How to Thrive in a Less-than-Ideal Job

Well, let me ask you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy chapter 6 for our time of study. In the word this morning, 1 Timothy chapter 6. for those of you visiting with us, we're doing a verse by verse study through the book of First Timothy, and as we continue in our study of this book, we come back to 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 1. My goal this morning is to try to cover verses 1 and 22 weeks ago, we took a surface glance at this passage enough to observe that slavery is being talked about, and we raised the broader question of why does the Bible.

Approach slavery the way that it does and how does the Bible actually approach slavery. So we spent the sermon time two weeks ago trying to appreciate how the Bible approaches the issue of slavery. So hopefully that issue has been sufficiently addressed, but I said 2 weeks ago we would come back to these two verses to, study them from the standpoint of what we can learn from these two verses on the subject of, as employees. There's a lot of things in here that we as employees can apply to our life in the workplace.

So if you want to give a title to the message this morning, it would be this How to thrive in a less than ideal job. How to thrive in a less than ideal job. let me start by asking you a question. Raise your hands.

How many of you would say that you are in a less than ideal job right now? Raise your hand. Wow. All right, Mike Barry has his hand up.

OK, How many of you would say you, in all honesty, you, you're in your dream job right now, Raise your hand. All right, man, it's reversed from the The first service, those of you that would say though that you're in your dream job, you probably would also say though that there are certain aspects of what you do that are not your favorite things to do. There are aspects of your job that are less than ideal, unsavory tasks that you don't relish. And so I think that this topic is broad enough for all of us to be able to apply some things.

that we learned from this passage to our situation in the workplace. I do want to throw this at you. I was doing a little bit of math. I hope I did this correctly.

when you think about it, the average American, throughout the course of his or her lifetime, will work. 100,000 hours. That's those that work full time throughout their adult life. And those of you that are 18 years old, be encouraged by this thought.

You have 100,000 hours of labor ahead of you. That is essentially, if I did my math right, 1/5 of your waking life. And if, if you're like, man, I want to live my life to the glory of God, what are the main categories that I want to really try to educate myself on so that I can really glorify God? Your life in the workplace is one of those areas that needs to be in your top 5 or perhaps top 10.

I know for me, when I was 19 years old, right after I'd given my life to the Lord, I was in a job that I didn't particularly want to be in. I wanted to be elsewhere. But I, I went through the scripture and, and I, I wrote out longhand. There weren't computers back then and personal computers.

And I wrote out longhand all the passages in the Old and New Testament that had to do with the subject of, a work ethic and life in the workplace, and there were a lot of passages in the New Testament to slaves that that had a lot of principles that I was able to draw from. And as a 19-year-old I wrote those passages out and then I pulled from them any lessons that I could learn that could guide me in how I operated in the workplace. And at the top of that document I put my philosophy of work.

And I was amazed at that age, not able necessarily to go very deep in the scripture, how much the Bible had to say on that, and I found it transforming the way that I went to work.

I went to work excited and with a vision, and even mundane tasks began to take on. eternal significance. And so I would encourage you to this broader study of this very important topic, especially when for many of you, so much of your life is devoted to the issue of employment. this morning what we're going to do as we look at verses 1 and 2 is here's how we're going to sweep it together.

We're going to observe 4 instructions that I think God provides for us in these two verses to help you to thrive in your job, and I think deep down that's what all of you want. You may be working just because you need the money, but I know that you don't want to just pass the time. You would love to be able to thrive. In the workplace, whatever job that you are in right now, and these two verses, I think, will provide a lot of help for you.

Let me read these two verses to you. Paul says to Timothy, all who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against. Those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they Brethren, but must serve them all the more because those who partake of the benefit are believers and beloved. And then he says to Timothy, be teaching and preaching these things.

Timothy, as a pastor, tell Christians how to behave in the workplace. Christ's lordship extends to the behavior of believers in the workplace. And so as a pastor, direct them, instruct them, teach them. How to operate in the workplace.

All right, so starting at the beginning of verse one, let's try to look at what I think amounts to 4 instructions to help us to thrive in our job. All right, if you're interested in that, please receive from the text of the Bible, from the mouth of God Himself, this first instruction. And we get this from the first phrase in verse one, and that is, if you want to thrive in the workplace, number one, realize that less than ideal ideal job circumstances are sometimes God's plan for His people.

realize that less than ideal job circumstances are sometimes God's plan for his people and God's good and gracious providence.

It often happens that his people who have believed in Jesus Christ will find themselves in job situations that they themselves would not necessarily prefer to be in. Look how he begins verse one, all who are under the yoke as slaves. That expression under the yoke is was not normally a positive expression. It denoted labor and some commentators even say that this language has the idea of tyranny.

Like they actually interpret verse one to be speaking to slaves that are in very difficult, suffering, tyrannical situations where they've got a miserable. A tyrannical boss, and I don't know that that I would go that far with it, but I would say this, that the expression under the yoke as slaves at the very least, at the very best, means that those who are in this position are not in the ideal job, that if they had their preference and could do anything they wanted. just about everyone who's under the yoke as a slave in this way would rather do something else.

If you were to interview five year olds throughout the Roman Empire and said, What do you want to be when you grow up?

None of them would have said, I want to be a slave for the rest of my life. Now some of them willfully chose to be slaves, but they did so out of desperation. They did so for a period of time, 1015 years or whatever, as a way of climbing the social and the economic ladder, but it was merely a means to an end. But if they didn't have to do that to get where they wanted to be, no one would have chosen that.

It was not an ideal. Job situation to be in. In fact, we actually see this in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul provides some interesting instructions for Christians, with regard to slavery. Look what he says, basically, and I, I don't have the verse written out, but basically, in chapter 7, verse 21, he says this, if you are a slave, and you become a Christian while you're a slave, then go ahead and continue being a slave if you have no choice.

Obviously, don't break the law. Continue to be a slave if you have no choice in the matter. But then he says, but if you're able to become free, then do that. If you have the money to purchase your own freedom, then purchase your freedom.

That's Paul's counsel. And then he says, if you are free, don't become a slave because you've already been bought by Jesus. And so clearly even from these verses it's evident that being a slave was not an ideal. job circumstance and then for some it was even worse because they had masters that were unreasonable.

We see evidence of this in 1 Peter 2. 18 and 19. Peter says, servants or slaves, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, so they were good bosses back then, but also to those who are unreasonable, and this can have the idea of harshly unreasonable, for this finds favor if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. You realize what that's indicating.

That there were slaves who were already in a less than ideal job circumstance, but some of them had the masters that were harshly unreasonable, and their job situation could be described as one of sorrow and of not just suffering, but unjust treatment, unjust suffering. But these were Christian people who had believed in Jesus who found themselves in situations that job circumstances that were less than ideal. If you want to thrive in the workplace, guys, then realize that less than ideal job circumstances are sometimes a part of God's plan for His people.

I was going through the scripture this past week in my mind and I was thinking of Of people who had jobs that were less than ideal.

Think of Joseph, he got sold by his brothers into slavery. That's a less than ideal way to find a job. he ends up working for Potiphar. Potiphar seemed like a fairly decent guy, but his wife was a wicked woman who was trying to get Joseph in bed with her.

When Joseph refused, she then unjustly, falsely accused him. Joseph then lost his job and got thrown into prison. When he was in prison, he became employed there. The Bible says that he began to be given responsibility in prison of taking care of the other prisoners and and and so forth.

So that's another job he finds himself in. But he would have never said that's what I want to be when I grow up. So Joseph found himself in less than ideal job circumstances. You think of Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego in the book of Daniel.

They had a boss who, who like had a pretty large ego. in fact, like he would build shrines to himself and command his employees to bow down and worship him. Any of you have problems like that and you're OK, one, But imagine that employment situation and they had to figure out what do we do in this situation, but yet they proved themselves faithful. Daniel, he had his own issues.

his employer, his boss, ended up passing a law that said you are not allowed to pray to any god, to anyone other than me. And that's a difficult issue to deal with one inside of one's employment, and he had to figure out how to be faithful and a light in the midst of that. You think of Nehemiah, who seemed to have a nice job. He was a cupbearer for the king, but it was in a foreign land, and what made it difficult is Nehemiah longed to be in Jerusalem.

which was in a lot of ways in a state of disarray, and his heart was in Jerusalem and so it really was hard for him to be serving the king, and yet he was faithful in that role to such a degree to where one day the king said, What's the matter, Nehemiah? Nehemiah says, Man, here's what's going on in my heart. Here's what I long to do for my people and for the city of Jerusalem. And what the king said?

The king said, What do you need? Tell me what you need and you have it, and you can go. There's no way in the world that Nehemiah would have been able to have that sway over the king's heart if he had not been faithful in his role. And so I'm sure as Nehemiah was heading toward Jerusalem, he was like, I think I know why now I was a cupbearer for the king.

It all makes sense now. You think of Paul. Paul was a full-time missionary, and yet he says to the Thessalonians and even elsewhere that he worked night and day as a tent maker so as not to be a financial burden on anyone. So this guy lost a lot of sleep and had to earn his own keep in many situations.

This was not an ideal situation that he might have picked for himself if he was wanting a life of comfort and ease. And so there's a number of people in scripture that found themselves in what we might consider to be less than ideal job circumstances. I couldn't help when I was thinking of this list to think of my job history. The first job I got at the age of 17 or 18 was as a janitor cleaning businesses after they had closed down for the night.

And I did that for about 15 hours a week my senior year of high school and then after high school and then after I graduated from high school, I got a job. It was my first full-time job working as a desk clerk at the Basic Inn Motel. Making $3 an hour. And I know some of you are thinking, well, back in when you were young, that was probably a lot of money, wasn't it?

Actually, that was under minimum wage, even when I was employed there. But this, I don't know how I got that job, but it was in a really seedy section of town. There was the Zodiac Lounge right across the street. And I'll never forget that when the owner of the motel did the training with me, at the end of the training, the last thing he did is he called me into the back room from where I'd be working, and at the top of the filing cabinet was a folded newspaper.

And he directed my attention inside that folded newspaper and he said, right inside here is a loaded pistol, and if you ever need it, it's right here. Got it. I was raised in a very sheltered Christian home. when I rebelled in high school, I listened to Barry Manilow.

And, and here I am in this really raunchy section of town and I did actually have to pull the gun out once. a guy came by one night. I worked, oh, from 11 at night to 7 in the morning, all right. So he comes in and he wanted to get a room for the night and he wanted to pay with drugs.

And I had to inform him that we don't, we don't take that here, and he wasn't happy about that and began to threaten me and he said, I'm leaving right now, but I'm coming back and I'm coming for you. And so he left and I go to that room and I pull that pistol out and I have it under the counter and sure enough he showed up again and I'm standing there with my hand on that pistol. My heart was thumping out of my chest. I'm serious, and I realized in that moment, what, I would let this guy shoot me before I would ever be able to shoot him.

I can't do this. In fact, if I tried to shoot him, I am sure I would have shot myself. Just I was. I was so flustered in, in that moment, but anyway, he ended up leaving without doing anything and I didn't have to shoot him or anything, but That was my second job, and this place had nothing to commend it, nothing at all.

In fact, underneath the sign that said the Basic Inn Motel, the one word advertisement that featured the only positive thing going for this place was the word fireproof. Fireproof. You may get shot here, but you will not die by fire in this place. And then after that, I worked there for a few months and then I got a job working in a screen printing shop and there were some good things about working there.

The owner of the company was a man in our church, but the fellow employees there, just, it was a raunchy atmosphere and all of my friends had gone away to college. And I was left behind to earn money to be able to afford to go to college, and my girlfriend Donna had gone to college 500 miles away, and I'm left behind. And And I so did not want to be there. But it was around that time that God got a hold of my life.

And like I said, I wrote out of the verses of scripture and began to get a vision and began to embrace the fact that this is where God wants me. My countenance, my demeanor, my work ethic just radically. Began to be changed. In fact, my coworkers later said, your first month that you worked here, you didn't smile one time.

It was very noticeable to them the change that had come over me when I'd given my life to the Lord and began to see the workplace the way I think God wanted me to. Guys, if you want to thrive in the workplace, wherever you are, even if it's a less than ideal circumstance or for less than ideal reasons, some of you maybe have to go to work to provide for your family. Some of you ladies, you might not prefer to work, but right now at this season of your life, you feel compelled to do that and The circumstances are less than ideal, but nonetheless, understand you need to embrace the fact that wherever you are, you are there in God's good providence.

That often this happens to believers in God's providence that believers find themselves in less than ideal job circumstances.

There's a second instruction that we can pull from these verses, and that is this If you want to thrive in your job, honor your boss with every honor at every opportunity. OK, now when you sign your name on a contract to get employed somewhere, you'll never see that written in the job description. But it is in your job description. God writes it into your contract.

wherever you are working, look for those over you. And for some of you, you may have 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 bosses. For me, I often had a production manager over me, general manager over him, and an owner of the company over both of them, and I answered to all 3. And then there's also a sense of which the customer is can be considered a boss.

There are self-employed people in our church that when they read passages like this, they like to apply it to the customer, that the customer who's hiring me to do a job for the next month, that. that customer is my, my boss, and so I want to honor my customers. So find those that are in positions of authority over you, identify those people and then make it your ambition to honor. them with every honor at every opportunity.

Look what he says in verse 1. All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor. You might want to underline the words all honor. what that means?

He does, if he just said honor your boss, then you might be able to say, you could have a lot of disrespect, but you could do a few token things and say, Well, I've honored my boss. Here's what I did on Tuesday. But now, he says with all honor. what that means?

That means everything you say and do in the workplace is to be characterized by honor. Everything. That's why we word it this way, honor your boss with every honor, at every opportunity. Give to them all honor.

He says regard your boss is worthy of all honor. So it starts in the mind. You think this way. This is the way that you view.

those that are over you, and then you interact with your boss in a way that is characterized by respect and by honor. When you speak to your boss, you address him or her in honor and respect. When you are not in the presence of your boss, but you are talking to fellow employees, you are to speak about your boss. With respect and with honor.

One of the things that took my breath away. the first job that I got where there were a lot of fellow employees and stuff, was how much dishonor takes place in the workplace. How much bad mouthing takes place. It's almost like it's a part of people's job description.

and the way that employees talk about management, the way that management can talk about the employees sometimes, the way that in one of my places that I work, the way that the day shift talked about the night shift. When I worked on the day shift, it's like the night shift they would rail against the night shift. They were just a bunch of idiots and I'm thinking, who are these guys on the night shift? And then I was asked to be the production manager of the night shift.

And so I started doing that and to my amazement, the night shift spoke about the day shift in exactly the same way. There's so much dishonor and bad mouthing that takes place, and it's just the thing to do to run your boss down, especially behind your boss's back. And God says, don't do that. Don't do that.

You show your boss every honor. Now, what are some specific practical ways to show honor to your, your boss. Here's some specifics in Titus 2. Paul says that Titus urged slaves to be subject to their own masters and everything, so identify those in positions of leadership or authority over you in the workplace and then arrange yourself underneath them and do what you're told, unless you're being told to do something that violates.

The scripture. Also, here's another way to honor your boss be well pleasing, which is another way of saying don't be a pain. Also not argumentative. boy, it's easy to, to, to be argumentative.

but don't be argumentative. That doesn't mean you can never disagree with your boss, but even when you do appeal to your boss, that you do so with, with respect. You treat your boss the way that you would want to be treated. Also, not stealing.

How's that? Don't steal from your boss, which would mean obviously don't take items from the shop. But it would also and especially mean don't steal the boss's time. Don't steal the boss's money by by doing things that you've not been hired to do, by wasting time on the job.

A lot of theft takes place that way. We learned this past week that there were And a government agency there were that's supposed to be a watchdog over other agencies and we learned this week that a handful of those employees were looking at pornography while on the job hours a day. That's, that's theft. On top of a number of other things, but also showing all good faith.

This means when your boss asks you to do something that he or she can count on you to get it done. And it means when you say, yes, I will do this, that you can be counted on to be true. To your word, it also is implied in verse 2. You serve your, your boss.

You do good. He speaks of those bosses that partake of the benefit in verse 2, and that word benefit is the Greek word work that we get energy from our English word energy from, and the prefix good attached to the beginning of it. You're, you're there in the workplace and you do good works. That your boss can receive and enjoy the benefit of.

Honor your boss with every honor at every opportunity. God says, this is what I want you to do. It's one of the key elements of your job description. Now you say, well, I just don't think that applies to my situation because you don't know my boss, Pastor Milton.

Well, again, I remind you that even slaves back in this day, they had bosses that were unreasonable and harsh. Peter alludes to this fact, and yet, God would say it doesn't matter whether your boss is saved or unsaved, whether he's good and gentle or harsh, you show your boss every honor at every opportunity, just like we're told in First Peter, Honor the king. Well, the king at that time was an extremely wicked person, but God says, I want you to show honor to the king and those that are in positions of governing authority.

And the same is true in the workplace.

Now, when you think about this, it's easy to go, well, again, my, my boss, I cannot honor him because my boss is such and such. We cannot let ourselves off the hook. Regardless, we must honor those that are in authority in the workplace over us. 2 weeks ago was reading an article on different kinds of bosses and the trouble that it creates for those working underneath such bosses.

And what intrigued me about this article was that it, it gave a description of each boss and then it came up with a Latin sounding title for the boss to help you identify that boss and look at some of the bosses that they talked about. there is this boss, the procurator illegitimus maximus. And this is the guy or gal that you're wondering how in the world did they ever get in this position. There's Procurator Vesuvius.

Which is obviously the boss with the explosive temper. there is procurator Creus usurps. And this is the boss who, when he's got a team of people working under him, they just know that if we do a good job and this goes well, then when the man who's over us is standing before his superiors, he will take all the credit for it. then there's procurator Tefloniios, which is the boss that if you're doing a project and it goes badly, And your boss is standing before his superiors.

It's in those situations where he's happy to give credit to other people and cause the blame to slide off of him and onto other people. There is procurator Hedden Sandia. it's the boss who doesn't know what's going on, and everyone knows that. he's the most lost person in the workplace.

then I like this one, procurator Buzzwordia. And, my older brother works for a boss like this. It's the boss that's always quoting cliches and slogans from the latest management seminar that he's attended. procurator condescendia.

the boss with the superiority complex, and then there is procurator absentia. That's the boss you never see. He never shows up. And then it was interesting, people were allowed to add titles to this, and the last one I threw this in, it was added by a boss who did not find the above list funny.

And And she offered procurator under Patius. that's the boss who's a good boss who doesn't get paid enough. But guys, I want you to really think about this, that it doesn't matter what boss you have with whatever description you see here on the screen, God says honor him or her with every honor. At every opportunity, you say, Pastor, you don't know how hard that is.

My boss is, is so hard to love and do good to and to show honor to my boss is selfish. Oh, and, and you've never been selfish? And yet God loves you. In amazing ways.

Yeah, but my boss is, he's so ungrateful. I know that no matter what I do, I'm not going to get any thanks or gratitude for it. OK, but you've never been ungrateful to God? and when you are ungrateful to God, does God say, I'm not going to give you any more of my air to breathe?

I'm going to give you no more heartbeats. No more of the 2 million red blood cells I've been giving you every second will I give to you? No, God continues to love lavishly second by second, even though we are often ungrateful. You say, Well, I know what my boss is going to do.

He's just going to take the good that I do and He's going to take all the credit for it. And you've never done that to God? What gifts and abilities has God given to you? What resources has he given to you?

And you've never taken credit for that and bragged about that as if it were not a gift, but something you achieved on your own. And yet God continues to love you. Do we not have a God who causes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous and causes His Son to shine on the evil and the good? Are we not told, be like Him.

And God says, be like me, towards your boss, whether you think your boss is worthy of it or not. And what, I think some bosses may actually, be helped with this respect. It gives them a reputation to live up to. God can use that.

In fact, that leads to the 3rd. instruction that we can pull from these verses, and that is this, if you want to thrive, in your job situation, honor and serve your boss, not as a way of getting a raise or getting some personal benefit to you, honor and serve your boss in the way God is saying here, as a specific way of furthering the reputation of God and the gospel. Look what he says in verse one, all who are under the yoke of slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.

So that here's your agenda when you go to work tomorrow.

So that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against. That word name could be understood as reputation. God is saying, hey, my reputation is at stake here. The way you behave, the way you treat your employer is a reflection on me.

And when you who bear my name are not behaving the way that you should be in the workplace, The worst thing that happens is that my name gets dragged through the mud. My name literally gets blasphemed. And God says, I don't want this happening. I want you to be the employee towards your boss to where you actually endear your boss to me.

So that on the day of visitation when I show up in mercy, and begin to work in your boss's heart in that day, then that you won't be an argument in your boss's mind against him believing in Jesus. The way your boss ought to think, if your boss is a nonbeliever, your boss ought to think, what, I don't know much about this Jesus person. But what I do know is he's given me a really great employee. And imagine being that employee that endears the heart of your boss to Jesus to where if, if you are the only thing he knows about Jesus, You've just helped To get his heart ready for a visitation of mercy, when God chooses to show up and maybe someone comes up to your boss at a later point and says, Hey, can I tell you something about Jesus?

And your boss is like, Jesus, Jesus, yeah, I don't know a lot about him, but I know that my business is better because of Jesus. I know that, that I've been blessed because of him. I know that he makes a really good employee. Yeah, tell me, tell me more about Jesus.

See, we're now seeing the real agenda in the heart of God. You may just be going to work because you got to make money to feed your family or you got to put your way through school. God's like, no, I, I'm actually putting you at this post, because I have something that I want to do through you, and it has everything to do with the gospel, and with my reputation. Look what he says, so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.

That word doctrine is the word teaching, and as we've already seen in the Book of First Timothy. here's basically what the teaching is. If you go back to chapter 1, verse 10, or just look at the screen, Paul refers to sound teaching, same Greek word, which is according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God. Basically what he's referring to when he speaks of the teaching literally is the teaching of the gospel.

And so when you go to work, man, what this does is this obliterates the distinction between the sacred and the secular. You, you go into the workplace and you look for those that are in authority over you and you're not argumentative, but you are loving and you are submissive. You do what you're told. You're not a pain, but you are well pleasing and you seek to honor those over you in every way at every opportunity.

And God says that speaks well of me. And it adorns the gospel in the eyes of those who are beholding you. Listen to this real quick. I wish we had time to talk about this verse.

In Titus 2. Paul says that Titus urged slaves to be subject to their own masters and everything, to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not stealing, but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God, our Savior in every respect. Even in a less than ideal job situation, if you are honoring those around you and over you in this way, behaving the way that Paul is instructing here, you are bringing the gospel with you. And literally, you are an ornament on the gospel that catches the eye of those that are over you and around you, and even those that are under you.

You want to be a powerful evangelist in the workplace. My, my challenge is not go into the workplace, clock in, and then start, take the next hour to evangelize verbally when you're supposed to be working. No, how about just show up and be the gospel, be the good news to your boss and to the company you work for and to your fellow workers and to those. that are underneath you.

Does your boss, if your boss were asked, would your boss say that yes, so and so is really good news in my life. Really good news to the company. Would those under you see you in that way? Would those who work around you see you as really good news?

Well, if we're going to do this, we need to have a solid work ethic. Work hard and show honor. John MacArthur. says this.

He 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. Kent Hughes and his commentary on 1 Timothy, this is very telling, and it, and it makes my point for me. He gives an example of two Christian.

Employees who did the opposite essentially of what God is commanding in this and other passages, and they did not endear God or the gospel to their employer. Listen to what he says. He says, I once had an employer tell me that he had become skeptical about Christians because of his experience with two theological students who seem to be always standing around talking about God during work hours. But what really did it was when the boss observed one of the theological students go into the restroom for 20 minutes.

When the employee emerged, he, the boss, heard him, the theological student, whisper to his fellow student, I just had the most wonderful time. I read three chapters of the Gospel of John. Kent Hughes, this is like one of the best things I've read in a long time. Here's his assessment of that, OK.

3 chapters of John. In the John. On the boss's time pleases neither God nor man. And yet there are often Christians who justify stealing because they're talking theology or doing whatever when that's not what they're being paid.

To do Christians of all people need to have the strongest work ethic because we're striving to be, we don't just speak the gospel when opportunities present themselves, but to be the gospel, to be a living embodiment of the gospel, to endear the hearts of those over us, around us and underneath us to God and to His gospel. There's a 4th instruction that we'll look at. This is the last one. And that is honor if you want to thrive in the workplace, whatever job God has you in, even if it's less than ideal, honor your Christian boss with no less respect, no less service, no less good work than you would give to a non-Christian boss.

Isn't that interesting that Paul has to say this? Look at this verse 2. Those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they're brethren, but must serve them all the more because those who partake of the benefit are believers. And beloved.

And yet it rings true, when you think about it, that Paul would have to say this. My dad is the vice president of a company and over the years he's been in a position where, he hires people. To work for him, and there's been a handful of times that my dad over the years has said To me this. He's told me That I would rather hire nonbelievers than Christians.

Because for the most part nonbelievers make better workers. than many Christians do. And I hearing that as a teenager and even after that, I was thinking, man, I don't, that's true, but I don't want that to be true of me. There are Christian employees who they've got a Christian boss and they're like, because I'm a Christian and my boss is a Christian, my boss will give me special favors.

My boss will make special allowances. I can come in late and it's like, I'm sorry, I'm late. it's OK, right, brother?, and they, they feel entitled because they're Christians to special allowances and special favors from their Christian boss. My dad's philosophy is this, and he communicated this a number of times.

Because I am a Christian. My Christian boss can expect special favors and extra effort from me in serving him. Because my boss is a Christian, he can expect. Extra effort from me.

I would commend that ethic to you. It's easy if you've got a Christian boss, maybe your boss is a really humble, unassuming person and very brotherly, and, and it'd be easy to get caught up in that and begin to take advantage of that. God says, don't, don't do that. Don't do that.

You honor him. And if anything, serve him even more than you would a nonbelieving boss. It's also easy sometimes to be extra critical of a Christian boss, a non-believing boss, well, yeah, he's doing this and that and the other, but he's a nonbeliever, of course he's going to do that, and we can give them sometimes more of a free pass, but a Christian boss who attends our church, and everyone in the church loves this person, but we see certain flaws and *** in their armor. It's easy to be extra critical of a boss in a situation like that because we're holding them to a different and a higher standard.

And so it's easy to show less respect. Or another aspect of this is, don't we sometimes guys tend to put our best foot forward when we're around nonbelievers? Yeah, we want to show Christ to them. Hey kids, stop arguing.

We've got some people coming over. We need to show the love of Christ to The non-believers that are coming over, let's pretend for the next two hours that we love each other, and that the cross is actually making a difference in our family. and it can be the same in the workplace. You've got a nonbelieving boss, and man, you're praying for him.

God, please save this man, use me. And so you're motivated to be on your best behavior and to be a good influence and to endear him to the cause of Christ. But then you leave that job and you go to another job and you're working for a Christian now and it's like, well, he's already saved. And you don't feel that same urgency.

To be a blessing To your saved brother. Paul is saying, if you're working for a non-Christian boss, the rules don't change. You seek to honor your boss with every honor at every opportunity. And if there is any change, It is that you love and honor and serve your Christian boss with even greater passion and greater fervor than you would your non-Christian boss.

That's what he says, verse 2, those who are believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they're brethren, but must serve them all the more. Knowing that those who partake of the good work are believers, and beloved by God, and should be loved by you as well. And I love how practical God's word is. God is up to something great, wherever you are working.

And even if you don't want to be there, God is up to something great, and it has everything to do with his name. And the gospel. There are people in our church that I think of when I study a passage like this. There are people in our church that during these hard economic times they, they have been forced to go to work and get a job and work extra hours, and they're in employment situations that they would have never chosen for themselves, but it's the only thing that was available.

But what they did? They were faithful at their post. And they have been a light and lives have been touched and impacted in these locations and then they, they realize, oh, I see, I see why God located me in this less than ideal job circumstance. Because it's not about me.

God's doing something even greater and wants to use me to touch the lives of others. Let me ask you to bow your heads. Let's just pray and ask God to help us to be a church full of people that And we bear the name of Christ and Endear the hearts of people in the workplace. To the Lord Jesus Christ by our work ethic.

what guys, those of you working out in the workplace, you are on the front lines. I'm not anymore. And we're trying to help you guys where you're working, no matter how dark it may be. how less than ideal it may be, that's a happening place where God, the sovereign God, who is searching out those to say God is doing great things, maybe that you can't see and he's got you there for a reason at this time in your life.

And maybe you're supposed to be gone 2 months from now, but how will you live and operate over the next 2 months while you're there? Doing what we're instructed here has powerful has powerful ramifications. Over the eternal souls of those that we work for and work with and work over. We're going to take up an offering in just a moment, and we would encourage you to give as the Lord leads.

Let me pray, God, help us, help us to have a vision. The way you want us to have it, that we would see Christ as Lord over every area of our life, including in the workplace, and that you're, you're not working everywhere else, but there, you've got a plan, you're always doing a million things, and you've got to set that post for a reason, even if we'd rather be somewhere else. Help us to be faithful. Help us to give honor to whom honor is due.

That we might, Lord, serve. And nurture and further your reputation in the eyes of a watching world, and that we might adorn the gospel and catch the eye of the lost with the beauty and the power and the attractiveness of the gospel. Help us all to live this way. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you.

Receive these offerings and do much with them. In the name of Jesus we pray, and all God's people said,