Faithful in Our Place of Work — Zac Poonen

Welcome once again to Words of Life. In our past few sessions we have been considering home relationships. And how God is interested in building a Christian home that will be like a light for His name in every place in the world.

Building a Home Where God Can Dwell

God is interested in building our home. He wants our home to be a place where He can dwell. In these days Satan is really seeking to attack the home. And many times husbands and wives get into tension.

And the devil gets a foothold into their home and begins to influence the children. Fellowship and friendship must be cultivated and built in our homes. As our children grow up we must seek to be friends with them.

In many of our homes there is a distance between parents and the children. That's because right from childhood the parents and children don't talk to each other much. When the children are babies then the parents talk to them a lot.

But as they grow up and begin to take care of themselves parents become busy with work and other things and there is not much time spent talking to them. And once the children start going to school very often a distance comes between parents and children because the children are busy with their school work and the parents are busy with their office work if husband and wife are both working.

And then what happens when these children become teenagers and grow up? The distance between the parents and children becomes much greater. So I want to encourage all of you who are parents to be friends with your children.

Put your arms around them and pray with them. Even when they are grown up let them know that you are their friend. It is important that they experience your loving touch. And also that they know that you are always there to support them.

Unity Between Husband and Wife

And the greatest thing that you can do for your children is to be one with your marriage partner. If husband and wife are one it will be impossible for satan to get through into that home. Whenever satan wants to get into a home he brings a distance between husband and wife first.

Then they stop praying together. And very often these distances between husband and wife come because of some silly earthly thing. Some problem with relatives or money all earthly things. And sometimes an unnecessary suspicion and misunderstanding.

The devil whispers things into the hearts of each partner. Into the husband's ear and the wife's ear. And his purpose is to separate them. So you must be alert to that. Who is this whispering all these suspicious thoughts into your ears?

That's bringing a distance between you and your wife or you and your husband. You will discover when you stand before the Lord that 90 of those suspicions have no foundation. Then you will see what a fool you were to allow the devil to bring a distance between you and your partner.

And because you could not be united satan could come and attack your children. So we have to be very careful in these days. To bring up our children in love instruct them in the ways of the Lord and also to discipline them.

If our children are badly behaved in school or in public that's a very bad testimony for Christ. Our children must be the best behaved children in the world. And we have to teach them that at home. Home is one area where we have to manifest the life of Christ.

Serving Under Authority at Work

The other area is our place of work. And in our place of work also the Bible teaches us how we are to conduct ourselves. It says in Ephesians and chapter 6 about how servants and masters must relate to each other.

If you are working in an office Ephesians 6 verse 5 applies to you. You are a servant working under your boss. These verses apply to all people who have a boss over them. You may work in a hospital a factory a school a college a government office a private company.

If you are working under a boss here is what you are supposed to do. Ephesians 6 verse 5 Be obedient to those who are your masters with fear and trembling in sincerity of your heart as to Christ. Some of you who are men would have been very happy to hear that your wives must be subject to you as unto Christ.

Now God's word comes to you. You must be subject to your boss in your office as unto Christ also. Even though that man does not know the Lord. Then it says Don't do your service just to please him. But do it as a will of God from your heart.

Recognize that you are serving the Lord and not men. Verse 7. And you know this that whatever good you do one day the Lord will reward you. So the Lord wants us to be faithful in our place of work. There must be no spirit of rebellion in our hearts.

See also Romans in chapter 13. Here it says in Romans 13 and verse 1. Here it says let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. And listen to this. There is no authority except from God and those which exist are established by God.

That's an amazing thing. That the authorities in the country and the authorities in your office are all established by God. I'm not saying that God was the one who did the selection to put your boss in his place.

No, that may have been selected by the board of your company. But the principle of authority and order in this universe has been established by God. God is the one who has ordained that countries should be led by a leader.

And therefore he says if you resist this authority you are opposing the ordinance of God. And those who oppose will receive judgment, condemnation upon themselves. And then it says here that verse 4 that your boss is actually a servant of God.

Did you know that your boss is a servant of God? That means he is God's instrument who is exercising authority over you. So you must submit to him and if you don't obey he can punish you. Now if you are not happy with that boss if you are not happy with the company you work in you are free to leave.

You can find a job somewhere else. But don't stay there and cause rebellion. A servant of God, a believer should not stay in an office and create problems for the authorities. A lot of other people may have the spirit of rebellion in the office and they sit and speak evil of the boss.

But it is in relation to our boss only the Bible says in Titus 3. And verse 1 and 2. Tell the people to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient for every good deed and to speak evil of none of them.

So it says here that we must be subject to them and we must not speak evil of our bosses. Now this is a very common practice in offices to speak evil of the boss. They will go in front of him and flatter him.

They will go in front of him and flatter him. And behind his back they speak evil of him. That's what a lot of Christians do. But we must not do it as children of God. All people in the world may do it.

But we are God's children. And we are not supposed to do that. One aspect of submission to authority is that we don't speak evil of them. If you are not happy with your boss, leave that company and go somewhere else.

This is the same thing when you are in a church. If you are not happy with that church, don't stay there and speak against the pastor and the elders. Leave it and go somewhere else. Don't create problems by staying there.

And once you have left it, don't spend your time criticizing that old church. Leave them alone. You can go whatever way they want. You go where God leads you. Also says here, in Romans 13, this is the reason also why we must pay taxes.

Verse 6. Because those people who collect the taxes are also servants of God, devoting themselves to this task. It is very difficult for us to look at an income tax officer and think he is a servant of God.

But the Bible says those who are collecting taxes for the government are servants of God. That means God is using them to fulfill a certain function in the order of that government. So you must pay your taxes properly.

You must not hide your income. And if you are running a business, you got to pay whatever taxes required by the government. And you must give honor, it says in verse 7, to those who deserve honor. You must not disrespect your boss.

If he deserves honor, you must give it to him. Those who are in high positions in society, who deserve honor, it says we must give it to them. If society calls them by a particular title, we call them by the same title.

We ourselves in the church are not interested in any titles. But other people who are secular authorities, we must give them their proper title. So the Bible teaches us how to live at home and how to live in our place of work.

And to do all our service as unto the Lord. And if we do our service as unto the Lord, the Lord himself will give us a reward. See this is so important that a number of apostles have written about it.

Fairness for Masters and Supervisors

You see in Colossians chapter 3, when Paul writes to the Colossians, he says a little more to these slaves. Somewhat similar to the words in Ephesians, Ephesians 6. Here in Colossians 3 verse 22 to 25, he says slaves in all things obey your earthly masters.

Not with external service, but with sincerity of heart. He repeats the same thing. Do it as unto the Lord, not unto men. The Lord will reward you for your faithfulness. And then it speaks about how masters should treat slaves.

Now supposing you are a boss and you got people working under you. It says in Colossians 4 verse 1, you must grant justice and fairness to the people who work under you. You must not be partial to any of them.

You must know that you are absolutely fair that none of them is your favorite friend or any such thing. And remembering that you have a master in heaven also. You can't favor one of the people working under you just because he is a Christian.

Because he comes to your church and you have fellowship with him there. No, you must be fair to everybody. If that other non-Christian person does his job better, then the promotion must go to him and not to this Christian.

You must recommend him for promotion. That is justice and fairness. If you show partiality, you are sinning. Further, it says in Ephesians 6 and verse 9, and masters do the same things to servants giving up threatening knowing that their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with him.

Don't threaten your servants. It could be a servant who works in your home or somebody who works in your office under you. In no way must you threaten them saying I will sack you or you will lose your job.

Let worldly people do that. But if you are a child of God, you must never frighten somebody who is weaker than you and who is at your mercy. Most human beings frighten others when somebody is at their mercy.

But we have to be very careful that we don't do anything like that. Our testimony in our place of work is very very important. You may be a student. Let me show you a verse for students. See the Bible has got an application for every situation we face.

Daniel as an Example for Students

In Daniel chapter 1 we read of these four people who were taken from the Jewish slaves to serve the king of Babylon. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. And it says here for these four young people verse 17 God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom.

Now that's not talking about anything spiritual. This is talking about the literature and science. And even for those literature and science God gave wisdom to these young people. These were probably around 17 years old.

And they had to be trained in all the education of the Babylonians. And they took a stand for God saying and because they took a stand for the Lord they were different from the other compromisers and God honored them.

He gave them tremendous intelligence and understanding and knowledge of all these things. All the subjects they studied. Now that's one of the best verses in the Bible that all the students can appropriate for themselves.

Are you a student? Claim this for yourself. Lord you gave knowledge and intelligence to those four young people give it to me. And if you ask him in faith he will not say no. He will never say no. And we see later on that Daniel for many years he had a very upright testimony.

We read later on many years later when another king called Darius was on the throne and there were some people who were jealous of Daniel's influence with Darius. Now see Daniel 6 .4 what it says. Then the commissioners and satraps began to try and find a ground of accusation against Daniel in regard to the government affairs.

But they could not find any ground of accusation or evidence of corruption or accusation or anything in as much as he was absolutely faithful. And no negligence of corruption was found in him. He was absolutely faithful.

That is a tremendous testimony for a Christian in his place of work. If it can be said about you that the people who are jealous of you in your office try to find a ground of accusation against you in regard to the affairs of the office and they could find no ground of accusation or evidence of corruption that you never took one rupee bribe from anybody for anything and that you were faithful and that you were not negligent about your work and there was no corruption in your work and they after much search they said we will never be able to find a ground of accusation verse 5 against Daniel unless we find it in the way he obeys the law of his God.

This is an amazing testimony that they could not find a single thing wrong with him except in the law of God and that is how we should be. Daniel was a unique example in Babylon in Egypt. Joseph was also like that and we read about Joseph that when he was in the jail the Lord was with him in the jail before that when he was in Potiphar's house the Lord was with him there and the Lord blessed whatever he did wherever he was when he was in charge of Potiphar's house God blessed him there when they put him in jail God blessed him there when he finally came to Pharaoh's palace and ran that office God blessed him there also and so we see that if you are humble and broken before God it does not matter whether you are in a jail or an office or a palace God will bless you and he will be with you there.

Some people say oh look at the surroundings how can I ever do anything for God here but it has nothing to do with your surroundings it has to do with how faithful you want to be. So remember in your home or in your place of work God's will is that you glorify him.

A Prayer for Faithfulness at Work

Shall we have a moment of prayer. Will you say Lord I want to be a witness for you in my home and in my place of work. I want you to fill me with the Holy Spirit that I can be a faithful witness in my place of work.

I want everybody in my work to know that I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I am not ashamed of that. Don't be ashamed to let everybody know that you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to do that in ways that offend them but in ways that please God call that prayer Lord help me to be your witness in my place of work.

God bless you.