Work Like Christians!

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

The Christian Work Ethic in Ephesians 6

It's been estimated that a person, on average, spends about 90 ,000 hours or a third of their lifetime at work. That number is only surpassed by the amount of time we spend sleeping. In other words, most of our time in the short life that we've been given here on earth is spent at work.

There was a study done in 2022, and they found that about 70 of employees, and this was even higher among senior executives when they asked them, said that their sense of purpose in life is defined by their work.

It showed that overall the desire, that people desire more purpose in their job, from their job, than they're actually currently getting. It also revealed that about 15 of frontline workers, including managers, are actually living out that purpose, 15 of people.

And so people at large realize the vast amount of time that we spend at work and the desire for it to have a purpose, to have a meaning, to give them meaning in something, and when they find that meaning in their job, they relate to it quite differently.

The research and numbers of studies done on work, how it affects our lives, how we relate to it, how satisfied we are with it, if and how it gives us purpose are virtually endless. People are obsessed.

We're trying to figure out the mystery of work. And it seems to me that at the heart of it all really is the desire for an increased effectiveness. Corporations, companies want to know how to get more out of their employees because, after all, money makes the world go round.

But what about us? What is work for the Christian? Do you have a theology of work? And if so, how does it affect your work? How do you relate to your employer? What are you working for? Who are you actually in reality, at the end of the day, working for?

I want you to think and consider your heart attitude for a moment. Think about how you do your work. And let's say a stranger, maybe one of us here, would randomly show up at the office or your job site one day and observe how you and your coworkers relate to one another, relate to your boss and how you perform your daily duties.

Ask yourself, would this person be able to see a difference between you as a Christian and those that are not Christians around you? Even if they can't quite put their finger on it, is there something in your conduct and work ethic that makes you stand out from the rest?

Do you have a distinctly Christian work ethic? And if so, what makes that work ethic? As we've worked our way through Ephesians chapter 5, and now in the beginning of chapter 6, we've seen Christian submission, we've seen Christian headship, Christian obedience to one's parents and the instruction and the discipline of their children.

And now, as we get to chapter 6, verses 5 and 9, God in His good providence and divine wisdom has given us a picture of the Christian network. In these five verses, what I'd like us to consider today are four marks of the Christian worker.

These four marks being, one, a sincere obedience, and then a service rendered not to man but to the Lord. Thirdly, I want us to consider that we should work with an eternal perspective in mind. And that lastly, we work with a love for our neighbors.

So my prayer really is that when we put all of these together, that we would see and understand God's purpose for us in our work, and that we can then go into the world and work like Christians. With that being said, let's look at verse 5, and we consider the first mark, sincere obedience.

Beginning in verse 5, Paul writes,. Like I said, we've spent the last three weeks now in this so-called household code, and we finally made our way to the final destination. Paul's final instruction within this section, after having addressed wives, after having addressed husbands and children, the apostle finishes this section now, concluding with his direction to bond servants.

Some of your translations, if you have an NASB, for example, it won't say bond servants, it'll say slaves. Slaves is actually the more precise translation of the Greek. The word Paul uses there refers to someone that is bound or tied to another.

It designates a relationship of subjection of one person to the will of another. But why in the world would Paul, after having addressed all the parties of the typical family as we know it, mention bond servants or slaves?

For this passage, the historical context is very important to us. Slavery was very common in the Roman Empire at that time, and it was the most basic institution of society. Scholars estimate that about 10%, possibly up to 20 of the population of the entire Roman Empire were actually enslaved, and that number even goes up to 30 within the city of Rome itself.

It was so common that if you think back, that Jesus even used references to slaves as characters in his parables. Slaves were simply the force that kept the economy going, and domestic slaves were often part of their owner's household, and so we find Paul addressing them here in this household code.

Now Ephesus was, you've heard this before, was a key city in Asia Minor at the time. It was the third largest city in the entire Roman Empire, and it was a major political, economic, social, and religious center, and so many of the Christians in the church and in Ephesus and surrounding cities were guaranteed to be slaves.

Slaves at the time were seen as their master's legal property, and they were a common member of the Roman household and society at large, and so it's no surprise, knowing that, that Paul addresses the slaves here.

And so he begins, he urges them by giving them this imperative. He says, obey your masters, and honestly, this is as simple as it gets even for us, as long as it doesn't go against God's words, do what you're told to do.

In his letter to Titus in chapter 2 and verse 9, Paul expands on this a little bit when he says, their bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative.

Slaves were simply to submit themselves to the orders or directives they were given. But as we've seen several times now in Pauline, in this typical Pauline fashion, as he's done all throughout this letter, really, especially in this section, he goes beyond merely stating a command, saying obey your masters, but he roots, he grounds his argument, the why and the how in Jesus Christ, and he goes straight after the heart.

Look at it, how is the slave to obey? He says, with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as they were Christ, fear and trembling. Paul uses it a couple other times in his writings. It's an idiom that expresses a disposition of respect, a deference, a humble submission and reverence to another.

Slaves simply are to show honor to their masters. And that's exactly how we are to obey Christ, isn't it? We don't obey him with fear and terror, constantly, literally, shaking our boots, holding on for dear life, but we submit to him gladly, with sincerity from the bottom of our hearts, in humble submission to our glorious Savior.

Now if a slave who is not considered to be his own, the legal property of another, bought and sold at the will of another, at the marketplace, is urged out of his submission to Jesus Christ to be obedient to his owner, how much more, brothers and sisters, does this apply to us today?

Honestly, when you stand before the Lord one day, what is your excuse going to be for not being obedient to your employer? For not honoring your employer, for not showing him respect, for not doing what is asked of you while you're not required to violate God's Word?

How are you going to defend your constant arguing, your stealing your employer's time, when you spend time on things you're not supposed to be doing while at work? I know this is difficult for us to do.

We're a flesh. We don't like to submit to anyone, really. Especially when we think what we're being told is wrong, and we feel like it's an inconvenience to us. But what you must understand is that we cannot leave our submission to Christ at home when we leave for work in the morning.

It must come with us. It follows. It has to follow you into the car, all the way to your office, all the way to the job site, and you don't have a choice in this. The humility that you show toward Christ, the self-denial that you show to your husband, to your wife, to your children, to your brothers and sisters at church, it goes to work with you.

You cannot be obedient to Christ at the church, at home, while you're being a disobedient, wicked rebel at work when you're quote-unquote in the world for the day. Your attitude, how you respond to and how you treat your employer.

It's not a matter of outward appearance. Paul says sincerity of heart. It ought to be a reflection, really, of your heart's purity and sincerity and submission to first and foremost Christ. We simply cannot be an unbeliever at work.

So what do we do? We do what is asked of us, and we do it gladly, if possible, without overextending ourselves to our own detriment. We go the extra mile. Be the exemplary employee. Be a model of what a good employee looks like.

Dedicate yourself to excellency in a way that when you're not at work, your employer notices, and he wishes for you to be there. Let your obedience to your employer not be a charade, some facade, some game you're trying to play.

Paul is calling us to a higher standard here. It must be a reflection of our obedience to Jesus Christ. If we do our work with sincere obedience to Christ, then to our employer, we'll truly render service unto the Lord.

We'll see that in verses 6 and 7 in our second point, that the second mark of the Christian is a service rendered unto the Lord and not to man. Paul says, Verse 7, Paul gives us an example here of what sincere obedience is and what it's not.

Consider eye service, people pleasing. What is eye service and people pleasing? At its very foundation, it's self-glorification, isn't it? By the means of deceit, cunning, and dishonesty, we desire to glorify ourselves in the eyes of others.

It's really the food that we give this monster that is our selfishness. It's our busting open, really, the doors of the throne room of our hearts. We are kicking Christ off his royal seat. We place our prideful selves in it, and we proclaim, I am king.

Remember the hypocrites, the Sermon on the Mount. They performed their religious duty. That was the pinnacle of eye service, really. What did they do? They publicly announced their giving to the needy, making sure they were seen when they prayed in the synagogues, at the street corners, all where their hearts really were far from God.

Christian brothers, sisters, you cannot be obedient to your employer only when it places you in the limelight and only when it's a prime opportunity for you to gain the praise of man. When you do your work as eye service, and you only do what's required of you when you're being seen, and you hold the most shameful title for a Christian to hold, a people pleaser, what you've done is you've sold yourself into spiritual slavery to man.

Instead, we're bondservants of Christ. What does Paul say in Galatians 1 .10 when he defends the gospel that he's preached to the Galatians? He writes to them, For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Remember, Paul is talking to actual, literal slaves who've been bought with silver and gold by men.

But first and foremost, above all else, Paul reminds them, he reminds us, that they, that we, really are slaves of Christ who paid an infinitely higher price for his people than any man in any time could have ever paid for another.

So let this be a reminder to you that you do not primarily work for your earthly boss, for your earthly employer. As slaves of Christ, as verse 7 says, we render our service unto the Lord and not to man.

In Colossians 3, the parallel passage to verses 5 -9 here in Ephesians. In verse 23, Paul, he puts it this way. He says, Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. Really, this is where the, whatever you do, do to the glory of God, really gets practical for us.

I found this story that a businessman once told. And at his workplace, he had to regularly go past what, at that time, they would call the typing pool. It was a place where, at large companies, secretaries would sit and they would type to assist the executives in the company that may not have had their own personal secretary.

And so one day, this man pulled one of his colleagues aside and he mentioned to him that he'd noticed one of these typists in this typing pool. And there was something different about this person compared to the other ones.

And his colleague just smiled and said, Oh yeah, that's for the sake of the story. Let's call her Mrs. That's Mrs. Jones. And he told him that she was a Christian. So he said to him. And so the businessman looked at his co-worker in amazement and confusion, not understanding, not knowing what the connection was between this work ethic that he'd been able to observe and Christianity.

But it was enough for him to get hooked. And I don't know all the details after that, but eventually this man became a Christian because of that. That's what it looks like to work for the Lord and not for men.

There's no guarantee that your working for the Lord will lead to one of your co-workers being saved, but it has much more influence than we might think. People look at you. They wonder how is it that this person does not complain, that this person does not argue, that you're generally content in any circumstance.

Your compliance, your respect, your honor that you show to your employer, your working for the Lord and not for men, it brings good repute to God. We've already looked at Titus 2 in verse 9, but in verse 10, Paul concludes his thought that he starts in verse 9 there, and he says, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

And then in his letter to Timothy, his first letter to Timothy, he says, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be a revile when he speaks about servants honoring their masters in chapter 6 and verse 1.

Whether you sit at a desk, whether you work with computers, whether you work with your hands in the trades, whatever it is that you do, we ought to, we must do it for the glory of God, meaning with everything that you got, to the best of your ability, do good, solid, reliable work and give all the credit that you receive to your Lord and maker.

You don't want to be a people pleaser paying eye service to the world? This is the antidote, really. Doing your work for the Lord as an act of worship to Him. How do you offer, how do we offer up our work as an act of worship to Him?

I suggest that we take God to work with us and don't leave Him at home when we walk out the door. Pray, pray about your work on your way there. Bring it before the Lord. Thank Him for His kindness in giving you this job that He's giving you and that through it He's providing for all your needs.

Pray for Him to be glorified in your behavior by doing what is asked of you, by displaying Christ-like character to those around you. Spend time, if you can, on your breaks, meditating on some scripture, reading the Word.

Read scripture.

Pray for one of your co-workers. Sing a hymn. Maybe not out loud. See your work as a mission field, really, that God has placed you in. Glorify Him by sharing the gospel with your co-workers, by being a peacemaker, encouraging, helping others in appropriate ways when you can, and so render service to Him for His glory, and not the cheap, the empty, the hollow praise, really, of man to feed the self-glorifying desire of your flesh.

Now as if obedience to Christ, God, glorifying work, rendered unto Him weren't enough to stir the first-century Christian slave to sincere obedience to his earthly master in this life, Paul adds another reason in verse 8.

This is our third mark of the Christian employee, that he or she has an eternal perspective. Look at verse 8. Knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.

This statement, really, it was of incredible significance for the Roman slave, a statement of massive encouragement to them, because regardless of the job you held as a slave, whether you were a domestic slave working in a home of a family, whether in agriculture or down deep in the mines, many of them could expect very harsh punishment and mistreatment from their masters across the board.

And slaves only received a nominal fee for their services far below the value of the service they provided. And they had to attempt to earn some money on the side by perhaps managing some of their master's property.

And then they read the statement when Paul says that submission to their so-called masters out of obedience, again, obedience to Christ, working unto God for his glory will be ultimately and finally be rewarded by Christ himself.

In Colossians 3, again, we read verse 23. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. But then in verse 24, Paul says, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ. Paul is not talking here about earning your way into heaven or your obedience granting your entrance into glory. I'm leaning a bit on John Murray here. If I can paraphrase and sum up his comments on works and our being rewarded, he says that this future reward is not justification and it contributes absolutely nothing to it.

It is also not salvation for that is based on grace and is not a reward for our works. And then I'll add this, that the only thing man has ever rightly earned, that any of us ever rightly earned is judgment and death.

Murray says that the reward has reference to the station a person is to occupy in glory. And it has no reference to the gift of glory itself. And then I'll quote him here. I love the way he had put this.

He says, while it makes void the gospel to introduce works in connection with justification, nevertheless, works done in faith from the motive of love to God in obedience to the revealed will of God and to the end of his glory are intrinsically good and acceptable to God.

As such, there will be the criterion of reward in the life to come. That's exactly what Paul's reminding the Christian slaves in Ephesus of. He says, you know this. You know that your sincere obedience to Christ, rendering service unto the Lord, even as a slave, is not meaningless.

Christ is not regarded as nothing to him. But what he'll do is he'll reward your faithfulness and obedience to him in this life and the life to come. Some of you might be sitting here and thinking to yourself, I can relate to the treatment slaves receive.

My boss is unjust, treats me with contempt, is rude and harsh. I'm not getting paid what I ought to be getting paid. I'm not saying that you must stay there for the rest of your life, but while you remain there, while the Lord has you there for whatever purpose, you must persevere.

Persevere in doing good. Man might not value your submission and all the other things that you do that nobody in this life might ever know about, but Christ does. And nothing is unseen to him.

He sees your heart,.

He knows your heart, and he will reward your obedience to him. Friends, let the reality of a future reward motivate you to remain steadfast in doing good and repaying evil with good. Let it encourage you to obey God in the right here and the right now, even when life at work gets miserable and difficult.

This is not all. This is not all there is. It ought to be a reminder to us that we're currently, we're toiling in a temporary world, but we're headed. We're headed to a glorious, a permanent and eternal, never-ending future where the ground will no longer be cursed, where there will be no longer any pain in our labors, where we will no longer eat our bread by the sweat of our face in a world of no more pain, no more tears, and no more suffering.

I know you know this,.

That work in and of itself is a good thing, that it is a blessing from God given to man in the garden even before the fall. But if we want to persevere in our work after the fall, we must keep our eyes on eternity.

Look, as Christians, we spend the same 30 of our time at work as any unbeliever does, but as saved, as justified, raised from the dead, men and women, we can no longer work like the dead. We must now go to our workplaces with our sincere obedience in tow, first to Christ, rendering our service with all our might, striving after excellence, giving our employer our very best.

Ultimately, unto the Lord for His glory. And we have our eyes firmly fixed on our future reward. We must present our lives, these redeemed hands and feet of ours, even in our daily work, as a pleasing sacrifice to our Lord.

Just like the gospel affects the relationship between husband and wife, parents and their children, we must allow it to affect how we relate to our employer and our conduct and attitude at work. In all honesty, Christians should be the most exemplary employees that anyone anywhere has ever seen.

You've heard us say here, if you've been with us for a time, that when we gather here on Sundays, that we desire to sing like Christians, that we desire to pray like Christians.

I want to urge us,.

When we're not here, let us go and work like Christians.

Love for Neighbor in Christian Leadership

There's one,.

There's one final mark of the Christian worker that we see in verse 9. There's a love for a neighbor. Paul concludes now and he directs his attention towards the masters. It's a relatively, relatively short address compared to that to the slaves, but it's certainly of utmost importance.

Again, look, he begins with this imperative. It says, masters, do the same to them and stop your threatening. Again, this ancient form.

Of slavery.

Was a bit different from apparently the only form of slavery that anyone in this day and age can think of in the 18th and 19th century North America and Britain. This Roman form of slavery in its ethnicity played absolutely no role.

If we were to go back in time and we would walk the streets of the Roman Empire, we would not be able to visibly distinguish between who's a slave and who's not. Education was actually very much encouraged because it improved a slave's value and some slaves even held very sensitive and highly responsible positions all over society.

And people would and could sell themselves into slavery in order to.

Escape poverty,.

To pay off debts, to climb socially or even gain a reputable job.

And most,.

If they had the ability to earn some money on the side,.

They were able.

To attain their freedom and gain Roman citizenship. But despite all these, for lack of a better term, benefits, slavery was still slavery and man was glad to put his sin openly on display. Slaves, because of their importance to the economy, they were merely seen as tools and equipment.

That's what they were labeled as tools and equipment for business or workshop. And they had absolutely no honor and lived in shame. And so unjust punishments, harsh treatments, tortures were prevalent within this institution.

There's a Roman philosopher who was actually a tutor to the emperor of Nero. He wrote about the abuse of slaves in the household of the elites. He writes this,. When we recline at a banquet, one slave mops up the disgorged food, another crouches beneath the table and gathers up the leftovers of the tipsy guests.

He goes on to say, another who serves the wine must dress like a woman and wrestle with his advancing years. He cannot get away from his boyhood. He is dragged back to it. And though he has already acquired a soldier's figure, he is kept beardless by having his hair smoothed away or plucked out by the roots, and he must remain awake throughout the night, dividing his time between his master's drunkenness and his lust.

In the chamber, he must be a man. At the feast, a boy. Sometimes the punishment included execution. There was one senator during the reign of Nero who was murdered by one of his household staff, and they ended up executing the whole household as a deterrent.

And so it's that kind of, that evil and this twisted environment that Paul is addressing here, and he's telling those, those who own slaves, the masters now, to treat them the same way that the slaves were to treat them.

And what is this but love for our neighbors? With sincerity of heart, the same way the slave owner himself was to obey Christ, he was to glorify God by not mistreating his staff, to please the Lord in how he deals with those under his earthly authority.

In other words, what the servant owed his master, the master owed his servant. In the New Testament, Paul has been accused of not condemning slavery, or worse, even endorsing it. I want us to understand that Paul is not making a political statement here.

He's neither endorsing nor condemning the political institution. But what he's doing is he's going beyond the political. He's going to the spiritual. In the second half of verse 9, he says, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

Before God,.

There is no such thing as master and slave. One does not have more value than the other. One does not get a lighter judgment than the other simply because of social status. What's happened is that through the gospel in Christ, both master and servant have become brothers and sisters.

And now we stand all on equal ground. And both have Christ as their heavenly master. And everyone is a servant. In his letter to Philemon, speaking about Onesimus, in verse 15 and 16, Paul makes a similar point.

He writes,. For this, perhaps, is why he was departed from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bond servant, but more than a bond servant, as a beloved brother, especially to me.

But how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord.

In the Lord.

Both master and servant recognize that their division has been removed and that they have been united in Christ. In regards to us, some of you may have positions in authority at work. You manage people, maybe you train new people, have your own employees, whatever it may be.

You must recognize that you are not their or your own authority. That you cannot lord anything over them. You have no right to be harsh with them. Understand you stand on equal ground with them, side by side, as a sinner saved by grace.

And so treat them. Love your neighbor. Treat them with genuine, pure sincerity of heart and your obedience to Christ. Just like you would any other person, any other brother or sister in the church. You must guard your heart.

You must guard your heart against a domineering spirit, a covetousness that seeks to hold on to power and treats those under your authority unjustly.

I encourage you.

To be forgiving to them. Or one day, you'll hear the same words that the unforgiving servant heard in Matthew 18 when Christ said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me and should not, you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you.

So if you find yourself in authority, display Christlike leadership. Lead as a servant.

Build up,.

Encourage the people under you. The Lord has put you in a position of authority.

For a reason.

Make the most of it while you can and be that salt, be that light at work,.

Whether in a position.

Of authority or not. As slaves of Christ, once dead and trespassed,.

All of us,.

Having been bought out of the market of slavery to sin, we're called to be salt and light to those around us. So I want to encourage you, encourage myself, let us go. Maybe for the first time, beginning this week, obeying our employees,.

Doing our work.

With all our might unto the Lord, laboring not for earthly goods but for an eternal reward and by so doing, display Christ daily in our work to those around us. Let us work like Christians. I'll end with this.

John Piper, in his book Don't Waste Your Life, puts it well. He says, secular work is not a waste when we make much of Christ from eight to five. God's will in this age is that his people.

Be scattered.

Like salt and light in all legitimate vocations. Through his scattered saints, he spreads a passion for his supremacy in all things for the joy of all people. If you work like the world, you will waste your life, no matter how rich you get.

But if your work creates a web of redemptive relationships and becomes an adornment for the gospel of the glory of Christ, your satisfaction will last forever and God will be exalted in your joy. Let's pray.

Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church. If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church or our Instagram at gracechurchyeg, all one word.

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