Lord of your Work

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Don Filcek; Col 3:22-4:1 Lord of your Work

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. Well, good morning.
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Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Felsick. I'm the lead pastor here. And we're going to go ahead and get started. So I want to start off just by welcoming everybody and encouraging you to find your seats as we get started.
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Everybody received a worship folder when you walked in. You can take advantage of that. It's got different announcements and different things that key you into what's going on here.
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That's not our primary method of communication, however. You see a little snapshot in there of what's going on this next week.
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But if you really want to be informed about what's going on, I encourage you to fill out a connection card, and then you will, if you share an email address with us, get what we call the e -cast, which is a weekly email that's sent out.
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All the links, all the activities to the blog, to the Facebook page, all of that stuff is available through that.
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Then there's a place on the back to fill out all different kinds of things, including communication with the leadership, prayer requests, that kind of stuff.
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So take advantage of that card. Don't forget that that's there, even if you've been here for a while. It's a great way to communicate with us.
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We do provide an offering envelope for everybody. We don't pass an offering plate here, but that's there.
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There's a black box back out there. If you choose to give, that's between you and the Lord. We do have an expansion fund that we opened up a couple of years ago with the goal of building a building that we wouldn't be setting up and tearing down here in the elementary forever.
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So if you mark any gifts, expansion fund, if that's on the memo line in the check or on the envelope itself and it goes into a specific fund set aside with the goal of building a church facility eventually here.
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So that's all of those details. A couple of little things. We do have a set, a stack of Holy Week devotionals for kids that are out on the welcome table.
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Those are just free. Just grab one. But they're just little coloring activities and things to kind of gear up towards Easter.
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And so just kind of want to do some things like that for families. And so just grab one if you've got a family and you'd like to go through that and just a daily thing for you to do, activities for you to do with your kids.
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We also grabbed a few of these. I don't know, how many of you ever heard of resurrection eggs? You ever heard of these? We've got a couple of these for, these are, we're not selling them at a profit, it's just at cost, but we wanted them to be available for you.
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It's a really unique tool that each egg has something in it that tells the story of Easter, which leads up to, don't want to give the spoiler, but the last one is empty because the tomb is empty.
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So that's where it all goes. But it's a really great tool. One thing that Lynn and I have done, a good use for these, is we've often had on Easter Sunday in our neighborhood, we've had an
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Easter egg hunt. Our kids invite their friends and then we, one of our kids tells the gospel through the resurrection eggs.
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And it's a really, it's a really cool tool. And even your own kids can actually get a hold of it and begin to tell the gospel through that.
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So you can take advantage of those. Those are out there. If you want to grab one of those or just check it out or ask questions about it.
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But this morning we have a guest band, guest musicians from Grace Bible College that are going to be playing for us.
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Dave and Rachel are out of town. They are actually at a wedding out in California, poor them.
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And so David Schrock, who is attending, who attended Recast before he went off to college, is going to be playing for us this morning.
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And just very grateful for their gifts and abilities and that they were willing to come down from Grand Rapids to lead us in worship this morning.
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And then also just wanted to highlight that we are supporting a team that David Schrock is going on to Tanzania.
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They're going to be leaving in May and going to be gone for a couple of weeks. And it's an opportunity for them in the
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Worship Arts Department of Grace. The team is actually going to help lead a conference on worship.
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So it's kind of a cool concept there in Tanzania. So the church has supported them just a small amount, but some of what they needed to be able to go on that trip.
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So be praying for David Schrock as he goes on that trip in the month of May. Also this morning
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I want to highlight the last announcement that next Sunday is going to be our Recast family meeting in the evening at the meeting place over right down the street here by our offices on Murray.
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And I want to be kind of clear about what that meeting is about because I think it can be kind of confusing. And even the title, we're trying to figure out a different name for it because family meeting kind of is it a meeting for families?
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What is it? It's kind of the idea, the concept of it is getting together as a church family. It's a place where we can handle a little bit more business and that kind of oriented stuff around building questions, a little bit more of the direction.
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We're going through a bylaw revision that we're going to be bringing forward to the congregation and some of those types of things.
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So it really is for those who kind of call this your home church. I mean, anybody's welcome, but if this is where you say this is my church, then it really is a great idea to be there.
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And also a secondary function of that, not second, but one of the things that we do there is we pray together for the church and so that is an important aspect of that.
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So I encourage you to be there if this is your church and take advantage of that.
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This morning we're going to be picking up where we left off last week in the book of Colossians. And Paul has been shining a spotlight, remember, through this book for us on the
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Lord Jesus Christ and it's all about him. And Jesus is not just the savior who died on the cross to save his people, but Jesus is shown throughout this book to be the motivation for the way that we live the
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Christian life, the way that we move forward in living for him. We don't grow and improve in the
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Christian life by rules and regulations, Paul has said in this book, but we grow in the Christian life by remaining connected to the head and who is the head?
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Jesus. Jesus is our head. And so we need to continually remind ourselves that we have died to our old way of life and we've been raised to new life in Christ.
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We are to put off the old things and put on new things as we saw in the last couple of weeks. And our fundamental relationships of society are going to be infected, affected, not infected, maybe it should spread like an infection, but we'll be affected if we are indeed in Christ.
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When Jesus is central in our lives, when Jesus is central in our families, then the trust that flows between husbands and wives look like husbands loving their wives and not responding with harshness toward them.
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And it looks like wives willingly submitting to their loving husbands. When Christ is the center for a child, according to Colossians, then they obey their parents.
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And when God grabs the life of a father, he will not provoke his children toward discouragement, but will begin to become an encouraging influence in their lives.
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And now we come to another text that talks about another category of people. A text of scripture that has been really misunderstood and needs a lot of explanation.
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Paul is speaking to his Roman culture and he includes here in our text commands for Christian slaves and commands for Christian masters.
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And this morning we're going to first need to make some kind of sense about Paul talking about slavery before we can even think about applying this text to us.
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Because we don't have slavery in our cultural context, and that's a good thing, right? Anybody glad for that?
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Grateful that we don't have slavery in our context? Absolutely. But when we come to realize here in our text the trajectory of slavery throughout
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Paul's writings and especially here in Colossians, by the way, this is the largest chunk of scripture written to specifically address the issue of slavery.
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When we see that trajectory of Paul, we realize the amazing glory of what it means.
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That we are no longer merely slaves of God, but we are called sons and daughters.
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And if we are sons and daughters, then we are heirs through God. That's what Paul wrote to the Galatians. This morning we're going to look at the theological implications of slavery, but we're also going to look at the practical side of our own work and what all of that means for our work week
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Monday through Saturday. So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Colossians 3. We're going to be at Colossians 3, 22, through the beginning of chapter 4, 1.
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This is just one more of those illustrations where once in a while the guy who was dividing up the chapters was out to lunch and missed the very clear, you're going to see it, the very clear indication that verse 1 goes with the previous chapter.
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Just very clear. So follow along in your Bibles, Colossians 3, 22, through the first verse of chapter 4.
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Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart fearing the
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Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the
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Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done.
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There is no partiality. Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father I thank you for the chance that we have to gather together in your name and as we look at a text that could be mysterious to us,
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I'm sure that just as we read that we just felt really warm inside and just all cozy, devotionally, and it's hard for us to apply it right away.
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But Father I believe and truly trust by faith that all of your word is
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God breathed, all of your word is capable of transforming and changing us. So Father we came here because we want to hear from you, we came here because we want to interact with you and we want to interact with your people and Father we want to walk out of here changed and transformed.
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So Father I pray that by your word and by the worship that we offer to you that we would be a changed people, that we would gain strength from the teaching of your word this morning.
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Father that you would transform us. We need your presence with us and now I ask that you would receive our song as worship to you.
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Father that we would be able to close off the distractions, there's so many things that are swirling around in our minds, issues that have gone on this week, good things that have happened this week, stuff that's going to happen next week, the weather, all the stuff that swirls around in our minds.
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So Father I pray that you would remove those distractions and bring down to us a sense of your presence and a connection with you this morning, in Jesus' name, amen.
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Go ahead and be seated, thanks a lot to these guys for leading us in worship, I'm just grateful for them taking the time to come down here and do that for us.
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So thanks a lot and I encourage you to get comfortable, remember coffee, juice, donuts, while supplies last there are available and if you need to get up and stretch out in the back or whatever to keep our focus on Colossians 3, 22,
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I encourage you to open your Bibles, make sure that they're there so you can kind of follow along and see the flow of this text which really ultimately is the outline that we're going to be going through.
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Think about it, if you think about it, the word slavery must really be one of the worst words, right?
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Think about it. It's a word that brings to mind one of the most terrible, horrible blights on human society down through history, the history of fallen mankind.
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And so it seems much more comfortable here in our text and I'm sure the translators kind of partly were motivated to translate out the word slave in place in the
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English Standard Version for, as you see in our text, actually some text, bondservants, not in the
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ESV but in other translations, bondservants. But no matter what you call it in Greek, the
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Greek word is the word doulos, it would evoke an instant image of somebody owning someone else.
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It's the Greek word for a person who is the property of another. Now in defense of some of the translators who have tried to make that bondservant or have changed it, there's a rationale for softening the word that needs a significant level of explanation that we're going to kind of walk through this morning and try to summarize.
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But over the sinful course of human history, which how many of you acknowledge that history has a sinful course, it is a sinful course.
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Human life, human reign, human rule is replete and fully saturated with sinful behaviors, sinful actions, sinful systems, sinful governments, sinful politicians, sinful populace, all of that.
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And so we know that it's a dark history of humanity. But over the course of that, slavery has not meant the same thing in every era.
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So when you see the word slave written on the text, you have an immediate image, an immediate reaction to that that wouldn't be the same as when a
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Greek person or a Roman person in this era would have read it. It would have meant something subtly different to them.
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And I would suggest to you that there's a continuum of humans exercising control over other humans, and the spectrum goes from one extreme to another, from most inhumane to most humane, and still none of them are ideal.
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But on one end, we might have what I would call racial slavery, which ultimately is looking down on a specific race, looking down on a specific component of society, whatever it might be.
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This has happened in multiple generations, multiple epochs and eras. But it's kind of like the idea of kidnapping or subjugating an entire people group and forcing them into labor for you.
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And you can think in terms of the American manifestation of slavery, it was an evil, a terrible, terrible part of our history.
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Now you might tick that up a notch and go, there were socially, there were times where on the spectrum, that's maybe the most inhumane, and then you'd tick it up to what would be like the
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Roman cultural understanding or even the Hebrew understanding in the Old Testament, where it was a socially arranged servitude that was almost a contract entered into for many, where a person owed a debt and they couldn't pay it off, and so they would indenture themselves to another individual for a set period of time with the knowledge, hey, you can have me do any work you want me to do during this era of time, but there comes a point where that ends, and so there's a difference there.
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And then you might tick the spectrum up another notch to, any of you ever watch a show, a little show called
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Downton Abbey, okay, anybody, nobody's, okay, nobody wanted to admit it, I don't know.
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Downton Abbey, you know, the season finale, all that stuff, so a few of you, a few of you know what I'm talking about, but, so those people in that show, this is kind of an
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English manor, you know, and the idea is there's a lord over the manor and you've got the help and the servants who work in the basement, and they don't really mix very well with the people upstairs, but they're serving the tables and there's this two -tiered story that's going on, but during that era and that epoch of time, you weren't owned by the lord of the manor, but if you quit, you didn't have many places to go.
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And so, there's that sense of, I'm kind of trapped in this employment,
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I'm trapped in my station in life, and if I leave that, I don't really have any other place to go, and then you get all the way up to the point where we could talk, tick it up one more notch and go, we're getting closer to modern -day employment contracts in the way that we're not necessarily owned by our employer, but we have an agreement and a relationship with them where we have some rights, they have some rights, and that kind of stuff.
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And so, there's a varying spectrum on this continuum of understanding of how a person economically could be owned or ruled or led or be under the authority of another.
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And they're arranged, as I just said, from inhumane to most humane. But I say all of that because I want it to be clear that it's quite possible that a household slave during the time that Paul wrote
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Colossians, or during even Old Testament times, may well have been treated better and had more recourse to personal improvement than a slave in 19th century
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America. It's quite possible that they would have been treated more fairly or had more opportunities there than an
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American slave would have had. Slaves in the Old Testament, just according to what we read there, not necessarily going outside of the
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Bible, but what we could understand about what was going on in Old Testament law, they had the means of setting themselves free.
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Many in the Old Testament were slaves were allowed to own their own property. They were set free every seventh year, according to Old Testament laws.
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According to Exodus 20, verse 10, to kill a slave was punishable by death.
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We see indications that slaves often were given significant trust by their masters. Think in terms of Joseph and Potiphar.
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You know the story about Joseph and Potiphar, who's given significant trust over the entire household of Potiphar, a major trust that was given to Joseph, who was a slave.
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And Job 31 .13, this little obscure passage, but has a real strong impact in our understanding of what slavery at least was like in Job's time.
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Job indicates that in his historical setting, a slave could appeal to justice if they thought they were being treated unfairly.
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A little bit different than what we might think of as slavery, right? They could actually appeal to the law to try to get fair treatment if they were being treated unjustly.
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Now, I want to be clear. I am not trying to paint a rosy picture of slavery, like, oh boy, let's all sign up for that, right?
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You know, that's great. Because human nature being what it is, how many of you would like another human to own you?
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Even if they were nice. I mean, most of us don't even, did you kick a bit against your parents when you were living under their household?
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Okay, so, I mean, there's that notion, right, that's like, yeah, I don't like to be owned by someone.
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Even if it's Potiphar, and he trusts me a lot, I'm still not signing up. It's not a good situation, and a world without slavery is a better place.
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Can we all agree on that? World without slavery is a better place. We all, yeah, I see some, oh, you guys.
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There's some yes signs.
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Yes and no's, yes and no's, perfect. Those are from the, there's a marriage conference this weekend, and there is this yes and no game, and now the yes and no signs are, they're showing up, so.
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I had a hunch that that might happen, so I'm going to ask for less response now. And I said you couldn't distract me, but you did, so that's good.
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Good stuff right there. A world without slavery is a good thing.
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But I think before we move on, we should also understand the economic setting in which this letter was written.
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That helps us to understand a little bit. Because I mean, I think, the thing that I'm trying to get at here, the core, is why doesn't
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Paul just say, slaves, revolt, slaves stop being slaves, masters stop owning people.
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Why doesn't he just fix the problem, right? Like I mean, isn't that kind of what we want Paul to do here in the text?
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Don't we want him to say, slavery is wrong, and he doesn't say it, and so there's some other dynamic that's going on here that we've got to wrestle with, because I mean, how many of you know that there were churches in the
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South that used the Bible, and said, well Paul let there be slaves, and so, you know what
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I'm talking about? So where do we stand on that? And I believe that this text lays the foundation for the abolition of slavery.
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This text is part of the whole body of movement away from owning slaves, even though he tells slaves to obey your masters.
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So we need to understand the setting in order to, that's why I'm going through this history, that's why I'm doing this, so that we can understand what
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Paul is getting at. Slavery was so prevalent in the Roman Empire, it was so fully saturated in the economic system of his day and age, that many historians estimate that at its height, at the highest point of the
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Roman Empire, one third of the citizens of Rome were slaves.
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One third. One out of every three people. Look around you. I mean, imagine if you were in Rome, one out of every three of us in this room would be a slave, and many slaves at the height of the
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Roman Empire owned a couple slaves themselves. So it's just a different dynamic that we're dealing with, and a socioeconomic factory, an engine of economic industry that was built upon the concept of slavery, not based on employment.
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You didn't go apply and get a job. You worked for somebody, you indentured yourself to somebody to get ahead.
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Now the reality is, in the Roman Empire, some became slaves by subjugation.
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That really did happen. The Romans conquered you, and they gave you a choice. We'll kill you, or you can work for us.
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You make the choice. How many of you might just say, I'd like to live another day? So you might just say, okay, yeah, sure,
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I'll work, I'll do that. And so that happened, and that's ugly.
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But historians say that that accounted for a very small percentage of the slavery in the Roman Empire. A vast majority became slaves through economic circumstances.
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Now you can imagine, imagine you're trying to get by bartering your clay pots in the marketplace. So you're a potter, you're making pots or whatever, and nobody's buying them?
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Or you have a little garden on your roof, and you have a couple of goats that provide milk, but it hasn't rained in weeks, you're trying to feed your family, nothing's growing, nobody's buying, you have no income, and things are getting dicey.
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And there's a wealthy master who's looking for help in his household. And the economic situation is such that either you worked for yourself, or you were indentured to someone else.
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And that's the direction that a lot of people went in order to provide for their families.
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They would basically sell themselves to be able to do so. And by the way, a lot of the work was respectable.
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It was helping, I mean some of it was literally, some slaves tutored the children, some were like nannies, some helped manage the household affairs like a steward, some were cleaning, for sure, some were agricultural, there's all different kinds of slavery that happened.
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But many entered into slavery willingly. And you couldn't just go apply at Walmart or Stryker if you needed some money for food.
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But I want to point out the extensive rules that applied to slavery in the Roman Empire, if clearly followed, allowed for slaves to purchase back their own freedom over time.
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And there were laws on the books in Rome about buying your own freedom over time.
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So in other words, a slave could actually own, a slave could have property of their own and could actually build up enough to buy their own freedom.
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So when Paul speaks in verse 22 of slaves obeying your earthly masters in everything,
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I think it's very important that we understand who he's speaking to, who he's talking to. We should find it interesting that Paul is writing to the church, remember this, context matters here folks, he is writing to the church in classe, and he knows that there are enough
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Christian slaves present in that congregation, and he knows there are enough Christian masters sitting together in that gathering that it makes it worth him writing about this to them.
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Get your mind around that. Masters and slaves sitting in the same congregation, singing the same praise songs, worshipping, attending small group together, going to the marriage retreat together,
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I mean this is happening in the church in classe. Wow, okay so something, some dynamic is going on here that we need to understand.
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Slaves and masters together in the same church, and enough that it makes it worth Paul writing this to them.
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And Paul explains that his expectation of a Christian slave is that they obey their earthly masters.
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The phrase earthly masters is I believe an intentional nod to how our text is going to end.
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The trajectory of this text is an explanation of a slave's responsibility to their earthly master up front.
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We're going to talk about the specifics. He wants them to literally obey the instructions of their earthly masters.
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But it's moving in a trajectory towards, into a reminder that we have a genuine heavenly master.
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A heavenly master that is over even our earthly master. In other words, hey folks there is one common
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Lord over all. By the end of our text, we're going to be talking about a non -earthly master.
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We're going to be talking about a master in heaven. But Paul is going to take a real practical day in and day out teaching here about the work ethic, the work ethic of a servant, and turn it into a strong spiritual lesson for all of us.
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But on the practical side he tells slaves to obey, and he tells them how to obey. He says don't obey by way of eye service.
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Don't obey just to be a people pleaser. Don't be, try to get in good with the boss.
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Don't do it so that you can advance, so that you can get ahead, so that others notice your great works and pat you on the back.
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But work with sincerity of heart. Work heartily he says.
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Have you ever worked with a mind to eye service? I think probably all of us have done that at some point.
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You know, like your mom told you to clean the room and everything is just shoved under the bed.
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You know what I'm talking about. I mean, but you can do that in bigger things too. Like your boss, you can skate a little bit, you can just get it so that it looks good on the surface, right, just good enough or something like that.
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Just eye service, just so that to the eye it looks good. Have you ever worked as a people pleaser?
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Doing it for the accolades of people, doing it so that they will think you're super awesome or so that you're super great?
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Eye service is the kind of work that looks busy. Eye service just does enough to look good enough.
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It's external work without the heart engaged. And people pleaser might not sound like such a bad word.
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I mean, aren't we supposed to, you know, if you've got a boss, shouldn't part of your goal be to make them happy?
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Shouldn't part of your, I mean, to do what they want you to, it sounds good. But it's a bad word when you consider it's contrasted.
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It's opposite in the text is insincerity of heart, okay, or sincerity of heart rather.
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The opposite of it is sincerity of heart. So either you are a people pleaser or you're working sincerely. And so then you can see what's the difference there.
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But think about it this way. What sustains you in your work? Okay. Everybody can get in your mind what you do and I'm not talking about, we went through a series about employment and I want to make it abundantly clear that it's not what you do for a paycheck.
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It may not, some of you may not even draw a paycheck right now. Some of you are staying at home or you're unemployed and you're looking for a job, but you're working still.
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You're still working. You're still doing something. So when you think about what do I do day in and day out, what sustains you in your role?
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What sustains you as a mom raising children or homeschooling or working wherever as an engineer or as a teacher or as a doctor, whatever it is that you do, what sustains you?
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What keeps you? And if you work for your boss, how long is that going to last? You work for your boss.
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You just work for him. You just work for her. You just work to put a smile on their face. Does that sustain you?
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Is that going to carry you through the long haul? What do you guys think? You guys got the cards?
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No. There's a no. I saw a no. I see a couple no's. All right. No, I don't think that's going to sustain you.
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I agree with that. I don't think that's going to make it work for you. Working for your company?
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Is that what you just asked? That bottom line? You just see that climbing and you're just like, boom, nailing it.
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And I could do this forever because Stryker's doing awesome or Pfizer or Zoetis or whatever.
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It's just soaring and it's just going great or, man, we're getting good scores on our whatever.
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I'm not sure that that's going to do it. We obviously have to contemplate and consider what keeps us coming back.
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And for us, fortunately, we're not slaves, but I would suggest to you that compensation gets a little bit fuzzy in here, doesn't it?
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Because some of us would just be flat out honest. I would say the majority of us, many of us, if we were just being flat out honest, would say, man, compensation kind of makes up the lion's share of the motivation for why
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I do what I do, right? For many of us, it's compensation.
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And so it kind of clouds the discussion here a little bit because, obviously, when you're talking to slaves, you're talking about people who aren't being compensated for what they're doing very well.
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Obviously, they're getting food and they're getting sustenance and things like that, and so there's some benefit to it. And in some situations, they would actually make a little bit, but not enough to be the primary motivation for why they were doing what they were doing.
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And so Paul is telling slaves here to serve with single -heartedness. The idea of a single heart or single focus comes from the
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Greek phrase here of sincerity of heart. And the single focus for the slave is what?
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The Lord. The Lord is the single focus. It's going to become clear throughout this text that we really only have, as a believer, one master.
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Despite however many earthly masters we may have, we have one master, and it is
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Jesus Christ. Look at verse 23. Slaves are called to work from the heart as for the
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Lord and not for men. Notice that it's a simile. It doesn't say you are only working for the
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Lord. It says you are to work as for the Lord, not for men. Paul uses a simile here.
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Why should our hearts be engaged in our work? Why should even a slave have motivations to obey their masters in this ancient context?
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Because they have one true master. And although their work is for their earthly master, they should consider their labor as being for Jesus.
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Who do you work for? Who are you laboring for? Is it for Christ? This should remind us of what
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Paul said earlier in verse 17. All of us. Not just the slaves. To all of us.
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And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the
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Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Christ is to motivate our taking off of sin and putting on of good through the text.
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Christ motivates husbands to love their wives. Christ motivates children to obey their parents. Christ motivates wives to submit to their husbands.
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Christ motivates slaves to obey their masters. And he motivates them by verses 24 and 25.
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Primary focus and motivation there. It is this. Our inheritance. Our reward comes from the
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Lord. Our inheritance comes from the Lord. Well, a lot of times we think our inheritance, our reward comes on Friday or on payday.
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But there's a way that you can work at your employment, that you're storing up a reward that goes beyond payday.
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You can work for the Lord in your employment, in the way that you treat your coworkers, in the way that you discharge the duty of your agreed upon contract with your employer.
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Christ is attentive to those things. He's paying attention to the way that you work. He's paying attention to the way you study. He's paying attention to the way that you parent.
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He's paying attention to the way that you discharge your role and responsibility. Now that can be an intimidating thing, but it can also be a glorious thing.
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It can be a beautiful thing. He's not looking to condemn you. If you're his child, there is therefore now no condemnation in Christ.
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But we're going to see here in verse 25, there is a judgment. There is a rewards -based judgment that we're all going to be there.
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We're all going to stand before him. And your rewards are going to be based on what you have done. Your deeds in the flesh will be accounted for.
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And that's a part of that motivation that's going to happen. He is the one you are serving.
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Our reward comes from him and he will give good things to those who are his. So the
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Christian slave had a reward to look forward to. Remember that slaves and masters are present listening to this together in the same room.
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It would have been interesting to be there in that first reading, to just see the response in Colossae in that church as this is read.
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And I imagine that this text being read would have had as much impact, even though Paul is speaking to who here?
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He's speaking to slaves. The masters are listening too, and I would imagine it had as much of an impact, if not more, on the masters as it did on the slaves.
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They've been redeemed, all of these people, gathered together by implication, by being in the church, are redeemed by Christ. And they know that in Christ there is no longer slave or free.
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And yet in their social construct, slavery is deeply woven into the fabric of their economy. And I'm sure that, confused a bit, where do we go with this?
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But as the church in Colossae was being confronted with these practical commands, I'm confident that the other theological perspectives of Paul on slavery were beginning to produce fruit throughout the
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Roman Empire. Paul said to the church in Galatia, for example, that when the fullness of time had come,
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God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive, are you ready for it, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
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Where's this going? Why are you talking about adoption? Why are you talking about sons? Because you are sons, God has sent the
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Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son.
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And if a son, then an heir through God. Not merely slaves anymore, but adopted into the family.
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See, the picture here that Paul's talking about are household slaves. He's talking about it because it's so integral, even in part of the family, that remember he talked to fathers, he talked to wives, he talked to husbands, he's spoken to the children, and now he speaks to the slaves, because they were integrated and they were a part of the household.
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Like the nannies, they were the ones who were the servants, they were the help, and all of that is being impacted by the grace and glory of Christ.
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It's being changed, it's being transformed. The theological principle is that we are no longer slaves, but that we are now sons, we are heirs of the kingdom.
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Now Paul doesn't here in our text, and we want him to, I kind of want him to, but he doesn't declare freedom for all slaves here in the text, he doesn't say, let's turn
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Rome upside down. A third of the entire Roman Empire freed right now, we'll just do that.
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The economy would have fallen, Rome would fall in a day if slave labor stopped right then and there.
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But as a matter of fact, he tells them to continue to obey their masters. But the trajectory of the teaching of Paul is the very teaching that eventually led to the abolition of slavery here in America and ultimately around the world.
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It might be helpful to note that Colossae had a specific slave story that I think comes to bear on this.
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It's recorded for us in scripture, a specific story about slavery. One of the wealthy men in this very church, he came from Colossae, he was probably there in the reading of this, his name was
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Philemon. Any of you ever heard of Philemon? Book of the Bible written to Philemon, Paul writing to this one guy,
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Philemon, slave owner in Colossae. That's the story, that's the back story. We don't really study
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Philemon very often, it's hard to find him, probably the hardest book to find in the New Testament, and it's just one chapter long, and it talks about slavery so people kind of glaze over and it doesn't really impact us very much.
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So let me just tell you in a nutshell the story of Philemon. Philemon, slave owner, lived in Colossae, according to the book that bears his name, he had a slave named
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Onesimus, and Onesimus ran. We don't know why, we don't know if Philemon treated him unjustly.
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Some theologians and some scholars believe that Onesimus might have stolen something and then fled for fear of his life or something like that, but he ran, okay?
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Ran away from his master. While on the lam, by God's great and divine providence,
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Onesimus runs into a guy named Paul. Here's the gospel, and what happens to Onesimus?
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He's safe, his life is transformed, becomes a child of God, becomes an heir of the promise, no longer slave but son, and if a son then an heir of the kingdom, and so Onesimus has a redemption story, running away from his master.
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What does Paul do? Paul says, you're free, you know, just come on, be with me. He sends a letter to Philemon, says
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I found your runaway, found him, I'm gonna send him back to you, but I'm sending him back to you, are you ready for it?
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Not as just a servant, not just as a slave, but I'm sending him back to you as a brother in Christ.
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Receive him like a brother. Philemon is being told by Paul how he is to treat this guy, and it is to be different, because he is a believer, and Philemon is a believer, and Paul is appealing to him about the way that this should transform him and change him.
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You see, Paul's teaching on this subject, I don't believe that Paul was pro -slavery, but was pro -honoring
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Christ, in whatever station we find ourselves. His teaching set up some of the foundations of abolition, but it was through principles of a new humanity being redeemed by Christ that true change happened, and even the beauty of the civil rights movement under Dr.
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Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to strong biblical principles to lead humanity one step closer toward equity.
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But the motivation for any service rendered that has any true value is that it is done for the
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Lord, and without any thoughts of retribution. In verse 25, we see a reminder that the wrongdoer will be punished.
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How does a slave respond to a harsh master? Paul reminds him, they're going to face
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God. That harsh master is going to face God on their own.
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In verse 24, he talks about rewards for those who serve the Lord and offer their service as unto the
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Lord. But in verse 25, he talks about a payback for wrongdoing. Where can justice be found for the slave who is not treated fairly?
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God is not partial to the master. God is not partial to the wealthy.
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He's not partial to those in lofty positions. He is not on the side of the masters.
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And so we can be free to serve and to do our part, trusting judgment into the hands of God. And we are told to do so, so many times through scripture, vengeance is mine, saith the
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Lord. Do not take vengeance, but leave it into the hands of God. While Paul is saying this to the slaves in the room,
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I imagine the ones with the widest eyes to be the masters. This would have been a wake -up call.
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I will give an account for whatever I have done to those under my care.
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And God will not give me any leeway for social expectations. I cannot go to God with the
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Roman law and say, but I was allowed to treat him this way. I can't go to God with my employer's contract and say, but I was allowed to treat those under me this way.
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Shouting at them, yelling at them, trying to shame them into doing better work. My company lets me do that.
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Can you take your company policy into God and say, look, I mean, it was in the contract?
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No. Not at all. No, instead,
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God tells masters in verse one of chapter four, masters are to treat their slaves with justice and fairness.
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And in the same way that slaves are motivated by working for the Lord, masters are to be motivated by the reality that they themselves have a master in heaven.
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When you consider that both of these sets in the church are motivated by the same master, are motivated by the same
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Lord, both masters and slaves are being told to honor Christ within this social, economic construct of slavery, it becomes clear that there's a pathway out of slavery toward our modern concept of employment right here in this text.
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In other words, if masters do their part of what Paul is telling them to do, and if slaves do their part to what they are supposed to do, it begins to look a lot less like slavery.
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You get what I'm saying? The fractures begin in that social construct based on Christians doing the right thing.
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Based on them obeying God, all of a sudden it looks less like an ownership. Are you getting what
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I'm saying? If a master is going to treat a slave with equity and with fairness and with dignity, all of a sudden we're looking at something different and it's beginning to look less and less and less like slavery.
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Are you getting what I'm saying in there? It's a subtle transformation that happens in the obedience of a heart to God, that can bring down social ills, can bring down social structures that are sinful and are against God.
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Paul doesn't say, I'm abolishing slavery here and now, in the church and class, starting with you, no more slaves, no more masters, he says no, if you do this, this is the way that society is going to change.
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This is the way that, this is the way we're going to fracture the base of this sinful institution is just by loving each other.
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By clothing ourselves with compassion and kindness and humility and all those things that he talked about to everyone in the church, remember he said everything that he said since Colossians 1 to the same group that was filled with slaves and masters in it.
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When he talked about putting on these things and taking off these things and taking off malice and taking off slander and taking off all of those evil things and putting on all of those good things, he was saying that to the masters and the slaves as well.
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Slaves who willingly serve from the heart and masters who deal only in justice and equity with their slaves, that paves the way for removing ownership and starts culture down the pathway toward those employment contracts.
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As academic as all that truly can sound, as I, as tempted as I was to just skip all of the slavery stuff and just pretend that the text was about modern day employment,
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I kind of wanted to do that, you know what I mean, like in my flesh I was just kind of like, well, you know, I don't, I don't own slaves, never,
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I'm glad that I never have, I've never wanted to and I've never been a slave and I'm glad that I've never been and so, you know, does this seem a little bit distant from where we live, you know?
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But the text is about slavery and I have to talk about what the text is about and that's one of the things that I love about, by the way, preaching expositionally, just going chapter by chapter, verse by verse,
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I wouldn't pick this, but we need it, God knew that we needed it, we needed this for some reason this week and so he, he, he drew this down and this is the next text, but it does apply to us and so let me draw out four applications from the text that struck me about my life in Christ, despite the fact that I've never been a slave or, or, or never owned one and it's first, fundamentally, what we see here through this text is
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God is concerned for social relationships, he's concerned about the fabric of our society.
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You see, slavery didn't exist before sin and yet, here, he addresses a social issue in a church that was completely integrated into an economy based on slavery and God brings the gospel to bear throughout the
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New Testament on the subject of slavery. How do we address the ills of society around us?
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Is our hope in a political candidate? Good luck with that, right? If we followed
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Paul's model, we would start with believers thinking right, believing right, trusting
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God right, and then acting right. Paul doesn't tell them to go tear down institutions outside of the church, he says in essence, change it from within.
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When slaves act like Christian slaves and when masters act like Christian masters, fractures begin to form in the sinful institution because it will begin to look like something very different from slavery.
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The call to us as Christians is to live out the kingdom principles of the gospel. We are to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and love, as he said earlier in the text.
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And by faith, I believe that if we live out those things, we will be a force for change in our culture.
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What is God calling for you to do? To live out your life of love and compassion and kindness and humility and all of those things in your employment and to do so with, to work heartily, to work so with single focus for him.
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And that's the second thing. Work for Christ. Work for Christ. Many of you find yourselves working with decreasing resources and greater expectations.
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I hear that all the time. I get together with guys for breakfast, talk about how things are going at their workplace and it seems like it's a common thread in my conversations with people.
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Pharaoh keeps demanding more bricks and isn't providing the straw anymore, right?
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Does it feel that way in industry? Does it feel that way in your business? There's fewer workers. We have cutbacks, but the same quota, the same amount of work that has to be done, right?
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And so how do we respond in an environment like that? How does a Christian employer allow the gospel of Christ to impact his or her work?
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How does a Christian employee work for their boss? We are to work with sincerity of heart, the genuine heart to the work.
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We work as though we are working for Christ. And how would you? Put some skin on that for a minute.
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What if Christ was in the boss's office? What if he was the one that you reported to?
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What if it really was him? How would you work? Think that through. What would your work day look like? What would your diligence be like?
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What would your focus be like? Would it change? Probably would, right?
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I mean, if we're being honest, it probably would change a bit. If we reported to the one who bled for us, the one who died for us, the one who carried that cross, the cross that we all deserve to carry, and he carried that up that hill for us and then laid down on that cross and let them nail him there, would you work a little different for him?
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I think we would. Work as for the Lord. Work with sincerity of heart.
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We're not to merely work for the attention of our boss to get ahead, people pleaser.
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And we're not to just do eye service, just enough to get by. We got to be careful how diligently we are working.
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I mean, think about it in a connected world where we can be watching all the basketball games on ESPN.
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And I don't know if you guys are aware, I don't want to tempt anyone, but there's that boss button at the top of ESPN's web page.
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Does anybody even know what I'm talking about? You can watch the game and there's a button up here, and if your boss walks by, you can click the boss button and a word document, a fake word document comes up, so it looks like you're being productive.
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Okay, joke, but it's true. There really is this thing. And so you can watch all the basketball games sitting in your cubicle, sitting in your office with your headphones on, quick click the button and off, you know, you know, totally juked the boss on that one.
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And I was saying it as a joke, but it could be an issue for some of us.
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You get your grocery shopping or, you know, surfing the web or checking the sport scores or whatever it might be.
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It's not, robbing from your boss is not just stealing pens or paper, but it can be robbing time, right?
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How diligently do we work for our employer? Something for all of us to think about, because a Christian worker must be a productive and diligent employee.
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The third thing, we do well to consider ourselves as slaves of Christ, to consider ourselves slaves of Christ.
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Paul often introduced himself as a slave of Christ, and so this notion that we are not slaves any longer is not fully the whole story.
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Not just slaves, but Paul was eager to call himself a doulos of Christ. I am too.
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I'm willing to say that. I don't think that's a, that's not offensive to me in the least to think of the one who loved me and died for me being my master, being my king.
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Him calling the shots when he says jump, I, I'm already in the air. That's the way it should be, right?
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I'm not saying I always do that right, but I'm saying that's the way it should be. But then you have this to contemplate and consider.
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John 15, 15, where speaking to his disciples, Jesus says this, no longer do I call you servants.
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Same word, doulos. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing.
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The slave is kind of in ignorance, doesn't really know the affairs of the household, but I have called you friends for all that I have heard from my father
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I have made known to you. We are indeed slaves of Christ, but not just slaves, friends, friends, and not just friends, but heirs of the kingdom that is to come.
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Those who have come to Christ by faith obey him, submit to him, but man are we deeply loved by him.
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Glorious thing. We do well to consider ourselves slaves of Christ. Lastly, the motivations in the
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Christian life come from the recognition that our inheritance comes from him, our reward is set up in him, and judgment comes from Christ.
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Now salvation is clearly based on faith in Jesus, it is a gift that is given to us, but the judgment is based on the fruit of our lives.
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Why should we work hard? Why should the gospel motivate our attitudes in our workplace? Because we all have a master in heaven, and whether we're the employee or the employer, whether we are reporting to someone or someone is reporting to us, if we're all in with Jesus, then he is our master in heaven, and we will give him an accounting of our stewardship in a reward -based judgment.
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So this morning, as we've kind of talked through this, and I hope that you've had some sense of motivation towards working differently this week, working as for the
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Lord, in whatever role you find yourself, again I'm not just talking about employer -employee relationship,
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I know that's the easiest thing to draw down, but you you can apply this in your own context, you know what you do week in and week out, but are you doing what you do for the glory of God?
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That might even just be the work that you do volunteering here at the church, or volunteering for other organizations, it doesn't, it's not just for pay, but are you doing what you do for the glory of Christ?
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We're going to come to communion to remember the sacrifice of Jesus that has welcomed us into his family. Without the sacrifice, remember, we would be outsiders.
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I would suggest to you that in a sense, all are slaves to God, but some are slaves to God without love, and that's where we would be without Christ.
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But through the cross, we have been welcomed as more than slaves, but we are now declared friends, family, heirs together.
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So if you're in with Christ during this song, you can come to one of the tables and reflect on the amazing sacrifice of Jesus Christ for you.
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The good news that Jesus made a way for us to be reconciled to him is the centerpiece of the life.
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That's why we come to the communion table to take the cracker that reminds us of his body broken for us each week.
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That's why we take the cup to remember his blood that was shed as the kind of a recentering of sorts for the week, to come back to that place where we remember and we recognize if it wasn't for this.
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So we, we come to the table needy, not that we are saved by taking these things, but they're a reflection and reminder of how we have been saved, and that we need
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Christ moment by moment and day by day. And his sacrifice should impact every facet of our lives, including our work, week in and week out.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the practicality of our faith that even is seen in the way that, that Paul addresses the household.
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He addresses the wives, fathers, husbands, children, even the servant help that was so common in that time and in that era.
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And father, that, that there is a way for us to just contemplate and consider your great design of, of bringing us into your kingdom, and adopting us as your children, and making us heirs of the glory that is to come in Christ.
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Father, we look forward to that day, and as we come to communion, we take the cracker to remember his body broken for us.
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We thank you so much for his sacrifice. Without his sacrifice, we would be lost. We would be unreconciled.
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We would be broken in our relationship with you. We would be your enemies. But because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have been brought near.
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We have been declared friends and heirs, and that we have the eternity of a new earth to look forward to.
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Father, I pray that you would motivate us this week to go out from this place, to work diligently as for the
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Lord. Not as, not as I service, not as people pleasers, but ultimately seeking the reward of a well -done, good, and faithful servant.