Your Work is Worship

Growing up, one of my favorite musicians was Jimmy Buffett. I wouldn't consider myself a Parrothead, per se. I don't wear Hawaiian shirts when I'm not at the beach. Steve Johnson. But I do enjoy his music. How could I not like someone who has a song called Cheeseburger in Paradise? I like mine with lettuce and tomato. Could go on, but I won't. His music is relaxing. It's endearing. I enjoy it. But I don't enjoy the overall message of his music. So I can't be a full parrot head. I can't buy in wholeheartedly to what he's saying. Because his message is that life is better on vacation. Life is meant to be a permanent vacation. We're meant to live in Margaritaville, not Charlottesville. He denies God's truth that work is good. Now, I like his music. I don't want to beat up on Jimmy too much. But the issue here is that we oftentimes think like Jimmy Buffett sings. That work isn't good. We're working for vacation. We're working for the weekend rather than realizing that God has given us work. And work is good. Work is something that's supposed to be enjoyed. Our message this morning is this. Your work is worship. You are called to work as part of your worship. We're in Colossians. We're close to the end of our study in Colossians. Turn with me there. Colossians 3. We're picking up in verse 22. Your work is worship. Slaves, 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. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your slaves justly, fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. We're going to look at this morning, the message, your work is worship. We talked about a couple of weeks ago, this is our congregational worship. This is when we come together and sing as the saints. This is when God's children gather at a specific time for the specific purpose of singing and worshiping and praising and hearing God's Word together. You don't stop worshiping when you leave. You don't just worship when you come in. All of life is worship. You worship in your homes. You're supposed to worship while at work. You're supposed to worship while you're on vacation. You don't take a vacation from God. When you take a vacation, you're supposed to use it for restful worship. All of life is an arena for worship. This morning we're going to look specifically at work, our vocations, our callings. how they are meant to be worshipped. Now, as you heard the text, we're talking about slaves and masters, and so initially we're thinking, well, thanks to the 13th Amendment, this no longer applies to us. We no longer have slavery. So, I'm going to interpret this as our employment, our work, how we're supposed to labor according to God's good plan. We're going to be looking at how we are to obey as servants in the workplace. Before I do that, I want to address the issue of slavery in Scripture. I'm not going to give a full treatise on this. It's going to be simply a quick look at how Scripture looks at slavery and servanthood because it is a moral issue and I think it's important for us to consider. The first thing as we look at slavery in Scripture is that our letter to Colossae was written at the same time and delivered with The letter to Philemon. Philemon was a slave owner. He owned a slave named Onesimus. And Paul is sending this letter that addresses slaves with the personal letter to Philemon. So when these letters were read in public, Philemon got a personal letter. That personal letter was saying, receive back your servant Onesimus. Receive him back, not with penalty, not with punishment, but as a brother. Secondly, so as we look at this, it's important. You can go and read Philemon later today. It's a one-chapter book. It's simple. It's easy. But we can see there that Paul isn't saying free him from slavery. We see that he's saying bring him back in good standing. Second, servanthood is different here than what we consider as slavery from our past in America. The slavery here isn't man-owning. Slavery here wasn't capturing and bringing over and man owning and treating people without complete dignity. It was assumed part of the culture. But a lot of this is indentured servanthood. A lot of this is bond servants and indentured servants. Paul neither condones slavery. He also doesn't condemn it. Paul isn't trying to overthrow a governmental system. He's trying to teach us how to be faithful Christians within a system. Peter says something to servants as well that will be helpful for us to consider. This is 1 Peter 2 verse 13. Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live with people who are free. Not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor. Servants. Be subject to your masters with all respect. Not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing. When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. We're accredited that if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure. But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure. This is a gracious thing in the sight of God. He's accepting the institutions that have been ordered over them. God is sovereign over these institutions. He's not responsible for the evil done by these institutions. But there's no call to say, let's overthrow this institution. We're not called to overthrow the emperor. We're called to give to Caesar what is Caesar's and give to God what is God's. God deserves our worship and our hearts. We're called to suffer under institutions. Paul says something very similar in 1 Corinthians 7. I'll begin in verse 17. Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his calling already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the mark of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who is called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord." Paul wants us to focus on the freedom we have in Christ to serve and worship Him. We can also look to the letter of Philemon. You can flip over the last letter of Paul. Paul exhorts Philemon to receive a nest in his back without penalty. And look at verses 15 and 16. For this, perhaps, is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever. No longer as a slave, but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me. But how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. Now, it could be that Paul is saying you need to free him from his slavery, but what he's really emphasizing here is that you're bringing back a brother. Philemon, if you're a Christian, you're bringing back Onesimus into your home as a Christian and you're going to show grace to him. We can look at verses 13 and 14 and see that he respects the authority given to Philemon over Onesimus. I would have been glad to keep him with me, speaking of Onesimus, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel. But I prefer to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be might not be by compulsion, but of your own accord." Here he's recognizing authority, he's hoping that he's going to use his authority for good as a Christian. So the main thing here is that the sermon is different, but we never see anyone in Scripture, Jesus, Peter, Paul, all of His Christ's Word, trying to overthrow it. The key point is to say we're supposed to be obedient within it. I think maybe the most evidence that we need to think of servanthood is that Paul really does a transvaluation of servanthood. How does Paul start most of his letters? A bond-servant of Christ. He takes on a title for himself that would be derogatory within culture. He says, I'm a servant, I'm a slave to Christ. He's willing to take on that title which would be derogatory, which would be underneath his status of a citizen. because he sees that it is an honor to be a servant of Christ. Let's begin to think about work. Our work is to be our worship. We read our text again, starting in verse 22. Slave of the bay and everything, those who are your earthly masters, not by way of service, by service, as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, Fearing the Lord, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you'll receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ, for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done. And there is no partiality. Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven." The first thing we see here from verse 22 is that we are called to work sincerely for man. We are called to work sincerely for man. Bond servants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters. The word there for obey is the same that we saw before. Children, obey your parents. Paul is just continuing an application of Christ, the exalted one, for the family. Chapters 1 and 2 were all about how Christ is the preeminent one. He is the supreme authority. He's the head of all creation. He's the head of the church. Now he's applying it as we continue to think about the family from the marriage to the parenting. Now servants. Servants would have been in the household. We see that for the servants. And I think for us as employees, as workers and laborers, we're supposed to obey. And the scope is universal. Obey in everything. If you have a boss, a manager, an employer, God has blessed you with that job and He has blessed you with that employer. God has blessed you with that job. And whatever comes with that job, God has blessed you with that as well. I had decided to go to Liberty University, and then I found out you're supposed to wear a tie every day. So I told my mom, I don't think I'm supposed to go there. So she said, if God called you to Liberty, He called you to wear a tie. Whatever God has called us to, He's called us to every consequence of that calling. So if He's called you to your job, He's called you to every complication, frustration, and difficulty within that job, and He's called you to be obedient, to be submissive, and to work wholeheartedly. The first thing we can see here is that we really should be trustworthy. We have to be trustworthy at work. We have to be good Christians in the workplace. It means we don't steal. We don't steal things from work. We don't take things from our workplace. We also don't steal time. We don't waste time at work. Whenever we are there, we are committed to giving our full energy to that occupation. We are to obey in everything. We're not to steal time. We're not to goof off. We're to be committed with our whole energy to the workplace. Do people know you as a Christian at work? Do they recognize that you work hard as a Christian? First, if they don't know you're a Christian at work, there's a whole other conversation to have. Why don't they know you're a Christian at work? Is there not enough evidence of grace in your life that they wouldn't know you're a Christian at work? If they know you're a Christian at work, do they see you modeling submissiveness and obedience and a happy heart and faithfulness? What is your reputation at work? Are you the hardest worker? Are you easy to get along with? The second thing is that we're not just supposed to be honest and trustworthy at work. We're to be happy. Now that's a little harder than the mere obedience of not doing something such as stealing. Paul says here, not by way of eye service at people pleasers. We're not just there to appear to do a good job. We're not just there to do what people can see us as doing a good job. We're actually there to have a sincere heart. Sincerity of the heart. A singleness of heart. We're supposed to be happy at work. This means you don't just go through the motions of obedience. You actually have to say, I want to obey. You have to train your heart to say, I want to do this job. We're called to obey not the human eyes that are watching us, but the omniscient, omnipresent eye. The eye that sees everything. The eye that sees not just the final work of the project, but the eye that saw your heart during the project. A real concrete example of this is that if you're a janitor, you don't just sweep around the rug, you sweep under the rug. You see the difference? If we had a janitor and I was in charge of him, I would walk around and I would inspect his work. I'm not going to lift the rug. But he would want to obey God. He would want to clean in such a way that God saw everything. And God sees the dirt that we do not see. We're supposed to serve the one who can see everything. If you're a businessman, you do not work just for the end result. You work to worship God. You do everything in a way that is pleasing to Him. If you're a teacher, your job is not just to do to turn grades in. Your job isn't just to satisfy your boss. Your job is to develop and train children. Your job is to invest in them, to commit to them their well-being. Notice here, he also says, out of fear of the Lord. Fear is better translated really as reverence. Obey your earthly masters out of reverence for the Lord. This is how we see that it's worship. You're to obey your earthly master as reverence. Out of your love for God, out of your worship for God, you are to obey your master, your earthly master. Now, obedience, especially the kind of obedience we're talking about here, it requires that you first honor them. Now, we've all, I assume, if we're self-employed now, we've all had a manager or boss that was difficult to honor. Bosses are complicated. Bosses are difficult. The employee-boss relationship is always complicated and that's because we're all sinners. The issue here is we're supposed to obey them all things and I think that necessarily requires that we honor them. You have to intentionally take much of them because God has put them in that position of authority and God has put us under them who have that position of authority. The first thing we see is we're supposed to obey our earthly masters, our earthly bosses, our earthly managers, in a way that isn't just pleasing them according to what they see, we're to please them according to what God will see, the full work in our complete heart. Secondly, we are to work as worship to the Lord. Verse 23, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. This is the single-heartedness we're talking about. We are to work as for the Lord. The Lord is hidden in our boss. The Lord is hidden in your manager. As you treat your manager, you are treating Christ. We are to work as if our work is committed to Christ. This is part of our freedom in Christ. We are free now, as servants of Christ, to work and serve Him. It says whatever you do, That's a universal scope. What if your boss asked you to clean the toilets? I look around, I see people in positions of high authority. What if your boss asked you to clean the toilets? How would you respond? I see heads shaking, no. Paul says, whatever they say to do, obey. Are you humble enough to to serve as if you were serving Christ. Let me ask another way. If Christ asked you to clean the toilets, what would you say? Christ, who is hidden in your boss, how would you respond? Is that job beneath you in the kingdom? Is there something that our Lord and Savior would command us that we would say, sorry, king of heaven, creator, sustainer, most glorious and holy one, I don't think that's in my job description. I think my degree allows me to not do that job. Great opportunities to worship are often missed because they are dressed in overalls and look like work. We think the gross jobs are for someone else. the hard-working job, but for someone else. No, when Christ commands us, we are to obey, and when our boss commands us, we are to serve him as if the Lord. I remember listening to a preacher once, and he was a janitor during seminary, and he hated sweeping the warehouse. He would sweep along, sweep along, kind of just realizing, I'm wasting my time here. I'm calling the minister. Well, then he came across a passage like this, and he realized that He's supposed to be sweeping that floor as if it's Christ's floor. And soon the other employees are saying, hey watch out or else Chuck will sweep you away. He swept the floor with absolute commitment and conviction that he was doing it for the Lord. Nothing, nothing is beneath us when it comes to serving the Lord. I want to step back now as we look at these first two verses. I want to actually get a bigger picture of vocation. We're actually going to leave Colossians just temporarily. We're going to look at all Scripture. We're going to think about vocation, and then we're going to narrow it back in. The big picture of vocation. First, God worked. Work is good because God is good. Whatever God does is work, and God worked. The very first words of Scripture present God as working in the beginning, He created the heavens and the earth. That is work. We know it's work because on the seventh day, He rested. Those days, He was working. Work is good because God is working. If Genesis isn't enough, you can look at John 5, 17, where Jesus says, My Father is always working. For Jesus, it was His delight to see His Father working and want to participate and obey in that work. Even more so with Jesus, John 17, 4, he says to the Father, I have brought you glory by completing the work you gave me to do. God, the Father, has never been more pleased in seeing his son complete the work set before him perfectly. If you're not a Christian this morning, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the gospel that unites us here together. God is working for us and towards us. We have rebelled against God. We have forsaken God. We've turned our back on him. More than that, we've actually started to kick and fight against him. And God starts working towards us. The father sends his son out of a love for us, working towards us. The father says to the son, you need, you have to descend. You have to remove yourself from the glory and the honor of heaven and you have to take upon yourself the loathiness of the human nature. Jesus became like us. God himself became like us in every way except for sin. So that he could live that perfect life. A life that we were created to live without sin, with perfect righteousness, so that then he could die as every sinner. That is the work of Christ, to persevere through sin, never giving in to all the temptation, so that He could complete His work by dying as if a sinner, because He was dying for sinners. See, all of our work is offensive to God. Everything we do is offensive to God. Everything we do is sinful because we are sinners. And His wrath is going to be upon us when we die. His wrath will be poured out upon us. But if we believe in Christ, the One who was innocent, the One who is righteous, the One who worked righteously and perfectly, the Father pours out His wrath on Him as our substitute. He takes our place under the wrath of God. That is God's work towards us. So if anyone were to ever doubt God's work, you just have to look to the cross. That is God's good work. Work is divine. To belittle work is to reject God and His good design. So, the first thing we see in the big picture of vocation is that God works. And He works for us. The Creator. The One who is sustaining the world. The One who saves sinners. Secondly, God made us for work. We were made to work. Everyone. Everyone was made to work. This is really over against most other religions. The ancient Greek view was that work was a punishment. The gods were vacationing. They were in Margaritaville. And they were making us labor so that they wouldn't have to work. We were their slaves. They were lounging. They were relaxing. The ideal was the vacation. And we were punished. with work. That's not God's view. God, who isn't at work, not vacationing, never on vacation, always for us, always with us, He works and He made us for work. The command in the garden. Have dominion. Exercise dominion. We were supposed to be the gardeners of this world. We were meant to be the ambassadors, the one who cared for it. So, we're made with dignity. And that dignity is experienced in work. That's why when people are jobless, unemployed, there's a depression that takes place. They don't lose their dignity, but they lose the opportunity to experience that dignity. Work is meant to be good. Work was created for us to give us purpose and meaning. Chuck Colson tells a story from World War II. Some Americans were captured by the Nazis, The Nazis at this camp said, well, we want you to move all this rubble to this side of the field. So they moved all the rubble, and as they finished, they started to get scared. Well, are they going to make us now build this building back over here, and then it will be used to build ammunitions or weapons for the cause of the Nazis? They started really getting fearful that their work was going to help the Nazis. Well, then the Nazis, who were scarily causing suffering, they told them to then move the rebels back to their chosen field. They didn't want them to build anything. They wanted them to just work and work and work without any meaning or without any purpose. Well, one by one, those American soldiers started committing suicide because their work was meaningless. They could not handle the idea of constantly working without any fruit or without any effectiveness. The Nazis had gotten to their minds and one by one they started running into the electric fence that would immediately kill them. Work was meant to be good. Our work is not that effortless, but ever since the fall, work has been frustrating. It was meant to be fruitful, but now it's frustrating. It was meant to be a blast, but now it's a curse. We have to realize that our work has to have meaning and purpose because it gives us meaning and purpose. As we look at the difficulty of work, work is complicated. Work is good, work is an opportunity to worship, but it is complicated. The author of Ecclesiastes 2 says this, I hated life because work was meaningless. Have you ever had a day where you just keep trying to get something done and nothing gets done? You leave to go home very frustrated. Work is cursed. It's not the way work was meant to be. Before the fall, work would have been glorious. Work was good. It was always fruitful. But now it is frustrated because of our sin. Third, God works. He created us for works. God calls and equips us for a specific work. I've used the word work, employee, really we need to think about this as vocation. Vocation is in many ways a Christian term because it comes from the word to call. We don't have careers, we have vocations as Christians. We're supposed to seek out how has God equipped me, What is God calling me to? So we're supposed to be thinking about what is our vocation? We don't just change jobs and careers like clothes. No, we're supposed to be committed and say, God, what are you calling me to? How can I fulfill that calling? How can you best encourage others? How can you best serve others? That is your vocation. So now we can think about work in a broader sense. Everyone has a vocation. Most of us have numerous vocations. So you're an employee, but you're also a husband and a father. Those are vocations. So as you think about this, moms, stay-at-home moms, you've got a vocation. You've got a high responsibility in your vocation. Everyone has a vocation. to be human is to have a vocation. First and foremost, we're supposed to be worshiping God. That is our vocation. And then we see, how are we to worship God? There are three ways to view work, vocations as Christians. This is up against the pagan view that all work is punishment. So that's kind of the fourth out there view. Is that the predominant American view? Work is punishment? Work is to be avoided? Where's the three prominent Christian views? The first one I use the word Christian fairly loosely because it helps us understand kind of where we are today. The first way to look at work from, well, the first way Christians have looked at work, God saves us and only church work is sacred. Only church work is sacred. Now, I don't think this is a true Christian view. This is a view that Christians have had. This is the predominant view of the medieval church before the Reformation. The reason we're Protestants is first and foremost because they rediscovered the doctrines of salvation. You're saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. We're first and foremost Protestants. We believe like those saints Martin Luther and John Calvin because they rediscovered the doctrine of salvation in Scripture. The second great rediscovery of the Protestants was the doctrine of vocation. You see, the Catholic Church had been teaching for years that the only work that really glorified God and worshipped God was church work. If you really wanted to serve God, then you needed to give up your life in a married home and in the secular world, you needed to come work at church. You need to be a pope, a cardinal, a nun, or a monk. That's the only work the Catholics saw as pleasing to God. They separated the sacred and the profane. The profane not being dirty, but being work of farmers and tradesmen. There was a dichotomy. There was a hierarchy of holiness. If you really wanted to be holy and work for God, you needed to commit to church work. Well, thankfully, Luther and many others, they rediscovered the doctrine of vocation, that every work is work for worship. Luther said that a maid milking a cow glorifies God more than the asceticism of a monk. Because God never called a monk to asceticism. God calls a maid to milk the cow. A janitor, his work glorifies God more than the work of a priest, who's not preaching the word of God more, because it's actually a calling. They got rid of this hierarchy of holiness. There's not one vocation better than the other. All callings are from God. The purpose is, the goal is, Discover what God is calling you to, and then do it wholeheartedly. The goal in life is to find out what God is calling you to, and then to do it with all of your strength. All our vocations or callings, whether it be a minister, a farmer, a cobbler, a chef, a repairman, a banker, or a teacher, all are created by God and are used for the well-being of all people. This is where we get the Puritan work ethic from. You work hard because you realize God called you to that work. If God called you to that work, you work as under the Lord. If it's just a job, if it's just a career, then it's selfish. But as Christians, we're to have a high work ethic because we realize God has called us, and He's called us to work. Tyndall said this, to the external eye, there is a great difference between washing dishes and preaching God's word, but touching to please God, not at all. When God hears me preaching the word or when God sees someone washing dishes with a sincere heart, it pleases God all the same. All vocations, when we are fulfilling our calling, are pleasing to God. I'm just a member of Jefferson Park that's called out to preach. You're the member of Jefferson Park that's called out to listen. We're all called to fulfill our calling to God. Let's look at the two Protestant views. So the Catholic view was that there's a difference between the sacred and the profane. And that's wrong. All callings are God's callings. All vocations are able and used by God to bring Him glory. But there's actually two different Protestant views, and they're both good, but I want to present both of them side by side. God worked for us, now we work for Him. That's one right view of God. That's one good way of looking at work. God called us to Himself, now we are to work for Him. This is simply saying that if God is your Savior, He's now your Lord. If He has called you by grace, now you are to commit your work to Him. You are to work to Him and for Him. This is right and good. He has revealed Himself to us and now we are to follow Him, trust and obey. The third one is this. God calls us according to His grace and then calls us to be instruments of grace. This is a slight modification. This is actually Luther's view. So, the first one was that God calls you, then you work for Him. The second one, the difference is this. God is the agent in all the action. He calls you to Himself, and then He makes you an instrument of His. That's how we're supposed to see vocation. God calls us to be saved by Him, and then we realize that then God calls us to serve others. We're never meant to be individuals. God equips us individually, but to serve the community. Our vocations we must see as ways that God uses us to bless others. So, we think about this in our community. We pray that God will bless us with our daily bread. Well, I don't know of any recent event of this, but God doesn't regularly drop manna down to bless us with daily bread. No, God uses the farmer who grows the wheat. He uses the baker to make the wheat into bread. When God blesses us, He uses one another. So that's the way I started thinking about vocation. How is God going to use me to glorify Him and bless others? You're called to serve. Each person is supposed to produce something that is for the well-being of the community at large. Not just the community of the church, the community at large. This makes everything sacred. We're all called to work together serving one another according to our gifts. Where it goes wrong is when we start working for our own well-being. We make our calling our career. How can this promote me? How can this make me happier? No, when you're called as a Christian, you're looking to how you can benefit the well-being of others. You ask yourself, what am I equipped to do? Ask others, what am I good at? How can I best serve others? What kind of job should I get is based upon what you are actually good at. You're also called to serve the church with your gifts. So, what about vocation? Vocation isn't just your employment. A vocation is being a mom, a wife, a father, a husband, a child, a grandparent. At church we all have vocations. We all have callings. What are we supposed to do in our callings? Some are called to be elders. Some are called to be deacons. No matter what our calling, we must be present to bless others with that calling. We all have been given many gifts. We're a body. Many moving parts, and Lord willing, we're all moving all those parts under the edge of Christ, and only then will we actually be the blessing we're supposed to be. And the family. Our roles are husbands and wives, parents and children, and grandparents. Motherhood is a vocation. It's a calling to care. There's a pervasive perspective in our culture that your worth is based on your income. The typical mindset, I believe, is that your worth, your value, is based on how much you make. How many zeros are behind the dollar sign gives you your worth and your value to the typical American or even Western mind. That's not your worth. When you're thinking about a vocation, your worth is how you serve others, not in what you make. Your worth is in how much you serve God and you seek His will, not in your paycheck. So, young folks, As you think about what vocation you're interested in, do not let the perversion of the paycheck change what you want to do. It's about your service to others. Let's get back to our text. That was our big picture of vocation. Now we're going to get back into verse 24. We are called to work for reward. Here's verses 24 and 25. Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward, you are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Let's begin with verse 24. It tells us we are to work for a reward. It's a motivation for obedience. Work for a reward. Well, before we get into what is a reward, I want to walk through what I think are prominent rewards we think of in our work. One wrong reward to think of in your work is that you're working for the weekend. You're working five days a week, nine to five, to get to the weekend. So, that's not seeing work as worship. It's not seeing your vocation as worship. We're not supposed to just be working for the weekend. We're supposed to see that what we do during the week is glorifying to God. All of life is worship. That is one part. You don't just work for the weekend. Also, you don't work for advancement. It's not a career for a Christian who's always seeing how high they can climb in a ladder. It's not a career. It's seeing how you can be best placed to use your gifts to serve your employer. We're not seeking a career. If you're after this, you're going to run to the Peter principle. The Peter Principle says this, employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence. You're not going to glorify God if you continue to try to advance your career. You're going to get to the point where you're actually incompetent, according to modern day studies. One author said this is called the tomorrow trap. You're always working for what's going to happen tomorrow. You're not enjoying the present opportunity to worship God. You're always thinking, what will happen tomorrow? What kind of advancement can I have? If you're always working for the advancement, for tomorrow, you have the sin of covetousness and envy lurking. Because typically, when you want advancement, you want a bigger paycheck. You think, if only I had this job, I would make this much money and I would live in this house and have this car. You're looking to want something that you don't right now have out of God's good mercy for you. We need to be content. We need to seek peace. We do not need to be seeking the reward of advancement. We need to be seeking how can we best serve God. Third, the third wrong reward to seek, retirement. Retirement. You're working to retire. Maybe you've already worked to retire. Now, I have searched the Scriptures and I would love it if you could show me where it is, but I do not see retirement in the Bible. You always have a vocation. You may not have labor where you're clocking in and out, but there's no such thing as retirement in Scripture. The American dream of retiring and no longer laboring so you can walk on the beach and collect seashells. That is not what God has caught us to. To think that the golden years are just meant to be relaxing and enjoying. No, you are meant to have vocation. Maybe you retire from your employment, but then you retire to a new vocation. Now I hope you will be able to use the time you used to spend with an employer in the ministry of a church. Use your golden years. Use the retirement years to further the kingdom with mission trips. By coming to the church and asking Asher or Matthew, Davidson or I, how can I serve the body? God does speak to the older generation and is never to retire. Let me read one instance where he speaks to the older generation, Titus 2.3. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves, so much one. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." Older women, older men and women, teach what is good, training the younger generation. If you're retired, are you retiring to yourself? Are you seeking a new vocation under God's wisdom and His direction to train up the younger generation? Maybe you're wondering, what can I possibly do? I don't know how I can help the younger generation. Ask them how you can serve. Volunteer yourself. Can I come over one day and just spend time with your family? The older men and women. Your vocation is to train the younger generation. You don't retire. You just have a new vocation. Use your wisdom. Use your life experiences. Use God's Word to teach us how to best live. Retirement is to be used for worship. Just as childhood, just as the young years, just as the parents, just as children, just as your every vocation is used for worship. Retirement must be used for worship. Now let's look at verse 24 again. What does it mean to work for the reward? We all want jobs with job security. We all want purpose. We want pay. But what we have to realize is when we're working, we're working for another boss. Christ is hidden in your vocation. We are working for a greater purpose. As we look at reward, I don't believe he's just speaking of eternal life. When Paul says, work for the reward that is given to you by Christ, I don't think he's saying your reward is eternal life. I think it's more than that. Eternal life is a gift, not a reward. A reward is something you get for doing something. So let me be clear. We are saved by grace alone. It is a gift from God. There's nothing we do to earn that gift. God graciously gives it to us. Here we're thinking of a whole different category. We're thinking of what happens when we receive eternal life. What kind of reward will we have when we get eternal life? I believe there are different rewards in heaven. Each will be rewarded based upon their faithfulness and obedience. may walk through some other texts. I believe this is one of the key texts that speak to it. But here's some other texts. If you're wondering, what does it mean to have rewards in heaven? You can look at 2 Corinthians 5.10. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, speaking of Christians, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. The scripture reading from today was speaking of those servants who know what they're supposed to do and what happens to them if they do not do it. Jesus refers to rewards three times in Matthew 6. Matthew 16, every man will be rewarded according to his deeds. Other texts are 2 John 4, 6 and Revelation 11, 22. Now as we think about, all right, what does it mean to have rewards in heaven? I want to give you two different ways to think about it. I realize it's warm. I realize it's noon. I'm going to give you two different ways to think about rewards. First is the way Jonathan Edwards talked about rewards. Again, this is not salvation. This is what happens after we are faced with the judgment of Christ. We are brought into the kingdom of heaven and then we're rewarded in heaven. Edwards interpreted this with love. This is Edwards. This is classic Edwards. He said our different rewards are having a different capacity for love. So, the more obedient we are, the larger our capacity will be for love. So, it's like a balloon. Your heart is metaphorically a balloon. The more obedience you have, the more stretched out the balloon gets, and the more of God's love can fill that balloon. So, being obedient is stretching your heart now to have a greater capacity to experience God's glory, God's beauty, and His love. Now, everyone's going to be satisfied in heaven. Everyone's hearts will be filled. Everyone's balloon will be fully blown up with God's love. The difference is, some will have larger capacities. I, for one, want the largest capacity I can possibly have. We'll all be satisfied, but some will have a larger capacity to enjoy. And that's the one of an abstract. That's Jonathan Edwards. That's the one abstract. I believe it speaks to the truth of what rewards are. I actually like this more concrete, gritty example. The original heavens and earth, Adam was a farmer. Adam had land. When the Bible speaks of inheritance, I think, I hope, I imagine, inheritance involves land. So, imagine with me for a second. I'm not saying this is exactly how it will be, but I think it might be. Whenever we are born into heaven, our reward will be an allotment of land. And we will work that land. The more obedience we have, the greater amount of land. That's what Christ says when He says, those who are faithful, they will receive more. So, our agrarians love this. You're going to receive a heavenly land. A land that no longer is full of weeds and thorns that fight against you. No, you're going to have a land that bears fruit, that is blessed and fruitful. And so, when we receive an inheritance, when we receive the Son's inheritance, part of the Son's inheritance, I believe our reward will be based upon how obedient we are. And the reward would then be larger or smaller pieces of land. We're made to work. We're not just going to be sitting around in a cloud in heaven. We're going to be working under the Lord and for the Lord in His kingdom. The final thing I want us to see is that the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done. There is no partiality. The Roman courts, the masters would have always won the case because they were partial. God is a just judge. It doesn't matter your status. What matters is your faithfulness. We will receive according to what we have done from the just judge. So if the master is unfaithful, he will be punished. If the servant is faithful, he will be rewarded. Our social status does not affect our reward. If you're a slave, this is glorious news. Because you never get a fighting chance in this world. But with God, if you are faithful, your reward will be great. Finally, chapter 4, verse 1, if you are over someone at work, then you must treat them as your responsibility. Treat masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. Just and fair refers to a wage in treatment. You are to be fair and just. Chuck Colson told the story of a prominent car salesman in a city. He professed to be a Christian, but he was actually known for having treated his employees and his customers fairly poorly, trying to cheat them. And this professing Christian said, after hearing Chuck Colson preach, Chuck knew his reputation. He said, you know, I'm going to go and give traps to everyone who comes into my places of business. Chuck said, don't do that. That would be the worst thing you could possibly do. You have a reputation. People are going to associate Christ with your reputation. People are going to see how you cheat and treat people unfairly and justly and associate that with Christ. Do not give tracts out. First, start treating people justly and fairly. The way you treat others speaks much louder than a tract that you might give away. There's no partiality with God. As we conclude, very briefly, five simple ways to make work worship. First, recognizing you're a priest. The rediscovery of the doctrine of vocation is tied directly to the priesthood of every believer. We all now have direct access to the Father through the Son, equally. So, whenever we go work, we are working before the King. We are priests there to do our labor of worship. And not only are we supposed to be worshipping before the king as a priest, we're supposed to be leading others in worship. So, realize you're a priest everywhere you go. When you are in your vocation, you are worshipping. Second, you are called to work for the sake of others. You're not looking for a career, you're looking for a vocation. You're not looking for what you can consume, you're looking for how you can serve. This requires Christ-like humility. Philippians 2, have that mind which is in Christ, which was seeing others as more important than yourself and seeing their interests as more important than yours. You are seeking to use your gifts for God's glory and for others. Third, do not over-prioritize work. We haven't really spoken to the workaholic problem. Your identity isn't in your vocation. It's very important. Your identity isn't in your vocation. Your identity is that a son of Christ, a son of the Father in Christ. Your identity is a Christian and therefore you have a vocation. We need to make sure that we're not putting the wrong emphasis on vocation. Finally, Recognize that your employer has been put over you for God's goodwill, for your goodwill, for God's glory. Whatever our condition is, no matter how difficult it is, God is sovereign. Your employer is your employer according to God's will. Your job is a blessing. Seek to praise Him and worship Him there. Let's go to the Lord and pray. Almighty God, we thank you, Lord, that you are good, that you, as a good God, have worked. You have worked for us. You have worked towards us to save us, to not leave us alone in our rebellion. Help us, Lord, to trust those promises. Trust the promises that you have kept us and you keep us for eternal life. Help us, Lord, to trust that you will reward us justly and fairly. Help us, Lord, to work towards that end. by the power of your grace, relying upon your spirit, focusing on your gospel that saves us. In your holy name we pray. Amen.