Walk in Wisdom -- Work

This week, we're gonna talk about work. Last week, we talked about family, especially parents and children. Last week was more emotional, right? We heard about parents and their love for the children and children needing to obey their parents. This week, it's still very serious. We're talking about work. What we commit a large portion of our time to, many of us. A vocation, labor, earning, money. This is a good and necessary part of life. And as God's word is good, it addresses the different parts of life so that we know how to live out the gospel in all the different ways that God has given us life. Now, as Dennis read earlier from Genesis 2, we can see work is good, and we'll think about that a little bit more later. It's good and it's necessary. And it's pretty amazing how we so easily mess things up that are good and necessary. Right? If you think about work, we can immediately kind of think of the workaholic. He advertises his identification and his work and his labor. He's constantly just thinking about how I can be promoted and advance. He's climbing the ladder and not counting the cost. of his work promotion against his family or even his faith. Then you have the apathetic, the person who doesn't really care about work. They punch in, they punch out, they try to punch in as late as possible, they try to punch out as early as possible. They don't have a care about work. Then we have just the lazy, the person who does as little as possible. There seems to be a lot of anxiety about work. Especially if you're younger. What will I do? What if I make the wrong decision? What if I don't have the kind of career that defines me, that defines other people? What do I do about work? Finding the right balance for work is very difficult. It's difficult for all of us. Trying to find the right balance between how much time I'm going to devote to family, work, church, recreation. These are just difficult decisions we all are constantly making. How do I make sure that I'm doing the most productive work and the satisfying work? If you're new here, or if you're new with us in the study of Ephesians, we're on page 979 of a Pew Bible. If you don't have a Bible, please take that with you. And I wanna walk us back through, because again, the context is important. Where we're at right now in Ephesians goes back to chapter five, verse 22. And if you look at the headings of your Bible, it typically will say wives and husbands, children and parents, slaves and masters. This whole section is a household code. This is God giving direct instruction for the different aspects of life in the household. These relationships are all very important. And here we come to servants and bond servants, servants and masters. Those servants in a household were considered part of the home. There's a responsibility here. It's important as we think about work, that we don't try to find our identity in work. Let's go over to Ephesians 1, and if you're, again, you're new with us, or if you were here back then and it's been too long, remember the key phrase in Ephesians 1 is in Christ, in Christ, with Christ, through Christ? Christ is our identity. Father in heaven has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ, with Christ, through Christ. We're chosen, we're redeemed, we're beloved, we're adopted. And then we walk through in chapter four, verse one, how do we work out that salvation? How do we walk worthy? We put off sin, we put on righteousness. It now affects all of our different relationships. How we live matters. This morning we're going to look at servants. And we're gonna translate this because we don't have servants masters in the same way Paul's talking about here. We're gonna think about what it means for us to be workers, employees, employers. And the thing I hope we see is that we're called to work for Christ because he is working in, through, and for us. That's the one big takeaway I want us to hear, the one idea. We are to work for Christ because He is working in, through, and for us. Now I do not want to jump over these words slaves and masters too quickly. Before getting there, I want us to ask, what does the Bible teach about slavery? The first thing I want us to see is that what Paul is addressing here in terms of slaves and masters is not exactly like what happened with the Americans and the British in the 17-1800s. It isn't as despicable and gross as what we did. Paul will speak of the kinds of things we did in 1 Timothy 1.10. Let's turn there. I'll begin in verse eight. Now we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, to sexually immoral men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, purgers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine in accordance with the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted. Enslavers. The word means man owners, people who went and took other human beings against their will captured them and sold them off to other people. Taking men and women and children made in the image of God and selling them for profit. This is gross. Paul describes it as ungodly, unholy, profane, contrary to sound doctrine, not in accord with the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. Man-owning is sinful. One other aspect that we cannot forget about the slavery that happened in America was that it was intentionally biased. Our passage, as you heard it earlier, spoke that there's no partiality with God, but we have certainly made partiality according to external differences. Right? Africans were taken by white people to be sold to white people for white people's own convenience and wealth. This is man-hating. This is looking at some kind of external difference or just any kind of difference and saying, I'm going to not treat you like a human being. It's man-hating. So not only was the slavery we did, our ancestors did in America, it wasn't man-owning, it was man-hating. Now the bond servants, oftentimes this was actually voluntary. This was not the exact same thing that we did in America. And it's interesting, Paul here does not seek to lead a revolution against what's happening here in Ephesus or throughout the Roman Empire. But God's Word gives clear instruction for Christians on how they're supposed to function within us. Now as we step back and think, the church should be the brightest light. The brightest light and the clearest testimony that every single human being is made in His image. Male, female, no matter of nationality, no matter of color of skin, no matter of other features. Every human being has the same dignity and respect. Every believer is supposed to be a witness that every human being has this same dignity. Now, we are a Southern Baptist Church. It is a sad and embarrassing, but a reality that our denomination was pro-slavery. Now, I'm going to assume that no one in this room actually agrees with that anymore, but that is the heritage of our own denomination. And as we look back, we gotta ask, what were they thinking? Like, how could you get there? Because I believe there were good, godly Christians who just twisted scripture to get there. How? It's the same thing we do. We take our desires and then we try to figure out how can we make God's word best fit our twisted desires? Will our twisted desires lead us to twist scripture and make it fit what we want it to? And the kind of interpretational hijinks that had to take place for them to actually justify slavery is pretty sad and embarrassing. But it shows us, it warns us how sinful our hearts and our minds can be. We take God's word and corrupt it to try to justify what we want all the time. It's a warning. It's a warning that we all have blind spots in how we do this. It's a warning to let history speak to us. It's a warning to let other Christians speak to us. My next question I wanna ask before we jump directly into the text is what does the Bible teach about work? The passage printed in your bulletin is Genesis 2. Verse 15 is the key verse there. The Lord God, he took man and just placed him in the garden after he'd created this beautiful society and ecosystem with a purpose. To lounge and enjoy himself with recreation? No. Work it. Keep it. Those are the exact same commands that God gives the priest when he picks him up and puts him in his most holy temple. Work it and keep it. This is a holy job. Work. Keep. God has given us a stewardship. It's very important. The garden did not belong to Adam or Eve. They were placed there to steward, to use all their abilities, talents, intelligence for God's glory. That's how He designed it. So we always have to remember, work is good. Work is good. And we also have to remember that work is hard. That's the second thing the Bible teaches very clearly. If you go to Genesis 3, We first see that God in Genesis 2, He created man, put him there, it's safe, it's protected, the serpent comes in, there's deception, there's sin, and then God comes and confronts that sin. And when He speaks to man, He says this, beginning in verse 17 of Genesis 3. Cursed is the ground because of you. That blessed land I gave you, it is now cursed because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. Now this text is very real for me right now because my garden looks right, as good as it's going to look right now, there's no weeds because there's nothing growing in it. But very soon there'll be more weeds than fruit bearing plants. And so I say, this is too real. It's very frustrating. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Work is hard and frustrating, not because God designed it to be that way, but because we rebelled against Him. It's our fault. Well, when work is hard and difficult and frustrating, we don't look up to God and say, how could you know? We have to remember, this is on us, folks. We're the ones who took the good thing and ruined it. The third thing I wanted to say about work is that it's necessary. It is necessary. 1 Timothy 5, 8 says this. But if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. working to provide for your loved ones is necessary. Or Ephesians 4 28, just a few weeks ago. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. I said last week Proverbs is written to give instruction for young men. It's written as a father to a child on how to have the right relationship with God. Instruction, women, money, and work. And so here's just a few Proverbs to meditate upon regarding work. Proverbs 12, 11. Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense. Proverbs 13, four. The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied. Proverbs 12, 24, the hand of the diligent will rule while the slothful will be put to forced labor. Proverbs 14, 23, in all toil there is profit, but mere talk lends only to poverty. Now, Proverbs is wisdom literature. It's making general observations. We can even go to Aesop's fables and see these. The ant and the grasshopper, right? The grasshopper's boasting about how he's gonna have fun all summer long and the ant's working and the grasshopper's making fun of him. Winter comes, what does the grasshopper do? Can I have some food? And what does the ant say? No, you will die in starvation because you did not work. It's good to work. It's hard to work. It's necessary to work. Fourth, God is always at work. God is always at work. Yeah, so the seventh day he rests, and that shows a beautiful completion to his creation work. And the longing is for us to be able to rest with him. But God is always at work. He was making promise in the Old Testament. He sent his Son to fulfill those promises in the time of the Gospels. When Jesus came. He's always at work. He doesn't slumber. He's always watching. He's always protecting. He's always caring. He's always got His hand moving and shaping what He desires it to do. No king has ever sat on a throne without God putting Him. He's always at work. He's always watching. And the most amazing work we can see is that God Himself came down to die for us. To rise again. He died for us as sinners. He died as if a sinner so that we might believe in Him and be forgiven. He rose again to give us new life. That is the great work of Jesus Christ. We are saved from our sin by believing in the work He did for us. If you're not a believer this morning, one of the most common misconceptions is, all right, if I want to be a Christian, what is it I need to do? You need to recognize your need for a Savior. You need to see Jesus Christ is that Savior. Trying to fix your own self, trying to fix your own heart, your own thoughts, your own actions, that's not gonna get you anywhere, but realizing more and more how sinful you are. Cleaning yourself up enough to become a Christian is impossible. But coming to Christ and saying, I am a sinner in need of forgiveness, in need of cleaning, that is something that grace allows you to do, and then he cleanses you. Then you can begin on that journey by the power of God to be changed. Do not think you can clean yourself up enough to be loved by God. That's the beautiful picture. He loves you and he knows how sinful you are. He loves us at our worst. Now our text, our immediate text here in Ephesians. Bond servants, obey your earthly masters. Now I want us to see first that there's a clear command. Obey. And that command is qualified in numerous ways. So when we're thinking about obedience, when we ask questions, well, what does obedience look like? Well, let's look at all the qualifiers. You're obeying your earthly masters. One qualification. with fear and trembling. Another qualification, with a sincere heart. A third qualification, as you would Christ. A fourth qualification, not by the way of eye service. A fifth qualification, not as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ. Next qualification, doing the will of God from the heart. Another qualification, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man. And then finally, knowing that whatever good anyone does, you will receive back from the Lord. He really explains to us what obedience looks like here in a positive and a negative. It's sincere, it's as to Christ, it's not eye service. We have fear. So let's look first, work with sincere obedience. There's only two points to the sermon. We've already had a lot of intro. Those were kind of points. Those are fun bonus points, you're welcome. But as we look at this text, we're gonna see two basic points, and the first one is this. Work with sincere obedience. And that's just simply looking at that obey with, with, not, as, rendering. Kind of amazing here, work is obedience. It's the same word as we saw last week. For children. The exact same word. The posture and active listening and active doing that we talked about for children to parents is the same expectation of servants to masters or we're going to say employee to employer. It's obedience, an active obedience. It's not complaining about assignments. It's not trying to change them. It's not arguing back. It's not halfway doing something. So what does obedience look like for an employee? If you're teaching, we have a lot of teachers. It's diligence and preparation. It's focused on what it means to communicate. It's actively and proficiently and quickly grading papers. It's everyone's favorite part of teaching. If in service, it's knowing the customer's needs and working to meet those needs with the best of your ability. If it sells, it means you're making a quality product and selling it at a fair price. Obedience is looking at whatever your employer is asking you to do and doing it the best of your ability. Now this next phrase is fairly interesting. Obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling. This is intense command. There's repetition. There is a reverence that's spoken of here. Now, what I find most interesting is that Paul is prescribing a fear of man. Paul is prescribing here a fear of man. Other parts of Scripture will speak of fear of man as sinful. For instance, when Israel was in the wilderness, God said, you go and you fight those people in that land. I'm fighting with you, I'll give you victory. Well, the Israelites, they sent spies. Those spies went and they saw they were all giants. And because of their fear of those men in that other city that God said, I'll fight for you and with you to beat, they disobeyed God. That sinful fear of man. A sinful fear of man is when we disobey God out of a fear of what somebody else could do to us. Or a fear of how other people might think of us. You can think of Peter. Kind of one of the most embarrassing fear of man events in all Scripture. Christ has been captured, he's outside of the temple gates, and a little girl He says, weren't you one of his disciples? Peter, so gripped with fear, so wrapped into himself that he denies the master, he denies the man he knew for three years, the man he saw walk on water, the man he saw raise risers from the dead, he denies him because a little girl asked. Out of fear of this little girl, he denies God. We can have a sinful fear of man. We can have a sinful fear of our boss, our parents. When we overly prioritize what other people think, it leads to disobedience. But what's amazing here is that in order to be obedient to Christ, you have to have a proper fear of your employer or your supervisor. There's a proper way of fearing man. As I spoke of last week, we live in a world of authority. There is authority everywhere, and we have to have the right mindset, the right posture towards it. There's a proper way of fearing man, and it's realizing that I am called by the God who is worthy of all praise and glory to respect and honor my employer. Whoever has authority over me to instruct me, to give me commands, to give me instruction, As we said last week, kids, it's never right to disobey your parents. We need to realize this morning that employees, it's never right to disobey your employer unless you have some clear biblical reason. It is impossible to think you can obey God if you never submit to anyone else. Your boss may not always be right, but it is wrong for you to disobey him unless you have some clear biblical principle. Okay, we have medical staff. If you're commanded to participate in an abortion, yeah, you should say no. You have a biblical principle to say no. If you're a teacher and you're required to teach the Bible is false or that Jesus didn't rise from the dead, yeah, you should say no. If you're a salesperson and you're instructed to cheat customers and be deceptive, you should say no. Your earthly master does not have the right to ask you to do something against your heavenly master. But we need to make sure we're posturing ourselves to actively listen. So we think about fear, what controls you? It is important to think about what we fear. Is it Christ and his love for us that compels us to obedience? Or is it what others will think? Am I trying to work so other people think I'm great? They will think, wow, that person is really competent and able, and I'm gonna ride the ladder up. See, what can control us? And we'll look at this a little bit later. The most important thing we should be thinking of when we work is this. Hearing the words of Christ on that last day could work. Good work. Well done, my good and faithful servant. And he'll say that if we were actually obedient the right way to our bosses. This is actually exactly what Paul prescribes. Notice he says, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ. If you go back in this household code, Christ has been central to every single command. He said to wives, submit to your husbands, not as you think they're worthy of submission, but as to the Lord Himself. Husbands, love your wives, not as much as you think they deserve love, but as Christ loved the church, giving Himself up completely for her. Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Parents, raise up children in the Lord's instruction. Workers, obey masters as you would Christ. You realize there's one heavenly master for all believers. And the way we actually respond to those in authority shows how much we think Christ has authority over us. As I think about this work and how we, any and all work is dedicated to serving Christ? I want us to appreciate what the Protestant Reformation did for work. Before the Protestant Reformation, there was an idea that there was sacred jobs and secular jobs. You could serve God in the ministry or you serve God in labor. And the Protestants say, no. All work should be done. the glory of God. All work can be done in a way that will glorify God. They removed from being just something high and lofty and said, no, you can worship God and you have to worship God in every aspect of life, especially the everyday mundane parts of life. They realized that Christianity isn't a pie in the sky just kind of waiting and longing only. No. active obedience of rejoicing in Jesus Christ right here, right now. So whatever kind of work you have, whatever kind of work you do, consider it sacred. Because you're working for Christ. We don't think there's some great difference in jobs. Well, we don't distinguish between those who work in service and the CEO. We don't think of religious and secular. We don't think blue collar or white collar. No, we realize that every kind of work is good if we're seeking to do it for the glory of God. We work because Christ is working in and through and for us. We need to put off this idea that some jobs are lower No, no, it's important for us to see every job we do, every job we could do, every job that's out there, if the person is doing it for the glory of God, it's good work. So a janitor can bring Christ as much glory as a Supreme Court justice. Let's think about that. If you're a janitor, if you were called right now today To be a janitor, would you grumble? Or would you say, how can I be a janitor for the glory of Christ? Well, would you think, these toilets, they're disgusting. Why would I lower myself to do that? Or would you say, these are the king's toilets. They're worthy of my great effort and focus to make them clean because I'm working for the king. Would you have a zeal to clean the floors? Would you be willing to work at the grime, dirt, and filth? Is Christ really worth any and all kinds of work? Is there something you would say, I won't do that for you, Jesus? I remember hearing a sermon early on when I first became a Christian. It was a pastor who worked as a janitor while working through seminary, and he used to grumble all the time. He was a warehouse janitor, and so it was a lot of sweeping. And he used to just complain, because he was thinking, I could be doing so much better things. God, don't you know what I'm going to become? And he actually became a very prominent pastor. If I named him, most of you would know him. And then he came across this passage one day, and he just realized he's got it all wrong. And from that day forth, they would say, watch out, because if you get in front of this guy, he's going to sweep you away with the dirt. Because he was so zealous. That's the kind of idea we're looking at here. This is the kind of change the King of glory and grace has called us to work. Let me think of another way this idea challenges us, and that is work in the church. I want you to see that I intentionally sit down here with you. because I am one of you. I'm a sheep. I'm a member of this church before anything else, and I just have the special privilege of speaking to you right now in the sermon. I praise God, and it's an honor that I have this particular work, but I wanna be very clear. What I'm doing right now is no more sacred than what other teachers were doing just an hour ago during Children's Sunday School or Adult Sunday School. They were working for the Lord to open up His Word, to teach and point children and other members to Christ. That was just a sacred work. Or the musicians and how they've labored to lead us to sing and meditate upon the words of the gospel in song. What I'm doing right now is no more sacred than what you're called to do right now. I'm trying to meditate verbally on what God has done. You're called to meditate intentionally. internally on what God is doing. These are sacred works. We need to get the idea out of our minds that there's these great things that I will only do and then there's lowly things. No. What's great about Acts 6? All right, there's some people grumbling. Somebody needs to serve tables. These guys are gonna deacon tables. These guys are gonna deacon the word and prayer. We're all gonna consider the Lord's ministry and do it to the best of our ability. We're called to work together for the glory of Christ. Now Paul gets to another point here in verse six. Not by way of eye service. It's like he knows us. Like how does he know we do things just to try to please other people externally? How did he know that? Because he's a sinner just like us. Not by just faking obedience, not by just appearing to be obedient, but no, it's a heart matter. Not just going through the motions, not just appearing to others as a good employee, but actually being a good employee. Verse seven, it's a goodwill from the heart. You know, I appreciated one day that last week we talked about children obey fully, quickly, and happily, and had a youth come up and they challenged me. How can I obey happily when I'm not happy? That's a great question. I'm not happy about having to obey. How can I change that? If you let other people control when and how you're happy, you're letting them have way more control than they should. We're in control. We have control over how we respond. We can decide, especially in light of what this text is teaching, when I'm giving something that's too difficult or when I am being mistreated in a way that the boss is telling me things and criticizing me unhelpfully. I can still obey happily because I can obey as to Christ, who I know is sovereign, not over me, but over that employer or fellow employee. Goodwill from the heart. It speaks of sincerity, single-heartedness, not double-mindedness, not double-tongued, a single-heartedness that says I'm going to happily do the work, not begrudgingly, So why is this so hard? They're not putting on eye service, not as people's pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Why is it so hard? One reason is we're prone to be lazy. We want things to be easy. We like being lazy at times. So this commandment is hard because we are lazy. Second, this is hard because we're selfish. We just don't like doing things for other people sometimes. We don't like receiving instruction, and that leads to the third reason this is hard, is oftentimes we just don't like authority. This is the most basic problem we have as sinners. It goes back to Genesis 3. God said, don't eat of one tree. We don't like authority. We don't like hard things. We lack a trust in God that what he's doing and always doing in his work is always good. And we don't appreciate the glory that can be found in the mundane. So that's work with sincere obedience. It's a high call to recognize that your employer or whoever you're serving, they're gonna be served as Christ. And then we see that the second basic command in this passage is work for reward. Look at verse eight, knowing that whatever good anyone does, that he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. Verse nine, masters do the same to them. Stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours in heaven, that there's no partiality with him. There's a reward, and the first way you see there's reward, there's no partiality. Just because you're in charge doesn't mean you get to act however you want to. Just because you have been given the position of master, employer, supervisor, whatever it is, doesn't mean you get to treat others in an ungodly way. God doesn't recognize your status. He's looking at how faithful you are. The real pressing matter here is verse eight. Work expecting to receive back from the Lord. Work to expect to receive back from the Lord. Now this rubs up against most of what we think about here in that we're looking for reward and of course, you're working for a paycheck. At the most basic level, a job is something you get so that somebody will pay you for services rendered. Because you need to provide. You need to have something to give, as we read earlier. But here's Paul is saying there's a whole other reason we're supposed to work. There's a whole other reward that we'll receive something back. Work hard to receive back. Now this sounds a little prosperity gospel-ish, doesn't it? Do something so God will do something for you. I want to be very clear. It is very prosperity gospel. The gospel is all about our prosperity. Everything God does for us is good for us. Everything God gives us is good. He's the good and perfect Heavenly Father who gives good gifts. Everything He does, when He chooses to put His grace upon us, is for our good. It's just not the prosperity gospel that we normally know of. Here's a problem with the prosperity gospel we typically think of or we typically hear if we turn on the TV or we listen to certain sermons. It said, if you give God enough now, he'll give you what you want here. If I apply myself, God will work out my plan for my life. What the prosperity gospel says is that God will bless me with what I desire if I do what I think I need to do. Who's God in that situation? Yeah, a lot. That's the basic teaching of the prosperity gospel. If I do what I think I need to do, right? You didn't ask God, what do you want me to do? If I do what I think I need to do, then God will give me what I want. You're acting like God in that scenario. That is a message that says you're God and that there's some other higher being that needs to serve you and your desires and recognize how good you are. It's gross. That's like a child controlling a family with his tantrums. That's how gross that model is. That's how gross that idea is. That a child controls his parents by the way he throws tantrums and fits. That's what we're trying to do to God there. Now what we're talking about here, what Paul is talking about here more specifically, righteous reward. Looking to God and saying, all right God, what do you want me to do? Okay, you want me to do this. It's usually very different than the things I want to do. And then he says, this is what I'll give you. And it's not, I'm going to prosper you here on this earth. Look, it's whenever you get to see that that Master in heaven, you will receive back from the Lord. We're not talking about immediate gratification. I believe what Paul is talking about here is that when we are faithfully obedient, we're going to gain a reward in eternity. We're going to not only receive those words, well done, good and faithful servant, but there's some kind of way in which our works here will affect our eternity. That's where the true heavenly rewards are. Now, I want to go back to Ephesians 1. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, all believers of Jesus Christ have the same blessings in Christ mentioned there. We all come to the cross equally as sinners. We all walk away in faith from the resurrection equally blessed as children of God. We have the same inheritance. Go back to Ephesians 1 and look at that inheritance language, that rich inheritance. You've been given so much and all Christians are given that same equal inheritance. What are you working for then? What kind of reward? I believe this passage and many others allude to what I believe teaches that God recognizes obedience and disobedience of believers in heaven. Well, we will have to give an account, Christian, for what we do and what we do not do in this world knowing that we should have been obedient and we weren't. or will be given a reward, recognizing faithful service. This doesn't mean you lose your salvation by not being obedient. And I'm not quite sure it's even what it looks like because this is heaven, but picture this. Everyone will be satisfied in heaven fully because we'll all see Christ in his glory without sin getting in the way. That's the one equal blessing. But that reward, it may be something like this. Your house is closer to the king's castle. It may be that you get a larger garden to labor in and work to bring more to the king. It may be that you simply just have a larger capacity to be full. Those are all ways Jonathan Edwards talks about it. We need to realize here, What Paul is talking about is a work ethic that's faith-based. That's over against our immediate gratification. It's over against loving and wanting to constantly be rewarded in the immediate. No, it's a faith-based work ethic. It's not looking forward to say, I'm going to really enjoy life once I retire. No, I'm going to receive the reward when God sees fit to give me the reward, whether it's in this life or the next, I'm going to work faithfully. So I ask, what reward are you most longing for and anticipating? Are you merely working for retirement? Are you working five days a week to enjoy two days of leisure? Think about the math. Is that all? What kind of reward are you looking for from work? Are you looking to have an identity and a value in the kinds of things you do? If you are, you probably already understand that's pretty unsatisfying. This is the beauty of the Gospel. The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives us that identity that is truly satisfying. The gospel of Jesus Christ gives us instruction on all our different relationships, our relationship with money, work, sex, spouse, children, work here. So we have a right relationship, so that things are properly ordered, so that we can live for the glory of Jesus Christ. Let's walk through just a few different kinds of people and how we can apply this more directly. Children, if you're a child and you're here with us, Recognize the way you are to work right now is by doing what your parents say. If your parents respect you enough to give you chores, that is such a blessing. Learn to do those chores with full and happy and quick obedience. We have a lot of students. Students, your teachers are your masters. You are to posture yourself toward them as you would Christ. They may be wrong about what they teach you, but you are to show respect. You're learning how to respect others right now as much as you're learning the content in those classes. Young adults entering the workforce. I would encourage you, choose a job that allows you to fulfill your responsibility first to your family. The first reason you're getting a job is to pay bills. Whether you're single or if you're looking to get married and have children, you need to first look, what does this job pay? Does it allow me to actually fulfill the responsibility to care for myself and my loved ones? Secondly, choose a job that promotes what's good for society. This doesn't mean you can only work if it's going to change the lives of thousands of people. You have to have this job that clearly changes lives. No. If you're a barista at Starbucks, you can actually change people's lives just by smiling, being kind, getting to know your neighbors, and hopefully sharing the gospel with them. Your job can change the world when you're interacting with people with the gospel of Jesus Christ in anything you do. Every job with people is kingdom building because the kingdom's about people. Recognize that. Choose to glorify God no matter what your circumstances are and work. And trust God in your anxiety. He's with you. He's for you. If you're in the workforce, realize that one of the greatest gospel testimonies you have is being a respectable employer. a respecting employee. Don't join in on the jokes about the boss. Don't participate in the voicing of frustration. Make sure you're praying for your employer, your boss. Make sure your posture with your fellow employees and employer is one of gratitude And also recognize that yes, every job is difficult. Every job probably has an employee or an employer that is difficult. And the grass is probably not greener. There are older members who can give you more wisdom than I can on that. This is the beauty of having multiple generations. If you're retired from your vacation, don't stop working. Do this for yourself, your family, your neighbor, and for the glory of Christ. Prayerfully ask, how can I now commit my life to service in a way that's going to most glorify Christ? Use the freedom of not having to punch a clock or be expected to be at a certain place of employment. If God's blessed you to retire from vocational work, seek to ask Christ, how can I now serve in a church or in missions? I want to leave us with that one clear truth. God is at work. It's important to remember. If you forget that, you can't obey this. We know we can serve our bosses, our employers, our fellow employees. We can serve them as Christ because Christ is always at work. His hand's upon us. His hand's upon them. He's going to work all things out for the good of those who love him. We work by faith, fully trusting that Christ is working in, through, and for us. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you are a God of work. You've called us into your work. What a privilege it is to be ambassadors of you as workers, as we get to work together. building up one another for the glory of Christ. We pray for those who are looking for jobs, may they find them. We pray for those who are in the middle of difficult jobs, give them perseverance and trust. We pray for those who are soon to retire or retired, Lord. Give them wisdom in how to use these days. May we all learn to work as to the Lord. In his name we pray, amen.