Wholehearted Service (Part 2 of 2)

Whether you're managing a company or busing tables at a restaurant as believers we see our work as having a higher purpose today on Truth for Life. Alastair beg urges us to offer wholehearted service in whatever were doing as though we are working for the Lord. This is the final message in our series called life together were the book of Ephesians chapter 6 verses five through nine, as it really is quite sad thing for many of us that when we think in terms of the gospel. We think in such an atomized kind of way.

The gospel is this and this is what it means in this how you know and is what you do with it but I defy the gospel is is so vast and so huge is that we have been saved from sin's penalty is the denizens of the scope that we are being saved from sin's power that one day we will be saved from sin's presence and so I was the gospel then manifests in the workplace that is represented in the community of Parkside church while up in what Paul says is the way you're really going to make a stab for the gospel is by you. The incentive according to its stewards which you operate, and the motivation of your they take Exhibit 1, a pagan slave.

Here's a pagan slave.

Here's a pagan employee and that he or she in days obeys in everything is fastidious I would of just fear of their earthly boss or out of the ingratiating desire to be regarded as better than they are as that set employee number one employee number two. The Christian employee now is obeying and everything, but for an entirely different reason. Because the Christian employee is a servant of Christ, and that is the emphasis that runs like a thread all the way through both the Ephesian passage in the Colossian passage not by way of visors as people pleases but his bond servants of Christ during the will of God from the heart is the second thing to notice of the Christian employee renders wholehearted service with a good will, wholehearted service with a goodwill. What is this. Meanwhile, I think it means this it means this in part that the most humdrum job. The most humdrum routine job. Whatever it is, whatever you can think of, or whatever it is you do becomes a vocation when it is looked on as being God's will. If we are tempted to view our everyday activities as somehow or another. A necessary adjunct to getting on with life. Either the life of relaxation and entertainment or the subcategory life of worship and involvement then we are setting ourselves up for a really really miserable journey all the way to retirement or death because that means that we are spending the vast amount of our time engaged in something that we really don't want to do but we just do it. Paul says if you really understand what it means to be the servant of Christ.

He says even though your circumstances may be devastating, even though they may be regarded as routine and irrelevant. Nevertheless, the most willing service is provided by those who are most focused on pleasing Jesus, I guarantee you can please your earthly boss no matter how hard you try.

And if that becomes the end product. In the end design than it sets us up for real disappointment. Whatever it is I got a summer job one time in a building society less than the mortgage company and my father had set up for me felt it would be good for me. I came home from college I got in the car I drove into leads. He had worked very hard with this man who oversaw this operation and I went up and whatever third or fourth floor. It was in and I went and met the man and the fellow told me in demand introduced me to a boy who was a young man who was a full-time employee. There and he said you know Kevin will look after you and I said okay fine so I sat down at his desk, and then Kevin explained that what happened in the day said you see their desks all around here and that we start over here and we take the files we take the files out of here and then once we do something with them. Then we put them over there and then after they have them over there, they put them over there and then later on they put them over there over there over there over there and then we put them back in here. I said okay I made it to lunchtime and at lunch time before I went out on my break. I said to the fellow Isaac Kevin, this is not personal and anywhere tall, but it I will be back this afternoon but I will never be back again because I can do this. I cannot spend two and half months of my life moving files around this room and I'm sure you're very good at and everything and that I won't bore you with any further details, but I knew if I get in the car with my father and tell him I quit after you work so hard to get the job that will not do well so therefore during the lunch break.

I need to go get myself another job and so in the lunch break. I got myself another job so that I tell my father, John. The good news of the bad news and the bad news is I quit the good news is I got a better job but I understand. I thought about calling what that must be like writing contracts, moving files, fixing plumbing feeding guests saying I'll be your server today.

This is that most of our lives are just routine that fairly ordinary even add cardiac surgeons. It gives routine. So what are we going to do unless we realize what Paul is saying here that the Christian employee renders wholehearted service to Christ with a goodwill, and the third thing that point that he points out is that the Christian slave works in the awareness that even though we may be exploited either real or imagined exploitation even though we may be exploited now. We will be rewarded. The end. Knowing verse eight that whatever good anyone does this, he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or free every good work is the fruit of God's grace is what he says in Ephesians 2 is that if there are good works for again for you to do the that work is the fruit of God's grace and the reward is the reward of grace and the thing that is so striking is the fact that the master and the slave will stand before God.

If you like. At the very same level of things the master may have spent a lot of time in the exotic places and the slave may have ended up doing very little and his routine work seem to be so menial and mundane and almost irrelevant. And now here they find themselves, on the other side of eternity and they both stand side-by-side. Two Corinthians 5, in order that they might receive what is due them for the works done when in the body. There is no partiality with God. He doesn't have a special section for the employer's he doesn't do it now. Anyone do it then and the incentive is there both for the employee and for the employer because the master and the slave will stand together.

Interestingly, what Paul does thereby way fun encouragement in the Colossians passage. It turns in terms of the other way around. In the in the Ephesian passage he says encouragingly. You will receive the reward and in their Colossians passage he says for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he is done and there is no partiality judgment on disobedience. If you like is as certain as reward for faithfulness quite daunting. This thought is not because salvation is always, according to grace and judgment is always, according to works and although the believer will not be judged in relationship to our standing before God in Christ, the believer we as believers will be reckoned with in relationship to the deeds done in our body throughout our life. That's two Corinthians 5 we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive that which is due to us for the deeds done while in the body. How that all works without in any way compromising the reality of God's grace the security of the believer and so on. We may leave entirely in the custody of God. But we are not just couldn't couldn't consider the possibility that we can sidestep whether we are, our boss, or whether an employee, not just the final word for the Masters and he only gives just a brief word doesn't eat their masters do the same to them. Calvin says perform your reciprocal duty perform your reciprocal duty.

What is I mean letting it means at least this that in Christ the employee is asking does my boss get to work from me that he has the right to expect. Does my boss do I do I do I do a fair days work. Do I and RMI a pencil pusher on my clock watcher and I and I pleaser am I constantly trying to get out of as much as I possibly can, or ingratiate myself of the other end of the spectrum. That's the question that the employee is to be asking is my boss receiving from me the labor that is due him or her as a result of my commitment to them and particularly as a result of my professed commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ reciprocally. The master then needs to inquire.

Does my employee receive the benefit from me that they have the right to enjoy and this, of course. And in relationships in the workplace raises all kinds of questions that we could talk about at length, but when you think about the nature of life it at the turn-of-the-century from the 19th into the 20th century in Britain is impossible to consider the circumstances without recognizing the absolute license that bosses were taking over their employees how poorly they were cared for how children were used as chapels and virtually as slaves.

How women were subjugated in jobs that had no niceness to them at all and all just went along fine. So somewhere to put other hand, is a who's going to represent the cause of the employee so you have the development of necessary unions and other necessary union is because the boss one ask this question and get it right for us to question my providing the benefit that my employees have the right to enjoy an answer is no, then, unless the boss changes something somebody is going to have to make a change in those of you who have lived your life over here may be intrigued to know that that the Labour Party in Britain, the Socialist party in Britain is begun by a Christian man called Keira Hardy was a young but it wasn't begun via a social liberal who was an atheist.

It was begun by a Christian man who said it is not right for employers to take advantage of the employees in this way, why because of what the Bible says to serve Christ as an employee is to ask, does my boss receive what I have promised him under Christ, and the master to ask, does the one under my care receive the benefit that they have right, the right to enjoy and instead of that my engaging in threatening behavior.

Here we have this is bullying. If you like, and in contemporary terminology masters do the same to them and stop your bullying display grace without qualification because you have a master with whom there is no partiality, and in one of his master the little sentences are singular, says grace transforms threats into encouragement. Grace transforms threats into encouragement. Colossians treat your slaves justly and fairly knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

And that's the way he treats you well, under to buy with conclusion I received you again that what we have here in the Bible and what we read here in terms of this instruction is clearly for the redeemed.

It is clearly for those who are in Christ. The attempts of our world to achieve the same objectives are myriad continual and progressive throughout every generation and even a superficial knowledge of history reveals the fact that although we as human beings have had a very very very very very long time to figure this out. We haven't done it. It took ages for slavery to be abolished, but slavery is not abolished significant parts of our world are enslaved tonight. Despite all of the conversations at the highest levels of politics, the trafficking of people of women and of children is an epidemic throughout our world.

Why is this will receive you don't have a Bible you don't know what to say because you're going to say what we just need a little longer to get it fixed while. How long do you actually need. You see the seeds of disruption in the seeds of decay emerge again fresh like dandelions every jolly spring springing up when you thought they were gone for good I say with great respect of the dandelions. Please don't write to me but the fact is that that all of the attempts of the world remained because we live in a fallen world we live in a fallen world, where we began this morning was the chief end of man to glorify God and enjoy him forever. When I want to glorify God. We don't believe in God.

We don't care about God we care about ourselves well and imposes a limit tell you how that works behind a façade.

It was and they became fools who would exchange the glory of the immortal God for things that creep and crawl and fly and as a result of that, God gave them over. He gave them over to so you want to live in that way.

Let me show you what happens to what happens to you is clear, idolatry, immorality, absolute, rampant chaos is not present. Not a very, very nice pictures. It but what we know you see a Christian, of all people is a realist tyranny will not cease until Christ returns.

Wars will not cease to Christ returns Jesus and responding to people says you will always have the poor with you. Why did he say that because you will disregard for the poor. He dealt with the issue. He deals with the issue, but he recognizes that oppression and exploitation and human bondage in one form or another will continue in our fallen world, and the answer and the only answer is the gospel is the gospel what's the answer to the me to movement is the gospel. Maybe just read the stuff about where we are suppose that your source of one wife and one husband, and then you live with them all the time and you don't do bad things with anybody else. Imagine if we just did he see what we can do it. We need the gospel to how you deal with the chaos within the parental structure of our nation. The absolute manifold disobedience that is rampant in so many sectors of our society.

Every idea, every scheme, every plan every notion of shed abroad, disseminated in scholarly magazines with all the best intentions bows before the gospel, the boiler girl needs a new heart. They need Jesus. How do you deal with racism. The gospel, the gospel, you can bus people all around America is much as you like and you can change them on the outside as much as you try, but the only way that it is transformed by the power of the gospel and that's what makes this so amazing to me and with this I will finish think about this, consider Paul's approach to the issue. He says now of two as fungible husbands and wives and talking to you know about parents and children, and now we've moved on to slaves and masters. They didn't call a big antislavery convention.

He doesn't gather together a group of people to create an announcement Torah or a declaration.

Whatever else it is no.

He writes a letter writes a letter to a rather obscure and unimpressive church house church really in the Colossae Valley writes a letter a really short letter to a slave owner and did not letter to the slave owner. He describes why it is that he must take back his slave because his slave, who remains his slave has become his brother and long after all of the great declarations have been forgotten. This little letter continues to be read in the power of the Holy Spirit through the word of God brings about change in obscure churches in backwater provinces of America in the rural parts of Scotland, in the heart of mainland China because the gospel in the word of God, is the weaponry that is been placed in the hands of the church. What an immense privilege. It is to have this opportunity at this point in history, I say to you again now tomorrow is a great moment. Another time for you to go back and for us to go back and to prove again that Jesus is our Lord and King. And with that we come to the end of our series called life together listing to Truth for Life. Alastair Greg will close with prayer in just a minute, so please keep listening.

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Our address is Truth for Life PO Box 39, 8000, Cleveland, OH 44139. Now here's Alastair to close with prayer. Father, I thank you that even as we try and work our way through this material that you are sovereign, overall that you are the God who arrested Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road that you are the God who raises up in peculiar places and at different times, those whom you have purposed to use for your glory. But what a thrill is going to be to meet a nastiness. What a joy to talk to Philemon in two sentences say to one another is an amazing grace of God nation. What a Savior we have in Christ. Hear our prayers Lord make us all you want for us to be for Jesus sake I Bob Lapine truly join us Thursday as we begin a new series called jars of Clay were learning how God uses ordinary people, people just like us in some extraordinary ways. The Bible teaching of Alastair back is furnished by truth or lying with the Learning is for Living