Aug. 27, 2017 PM Service - For The Sake Of The Gospel by Pastor Josh Sheldon

I did neglect to introduce to you sitting behind our brother, Dale, Michael Pena, who's visiting us from Trinidad. And he'll be visiting us, what seems like a blessedly long time, a couple of years at least, for his work at, I forgot which college, one of the colleges where he's learning aircraft maintenance.

And then, God willing, he's going to go to San Jose State and stay with us for a couple more years. I know very well his pastor in Trinidad, Amresh, and I can never pronounce his last name, but his name is Amresh.

So if you haven't had a chance to greet and get to know Michael, I would very much encourage you to do that. If you would turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy, chapter 6. 1 Timothy 6. We will attend ourselves, put our attention this morning or this afternoon, on the first two verses.

I'm excited for it, too, but you can be quiet out there. How do you recognize it was his? They all sound the same. Come on, there's only 12 of us here. Somebody can tell me. Oh, I'm getting myself to 1 Timothy 6.

I said, if I was a car thief, I would not steal a car, except that it was doing that, because that's the most ignored sound, except at our church, whoever was. There we go. All kidding aside, let's look at God's word.

Slavery in First-Century Ephesus

Let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers.

Rather, they must serve all the better, since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these things. Well, suddenly we come, in this book of 1 Timothy, to slavery.

There are slaves in the church at Ephesus. The apostle Paul has given Timothy instruction and encouragement to stand against the false teaching and to get the church in order to put men and women in their proper roles during the church service, speaking of how to respect the elder men in the church, not elders as in officers, but the older men in the church, and how different types of widows are to be treated with honor, respect, and dignity, and even the pastors and the deacons.

And now he comes to this final special class within the church that he must deal with, slavers, slaves, those under that yoke as slaves. And there's no way to soften the idea of slavery. Now, we'll often hear about how slavery in the first century, slavery in Paul's day, was a different matter than this brutal and cruel institution that we fought the Civil War over in this country, hundreds of thousands of lives lost in that.

One man said of slavery, it darkens and depraves the intellect. It paralyzes the hand of industry. It is the nourisher of agonizing fears and of sullen revenge. It crushes the spirit of the bold. It is the tempter, the murderer, and the tomb of virtue.

Gibbon, of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, he estimated that by the time Paul wrote 1 Timothy, there were as many slaves as free men in the Roman Empire. And he, with other historians, would index the beginning faults in Roman society with rampant sexual deviancy, the breakdown of the family, pervasive divorce, and the ill effects in society of slavery.

And as awful as its effects were and are, and are, if current reports are to be believed about human trafficking in this world, perhaps even in this country, if those are to be believed, and I would suggest to you that given the depravity of man without Jesus Christ and where we go if we haven't the Holy Spirit to restrain us, we should at least lend credibility to those kind of reports because they sound very much like the kind of evil that men can bring.

As evil and as bad as all the effects of slavery were, then, are, now, in Ephesus 2 ,000 years ago, the owner suffered too. Their ambition to innovate, to work, to be satisfied with what they themselves did, all this dehumanized them as much as it did their slaves, in a different way, but as much as it did.

That's why I took that one quote. He says, it darkens and depraves the intellect, paralyzes industry, it is the nourisher of agonizing fears and sullen revenge. It ruins both parties. Perhaps it was less evident in them because outwardly they would look very comfortable, but sin's mist spreads further than we usually think.

If that great empire, if the Roman Empire crumbled even partly because of this, then we can surmise that the dehumanizing effect of slavery worked against the humanity and the goodness, and, of course, I mean goodness in a civic sense, of both the one owned and the one owning.

The natural industry that God breathed into man when he gave Adam work as a blessing was tarnished in him who worked for another with no benefit to himself, and also in him who no longer worked for himself, but simply commanded others to do his bidding, and held over them the brute force of flogging, beating, even crucifixion for any act that caused in the owner even a stir of displeasure.

Now, that kind of ill treatment of anyone, whether it's a bond servant or a slave, in the Old Testament laws was clearly prohibited. As pernicious as any slavery is, God showed no sympathy for brutality.

Now, I'm not this afternoon going to develop a theology of slavery for you from these couple of verses. I just wanna be sure we have the idea of what it is, and that we not soften slavery by these ideas that we get that it was different back then.

It's not. It was just as dehumanizing as it has ever been, even today, as it's practiced. And that would take too long to develop all that. That would be a lecture, not a sermon, and that would take us away from the apostle's point in 1 Timothy 6, one and two, because there he's not advocating for or against slavery.

Rather, he's instructing Timothy in how he is to instruct this final group in the Ephesians church. After all those classes of members at that church that we spoke of, now, as the letter comes to a close, slaves.

No Sacrifice Too Great for the Sake of the Gospel

And what are we going to learn from 1 Timothy 6 in the first two verses, and this instruction to Timothy for him to instruct the slaves at the church? The main idea, I think, is something like this. There is no sacrifice too great for the sake of the gospel.

There's nothing that we can give up that is too great a giving up if it is the gospel for which it is given up. I used to wonder, as the Lord was drawing me near to him, as sin went from a technique used by mothers to control children to a real and present danger and a reality within me, I would wonder just what I'd have to give up in order to be a Christian.

Would I have to give up smoking? Well, I wanted to quit, but I didn't want to be told. Would I have to give up drinking? Well, I never drank very much, and I don't, just in case you're wondering, but again, I didn't want some person regulating me.

Judaism was an obvious casualty of becoming a Christian. Would the church demand money of me? Would they take up all my time? What would I have to give up for the church, for Christ? And of course, it turns out, everything.

The Lord works no half measures. He's satisfied with none in return. Some of us might seem to give up more than others, but that's only from a human way of looking at things. Where 1 Corinthians 10 .31 says to do all for the glory of God, 1 Timothy 6 .1 -2 says that includes behavior as a slave.

Now, Paul used the word yoke, those who are under the yoke of slavery. A yoke really brings a new understanding to the depth of their servitude, their having been owned. They're under a yoke of slavery, where a yoke binds beasts of burden together, like a yoke of oxen.

But it's not used until the animal's spirit has been brought to bay, and the animal has realized that resistance, as the Star Trek Borg says it so often, is futile. The animal is broken in. It's resigned to doing the will of the yoke tender, and then the yoke is put on it.

Now, that's an apt description of first century slavery. Now, our 21st century ears probably want to hear Paul say something to them like, for freedom Christ has set us free, stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

In other words, you shouldn't be slaves anymore. That's a bad institution. It's wrong to be in that status. But there in Galatians 5 .1 that I just quoted, Paul's speaking in purely spiritual terms. He's telling them not to take up a yoke of law-keeping slavery.

He's not talking about a yoke of slavery because Christ has set us free from that. Timothy is not to teach the slaves among them that way. They're not to try to escape. In fact, they are to treat their masters with honor.

The same word used for widows, the same word used for the elderly, the same word used for your elders and pastors. Now, Christian slaveholders come up in the next verse. In this verse, it's particularly those whose masters are pagans.

Sorry. We need to stop for a second and consider what's being said. Imagine it is you to whom this letter was written and first read. Okay, so you're a slave, and the law actually protects you, but it only protects you insofar as it safeguards you as your owner's property.

So the law says escape can be punished in all the ways I mentioned earlier. Anyone who helps you can get the same kind of punishment. Another slave owner is in big trouble if he should help, if he should take you as his own, and if he takes you as his own, it's not kidnapping.

It's grand theft. It's sort of what we would charge a car thief with today. The law protects you from doing anything that would terminate your utility to your owner. And we need to delve a little bit deeper.

If 21 centuries ago you are hearing this, this is your situation. You're a slave in this world. Somehow you heard the gospel and you believed it. The teaching about slavery to sin has to have held some special importance to you as you heard about sin and judgment and faith and forgiveness.

And you can imagine further. Let's just say that you're in Ephesus 2 ,100 years ago, and it's the Apostle Paul himself preaching on the streets of Ephesus where he spent so much time. It's his preaching that converted you.

As because of him, you were brought to this church in Ephesus, and now you hear these two sentences from this letter to that church to you. You're free in Christ, but you're still a slave in the world.

You're redeemed from slavery to sin. Now you're a slave to Christ's righteousness, and you are unequally yoked to a pagan master, yet given no license to escape or even to leave. Rather than doing anything like that, you are told to show honor to your master.

Honor the one who holds title to your person. You know, most of us have cars. In the car, we keep the registration. That proves if we get pulled over by a police officer, we show him we own the car. But then if we sell the car, we have to prove that we own title to the car, right?

We have to sign what we call the pink slip. Hold title to my car. These men had somebody holding title to them, and they're told to honor that one. Christ bought you with his blood. You are now his slave to his righteousness, but you're told to show honor to the man who bought you with his money.

The lesson is that the yoke that has impugned your humanity must remain. In fact, you must treat with respect the dehumanizing mortal who forces you to bear it. Now, the other slaves addressed, of course, are those owned by Christians, and we'll get there.

There wasn't then the plethora of churches that blight our landscape today, that they didn't have the smorgasbord of choices in the bounding boutiques that it was likely that these slave owners worshiped together.

There weren't several churches. You can't go down Highway 237 and find another one. What interests me about Paul's instruction to Timothy and to that church is, as I said, sitting together. You're a slave in Ephesus, and perhaps they are right in front of you, or maybe right next to you.

I'm sure they were not segregated, not under the apostle Paul's instructions. They wouldn't have a special place for owners and a special place for slaves, not in his church. So there they are. You're hearing this, and the one you must speak on, give honor to, give honor to the one who speaks on you.

The one who holds title to you is right in front of you, or maybe even next to you, hearing all this. Paul says, don't be disrespectful. I take here, Paul, to mean not out-and-out insolence, but a familiarity that is out of bounds for a slave and his master.

Just because they're now brothers in the Lord gives him no right for a casual familiarity. If the President of the United States worshiped here, if he came in just to spend a morning with us in worship, I would hope that we would call him Mr. President and not Donald.

By his position alone, he is due a sort of special respect. It's not being man-fears, it's not being respecters of persons, just good etiquette. Jesus and the apostles were respectful to the high priest, even when the high priest was indulging the worst kind of hypocrisy and sin.

Sometimes we forget that our zeal, commendable as it might be in some contexts, gives us no right to obliterate the boundaries of good manners and position and equity, or even common sense. So instead of an unseemly chumminess, service, and more than service, this service must be all the better.

And Paul's reason for it, this must just have made their jaws drop. His reason for it is now the one you're benefiting in your slavery is a brother in Christ. Work harder and more diligently because of that.

I wonder if they wondered for what reward. Well, first it's the word of Christ, one he proved by his own sinless actions, and whose example the apostles upheld. Another reason might be what we have in Luke chapter 17 and verse 10.

Well, any one of you who has a servant, this is Jesus speaking, plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at the table. Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterwards you will eat and drink?

Does he thank the servant because he did what he was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you are commanded to say, we are unworthy servants, we have only done what was our duty. So there you are, free in Christ, a disciple of the Son of God, a slave in Rome, and you're being told that you're to respect your owner all the more, you respect your owner all the more because you're a Christian, and it's no more than your duty.

The slaves were not able to claim Christ as a reason for being less than industrious for their masters, be they pagan or Christian. To the contrary, they're commanded to go out of the way in the opposite direction, to show all honor, to serve all the better, since those who benefit from their good service are believers.

I mean, wonder what would have happened if a slave was raised up to be a pastor. Think about this one for a moment. Chapter three, if a man desires a good work and all the rest of that, and now chapter six, well, is it out of all bounds to think that possibly one of the slaves could have been raised up as a pastor?

Faithfulness to the word, spirit-led wisdom would have to prevail in a situation like that. The master would have to show the slave pastor double honor, is that not what it said? Just a few verses prior to this?

Even to the point of paying him for his service. And then, after sitting under his preaching, sitting under his instruction, after submitting to his pastor and showing his pastor this honor, they'd go home, and then he'd receive all respect and honor from the man who's his pastor, but now his slave.

I don't know quite how they would work that out. The slave in Philemon, Onesimus, did I mispronounce that? I often do, but you know who I mean. The tradition has that he became a pastor. Could happen.

So the ultimate motive here, though, regardless of whether his master was a believer, is at the end of verse one, proper behaviors to be maintained so that the name of God and the teaching of the gospel may not be reviled.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus was faced with the accusation that he was a rabble-rouser. He was an iconoclastic radical bent on overthrowing Rome militarily and politically. Of course, that was never true of him.

You remember his final interview with Pilate, where he says, are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus' answer was basically, is that what you think, or is that what you've been told? He says, am I a Jew?

Do I know these things? I'm not part of this society. And Jesus ultimately says to him that my kingdom is not of this world. The kingdom that brought slaves and masters belonged to, the kingdom that the slaves and masters belonged to is Christ's.

It's a spiritual kingdom for now. The kingdom surrounding them, Rome, was different from the kingdom that is ultimately our fate, as different as it could be. In Rome, an irreverent or rebellious slave was scandalous.

For a master to tolerate even more so, a slave, whether his master is a brother or not, cannot be the catalyst for such a reviling conduct to occur. For a believer to put another believer, whether it's a slave or not, in such a position would be at the height of irresponsibility.

It might satisfy a human craving, but it would be bad for what? It would be bad for the gospel. Remaining a slave and being respectful to one who owns you as a slave, whatever the situation, whether it is a pagan or a Christian owner who owns you, is the only option.

If it were to be thought that the faith was a subversive sect that promoted what would be seen then as civil disorder, as slaves with casual attitudes toward their masters would be seen as, the authorities would have cracked down on the young church as hard as it did the Jews.

And that would be damaging to the churches, to Christ's reputation. It would cause the church to be reviled. The preaching of God's word would be stymied. At best, it would be less free than it was. Christians would be dispersed and would lose their home, lose their churches, their livings, and so the support of the ministry would be curtailed or cut off.

The consequence would be legion. And this is what the Apostle Paul would have Timothy guard against. So that the word of God, so that the teaching, so that the gospel of Jesus Christ not be reviled. Timothy had in his church slaves, victims of an institution that more than almost any other devised proves man's insatiable appetite for cruelty.

Sacrifice, Submission, and the Gospel’s Reputation

So what's the gospel message to them? For the sake of the church and for the gospel for which it is a pillar and a buttress, remain as you are. Swallow your pride and all your earthly desires for that one cause.

Be as was Joseph who in his slavery, no less cruel than yours, he found God's glory to be the light that filled his dungeon. Well, of course, we're not slaves. That institution, praise God, being long gone.

Yet wherever we are, where our faith in Christ is known, our demeanor speaks of our concern for the gospel. The lesson here is kind of moralistic. It's sort of a do better for all of us. It's a good one, though.

What are we willing to sacrifice to protect the gospel's reputation? The slaves in Ephesus were told, sacrifice your desire to be free from them because that would cause the church, the gospel message to be reviled.

That would curtail the freedom of the preaching. Do not get disrespectfully familiar with your owner even if he's a fellow Christian, even if the situation happened in Philemon, even if he's a pastor.

I should say it did happen in Philemon, but as I said, tradition holds that the slave in that letter became a pastor. What are we willing to sacrifice to protect the gospel's reputation? What submission to whom do we need to show in order that the word of God not be reviled?

How would we take it if we were told, well, you know, your job here is to remain a slave and to be a better slave and a more honorable slave to your master. But all of it must be seen as well worth the price if it is to good of the gospel, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So it's a bit of a moralistic message. It's for all of us. And to whom do we need to show this extra honor, this submission, this outward behavior that comes from an inner transformation from the gospel in order that the gospel be held high by all who know that we are held by the gospel and see what effect the gospel actually has on us.

As I said, it's sort of a moralistic message. Look back at the slaves 21 centuries ago and ask yourself, would I have to give up? Ultimately, we give up so little for the Lord who gave up so much, right?

And we're gonna take the table in a few moments and we're gonna remember the price that was paid to redeem us from our sins, to remake us, to remove us from the bondage to all that stands against God.

There's nothing we can do. We're never even asked or commanded to try to repay. It's just beyond all reach. You have died. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. I am crucified with Christ. No longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. See, our life is his. If we must swallow now and then our pride for the sake of the gospel, what matter is that?

It's a treasure being stored up in heaven. Maybe that is going to bring to our ears that blessed, well-done, good, and faithful servant. So if we read 1 Timothy 6 in just those first two verses, we have to come away saying there's nothing too great that God can ask of me to be a proper model of this gospel, to make sure that the gospel is not hindered by anything that I have done, any behavior that I have, whether it's to my employer, my wife, my husband, the church, whoever it might be.

If the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ was not withheld, how much less should we withhold our comforts here? How much less should we cling to them? Because there's nothing too great that we can give up for the sake of the freedom of the preaching of the gospel.

Amen.