Applying the Gospel to the Workplace

Lord, what ought to be happening in the years to come is. That there are people, there are souls that are saved. There are people that actually come into the church. Because they worked with a Christian from this church.

And were drawn to the gospel as they saw the beauty of the gospel displayed in that believer's life. We actually have people in this church body, Lord, that are in this church body and have been saved by the grace of God as a result of the influence of a coworker. Who attends this church. And may there be even more of that, Lord.

May we be a light in the places where you have put us. Lord, we've thought about these things today in this message, but we got so much more thinking to do. Help each one of us, whether we have people over us or under us or both, to really pray through how we can fully flesh out. This passage in our lives.

We just give ourselves to You, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen. It's good to be back, with you guys, worshiping with you and opening up the word to you this morning. So let me have you guys turn in your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians, chapter 6.

And I want to start off by telling you guys one of my favorite all-time stories. Is that OK? No? OK, the story is told of a man who was applying for a job as a railroad traffic engineer.

If he were to have gotten a job, it would have been his job to run the train depot to make sure trains were arriving on time, leaving on time, and that the trains were on the right track so as to avoid collisions. And as he was being interviewed in the latter part of the interview, the interviewer wanted to try to discern how good this guy was at thinking on his feet in emergency situations, and so he posed the following hypothetical scenario. He said, what would you do if there was a train heading eastbound at 100 miles an hour and another train heading westbound at 100 miles an hour?

Both of them are on the same track about 10 miles apart.

So you've got two trains heading towards each other on the same track 10 miles apart. If something is not done quickly, then these two trains are going to have a head-on collision. What would you do in that situation? Well, the man furrowed his brow and scratched his chin reflectively and pondered for a moment, and after a few moments, his eyes brightened and he said to the interviewer, I know what I would do.

In a situation like that, the first thing I would do is go get my little brother. Go get your little brother, the interviewer exclaimed. That's random. Why would you go get your little brother in a situation like that?

The man replied, Well, because my little brother ain't never seen a train wreck before. I love that story. I don't think that interview actually ever took place, but if it did, I don't think the guy got the job. Today though, I want to preach to those of you who have been through a job interview and the interview went well, or at least well enough for the company to desire to hire you, what did I say, desire for the company to decide to hire you.

With the result being that you are presently employed and you have a job. if that describes you, then I want to preach to you today from Ephesians chapter 6, verses 5 through, 9. There is much in this passage for us. When you think about it, guys, there's an incredible amount of variety just in our church body, in terms of jobs that, that we have.

Some of you work outdoors, others of you work indoors. Some of you have a really nice, office. That would be the envy of other people in the church. Some of you work at home.

That's your office, and some of you work in a small cubicle surrounded by hundreds of other, offices. Some of you do manual labor and some of you are clicking at a computer keyboard. all day. Some of you work for a Christian company, or maybe it's not a Christian company, but there's other Christian employees that can be a source of encouragement to you, and others of you are working in a very dark place where there are few, if any, people who know the Lord that can be.

A source of inspiration and encouragement to you. Some of you love your boss, and it's a joy to go in and work for your boss. And when your boss says I need such and such done, you happily do that because you love your boss and you think a lot of him or of her. some of you don't think a lot of your boss, and, your boss is very unpleasant to work for and to work, with.

some of you love your job, and as you go to work each day, you feel the satisfaction of just feeling like this is what I was born for and trained for, and you don't want to do anything else even if you could, but others of you feel stuck in your job, and if you could do anything other than what you're doing, you would gladly do it, but nonetheless, for whatever reason, you are stuck in this employment situation, right now. Some of you, have people under you. That, you are responsible for, that you need to tell them what they are supposed to be doing from day to day, and they answer to you, and, some of you, are at the bottom of the totem pole, and there's no one under you, but there's a lot of people over you who are telling you what to do and holding you to account each day.

Some of you get paid, a lot of money.

You love what you're getting paid. You have no complaints about that at all, and others of you are not getting paid nearly what you think that your work, deserves. and so there's a lot of variety, just even in this church body, but what I do know for a fact is that regardless of your job situation, whether indoors or outdoors, whether it's full time or part time, I do know that God wants to speak to you this morning from this exact passage that we're going to be looking at here in Ephesians chapter 6, verses 5, through 9.

And guys, the truth is I was running the math on this this week that if you, if you think about just the average person who works at a career over the length of his working life, the amount of time that a person spends in the workplace amounts to by the time he retires about 16 waking years.

Of your life. That doesn't count the commuting to work, and, from work, I commute about 10 minutes each way. Some of you commute over an hour, so you add that time, to your work day and it takes up even more of your life. you think about your training.

You went to a tech school or a college or university and those years of your life were spent getting geared up and trained to do a job. And when you think about it, A huge portion of our life, is consumed with this thing called work and so we would hope God has something to say. to our work situation, and we are blessed to see a passage like we're coming to today where God does speak to us in the workplace, and the title of the message this morning is going to be Applying the Gospel to the Workplace.

Applying the gospel to the workplace.

Now, 2 weeks ago, we dealt with this passage as literally as we could and we saw that Paul is speaking to slaves as well as To masters and we looked at it in that context, dealt with some of the ethical issues with regard to slavery. What we're going to do today, since no one in this room is a slave and since no one in this room is a master. because of that fact, we're going to take what Paul says in this passage, and we're going to apply it to employees and employers. We're going to apply it to those of you who are underneath other people in authority in the workplace, and we're going to apply verse 9 to those of you that are over other people in the workplace.

And I love what MacArthur says about this passage. He says, Paul's teaching here in Ephesians 6. Applies to every business owner and every worker. If Paul were speaking to us today and understanding that there's no slavery, he would speak to employees and employers in our situation today.

And so let me read verses 5 through 9 and then we'll begin to break it down. Verses 5 through 8, he talks to employees. He talks to those that work underneath other people in the workplace, and Say slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling and the sincerity of your heart as to Christ, not by way of eye service as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. With goodwill, render service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.

Now, verse 9, he speaks to any of you that are over people in the workplace, and masters, do the same things to them and give up threatening, knowing that both their master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with God. Well, first of all, we're going to spend most of our time on verses 5 through 8 looking at what Paul says to those of you that are underneath other people in the workplace, and the overarching command that dominates verses 5 through 8 is, and here's his, basically one instruction to you, and that is obey those who are over you.

Obey those who are over you. If you don't like your job and you don't want to obey or submit, then quit your job and get another job, but as long as you're in a, Contractual relationship with that company, you basically have made a commitment that you will submit to and do what those over you are instructing you to do.

Paul would say follow through with that commitment as long as you are employed by that company and obey those who are over you. Look at what he says in verse 5, slaves be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh. Now the word be obedient is the same Greek word that we saw in chapter 6, verse 1 where it says, children, obey your parents. And we saw back then that the word obey is a compound word.

It's the word listen combined with the word under. It literally means to listen under. And so Paul would command you as a worker to arrange yourself underneath the authority and the leadership of those that are over you, and to listen to what they say, to look for them to speak when they do speak, you listen to what they say. And then you actually do what they say.

You obey their instructions. That's what it means when Paul says be obedient to those that are over you. You may say, well, Pastor Milton, that's easy for you to say, and it's probably easy for many to do because they have a boss that is good and gentle and a great person to work for, but, does this passage apply to me because my boss is a jerk? Would it apply to someone like me?

Well, actually, the Bible covers that exact situation. In 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 18, Peter says, servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. So even if you have people over you that are just Unreasonable. They're harsh and they're terrible people, sinful people, and not a pleasure to work for.

You are still, as long as you are employed there, to listen under them and to do what it is that they tell you to do. Now, here's where we're going to spend the bulk of our time. Fortunately, Paul does not just stop there and just say, obey those who are over you and then move on. Paul knows us well enough to know that we would look at that command and we would obey, but we would not obey in the right way.

I could say to one of my children, go upstairs and clean your room, and they can disobey me and say, Sorry, Dad, I'm not going to do that, and that's disobedience, or they could go up and obey, but as they're obeying, I give them the instruction and they roll their eyes and they throw up their arms and you're always telling me what to do and they're just complaining and huffing and puffing up the stairs and they clean their room. I walk in sometime later and it's totally clean.

They've obeyed me, but am I going to be happy with the way they went about obeying? No, I'm going to sit them down and talk to them about the way they went about obeying.

And so Paul knows us. He knows that if he doesn't say a little more than this, we're going to like obey, but we're not going to obey those over us in the right manner. And so Paul gives 5 descriptions of what ought to characterize your obedience to those that are over you in the workplace, 5 very clear descriptions. Description number 1, this is amazing.

He says you are to obey those under you with fear and trembling. He uses those words. Look at this, slaves be obedient to those who are your masters, according to the flesh with fear and trembling. That's very strong language there.

Now Paul is not saying you need to be fearful of your human boss and what they might be able to do to you. What he's saying is you need to obey and do what they tell you to do with the utmost seriousness and conscientiousness, the utmost seriousness and conscientiousness. In other words, you must really care about your job and about the job that you do and about how you respond to and carry out the wishes of those that are over you in The workplace, you may still say, well, I don't get why he's got to use such strong language, with fear and trembling.

Well, at this point that's understandable that you would not comprehend that, but let the passage unfold itself and you'll begin to realize it will reveal itself in terms of why you ought to take what you do in the workplace with such seriousness, with fear and trembling.

Your attitude may be right now that you don't really care about your job or how you are on your job, you're going to learn today that God cares very much about your job and about how you behave on the job. So, the first description is you do what those over you are instructing you to do with fear and trembling, but then there's a second description, and on the screen is a literal translation of this, and that is not just with fear and trembling, but with singleness of heart. That's literally, What the Greek word means with singleness of heart.

And if you have the King James Version, I believe that translation says singleness in it.

So with singleness of heart, the new American Standard translates this in the sincerity of your heart, and they put the word sincerity there by way of translating this word. And certainly sincerity is an idea that is embodied in this. You need to be a sincere, genuine employee to where your, there's Version of you and the version of you in the presence of your boss is the same version of you when you're not in your boss's direct presence, and your boss can count on you to be the same when he's not around or she's not around as you are when they might be around.

And so there is sincerity that we need to have, but I want to suggest to you a translation of this that goes like this and the generosity of your heart.

the word singleness, when it's used in the New Testament, often has the idea of generosity. In fact, in Romans 12:8, Paul says, Let him who gives give with singleness. What does that mean? All of your translations say with liberality or with generosity.

In context of giving and generosity. The word singleness is used in 2 Corinthians 82, and chapter 9, verses 11 and 13, and all of those passages without dispute, it has the clear idea of generosity or liberality, and let's apply that here. Paul is saying, obey those who are over you with a generosity of heart. This is a staggering instruction.

Paul is talking to slaves, and he's saying, slaves, be generous to your masters. Isn't that strange? We would expect him to save the whole generosity bit until he talks to masters, but he's commanding slaves, he's commanding employees to be generous towards those that are over them. We have employees in our society today who are obsessed with how generous those over them are being towards them, how generous the company is being towards them, and if the company is not being generous enough, man, people are going to hear about it, and I'm not saying there's no room to think about that, but how much time do we spend?

Evaluating how generous we're being. Towards the company that we work for. How generous are we being towards those that are over us? You say, well, OK, I got to do this with generosity of heart, but if I'm going to be generous, what is it that I'm generous with?

Well, let me give you some ideas. Be generous towards those over you with grace. Be generous in giving grace to those who are over you. Be generous in giving forgiveness and understanding towards those that are over you.

Be generous in granting the benefit of the doubt to those that are over you. One of the things that stunned me when I was 19 years old and I got my first job in a secular workplace, I'm working in this factory in the shop area. I was stunned by how much. The employees criticized the management.

That was just, it was just almost a rite of passage. Everybody does that and how they criticize the production manager and the general manager and even the owner of the company when they weren't around. And I, I began to just observe that when I started working there. I couldn't believe how common it was, and it seemed to me like a, a weak backhanded way of complimenting oneself.

Do you realize that when you criticize other people, you're basically in a roundabout way trying to applaud yourself. You're saying I would never do that. When you run other people down, you're trying to make yourself look better. And so, God would say, be generous towards those over you, even be generous in giving grace and the benefit of the doubt to those that work alongside of you, your fellow employees.

Running other people down is very common in the workplace. It's the way some people try to get ahead. When I was in the secular workplace, I started off on the day shift, and you should have heard the way the day shift talked about the night shift. They were all a bunch of idiots and if the day shift came in and something was out of place or there was something that they didn't quite understand, their automatic assumption was that the night shift were idiots.

That's why this has happened. They gave no benefit of the doubt, no grace to those on the night shift, and I didn't know the guys on the night shift, so I actually started to think, well, maybe they really are this way. Well, it wasn't long before I became the production manager of the night shift. You should have heard the way the night shift talked about the day shift.

It was amazing, exactly the same way, no benefit of the doubt that was granted to the people in the other shift. This type of running of other people down, giving no grace to other people, is absolutely common in the workplace. but you as a Christian ought to be generous in giving grace, forgiveness, understanding, and the benefit of the doubt to those that work over you, and to those that work around you. And you also should be generous in terms of giving your time and your energy to those that you work for, to the company that you worked for.

I would even encourage you guys to do something. One of the things that, like I studied this passage when I was 19 along with a few others, and I wrote down the lessons I learned because I was working in a place I didn't want to work at. It was a hellhole to me and a bunch of immoral, filthy people, the, the profanity that I was exposed to. I could not wait to get out of there, to go to college, to train for the ministry.

I could not wait to get into the ministry to where there would be no problems with people. And so in my heart, as a 19 year old, I'm like longing for that day and I wanted to be anywhere other than where I was, but I sat down and I studied Ephesians 6:59, Colossians 31 Peter 3, and some passages in the book of Proverbs. I wrote down the lessons that I learned in an outline form and I put a title at the top that said, My philosophy of Work. And as a 19-year-old, I just said, God, by your grace, I'm going to apply this.

I couldn't believe the difference it made in my outlook towards my job from day to day, and this is one of the things that made a difference, this spirit of being generous of heart, not just generous in giving grace and forgiveness, understanding and the benefit of the doubt, but being generous with your time and your energy. If you're supposed to be at work at 8 o'clock, arrive early. one of the things that I did is the principle where Jesus says, where your treasure is, that's where your heart will be.

one of the things that I tried to do was I, I began to think, OK, if I can invest some treasure in this company, then my heart will really be in my work.

And so I had to clock in and out, but one of the things I did is on my way to work, I would start thinking about my job and praying over what I knew I had to do for that day to where my heart had already arrived 10 minutes before I physically arrived. And then sometimes I didn't do this all the time, but just to help my heart, instead of going in and clocking in right away, I would go out into the shop without clocking in and scope out what needed to be done. and do that for 10 or 15 minutes and then clock in, and I felt in doing that that what I had just done is I had just donated 1015 minutes of my time to the company.

I was entitled every morning to a 12 minute break and every afternoon to a 12 minute break, and I usually took all of those breaks, but there were times where just to help my heart attitude, I would skip those breaks, and when I did so, I felt like I was donating 12 minutes of my time to the company.

And it helped my heart attitude towards my work, where your treasure is, that's where your heart is going to be. And so you don't want to be the employee that if you need to be at a meeting at 8:00 that you arrive at 8:05 or right at 8:00, but you get there early, you'd be generous with your time, with your energy. With the passion that you give to your work, your goal as an employee ought to be this. It should not be that I just want to do most of what my boss expects of me.

You want to do all of what your boss expects, and not only that, you want to generously exceed what they expect. You are working with a generosity of heart. Now again, it's interesting that Paul tells us as employees to be generous towards those over us and around us and the company that we work for, and you may respond by saying, Milton, my company does not deserve my generosity. My boss does not deserve my generosity in this way.

I don't feel like being generous. Well, this is why you need to take the gospel to work with you. Has God been generous to you? There's a reason Paul talks about this in Ephesians 6.

Because in Ephesians 1234 and 5, Paul has told us about how generous God has been. Towards us lavishing the exceeding riches of His grace upon us, and did we deserve it? No, but we have a God whom Paul says has done exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think. And so, Can we do beyond all that we're asked of those that are over us in the workplace?

Why are we generous? We're generous of heart because we are the recipients of a great generosity from a God from whom we should have received eternal judgment. And so don't walk out of here and say, all right, I'm going to be generous and I'm going to suck it up and try to be generous. Don't do that.

You walk out of here resolved to take the gospel to work with you. You live and breathe the atmosphere of the gospel, and what will happen? You will catch yourself being generous. You cannot help but be generous.

When you're living and breathing the reality of the generosity of God and His grace towards you and the riches that you have in Christ. So, how should you obey? You should obey with fear and trembling. You should obey with a generosity of heart.

You should also, description number 3, obey with the mindset of serving Jesus. You realize when you go to work, you're serving Jesus, that technically, you're more employed by Him than you actually are by your earthly bosses. Look at this. Verse 5, slaves be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and the sincerity or generosity of your heart as to Christ.

In other words, you serve those over you. As if you're serving Jesus. How would you respond to an instruction, if that instruction were coming from Jesus himself? Your boss tells you, you take out this trash, clean this up, take out this trash as menial and mundane as that is.

If you're doing that for Jesus, doesn't that make a difference? Your boss may be an unpleasant person. Your boss may come to you and say, I need you to do this and this and this, and you're like chafing inside. I don't want to do this.

And when you're feeling like that, you turn and you look at Jesus, and you watch Jesus as he says, I heard what he said. Do it. Do it for me. You can do it for me, can't you?

Oh, yeah. Jesus, when I think about what you've done for me, All that you've given to me, the ways that you've loved me. You want me to do this for you? Yeah.

It changes everything. So here Jesus beckoned you to do everything that you do for him. Look at verse 6. Paul elaborates on this, not by way of eye service as men pleasers.

Yeah, you want to please your boss, but that's not really what you're after, but you're a slave of Christ. Employed by him. He's the one you're really seeking to please, and you're doing the will of God from the heart. The exciting thing about this, and this made a huge difference, when I was in the secular workplace was to view every task that I did, even if it's taking out the trash.

And in that moment, I'm doing it, I'm saying to myself, this is the will of God. I am doing the will of God. So people spend all their lives trying to find the will of God and discover the will of God when it's all around them. When you do the most mundane task, you are doing the very will of God.

Jesus says, do that, and do it for me. And when you're doing it, know that you're doing the very will of God in that moment. And so as you go to work, don't say goodbye to Jesus on Sunday night. Say, well, the Lord's day is just about over and Jesus doesn't say to you, this has been a good day.

I'll see you next Sunday. Oh, he goes to work with you. And you're employed by him. And so you serve him.

Everything you do, you're doing it for him, and everything you do is the will of God. We need to think this way, even out of the workplace. Ladies, even though you're not employed, you are very much employed at home. You work very hard day in and day out, but apply this.

All of us should apply this in our places of work, John Stott says it is possible for the housewife to cook a meal as if Jesus were going to eat it. Wives, how would you cook if you were cooking for Jesus? Let's just linger there for a moment. OK.

Moving on. Or to spring clean the house as if Jesus were to be the honored guest. It is possible for teachers to educate children, for doctors to treat patients and nurses to care for them, for solicitors to help clients, shop assistants to serve customers, accountants to audit books, and secretaries to type letters as if in each case they were serving Christ. You, you realize that it's not so much about you and your boss, that's a factor, but it's about you and your heavenly boss.

And that is Jesus. You do everything for him. Listen to what one commentator says also about this passage. He says, ultimately then, the distinction between the sacred and the secular breaks down.

Any and every task, however menial, falls within the sphere of his lordship and is done in order to please him. It's not like Pastor Milton, he's a pastor, so he gets to do the will of God. He gets to serve Christ. No, you get to do the will of God.

You get to serve Christ in your place of employment. And so obey those who are over you. Obey them with fear and trembling with the generosity of heart and with the mindset of serving Jesus. Description number 4, obey them with a spirit of goodwill.

Obey them with a spirit of goodwill. look what he says in verse 7, with goodwill render service as to the Lord and not to men. And so he says, you need to make sure that you have an attitude of goodwill as you're doing your work. And by the way, the word that is translated goodwill means friendliness.

In other words, you have a friendly, gracious disposition. towards those that are over you, those that are around you, in the workplace, that type of disposition ought to characterize you. Now, if you're going to have that attitude working around a bunch of imperfect people, you have to learn to give grace to other people, the same grace that God has given to you. If you want to work day by day with an attitude of goodwill that is evident, Let me just tell you practically, don't ever run your boss down.

Just don't do it. Don't run your boss down. Don't criticize your boss, even if everybody else is doing it. Don't run your fellow employees down.

Just don't do it. Don't go there. See it as just, it's a cheap thrill. It's just, it's just something people do to feel better about themselves.

It is so weak. See the weakness of that. That's not the way to get ahead in God's economy. You have a spirit of goodwill towards those over you and those around you.

And, even if your boss is a non-Christian, your boss ought to be thinking, if he sees all this in your life, he ought to be thinking, what, I don't know much about this Jesus person, but whoever he is, he's given me one great employee. And what a testimony that can be. And again, you may say, no, you don't know my boss. You don't know the idiots that I work for.

You don't know the idiots that I have to work with. And, there's just no way when the sinfulness and, and their life and the stuff that comes out of them. I just, I don't want to be around them and it's just hard to be friendly towards them. Again, guys, take the gospel to work with you.

Listen to what Paul says in Titus 3. I would encourage you to memorize this. He says to Titus, remind the believers to be subject to authorities, that includes in the workplace, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. That's basically a definition of goodwill.

You say, well, how can I be considerate? How can I be gracious and have goodwill and be kind and, and not malign all these, these, these wicked people that I work under and work around. Look what Paul says in verse 3, for we also once were foolish ourselves. Disobedient, deceived, and enslaved to various lust and pleasures, spending our life and malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, he saved us. If you're having trouble with your attitude towards other people, it's because at the bottom of it all, you think a little too highly of yourself. You think somehow you deserve God's goodness and grace more than other people? But remind yourself of your sin.

Remind yourself that you were an enemy of God and rebellion against Him like the passage that Brad read earlier before he was baptized. That's all of us, not just Brad. And yet God reached out in his kindness towards us. He should have been repulsed by us and wanted nothing to do with us.

And Paul is actually connecting these to one another. If you remember this of who you were. And how disgusting you were, and yet how friendly God has been towards you. That will help you to have a friendly disposition towards other centers.

Who are just like you were, and just like you would be today, apart from the grace of God. The gospel will help us so much in the workplace if we will but take it to work with us. A 5th and final description of the way that you need to obey those that are over you is you need to obey them with an expectation of compensation. You need to obey them with an expectation of compensation.

Amen. We're really good at this. But Paul, he actually teaches us, you need to be consciously mindful of the fact that you're going to get compensated from the Lord. For everything.

Don't obsess on whether you're getting compensated for every little jot and tittle from your earthly boss and getting due recognition. That's all fine when it comes. But you just know that there is a heavenly boss who sees everything, everything, and he will compensate you for everything. Look at verse 8, knowing.

Consciously mindful that whatever good thing, notice, whatever good thing, sometimes we say whatever, when we don't care. But this is a whatever that the Lord does care about, whatever good thing, every good thing, That each one does this, he will receive back from the Lord whether slave or free. That's an amazing statement. No earthly master can ever make this promise.

No earthly employer could ever say, I promise you that from this day forward, I will compensate you for every single thing that you ever do. They can't say that because they don't see everything. They don't even have the capacity to perhaps deliver compensation for every good thing that is done, but Jesus does, Jesus does. What this ought to impress us with is that Jesus really cares about your job.

He really cares and he notices everything. He goes to work with you. He takes notes, and nothing escapes his notice, nothing. And he will cut you a paycheck on judgment day and compensate you.

Trust me, when you walk away from the judgment seat of Christ, you will feel perfectly compensated. For everything you've ever done, that was good. You will receive reward for every good thing you've done and grace for every wrong thing that you ever did. It won't happen on judgment day that Jesus says, when you were at work, here's what you did, and, and he mentions all the things and, and he says, so I'm going to compensate you and give you a reward for this, and you're looking at that reward and you're saying, well, what, I really appreciate this, but Jesus forgot something.

I remember one day back in 2007, I was having a bad attitude and I asked God to give me a good attitude and I donated time to the company or I just, I just gave 100% and no one noticed it and what, Jesus didn't even mention that. That's not going to happen. He will see everything. He will compensate you for everything.

Every good thing you do will come back to you on judgment day. Here's the great thing about this. This is a promise that we're going to get double paid. Double paid.

You get a paycheck from your earthly employer every week, every other week or every month. You get compensated to a degree here, and then when you get to heaven, Jesus is going to say the whole time you were at work, you were actually employed by me and I need to pay you for what you did for me. And so, here's a paycheck for you. We're going to get paid twice, and the second payment that awaits us at judgment is going to be far greater.

And so let us labor when we go into our secular, quote unquote workplace. Just go into that. With judgment day in mind. This greater payday, this ultimate compensation that is coming our way.

John MacArthur says, Being a Christian should always make a person a better, more productive and more agreeable worker. People will not be inclined to listen to the testimony of a Christian who does shoddy, careless work or who is constantly complaining. If a Christian finds an employment situation intolerable, he should quit and look for something else. But as long as he is employed, he should do the work to the best of his ability.

Let me share with you guys something that's pretty sad. My dad is the vice president of a company in Indianapolis. He has been for a number of years and even before then he was in a position where he did hiring and, and so forth. And my dad.

told me a number of years ago, he made this statement to me. He says, I don't like to hire Christians. He's a Christian man Go to church, loves the Lord. But he doesn't like to hire Christians.

And here's his reason, he says, because when I've hired Christians, Christians think many times, because I'm a Christian, I deserve special treatment. Rather than coming into their place of employment thinking it is precisely because I am a Christian. That I should give special treatment. And my boss, my company ought to receive more from me.

than they do from those that do not know the Lord. My dad shared with me, he says, my best workers are unsafe people. I had someone who was in the first service who's in a, who's an employer who came up and told me the same thing. Isn't that sad?

That is so sad. And often what happens is, and this is what's happened with my dad, that he's a Christian and he hires a Christian who knows that he's a Christian. And what, at church, we're one in Christ, we're equals, and so they bring that attitude of, into the workplace and they don't respect a Christian employer the way that they would respect someone who maybe didn't know the Lord, that they weren't brother and sister with. but again, Paul actually in this passage is talking to slaves and masters, both of whom are Christians, slaves working for Christian masters, masters who are Christian slaves.

That's primarily the context here, and Paul is saying slaves, yeah, when you come to church, you're sitting right next to your master. You may even be the Sunday school teacher. Of the class your master attends. You may actually be an elder in this church, and your master spiritually, Is under your authority, but in the workplace, you listen under him.

You arrange yourself underneath him, and he is an authority in your life and you respect that authority, even though he is a brother in Christ. And so I hope that at none of your places of employment is any of your bosses thinking, man, When I hire Christians, I get less than when I hire non-Christians. May they get more from us. May their attitude, like I said earlier, be, I don't know much about this Jesus person, but whoever he is, he's given me one great employee.

And let that be their introduction to the Lord. Well, just turning the corner here and wrapping this up, I want to say a word to those of you that are masters or those of you in the workplace that have people over you. What's interesting is some of you have people under you in the workplace and you have people over you, and so both 5 through 8 and verse 9 applies to you. but Paul gives instructions on how to be towards those that are under you, and this is going to be very simple.

Look at verse 8. He says, and masters do the same things to them. Do the same things to your servants. In other words, here's your job as someone who is over other people in the workplace, and that is serve those under you in the same way that they are told to serve you.

Paul's not saying serve those under you the way that they serve you, they may disobey this passage, they may not even know the Lord, but serve those under you the same way that God wants them to be towards you. Paul is essentially saying in verse 9, hey, masters, you've been listening to what I've been saying to your servants. Oh yeah, yeah, I've been elbowing them, as this passage is being read, did you hear that? It's the way you need to be towards me.

Paul says, well, I'm glad you were listening because here's my instruction to you, you be the same way towards them, the same way towards them. In other words, you serve those underneath you with fear and trembling. You serve them with fear and trembling, you serve them with generosity of heart, that it would include giving them adequate compensation. You serve them with singleness of heart, which, which is a generosity of heart, not only with financial compensation, but even as a boss, someone over people, be generous in giving praise and credit where credit is due.

It's that person that people will run through a wall for and be happy to work for. In fact, did that secular writers in the secular work industry, they recognize that this is a quality that people want in a boss. Jim Collins in his book From Good to Great, he did a 5 year study where they evaluated what made companies move from good to great, what makes the difference, what gets a company over that hump. And their conclusion was that it's leadership at the top.

And then they evaluated what leadership does it take to move a company from good to great and listen to, to what they found after a five-year study. Here's the executive that they said makes a company go from good to great. It's an executive in whom extreme personal humility blends paradoxically with intense professional will. There's a drive to succeed mixed with humility.

This is the world talking, and they're saying, what, when there's humility in a boss, people under that boss really do better and perform better for that boss. The characteristics common to these leaders is humility, will, ferocious resolve, and the tendency to give credit to others while assigning blame to themselves. Someone generous and giving credit. And praise to other people.

If you're generous towards those over you in this way, to where they're hearing from you when they do good things rather than they're only hearing from you when they've messed up in some way, if you're generous and humble in this way, they're going to run through a wall for you. be happy to work for you in most cases. It also means that you serve them with the mindset of serving Jesus. How would you treat your employee?

If that employee were Jesus. How would you treat them? It means that you also serve them with goodwill, with an attitude where you are gracious, friendly in your disposition towards those that are under you, who are always going to be imperfect, even if they're Christians, they're always going to mess up. Do you give grace?

Is there goodwill? And it also means that you serve those under you. With an expectation yourself of compensation from the Lord. Jesus will pay you.

He will give back to you everything good that you give to those under you. As you serve those under you, Jesus says, ultimately, you're serving me. Ultimately, you're carrying out my will, and I will cut you a paycheck like you won't believe. I promise you every good thing you do will come back to you, and you will be fully compensated for all that you have done for those under you.

Look at how Paul elaborates on this. Masters do the same things to them. If you're going to do it this way, give up threatening. You don't get people to do what you want them to do by threatening them with bodily harm or threatening them with this or that or the other.

If you have to resort to threatening, you've already lost. Even as parents, think about it. If a powerful parent is not a parent who has to threaten their child to get their child to obey, something's already been lost if a parent has to resort to that. A powerful parent doesn't have to threaten.

And a powerful boss does not have to resort to that. And then he also says, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with Him. You and those who work under you will stand before God. In a future day, and the fact that you are over them in the workplace will mean nothing to God.

You will get no special favors, no special status, because you are over them. In the workplace. God will judge you both by exactly the same standard. Guys, just dream a little bit.

Imagine a workplace where everyone does this. And then realize, as I know you already have, that no workplace will ever reach this ideal. And some of you will have to get up early tomorrow morning and you will have to go to a workplace that is woefully short of this ideal. I want to encourage you.

Here's what your prayer needs to be. Your prayer should not be, oh God, transform my workplace. Your prayer should be, oh God, transform me. Transformed my perspective.

Transform me as an employee, as a boss, change me to where I reflect these instructions, and I am a gospel worker. I reveal the gospel in my countenance, and my attitude and the way that I go about doing my work. Transform me in my workplace. And then as you transform me, I ask that you would use that light to actually bring transformation.

To my environment. When I worked At the age of 19 to 24 at this place for a year and then I went away to college and then I came home every summer and worked at this place and then after college, I worked for a solid year, 15 months I think before we went to seminary. The place was just the epitome of just where I did not want to be. But as through passages like this, God began to change me and my outlook.

All glory goes to God. God was able to use me to be an influence and a light for Christ, to lead fellow employees to the Lord directly, and then also see other employees and even those over me come to know the Lord also. One of the guys who was my production manager, he had shared with guys. At a break one time, he said, well, if I ever get religion, I, I won't be nearly as intense as Milton.

It won't be his brand. Well, I was away at college a little bit later, and this man's wife left him and left him utterly broken. Guess where this guy went for counseling? He went to my pastor.

Who was able to lead him to Christ. And other people in that place of employment have come to know Christ, and I'm not standing up here saying it was all because of me. I'm not saying that at all. That's the sovereign work of God, but I got to play a small part.

And I look back on those days. And at first I couldn't wait to get out of there, to be doing what I'm doing now. I now look back and I miss those days. I love what I'm doing now, but I envy you guys.

You guys are on the front lines. You're in the trenches. You're out there in these places of employment where you can be a light and all I am is I'm in the background along with the other elders and pastoral staff, and we're just, we're just the supply people. We're just equipping you guys.

But you're out there doing the real work of the ministry. And so, prize the opportunity that you have. Don't just bide your time until you retire, until something else comes along. Realize when you go into work tomorrow that God, you have me here.

I am at this job right now, today, because you have put me, This post before the world was created, you ordained that I would be here to be a light, and however dark it is around me, that's all the more reason I need to be a light, and you put me here not just to waste my life, but so that I can make a difference. Transform me and then use me to transform the environment in which I work. Let's go to the Lord in prayer and ask him to help us to do exactly that.