How To Glorify God at Work

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Please enjoy the following sermon. The average person will spend nearly one third of their life at work.

Now, my son who's doing math that's much harder than the math

I can do, he knows this for sure. I'm not a math prodigy, but it doesn't take a genius to know that if we spend eight hours of our day sleeping, and eight hours of our day working, and eight hours of our day between those two places or points in time, there are no more hours left in the day.

And my initial thought is that one third of our lives is a lot of time.

A lot of time spent in one place, engaged in one task, and sometimes not always the task we wish we were doing, but one third.

And if that weren't enough, I would point out as well that typically we spend the best part of our days while we are at work.

It's not unusual to be at work when we are the most alert, the most energetic, the most focused, and the most productive.

And then on top of that, that we are at work typically at the best time of our lives as it were.

When we are youngest, when we are healthiest, when we are most physically and mentally able.

So that what inevitably happens is that we not only spend one third of our lives at work, but we spend the best hours of our days and the best years of our lives not resting, not traveling the world and seeing the sights, not engaged in our favorite hobbies, but at work.

And if you're like me, I know some of you are younger and you're just beginning your career, so maybe you could remember this a little bit easier, but I remember the point when

I came to the realization as I was fresh into my career, realizing that as I was engaged in this daily grind, the commute back and forth between home and work, going to bed early, getting up early to go to work,

I was driving to work one day and I thought to myself, is this how I'm going to spend the rest of my life?

That high school as it was, was a breeze? That university with all of its study and hard work, that that was easier than what

I need to do now for the rest of my life? And because I was not a

Christian and because I had imbibed the culture's view on work, I immediately began to do what most people do.

I began to resent my work. That here I go to this place I hate for another eight hours to give my very best to someone who will replace me in a moment if I die.

And then I began to say, even out loud, that I don't live to work,

I work to live and so I will not give the best of myself or the best of my day to my employer.

I remember saying to a colleague, we were working night shifts, I said, I want to come to work tired because I don't want to give my best to the employer.

And then something really remarkable happened. It wasn't even a full year into my full -time work when the

Lord wonderfully, graciously, sovereignly saved me.

He revealed his son to me and brought me to himself. And in many respects, my outlook completely changed.

It improved my view of work. But when I look back, I can see that the transformation was not yet complete, at least the transformation and perspective that I wish had occurred.

And what I ended up doing was I carried a lot of baggage, if I can say it that way, from my years of being discipled by our unbelieving culture.

So that I still struggled with work. And I would often say to my wife that I wish

I could do something that was actually significant, something that would be of eternal value.

And all that, well, I think having a pretty cool job, an important job.

I would go to work. I would wear a uniform. Every morning I did what most people don't do. I would rack a round of ammunition into the chamber of my firearm and holster it.

And then I would go out and contribute to society playing really a pivotal role, chasing bad guys, getting in foot chases, arresting people, and doing all kinds of things.

And yet I would arrive at the weekend and I would have this profound sense of relief.

And I would say it again out loud. And this is a direct quote. Finally, I can actually begin to glorify

God with my time. That I can glorify God now from Friday evening until Monday morning when

I put that uniform back on and get back to work. And I thought, is this what even the

Christian life is at work? It's like that lover boy song. Everybody's working for the weekend.

I never quoted lover boy. And first time. And I don't know if you have recognized it already, but this is an example of a terribly flawed perspective on work.

That what I had was a bankrupt view of work. And I'm grateful to God that he eventually delivered me out of that flawed view and brought me to at least a more sanctified view of it.

But I'm inclined to believe this. That that view of work and just seeing how some people are relating is actually far more common and lives, it is alive and well in the minds of people far beyond me.

That many of us struggle with what my wife and I have termed the Sundays.

You know, it's Sunday night and I have to go back to work on Monday. And here it is.

It's the reality of the daily grind. And that's not just for people out in the world.

That's for Christians. And for Christians, I believe in this church who struggle with this idea of what it means now to go to work for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years.

We will spend one third of our lives engaged in some kind of work. And sadly,

I think that many have and many will do it with a deeply flawed and dangerously unbiblical perspective on work.

But did you know that the Bible actually speaks, actually offers us a healthy, balanced and godly perspective on work?

Today I want to do something that for you, that whether you're at the beginning of your career or nearing the end of your career,

I want to do something for you that I wish someone had done for me. Which is to figuratively take you by the shoulders, to give you a little shake, to look you in the eyes and to say, do you realize that God designed you to work?

That when you finish school, when you enter into the working world, it's not the death sentence that you thought it is.

It's the invitation now to do the very thing you were made to do. That God designed you for work.

And not only has he designed you for work, but he has showed you, he has revealed to you how you are to work.

That he's given us a whole ethic from Scripture that we can take to work.

That we don't have to leave our Bibles on the nightstand and say, I will come back to God and the service of him when

I get home from work. And that God, if that weren't enough, he has actually given us a better aim for our work than merely making money or climbing the corporate ladder.

That God has given us a marvelous purpose. That whether, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I'm going to go off my notes, that whether you're a pastor, or a fireman, or a carpenter, or a janitor, or whatever the

Lord would have you to do, that he has put you there to glorify him in that work.

And so today I want to look at Scripture and we're going to answer the question, how can I glorify

God in my work? And if ever there was a relevant sermon for you, surely this is it.

Because you either are working, will be working, or whether it's at home, or it's in the workplace, work touches all of us in some way.

Even for you children who your parents are working. You can pray for your parents that they would work in this way.

And so we're in first Timothy six. We're going to look at these two verses. It's a short one, but an important one.

I'll read the first two verses and then I want to reveal three truths about how we glorify

God in our work. So Paul writes this in first Timothy six. Let all who are under a yoke as bond servants 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.

Now as we look at the beginning of verse one, the very first truth that I want to show you as it pertains to how we glorify

God in our work, is to appreciate this. To appreciate God's good design for work.

That it's not the world that has made work. It's not the bankrupt culture.

It is God who has designed us for work and who has himself ordained work.

We see in verse one, Paul says, let all who are under a yoke as bond servants regard their own masters worthy as worthy of all honor.

What we see here now is a shift in Paul's letter. He spent the last chapter and a half dealing principally with pastoral ministry, with a brief foray into how the church is to care for her widows.

And now for these next two verses, he deals with the attitude of servants in relation to their masters.

And there's an important theme that we would do well to take note of here. That as Paul begins, he addresses those who are bond servants.

Bond servants. And that is, I think, an interesting word that we would do well to look into.

If you're reading a different version, perhaps like the New American Standard Bible, you'll see that it's not translated as bond servants.

That word is actually the Greek word, some of you know it, doulos. And many of you know what that word means.

That doesn't mean merely a servant, but it means a slave. A common slave.

So that the real audience, as Paul is writing this letter then, he's not writing to household butlers.

He's not writing to the hired help. It is those who are living as lifelong slaves, not as people, but as possessions in the service of their master.

And when we understand the historical context into which Paul is writing, we can begin to understand.

It makes perfect sense why Paul would address slaves in his letter. This instruction is relevant to Timothy and the church in Ephesus.

Because at the time that Paul was writing this, at least according to some estimates, slaves constituted one third of the population in Rome.

And some estimates would even say that there were up to 50 to 60 million people living as slaves in the

Roman Empire during this time in the first century. Making it then one of the most deeply embedded institutions in the

Greco -Roman world. So that if you were well off, guaranteed you owned a slave.

And if you were really wealthy, you probably owned hundreds of slaves. That's just the way it worked.

And some might ask, well, how in the world do you get to a place where there are 50 to 60 million slaves living in one geographical area, as it were?

And really what happened was leading up to the first century, as Rome was engaged in its military conquests, it would invade particular places.

They would take people captive. And those people became slaves. But then as we're ushered into the first century, and we get now into Paul's letters, there were a variety of ways that one could become a slave.

One of the leading contributors to slavery was simply those who were born to their enslaved mothers.

So your mother is a slave. You're born to her. Guess what you are? You are a slave. We've heard in the past that there was a dump outside of Ephesus, if you remember me sharing this.

And one of the things that that was called informally was the baby dump.

And the reason for it is because if you were a person living in first century Ephesus, or in much of first century

Rome or the Roman Empire, if you had a couple of sons and a daughter, you were doing okay.

But if you had a couple of sons, and then a daughter, and then another daughter, and then another daughter, well, this became very problematic.

And so what people would do is they would take their living daughters, they would deliver their baby daughters alive, they would take them outside, in this case in Ephesus to the baby dump, and cast them into the dump.

And they would leave them exposed there to the harsh elements, so that as the sun and the rain and the wind beat down on them, the children would perish.

But what ended up happening was slave traders realized, well, if we want to have free slaves, we know exactly where to go.

So that they would begin to go to these dumps outside of the city and collect the children and raise them up, allow them to recover their health, make them big and strong, and then turn around and sell them as slaves.

Sometimes if parents were especially impoverished, they would sell their own children into slavery to pay their debts.

Some, because of the debts they owed or because they had committed a crime for their punishment or for their repayment, they would be put into slavery.

Sometimes people would even, if they had a particularly poor living condition that they were living in, they would sell themselves into slavery, because it would actually increase their standard of living.

And so when one lived as a slave, it meant that you no longer had what we would call human rights.

If you became a slave, it meant the termination of your marriage, you're married, not anymore, you're a slave.

The severing of all family ties, you were not a person anymore. Legally speaking, you were property.

And the treatment of slaves depended largely on the character of your slave owner and how your master dictated things.

So in some cases, slaves enjoyed a high standard of living. They were well -educated. They served as doctors and accountants, as philosophers, as engineers and teachers.

In these cases, slaves sometimes enjoyed a living standard that was higher than the freed men that were around them in the

Roman Empire. But in other cases, it's interesting if you look at verse one, when

Paul says, let all who are under a yoke as bond servants regard their own masters as worthy.

The reason why Paul refers to slavery as a yoke is because, after all, yokes are not made for humans, they're made for animals.

And in the case of an unjust master, the treatment of slaves in Rome was so brutal and so downright cruel that you might as well be an animal as a person.

It was not unusual for slaves to be sexually abused, to be shackled, branded on the face or forehead so that everyone knew who you belonged to.

Sometimes slaves were flogged or dismembered for minor offenses. So that in the words of one scholar, many masters regarded their slaves as little more than cattle.

Hence Paul's language, if you're under a yoke. And because slaves were not considered persons, they had very few legal protections in the

Roman world. The only exception was this, that if your master was being especially cruel to you, you could run to a statue or one of the temples of the emperor, and there you would be safe.

You'd be granted some kind of clemency, some kind of liberty while at that statue.

And so this is the audience to which Paul is writing. And you might be wondering, well, how do we bridge the gap between that world, all of these people enslaved, and me having a good attitude and glorifying

God at work? Well, we'll keep going. I find it interesting that Paul doesn't condone slavery, but he also doesn't immediately counsel those who are slaves to run away from their freedom.

Now we know for a fact that Paul did not approve of the institution of slavery. If you look at 1st

Timothy chapter 1 with me in verse 10, you can see this for yourself, that he actually condemns, he speaks about sexually immoral men who practice homosexuality and enslavers or man stealers as being condemned under the law.

He does not have a positive view. He said to Philemon, in his letter to Philemon, he encouraged him to receive

Onesimus, his runaway slave back, not as a slave, but what? As a brother.

And in 1st Corinthians 7, when he spoke to those who were slaves, he said, if you can gain your freedom, you should avail yourself of the opportunity if you're able, but you don't have to force it.

And so Paul recognized something here, that slavery is evil, and yet it was one of the most pervasive and deeply entrenched practices of the day.

It was simply the economic system that existed in the first century. And that's why as many commentators have come to this passage and looked at it, they've said that it's been universally agreed almost that this is the first century equivalent of what we would consider our modern day employee -employer relationship.

So that whether you're a slave or whether you're a free man, you had to work. And so Paul says, here it is,

God made you to work. You've been put in this situation, work and work well, work with the right attitude.

So that under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he encourages then his enslaved audience to do just that, to regard their masters as worthy of all honor, and to render, we see in verse two, render good service to them.

And what we see is that God has revealed this design for humanity from the beginning.

That we were created for work. We were designed to work. And that this is not something new that is invented in the

New Testament. This is something that we find in the oldest parts of the Old Testament. Now, probably most of you, because you've been spared a life of service in government or para -government, you haven't had to take a course like this.

But I can see Steve, I know Steve's taken a course like this. I remember taking a course one time called spirituality in the workplace.

And it's usually just kind of a new agey, it's just not particularly helpful. But I remember in this course, spirituality in the workplace, one of the things that they did was the instructor had everyone in the class, think about it for a moment.

He asked a particular question, and then he wanted you to write your answer to the question on a little sheet of paper, put it in a hat and bring it up to the front of the class.

And the question that was asked before all of the class is this, why do we work?

Now, if you were given that, that little sheet of paper on your desk, and you're going to give an answer that will fit onto a little slip of paper, what would you answer?

Why do we work? And as all the answers were collected, it was taken to the front of the class.

I remember the answers that were read were just the ones that you would expect, right? I work for money. I work to about my job.

I want to help people. And as the instructor was reading these, the instructor eventually got to the end of the list and said, you know, one of the most interesting answers that I've ever received is this, that someone answered in a past class, that why do we work?

It is because it is a consequence of sin. And I remember the whole class just erupted in laughter, everyone laughed, and then the course began.

And I remember sitting there in the class thinking, you know what, I don't think that person answered that question with a laughable, joking answer.

As a matter of fact, even though most of the people in the room don't perceive this at all, anyone who knows their

Bible, who knows the first three chapters of Genesis can think that person actually has a text of Scripture in mind as they answer that question.

Then in Genesis chapter three, beginning in verse 17, what happens after the fall? But the

Lord curses the serpent. Then he curses the woman. And then beginning in verse 17, what does he do?

But he curses the man's work. And he says, you know what, from now on, you're going to deal with thorns and thistles.

Everything, all the food that you gain is going to be by the sweat of your face. What a vivid image, that you're going to have to work and toil.

And everything that you got so easily in the garden is going to come much, much harder now. And I've thought about that answer for years.

Just thinking how that is in some ways, I think reflective, or reflected in the mindset of most

Christians. That the reason why I work, and the reason why I have to work so hard is because I live in this fallen world.

And we begin to attribute the difficulty with sin, so that we attribute the work itself to sin.

So that the work itself becomes, we would say, a necessary evil. But was work created to be a necessary evil?

If we look even earlier than Genesis chapter 3, we see that it was not.

That God designed us for work long before there was ever sin in the world. In Genesis chapter 1, in verse 26.

If you go there, we'll spend a moment or two in Genesis. In Genesis 1, 26, we read about this design.

In verse 26, God says, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

That before there was ever sin, man was given a job, a task, a stewardship, that he was to exercise dominion over all of creation.

Now, some might say, well, I mean, how do we know for sure that that's work? Well, let's look to Genesis 2, and verse 15 there.

Where we read, the Lord God took man and put him in the to work it, and to keep it.

So that man was given a creation mandate to work, and to keep. So that long before sin came into the world, or at least one chapter before sin came in the world, man was made to work, to be a gardener, and a caretaker of Eden.

And sin, and the subsequent curse, did not erase this mandate, because the very thing that God deals with after sin, is how that very mandate has been changed, but yet still remains in effect.

So that we should not be surprised as we make our way through Scripture. When you get to Proverbs, how many

Proverbs there are. Oh, sluggard, consider the ant, consider his work.

We read a text yesterday, how we should come to the preaching of God's Word with an appetite.

And I read a text about the sluggard, who puts his hand in the dish, but doesn't have enough energy to bring the hand to his mouth.

That we were made to work, and to have a solid work ethic. To work diligently, to plan, to look ahead, to work.

Or as we looked at this text in our study in 2 Thessalonians, a few months ago. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

But whether it is because of man's stubbornness, or our foolishness, or our laziness, a sound theology of work has often been lost in the church.

And it's interesting, you can chart this historically. So that we see when the

Lord comes, and we'll speak about his work in a point coming up. But the Lord comes, he establishes his church.

His church increases. Under persecution, his church endures great hardship. Many are martyred.

And the early Christians, they looked up to those martyrs. They wanted to be faithful like those martyrs.

And then as Christianity is accepted, it becomes the official religion of the empire. And the persecution stops.

Then all the people, what did they begin to do in their comfort? But they look up to the nuns, and they look up to the monks, and they say,

I want to do something better than work. I want to sit there, and think, and pray, and not touch anything, and not do anything.

And talk about this noonday devil that tells me that I should, maybe I should do something. But last note,

I want to sit and contemplate. And what we see is this increases over time in Roman Catholicism.

So that the monks and the nuns are this venerated class of people. And it really reaches its pinnacle in the 12th century.

We read it in people like Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas. Bernard of Clairvaux, he says, worldly occupations, secular occupations, are full of anxieties and distractions.

So here you are as a 12th century farmer, a monk who sits around all day looking at his theological navel.

And he's saying, don't you know, your work is not that important. It's just full of distractions. And he goes on, that this distraction of work scatters the mind and hinders

Christians from their pursuit of God. And then a few years pass, and Thomas Aquinas comes.

And he says, the contemplative life is simply more excellent than the active.

So that the man in the collar, the theologian, comes to the farmer and says, you know,

I know you work every day to feed me, but my job's just more important than yours. Well, let me tell you,

Thomas, how are you going to contemplate without your bread? And what happened when the Reformation came then, is it really was a discovery, not only of the wonders of justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, but it was a rediscovery of vocation and of work.

And they did not see the clergy as being superior to the people because everyone's work mattered.

So that when Martin Luther came, he said this, and listen to these words. What refreshing words these must have been to those people who lived, as it were, as subpar citizens under the excellencies of the clergy.

He said, the maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays.

Not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps, but because God loves clean floors.

The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes because God is interested in good craftsmanship.

Have you ever thought that God has created you to work, and that every one of us, so long as it is honorable, obedient work that ultimately serves people, does not tear them down or undo them, it is good work worthy of your time, worthy to be spent.

Now, I've established, as I usually do, a thick foundation. Now we're going to look at the

Christian at his work. And we see this in the second part of verse one.

That those bond servants, these slaves, they're to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.

It says at the end of verse two, speaking about their relation, if they should have Christian masters, that they might benefit their masters by their good service, because their masters are believers and beloved.

I want you to chart something with me. That word honor. Have we seen that word already before in First Timothy?

We saw it in First Timothy chapter five in verse three, speaking about honoring widows.

We're to show honor to widows. We saw it again in First Timothy chapter five in verse 17, when we see that we're to give double honor to elders.

This is remarkable. So widows are owed honor, good elders are owed double honor, and then masters, or our employers, are worthy of all honor.

Isn't that interesting? That sometimes I think that you would probably be inclined to think this. That the way you treat the widows in our church, or the way that you interact with the elders, is more important than the way that you interact with your employers, with your middle level managers that always have an extra policy to bring you in on, with all the extra memos, and all the extra challenges that God actually cares.

That not only do we engage in pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God, by helping orphans and widows in their distress.

Not only do we honor and esteem those who serve as the elders among us, but that we show all honor to our employers even.

What a remarkable thing. What a remarkable counter -cultural instruction this is.

That regardless of the venue, regardless of the circumstance, the Christian is to act honorably in every respect.

And because I worked in the, if I can say it this way, not to create this divide, but just that the secular world, the working world for nearly 20 years before I entered into full -time ministry,

I know what it's like to be one way on Sunday, and then to be another way on Monday.

I know what it's like to get up, and to go to work, and to work amongst unbelievers who love to gossip, and swear, and complain, and grumble, and moan, and do who knows what.

And just how much of an influence that can be when that is the air that you live, and move, and have your being in.

But I want you to see that God cares about your work. He cares about how you work.

He cares about your attitude at work. And I want to ask you, when you think about your work, the way that you conduct yourself at work, would your conduct be best described as honorable?

That if a whole handful of brothers and sisters from the church were to come and just secretly shadow you at work, and they see the way that you talk, and they see the way that you act, and what you're doing when no one's looking, and your work ethic, is it an honorable work that you are engaged in?

Now some might ask, what does it mean to show all honor? What does it mean to be honorable?

I like what Joel Beakey says. He says, to honor your employer is to engage in an honest subjection to them.

To be obedient to their lawful orders. That's key, their lawful orders.

It is to show reverence and respect expressed by words and gestures, so that you speak to them in a way that communicates honor.

John MacArthur, he says, it is to be diligent and faithful in your labor for one's employer.

And how unnaturally this comes to all of us, I think. As I speak about my own experience of being discipled by the culture, isn't it so easy when we are at work and people, everyone is complaining about the new policy.

Everyone is complaining about this new process that we have to do. Don't they understand, you know, the people that make these decisions, they haven't done this job in 20 years.

And here they are making decisions that affect my work immediately. We're surrounded by people who complain about long hours, and overtime, and inflexibility, or the personalities of employers.

And how it is that we are so often discipled to think like them about work.

But here we're to show all honor to our employers. I would say even irrespective of the quality of their leadership, or the worthiness of subjection and respect to them.

Some might say, where do we find that? Well, if we look at first Peter chapter two, in verse 18, we see another text directed to servants.

First Peter 2 .18, servants be subject to your masters. Listen to this, with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also the unjust.

For this is a gracious thing, when mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.

For what credit is it, if when you sin are beaten for it you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

For to this you have been called. You've been called to this. Why? How? Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed. Brothers and sisters, it is a good thing, even when you have an unjust employer, even when you have an unwise employer, even when there are honest criticisms that can be leveled against that employer, to do good work for them and to show them honor.

John Gill writes about this. He says, whether they be believers or unbelievers, whether they be good and gentle, kind and humane, or whether they be froward, peevish, and ill -natured, we honor them in that respect.

And if our perfect Lord Jesus could endure such unjust suffering, how much more ought we to be willing to do the same?

I would encourage you, brothers and sisters, I want you to stand out in your workplaces. I want people to see you and to have a reason to ask for the reason for the hope that is within you.

And one of the key ways that you can do that, if you want to stand out yesterday amongst your unbelieving peers, if you want to stand out in the midst of a crowd, it doesn't matter how big your office is, how big the work site is, make a covenant with your lips never to complain again.

And people will look at you as some kind of strange creature. What is this?

This man or this woman who refuses to curse our boss despite this decision?

It doesn't mean that we don't have a suggestion that might be helpful to our boss.

It doesn't mean that we just become mute fools. But what I'm speaking about is giving up complaining and when someone asks you, you'll

Dave Ramsey answer, right? You know, how are you today? Better than I deserve. What about this new policy?

Well, I don't agree with it, but I'm willing to give it a try, right?

I'm willing to do this. I'm willing to do that, to seek to have the best attitude, to guard your tongue, to watch your speech, so that your employer will begin to look at you and say, what is different about this person?

And should someone ask what the difference is? And you say, well, I am a Christian. They begin saying, I want to hire more

Christians. If this is what a Christian looks like. That we should make much of the

Lord in our attitude. I think that's what Paul is getting at here, showing all honor. And we should make much of the

Lord in our manner of work. We see it in Ephesians six and verse five. Bond servants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would

Christ. Not by way of eye service, as people pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

So that we understand that when we're doing our work, we're not just doing the will of our boss, when we're doing our work well, in an honorable and just way, we are doing the will of God.

Rendering service with a goodwill to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the

Lord. There's a paycheck waiting for you that is much better than anything you're going to see on your pay stub.

Anything you're going to see in the bank account. Or in Colossians three, in verse 22.

Bond servants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service. We see it again, as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the

Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the

Lord and not for a man, knowing that from the 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, and there is no partiality.

If ever there was a reason for excellence in our work, this is surely it.

That everything that we do, whether you are a plumber, or an electrician, or a social worker, or a musician, or an accountant, or an investor, or a miner, or whatever it is, wherever the

Lord has you, that you can serve him. And the work that you are doing, so long as it is good and just work is done for the

Lord, and that he will repay you. I'm telling you, having been an employer before,

I have seen Christians in some respects do this so, so well.

And people actually notice. I remember, it was about a decade ago, establishing, it's interesting that we're just across the road from it, but establishing a residential program across the road for people with disabilities and staffing it.

And by God's grace, the Lord saved Steve there. And we had a, we had a, in some ways, work felt like a

Bible study while we were working, just talking about the Lord. And people would come in and say, there's something different about this program.

It's just, there's a peacefulness. The house is clean. The clients are actually loved and cared well for.

And I remember one of my bosses asking a question, we had built a wheelchair ramp for the family member of one of our clients.

And my boss's boss said, why would they do this? And I remember answering in my email, it's because we want to do everything well for the

Lord Jesus Christ. That he gets the glory for it. So if the

Lord has called you to be a chef, or an accountant, or a typist, or a pharmacy technician, or a student in the season of your life, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all of your might, rendering that service to the

Lord. And mothers in the room, lest you think that I'm here,

I'm going to bring in, I'm not sure what wave of feminism it is, but I'm here to tell you, you know, your work at home is not that valuable.

Go and get a job in the real world. I'm not here to tell you that. That your work, you're engaged in one of the most difficult, in one of the most noble, and in one of the most noble kinds of work that there is.

And the Lord uses the same word to describe it. When Paul writes to Titus in Titus 2 in verse 3, older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanders or slaves to much wine.

They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self -controlled, pure, what, working at home, kind and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.

That it is a noble thing, brothers, if the Lord has called you to go and to work outside of the home, to in a balanced way, so as not to neglect your family, to pour yourself into the work.

So if the Lord makes you a janitor, let's say that you are the world's best janitor.

You just, you get every corner. And it's not because you sing hymns while you do it, but it's because the

Lord loves a clean floor. It's because the Lord is honored. He has made you, at least for this season, for this purpose.

And that you can exalt Him in it. And if the Lord has made you a mother, and you're dealing with the third blowout diaper of the day, that the

Lord has, He has given you this very task to conform you to the image of His Son.

And the work, though your co -workers may not be able to speak to you yet, it is one of the most important works in the world.

I remember a brother who is an elder in one of the churches that we belong to previously. And he would go to the mothers, and he would say to them, he would say, you have the most important job.

And certainly for that child, is it not true? When you look at the history of godly men who have come out, who have been missionaries, and pastors, and world shakers,

I would challenge you in almost every occasion, look at their mothers, and the impact that their mothers had on them.

So brothers and sisters, not only were we created to work, but we were created to do excellent work.

And to what aim? To what end? Well, we see the aim of Christian work in the first half, or the second half of verse one.

So that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.

It's interesting, he's writing to Christian slaves who may or may not be working for a

Christian master, who may not be under a Christian master. And yet we see the purpose.

That the purpose of all good work, as it were, is a missionary purpose. To frame it negatively, that the name of the

Lord would not be reviled. Or to frame it positively, that the name of the

Lord would be exalted. That God would have the glory that is rightfully due

God. That He made you. We think about this with money. We think, you know, this is not my money, and so I need to be mindful of how

I steward it. And I don't think that we think about that with our time, and with our energy. But when we go to work, we are taking

God's time, and God's energy, and we are taking it to work. And we ought to seek to do

God's will for God's glory. So that when we end up in our workplaces, what is our aim?

But it is God's name. It is His fame. It is His glory. It is that people would see us and exalt the living and true

God. That people would see us, as I said, and say, that man is different. And when they ask you, why are you different?

You say, His name is Jesus Christ. He saved me from my sins. He made me

His own. He's called me to be a carpenter, and I am going to be a carpenter with all of my might, to the glory of my

God. So that whatever you do, whether you eat, or drink, or whatever, you do it all to the glory of God.

Or as Matthew 5, the Lord says in Matthew 5, 16, in the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works, and give glory to your

Father who is in heaven. And I want to tell you, I think we all know this in theory, don't we?

But how well do we know it in practice? This actually takes a cultivating kind of mindset.

We need to cultivate this view that whatever I'm doing right now, I'm writing this report.

I despise these kinds of reports. I am going to do it to the glory of God. And there's a picture of this in the life of Martin Luther.

One day, he came to a construction site. You'll find out what kind of construction site is in a moment.

But he asked one of the bricklayers, he said to him, what are you doing? And the man replied,

I'm laying bricks. And Luther said, excellent. He went to the next man who was laying bricks, and he asked him, he said, and what are you doing?

And that bricklayer said, I'm building a cathedral to the glory of God. Two men doing the exact same job, two completely different mindsets.

One, I'm going brick by brick by brick. The other one says, I'm going brick by brick by brick for God's glory.

And Luther said to him, we ought to have ordination services for bricklayers. We ought to have ordination services for whatever work it is that you do.

Because your work is just as valuable as this work that I'm engaged in now. That we're all seeking to make much of the glory of God.

And we're to do this so that the teaching may not be reviled. To quote from John Gill again, he says, so that unbelieving masters should not be able to say about their believing servants that they are refractory, disobedient, rebellious, or respectful.

That they should be apt to say, what a God do these men serve? Is this their religion?

Is this the gospel they talk of? Does their doctrine teach them such things to be disobedient to their masters and carry it disrespectfully to them?

Does it disengage them from the laws of nature and dissolve the bonds of civil society and destroy the relation that subsists between man and man?

If this be the case, away with their God and away with their doctrine.

I'll tell you one of the most shameful things that I have seen. I spoke about operating a residence.

And so as an employer, a supervisor, and a middle level manager, I would hire people.

And I never hired anyone because they were a Christian. But every once in a while, you hire someone and they let you know in the interview that they are a

Christian. And I must admit, I'm seeking to be neutral, but I'm excited that this person is a

Christian. I hire them based on their merits, and they come as a Christian, and I'm excited to see how that manifests itself in their work.

And to have them come as an employee to an employer and say, praise God, I'm here working for a believing employer.

He's gracious. He's lenient. He's flexible. He understands the balance that should be in a person's life.

And they come to work, and they do a terrible job, and everyone sees it. And what's even worse is when they do a terrible job, everyone sees it, and we hear the music that they're listening to, and it's praise and worship music.

So that people go, is this what a Christian does? I recall us hiring people to care for.

I used to say it was one of the most important jobs. It was a nighttime job. You worked overnight outside of the sight of everyone, but it really manifests the care that we have for people because we're cleaning their homes.

We're cleaning their space. We're setting out their food. We're doing what is required outside of the sight of anyone.

And I would tell them, you have the most important job. And then for my colleagues, unbelieving colleagues to come and find them listening to some prophet, or prayer, or some kind of praise music, and they've done nothing that they were asked to do.

That causes their doctrine to be reviled. That causes

God's name to be reviled. Titus chapter 2 says, verse 9, bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.

They are to be well -pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, not showing, but showing all good, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our

Savior. That our work is either adorning our doctrine for good, or it's adorning our doctrine for bad, but it is adorning it.

And if we need still more motive to work hard, to work with fear to God unto the

Lord, we need to look no further than our Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to see someone who exalted

God in his work, whose work adorned rightly the doctrine, it is the

Lord Jesus. In Mark chapter 6 and verse 3, we read, they asked the question, is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joseph, and Judas, and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?

And they took offense at him. They asked, is this not the carpenter? We see that the Lord Jesus.

Think about this for a moment. Every time you think, maybe the Lord doesn't understand how difficult this job is.

That the eternal God, God of very gods, light of very lights, the one who spoke all things into being, who created and sustained all things, by whom, and through whom, and for whom all things have been made.

He comes to the world. He's born as an infant in flesh.

He experiences childhood as a human being. He reaches the age of adulthood, and he becomes a carpenter, and he works with his hands, so that he is known by the people as a carpenter.

But God himself came and worked a day job. What a thought.

If you think the Lord Jesus cannot relate to you, you are dead wrong. And that even was not his most important work.

That his work started before the foundation of the world. So that he was, as he was interacting with the religious leaders of the day, he answered them.

He said, my father is working until now, and I am working. Or to read about his work, that when we speak about Christ, what do we talk about?

But we speak about the person and work of Jesus Christ. In Philippians 2 and verse 7, he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.

Being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

See this parallel with me. That because of the curse, man had to work the ground by the sweat of his face.

Let me take you to another garden, where we see an image of the curse with our

Lord Jesus in the garden. And what is coming from him, but the sweat of his face.

But it is not the drops of his own perspiration, it is the drops of his blood. And there he goes, on our behalf, to the cross, to take the penalty that we deserve, to die in our stead, to take the curse.

So that one day, though we work today, we will have rest for an eternity, and in a resting and working for eternity.

So every time you feel that you need strength, and vigor, and help to work to the glory of God, look to the great workmen, the

Lord Jesus, who travailed on your behalf. So that your work doesn't end in an eternity in hell, but your work ends in an eternity of glory, with rewards given by the

Father. So that sinners can go to work and say, the

Lord made me to do this, and I'm going to work for him. And we can work hard, and we can work for the glory of God.

And we can do it unto him, not by way of eye service as a people pleaser, but as unto the

Lord. And he rewards the work of sinful men for all of eternity. And all because Christ worked for us.

So brothers and sisters, let me call you. We're going to leave that door over the next few hours.

As you go out the door, front door, whatever it is, you go that door and you say, Lord, give me help, that I might go to my workplace, that I might go to the change table, that I might go wherever it is that you have called me to work, and let me work for your glory.

The Puritan pastor, a man named John Carter, he once went and he visited a tanner, who is busily employed in his work of tanning, right?

Tanning hides. It's not a romantic work. I'm sure, you know, back in the

Puritan era, it didn't look that great, it didn't smell that great. And Carter came up behind him and just pleasantly tapped the man on the shoulder.

And the man looked startled and kind of blustered. And his face went red. And he said, Sir, I'm ashamed that you would find me in this way.

And Carter responded, brother, let Christ, when he comes, find me so doing.

And then the man looked at him and said, doing this? And Carter said, yes, faithfully performing the duties of my calling.

Whatever the Lord has called you to do, do it with all of your might. And when the

Lord finds you, let him find you fulfilling that calling, whatever it is that he's put before you.

We have one third of our lives to spend at work.

It's not one third of our lives sentenced to a cell. It's one third of our lives given as an opportunity to make much of the name of our

God. You don't need to wonder what you're going to do with that one third. It's laid out for you.

Go to that one third or more or less, whatever it is and make much of Christ.

Let's ask for his help to do that. 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

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GraceEdmonton .ca. We pray that you have been blessed by this recording. God bless you, and we hope to see you soon.