that I am in a minority.
If we took a poll this morning on liver lovers, I mean, other than the liver you have, most of you would say, no, no, no, no, no, right?
I don't eat organ meat.
Okay.
Anyway, a people pleaser is someone who's always thinking about, how's it going to come off?
Are they going to like what I say?
Is it going to be okay?
Is it going to play out for me?
No.
Jesus says, that's not the way you ought to be.
Okay?
As servants of Christ.
So, let's deal with the fact, who do we serve?
Who do we serve?
And I want you to notice that this is a recurring theme.
The spirit believer, the spirit-filled believer serves his boss just like he would Christ.
Verse 5.
And that isn't to suggest that there's a slavish obedience, but that there is a loving and willing attention to the boss that God has given you.
And you're really doing it because in the whole flow of this, it's about Jesus.
You're doing it for him.
And in essence, your ministry, your service is an opportunity to say thank you to him who willingly stooped and took your sins and died in your place and has assured you of eternal life.
And then we read something very similar over in verse 6 where it says that the spirit-filled believer is a slave to Christ.
He's the one who owns me.
And his word is my absolute law.
And furthermore, we mark the fact that every act of obedience and the effort that we are engaged in is understood not as a burden, but really as an opportunity for us to reflect favorably on Christ.
Listen to what it says there in verse 6.
It says, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.
Now, one of the things that I have heard over and over again from you who are employers in our fellowship is that you would really like good employees.
Right?
Huh?
I mean, how many of you would like to go into work?
Bill, you're over there.
You work at Original Mattress.
And Jeff, where are you?
You're somewhere out here.
Jeff is over Bill.
And, you know, and there's Tim.
How many people work under you?
How many?
75.
And I could name one person after another who is involved in employment here.
And I'd say, would you like to have Christian workers?
Now, I've known some Christians that were just as lazy and as no good as the next guy.
Do you follow that?
By the way, so that I don't miss anything.
If you're a Christian student, how should you work?
Does anybody have an idea?
Same, same.
Right?
Hard, hard, hard.
Happy, happy.
Make Jesus look good.
Right?
Fine.
Here's my point.
Our work ethic is to be a reflection of who we're serving.
And that means that the Spirit-filled believer is really working for Christ.
It's very interesting.
One of the things I did earlier in the week as I was studying was I kind of checked in on, so what motivates capitalists?
Do you have any idea what motivates capitalists?
Huh?
Capitalists?
You know what motivates capitalists to work?
You know, sometimes people think that we're a capitalistic society.
The truth of the matter is we're not.
And I'm not going to get into politics here in any way, shape, or form, but I've got to tell you, socialists work for themselves.
They just don't admit it.
Capitalists work for themselves, and sometimes they admit it.
Christians work for, say it with me, Jesus.
Jesus.
It's really Jesus.
So if you got a 30% cut as a Christian, should you work as hard the day after as you did the day before?
What's the answer?
You bet.
Why?
Because who controls your paycheck?
Does anybody know the answer?
Jesus does.
Okay.
And so I want you to understand as you think about it this morning, who we work for is Jesus.
When the wife is vacuuming in the house, and she's picking up after her husband, who she's in the process of helping learn domestic skills,
she is doing that saying, you know, I'm doing this for Jesus.
Do you follow that?
Okay.
Why do we serve?
Let me give you three reasons and close.
Number one, because we are driven by his love.
We are driven by his love.
Turn over in your Bible to 2 Corinthians 5, verse 14.
I love this passage in particular.
2 Corinthians 5, verse 14.
We could probably pick up on verse 9 as well and tag it together.
It says, so whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.
Hey, listen.
Most of you are going to drive to work tomorrow.
I mean, a lot of you are.
Some of you are going to drive to school.
Others of you are going to get up and eventually have to take care of housework.
So here's what I want you to do.
Instead of just going, all right, I got to do this.
Someone's going to be breathing down my back if I don't.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to say, I'm going to do this for Jesus this morning.
I'm going to do it.
So when my husband shows up, he looks around and says, man, Jesus must have been here.
Right?
Okay?
And hello, am I right?
Okay.
2 Corinthians 5, verse 14, it says, for the love of Christ controls us.
Now, that's not saying my love for Christ, but Christ's love for me.
It's the thing that dominates and controls and overwhelms and drives me to be the person that I am supposed to be.
I love the emphasis in the scriptures on the love of Christ, his love for me.
Secondly, I want you to understand that because we are driven by his love, we are interested in seeing that his gospel is adorned.
Do you know what the word adorned means?
I want you to turn, as we're thinking about that, over to Titus chapter 2.
It's very interesting, as I was studying this week, to find out how often the epistles reference this matter of a work ethic.
Work ethic.
Titus chapter 2, let's look at 9 and 10.
Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.
They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith.
Now, here's the part that I would encourage you to kind of have underlined and make it part of your work ethic.
So that in everything, they may adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior.
Now, what does it mean to adorn?
It means to kind of soup up.
It means to kind of make extra attractive.
It means to kind of, wow, that's good.
You, as a Christian believer filled with the Spirit, are to work in such a fashion that other people watching your work ethic want to know about Jesus.
Jesus.
And do you know people pay attention all the time?
Do you know that?
People pay attention all the time.
My dad's in the hospital.
And after he went in Tuesday night, 17 hours in ER and eventually got onto the floor in the last three or four days or however many have passed, you know, over and over again,
one of the things that our family keeps on hearing from the nurses and from those who are providing care,
you guys are different.
You guys are different.
Well, it's not our gene pool.
Listen, we're going to die just like the rest of us.
But when Jesus is in control, it ends up controlling the way you behave.
Isn't that right?
And all God's people said, you bet.
And so Paul comes around here and he says, listen, talking about Titus, he says that we are to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
So when you go into work tomorrow, wherever you're working, I want you to kind of, before you go in the door, kind of, all right, this is about making Jesus look good.
Would you do that for me?
I mean, that's practical.
That's the way it ought to be.
This is about making Jesus look good.
This is about Jesus looking good.
This is about him.
And some of you may even want to pray about that on your drive in.
Do you follow that?
Third, I want you to think this morning about the fact that you are to be driven by his return.
You're to be driven by his return.
Titus 2, verse 11, it says this,
For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all people, slave and boss, training us.
That's verse 12.
Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present, messy, disgusting, despicable world.
Broken, broken, bad.
Training us to live godly lives.
Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
You know what it means to be zealous?
It means to be fired up.
It means to be all over it.
And the characteristic of a believer who is passionate about the return of Christ is that because he is driven by his love for Christ and his understanding of the love of Christ, his life reflects the certainty of the coming of the Lord Jesus.
Even so, he says, come on down now.
And if you're not coming today, then tomorrow, if I have to work, I want one thing to happen.
I want you to look good.
So here's a practical question for you.
You could ask your unsaved...
How many of you have unsaved co-workers?
Wave at me if you do.
Here's the deal.
You could ask your unsaved co-workers this question.
Does my work ethic and my output attract you to the gospel?
Fair enough?
If you're just as grumpy and complaining about the dingbat you work with as the next person, you ain't special.
Let me say it again slowly so you understand.
Does my work ethic and my output attract you to the gospel or does it mock the power I confess?
Yes.
God has a word.
Do you know what?
The early church turned the world upside down.
Mostly slaves.
Because pagan, unregenerate bosses, masters, brutal, cruel, wicked, saw something happen in slaves' lives and said,
What is going on, you piece of garbage?
Oh.
There was a day when I was absolutely trashed in my sin.
I had no hope.
My life was a mess.
And Jesus saved me.
And not only that, but my future is better than my past.
Because when the day comes that I draw my last breath, I will slip from this place of misery into the presence of Christ and to eternity.
And I will enjoy His presence forever.
Well, how can I have that?
Oh.
It's simple.
The Bible says that the truth of the matter is, is that we are all sinners equal.
Boss and master.
Slave and servant.
We all stand justly condemned before a holy God who knows the darkness of our heart.
And here's what He did.
He sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins.
He died for mine.
He died for yours.
And here's the truth.
When we come with a broken heart and say, Jesus, I am a sinner who justly deserves the judgment of God.
But I believe you've already paid it.
And I want you to be my Savior and my master and my Lord.
And I want the rest of my days to be about you and not about me.
When the Spirit of God is at work.
Do you know what happens?
Here's the amazing thing.
Are you listening?
Listen.
If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation.
Old things have passed away.
Behold, all things have become new.
So, to you who are Christians, I'm looking to hear reports of the fact that you are good workers.
Amen?
And to you who are Christians, I'm looking for more people to be sitting in these pews who are saying,
I don't know what God is doing, but there's something going on in your lives, and I want some of it.
And so, I want to be where this is happening.
And you who are here that do not know Christ, today is the day of salvation.
This is the time.
Let's close in prayer.
Holy Father, this morning, we who have been blessed with salvation recognize that our lives are not our own.
We are slaves to the Lord Jesus, and our business is about making him look good.
Thank you that that's not something we just do because we arbitrarily or our own ability think it up,
but we can rely upon the Spirit of God that you put in every believer.
Let us not be slack in this business of our work ethic,
and thereby compromise the glory of the cross and the testimony of Christ.
Let us be workers that cause unbelievers to ask a reason for the hope that is within us.
And let our lives so reflect the glory and the power of Christ that others are drawn and come to know him.
Now, work in our fellowship this morning to convict where there is careless indifference to the glory of Christ
in the life of Christ in the life of believers
and work to convict where there is a need for salvation.
We ask this in your precious name. Amen.
Let's stand together and sing as John leads us.
Amen.