Christians in the Marketplace Pleasing the Boss Colossians 3:22 4:1 Dr. Frank M. Barker, Jr. Pastor Emeritus September 1, 2013 Morning Sermon

Transcription

1 Christians in the Marketplace Pleasing the Boss Colossians 3:22 4:1 Dr. Frank M. Barker, Jr. Pastor Emeritus September 1, 2013 Morning Sermon Prayer: Father, we thank You so much for Your Word and we would pray that Your Holy Spirit would open it to us and us to it. Father, we pray that we can really fathom the principles we will be looking at here in this passage and apply them in our lives. We ask this in Jesus Name, Amen. Colossians 3:22 4:1 says [22] Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. [23] Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, [24] knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. [25] For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. [4:1] Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven. May God bless the hearing and preaching of His Word. We are going to focus here on what the Scriptures say about our work and how it relates to what we re doing, whether we re a college student, a child, a house wife, doctor, politician or a businessman. How does all this tie into to our Christian life? Integrating Christianity in life can make a big difference in our sense of significance of our work and our sense of joy as we do our work or handling problems that we face in work. If you re a Christian then your boss in your work is the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians 3:23 24 says [23] Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, [24] knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ (in your work). What would it mean to have Christ as your boss and every day when you went to work He was there literally? Would that make any difference in how you approached it? I expect it would but in a sense it shouldn t because He is there, you just can t see Him. He is your ultimate Boss. This passage we are looking at here and its parallel passage in Ephesians 6 says more about work and how we approach it than any other Scripture and He is addressing slaves and masters of slaves but the principles apply to our workforce. A third of the Roman Empire was made up of slaves so that basically was a workforce in a real sense and how they handled their situation. Ours in a sense parallels this as well where we can apply this to the employee/employer relationship as well. Let s first look at pleasing the boss and the way you work for others. We want to bring credit to our ultimate Boss in the way we respond to our visible boss. We want to do it in ways that will attract our visible boss to the ultimate Boss. We can do that by first showing respect for others in authority. Colossians 3:22 says [22] Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Obey in everything those who are your masters. Obey your immediate boss. You obey in all things; the disagreeable as well as the pleasant things in a sense. The Scripture says to count your superior as worthy of honor. Honor the boss.

2 Many times we don t like our boss. We are critical of our boss. We talk about them privately to others. We make jokes about them. That doesn t go along with what He is saying here. You can have a difficult human boss and that can give you a feeling of inadequacy, put high demands on you, put on a lot of pressure and maybe the Lord has you has in that situation to bring out some things in your life that wouldn t come out otherwise. You may be in a high pressure situation and then all of sudden things begin to boil out that you didn t even know were there and they need to be dealt with by you; wrong attitudes or all kinds of things that come bubbling up. Maybe the Lord has you in those situations so you can see them and deal with them. He may be refining you. He may be teaching you to die to self in that situation. If any man come after Me he is to die to self, says Christ. You re to obey your earthly masters in a sense here in everything. Are there any limits? Yes. After Christ s resurrection the disciples were going about telling others how they crucified this Man and He was the Son of God and the authorities call them in and tell them to quit saying that. They said No, we must obey God rather than men. If there is something about your work where you re told to do something that God has told you not to do, you can t do that. So there are some limits here when we talk about obeying in all things. So first you need to recognize authority there, be obedient and share respect for authority. Then we are to be sincere in our work. The last part of Colossians 3:22b says not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Be sincere in your work. Eye-service is when someone is watching but as soon as they leave you go back to your usual way of doing things and goof off. No, we are to work as if Christ is right there beside you and He is right there beside you. I m to work whether my boss eyes are on me or not. Christ s eyes are always on me. I m working to please the Lord like He has told me to do it. I ll give you an example of this. There is John E. Mitchell Company that has really tried to apply Christian principles. Here is something from one of the men in the company who is really trying to flesh this out and he says Our friend is enthusiastic. He has an inward glow and warmth that make you wonder a little. You wonder if he is turning in a job day after day for somebody much more important than the superintendent, somebody vastly more important than the president of the company. Is it possible that he is trying to please the Big Boss? Is it his ambition to so perform the past that he will hear deep down in his heart encouraging words from God Himself? Is it his desire above all else to have the Savior say to him Well done good and faithful servant? Is that what you want to hear the Lord say to you? Amen! So we are to be sincere in our work. Why are we to do this? It says in Colossians 3:22b fearing the Lord. We are to do this in reverence to God, seeking to please Him. What does this say about your standards at work? Where do you get those standards? Do you get them from your visible boss here? Do you get them from your peer group or the other people working with you? Do you get them from elsewhere? No, you get them from the Lord. That is where we get our standards and they may be higher than the boss standards or they may even be lower than my literal boss. If he is asking me to do something that is really not good for me or my family, then it may be lower. We do it as unto the Lord, seeking to please Him and we get our standards from Him. So we show respect and we are sincere in our work.

3 Then we serve Him in our work. Colossians 3:23 says [23] Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. We are to serve Him in our work. Notice the area covered for it s in whatever you do. I Corinthians 10:31 says [31] So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Everything that I tackle I need to do in this way. I need to keep Him central in everything; if I m an athlete, housewife, doctor or whatever. Everything about our job should be related to Christ; our motives, relationship to our co-workers, etc. Everything should be related to Him. When we count our problems, how would He have me handle them? The attitude we re to have when serving Him is we re to do it heartily as to the Lord. Do it with your whole heart. On one occasion when the disciple come back, then had brought the Lord food and the Lord said I m not hungry for I have had meat that you know not of. I am so full. The disciples wondered if someone else had given Him food. The Lord said My meat is to do the will of the One who sent Me and finish His work. Amen! That ought to be the way we look at life. If I m doing something I know is right along the lines I know He wants done then that should really be my meat and fill me. When we think about doing it as for the Lord, then first you have to be a Christian in order to do it for the Lord. I need to double check and make sure I m a Christian when I start thinking in any terms but also these terms. You can get confused about that. I was a pastor of a church for a year and I wasn t a Christian. While I was in seminary I pastored a church and I wasn t a Christian. It s always good if you can become a Christian before you get out of seminary. My problem was that I didn t believe in Jesus Christ. Here is what I believed. I believed that He was God the Son who had always existed, who at a point in time became man, was fully God and fully man, that He lived a sinless life, He went to the cross and died for my sins and others, rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, He is seated on the throne and one day He is coming back. That is what I believed about Jesus Christ but I didn t have faith in Jesus Christ. There is a difference in believing about Jesus Christ and believing in Jesus Christ. Believing in Jesus Christ is placing my trust in Him alone as my approach to God. Upon a life I did not live, upon a death I did not die, another s life, another s death, I stake my whole eternity. That is faith in Jesus Christ. The other side of that coin is repentance or surrendering my will to Jesus Christ repentance and faith. There is no true faith without repentance and there is no repentance without faith. In a sense you can experience one before the other but you have to have them both to be a Christian. In a sense I experienced the repentance side when I was in the service flying off aircraft carriers and I finally got to the point where I was willing to God s will whatever it was and I felt like He wanted me to go to seminary. So when I got out of the service I went into the seminary but I went to seminary believing that Christ had died for my sin and risen from the dead where I had to believe that was true, but also that He had done part of the work and I had to have a pretty good record and the combination of His death for me and my pretty good record would make me acceptable to God. Although I was an Auburn graduate I didn t have a pretty good record. I thought if I m going to get to Him I m going to have to be a preacher. So I believed all about Jesus but I was putting my trust partly in what He did and partly in what I was going to do by being a preacher. That is not faith in Christ. That is faith in my improved record. I believed about Christ but I have to put my trust in Him alone and surrender my will

4 where I m purposing to do His will. I won t always do His will but I m serious about it. When we do those two things repentance and faith surrender and trust He has come to live within me by His Holy Spirit. When you get married it says the two become one flesh but He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. His Holy Spirit comes to unite with my spirit and begins to change me and produce the fruit of the Spirit love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, patience, faith, self-control which are qualities that aren t natural to me but are Christlike. That growing trend of obedience is the evidence that I really did make that commitment. There will be some ups and downs but there is a growing trend of obedience. That s the starting place when we talk about the Big Boss. We have to make that initial commitment but then we talk about fleshing it out in terms of how we do our work and so on. We are to do it unto Him. That s exciting! The secular view of work is to fulfill yourself in a sense. Jeremiah 45:5 says [5] And do you seek great things for yourself? Seek them not, for behold, I am bringing disaster upon all flesh, declares the LORD. But I will give you your life as a prize of war in all places to which you may go. Seek not things for yourself. Anything that terminates on Me is wrong. What is man s chief end? Man s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, but I have to glorify Him and not me. That is why we re here. It is to glorify God, to honor Him, to serve Him. So we want to flesh that out in our daily work. If you re a lady and you were fixing a meal for someone, suppose you were fixing that meal for Jesus Christ. How would you do it? Perhaps you are a house builder and suppose Jesus Christ was going to move into the house you were building. Would it make any difference in how you built that building? Suppose you re a doctor and you re treating a patient and it so happens the patient is Jesus Christ. Would that make any difference in how you did your medical work there or the attention you gave to your patient? That is the idea that we want to flesh out here because we are serving Him as we serve others. In Scripture is says that on Judgment Day Jesus will say to the group on His right Come you blessed for when I was hungry you gave Me something to eat and when I was thirsty you gave Me drink. When I was in prison you visited Me and when I was sick you came to see Me. They will say When did we see You that way? Jesus said So as you did it unto one of the least of these My brethren you did it unto Me. When you serve others with the right attitude it is like you were serving Him. Praise God! If I serve Him with the wrong attitude it is like I didn t serve Him as I should have. If we apply this principle here to our occupation or our career, a better term here is vocation. Vocation is the idea of calling and Scripture is the idea of God calling you to certain things. For instance I Corinthians 7:20 says [20] Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. God had this job for him. In other words, the Supreme Boss has assigned you a place, a role. Jesus told the parable in Matthew 13 about the man who went away, left his house and puts his servants in charge each with his assigned task. The Latin word for vocation is voc ti which is the idea of calling and we re called to this. For instance, God said about Jeremiah Before I formed you in the womb I ordained that you would be a prophet to the nations. God has a plan for your life. In choosing my career or occupation and we think where can I make the most money, think about where God wants you. Where is God calling me? What does He

5 want me to do? It makes a big difference here and how we approach it. How do you know what He is calling you to? First look up. You pray to Him. You ask for His direction and guidance. Lord, where do you want me? He will guide you. [5] Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. [6] In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (Proverbs 3:5 6 ESV) Look up and then look around. What needs do I see that need me? Then look in. How had He equipped me? What gifts has He given me? What experiences have I had? As you do that He will direct you to your calling in a sense. He may have a very difficult job for you. That may be His way of really shaping you up and just really equipping you to serve Him better in other areas. When you look at it like that it removes the distinction between the secular and the sacred. Whatever God has called you to do is a sacred calling, even if it s a carpenter. Was Jesus any less spiritual when He was doing carpentry work? This is incredible and the difference it make in how you view your work if I m where I believe He has called me to be and serving Him in that position. That s not to say that one calling maybe more critical than another calling as far as the advancing of His Kingdom in the world but if He calls me to this particular business, then fine because that s where He wants me and the place He wants me to serve. Francis Schaeffer says the significance of that is that means there are no little people and no big people, there are those who are just really consecrated in serving Him in their work and those who are not consecrated. So being totally committed to God in the place where He wants me is what we are called to do. So in going back over this, we want to please the boss in our assigned work as we show respect for those in authority (obedience) by being sincere in my work and serving Him in my work. Then we are to be secure in our knowledge that He will remunerate (reward) us for doing it like this. Colossians 3:24 says [24] knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Maybe your boss doesn t pay you what he should and that s alright. The Lord will restore you. He will reward you. How do you want Him to reward you? Do you want Him to give you an increased salary or do you want Him to bless your children? Think of the difference it could make if the Lord is the One who is giving me the pay and paying more or He may wait and reward you in heaven where you may have a front row seat or something. The Lord will reward you and you would much rather have that reward as He knows what you really need and how to bless you, your family and all that. This frees you up to serve in a thankless situation and have real peace and real joy in that situation. It s okay if my boss isn t paying me enough for He ll take care of me. It s also about knowing that He will recompense you or your employer for wrong done. Colossians 3:25 says [25] For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. So we are to please the boss in the way that we do our work as a Christian as we work for others. So now how are you to please the boss as if you are the manager of others? Colossians 4:1 says [1] Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven. The employer or master needs to have the same sense of sacredness. John Jay Egan founded the American Cast Iron Pipe Company (ACIPCO) here in Birmingham. He lived in Atlanta, Georgia but he would come to Birmingham, stay all week and then go back to Atlanta on the weekends. He was an elder in a

6 Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. He founded this company to demonstrate that you can apply Christian principles in business. He wanted to use that as a laboratory to experience this and experiment with this and figure out how to do it. Egan said, The world needs pipe. We make pipe but our real job is to make men. Our work is to be men of high calling, clean morals, training a child in the way it should go, building our homes, bulwarks for the nation, this path we undertake by making pipe. Egan s Bible was very worn out due to writing quotations all in it. One of the quotations he had written in the opening part of his Bible was, Henceforth Lord, I wish to be holy given up to Thee that in life and work I may, glorify Thee day by day. He had those kinds of quotes written all over his Bible. When Egan set up ACIPCO and the board of directors he wrote this to them; Gentlemen, I recommend that we adopt the principles of Jesus Christ as a guiding principle to this business. I know this suggestion in general terms will meet your sympathy but you will say what is the practical every day meaning of this and how will the practical applications of the teachings of Jesus Christ affect all the various interests including customers, employees, stockholders, directors, officials and competitors? I d like to have your answer to this question. Please consider first its effect on your particular department of the business, write our your ideas concerning this, the changes necessary to make your department conform to these principles and then write our your suggested changes in the company s dealing with our customers, employees, stockholders, directors, officials and competitors writing each under a separate head. Then he gives them his view. His view will involve first the principles of Christ chiefly affecting our business. It will be first service. Whoever shall be great among you let him be your minister and whoever will be chief among you let him be your servant even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered to but to minister, Matthew 20: Second, is supervision. The Lord said Who then is that faithful and wise steward whom is lord shall make ruler over his household to give them their portion of meat in due season. Blessed is that servant whom his lord, when he comes shall find him so doing. He will make him a ruler over all that he had. Thirdly is sacrifice, to give His life a ransom for many when Christ came. We need to be willing to sacrifice. So his views were service, supervision and sacrifice. Then he wrote this to his board of directors in 1921, the plan he laid out; first a reasonable living wage to the lowest paid workman, second constant employment to every member of the organization, third an actual application of the golden rule to relations between employer and employee. He just really tried to flesh it out in that company and my dad worked there for thirty years. I grew up in a family as part of that in a sense and it was amazing the things that company did to try and take care of the families of the employees. It is still a great company. We will really want to flesh this out in our own jobs if we re over others or answering to others. Notice the tremendous motivation there. Colossians 4:1 says [1] Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven. He will deal with me as I deal with them in a sense and I want to please Him in the way I handle that. How integrated is your Christianity in your work? Have you really tried to flesh it out as a Christian in your work? If you re a young person how are you going about choosing a career as you think about it? Then am I really seeking to please the boss? Is that what I m really trying to

7 do? Am I showing respect for authority? Am I serving Him in my work? Am I secure in my knowledge that He will remunerate me? It all starts with whether you have received Him as your Lord and Savior. That is the starting place. If you have never done that do that. This can make a huge difference in your work in the way you view it and the way you approach it. Of course, if you haven t received Him as Savior that will make a huge difference in your life and you can do that right now. Let s pray. Prayer: As our hearts are bowed just reflect on what we ve just talked about on how this applies in your work and meditate on that as you go through the day. If you realize that you have never really surrendered to Him or placed your trust in Him alone as your approach to God, but you would like to do that and you want Him to come and live in you and you re willing for any changes, pray like this; Lord Jesus, I want You in my life. I surrender my will to You as my Master. I trust in You alone as my Savior. I trust You to forgive me and change me, in Jesus Name, Amen.