Ephesians 6:1 9 Sermon Manuscript

Transcription

1 1 Ephesians 6:1 9 Sermon Manuscript Introduction: Good morning church. My name is Tyler Macke, one of the pastors here at the church, and I am glad to be here worshippng with you and now listening to God s Word together. Today we are finishing a series of messages on the letter to the Ephesians and the last chapter address an important topic. Work. We work a lot. Americans work an average of 34.4 hours a week, which is longer than their counterparts in the world's largest economies. Many work even longer. Adults employed full time report working an average of 47 hours per week, which equates to nearly six days a week, according to Gallup. Students in America spend an average of 35 hours at school, with high school teachers now assigning on average about 17.5 hours of homework. But there is massive amounts of frustration in the workplace. According to recent studies, 75% of people in their 20 s would like to change their career track. It doesn t get much better for more established generations, 50% of people in their 40 s do not like their jobs. So the topic of work and how to be happy in it is definitely important. As we have studied the book of Ephesians, like Andy pointed out last week, we have noticed it is split down the middle. The first 3 chapters are about what God has done for us through the work of Jesus. The second half is about how this changes every aspect of our lives. This morning as we look together at Ephesians 6:1 9, we want to explore how is the Christian worker s approach is unique? How does being a redeemed, transformed, spirit filled, follower of Jesus change the way you think of, feel about, and do your work? God s Word teaches that all our work is worship. Work is actually a large part of how we worship God. Work is worship. What we will see together is that all our work, even the frustrating or menial, is fundamentally for our Lord Jesus, therefore it can be done with joy and must be done with our best ability. 4 things must happen for you to see your work as worship. 1. We must understand the reason for work. 2. We must change our focus at work. 3. We must track our attitude at work. 4. We must experience the true reward for our work. 1

2 2 Understand the Reason for Work Before we get to Ephesians chapter 6, we find the reason for work in the opening chapters of the Bible. In Genesis 1:26 God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion Exert force to change and control; work. Later in Genesis 2:15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. That phrase to work and to keep was later used by Moses for what the priest do in the temple, which is most often translated worship and obey. Or work for the Lord and keep his things in order. What this means is that God from the beginning designed man to be a worker. In fact, all of this work described in Genesis 1 and 2, occurred before the Fall. Work is not the result of sin, but is something good, something God intends for every man and woman. So what is work? Well God was the first worker when he created the universe. And according to Genesis 1 verse 2 and 3, God is using the raw materials of creation to bring chaos into order. To work is to bring order out of chaos. Elizabeth Elliott explains this vividly. Look at the beginning of Genesis, what do we see. God bringing order out of chaos. Think of cleaning your house. Wiping off the counters. Dusting. Mopping the floors. Now you may pay someone to do that work or you may do it yourself but if no one does that work you are going to die. And when you clean your house you are reflecting God, bringing order out of chaos. And all work does this. There is no menial work. There are no small people. All work is a calling of God. All work is God s work. Work is worship. The first reason for work is that it is how we reflect God s character, his image. How we work is how we worship. Another reason for work is that it is God s way of providing for His people. Let s do a quick thought experiment. Look at the pew you are lounging in Could you have made it for yourself? How would you get, say, the wood? Go and chop down a tree? With what? Oh yeah, you first need to make a chainsaw, or ax, and then you would need a vehicle to haul the wood, and a mill to chop the lumber and roads to drive on from place to place. In short, a lifetime or two to make one pew! Imagine with me all the people it took to get you the shirt you are wearing. A farmer to plant the cotton. Chemical engineers to design and produce the herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, and fertilizer to keep the plant healthy and productive. Field workers to harvest it. Factory workers in a textile mill to clean and weave it. Someone dyed it that particular color. It was cut. Sewed. Packaged. Sailed by a crew on a ship. Transported by a truck driver. And sold to you by a part time worker in the Lima Mall. The reformer Martin Luther explains this best in his reflection on the Lord s Prayer. When we pray the Lord s Prayer, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread. And he does give us our daily bread. He does it by means of the farmer who planted and harvested the grain, the baker who made the flour into bread, [and] the person who prepared our meal. [And the truck driver who delivered it]. God could easily give you grain and fruit without plowing and 2

3 3 planting, but he does not want to do so.god milks the cows through the vocation of the milk maids. Why does he do it this way? Because when we work we reflect his image, bringing order out of chaos. So when we work, his gets the praise and the honor. I am sure he loves watching the activity down here. I was invited recently to take tour of Grobe in Bluffton, and the employee who invited me said, You have to see it, it really is just fascinating. I believe this reflects the heart of our Father God when he sees our work. So for our work to be worship we first have to understand the reason for work. Second, we need to change our focus at work. Change Our Focus at Work If you would, please open your Bibles or Bible App to Ephesians 6:1 9. There is a lot in these 9 verses, so we will be focusing on verse 7. Again, that is Ephesians 6:1 9. Let s listen together to God s Word: 1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 Honor your father and mother (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land. 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. 5 Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye service, as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. 9 Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him. Just prior to this, the Apostle Paul was teaching husbands and wives how to treat and love each other. Then he addresses children, fathers, slaves, and masters. This is called a household code. And the first observation to make is that typical 1st century, Greco Roman household codes would only address the master of the house, the man, the father. Instead, this household code from a Christian perspective addresses wives, children, and slaves. Aristotle said slaves are like inanimate tools, in the same way that you do not address a shovel you do not befriend a slave. But Paul addresses them, honors them, has Christlike expectations for them. They are men and women created in the image of God and worthy to reflect his glory. So this raises a question we must quickly now address. Is Paul and 1st century Christianity endorsing slavery? I want to help you see that is not the case. One, like we just pointed out, this household code is already countercultural, affirming the worth of these slaves by addressing them. Second, slavery in that culture was not the same as the slavery we think of. We read the new world slave trade of the 17th 19th centuries into this text. 1st Century Greco Roman slavery was not race based. It was also not for life, most were free by age 30. It was also a viable life style, many chose to be servants for job security. It also spanned many economic classes, meaning being a slave of a wealthy trade merchant was quite 3

4 4 honorable compared to the drudgery of being free shepherd. So we must be careful not to be bad historians and read our country s experience into this text. Finally, the truths taught by Paul and Christianity would eventually lead to emancipation in a few generations. One commentator said, What [Paul s letters] do is to bring us into an atmosphere in which the institution of slavery could only wilt and die That is quite right. Slavery was an accepted institution in all cultures and societies of the world from as far back as history can remember. Only within Christianity did the idea eventually arise that slavery was an abominable institution to be abolished. Why? Largely because of the implications of the gospel, laid out by Paul. So, it was more like what we would call indentured servitude. But for our purposes, consider this: If slave owners are told they must not manage workers in pride and through fear, how much more should this be true of employers today? And if slaves are told it is possible to find satisfaction and meaning in their work, how much more should this be true of workers today? So, back to our second point, for work to be worship we need change our focus at work. Verse 7 says, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man. We are told our focus as workers should not be on man. What does this mean? Man centered work errors two ways: it makes too much of work. Or it makes too little of work. In verse 6 we are instructed to not be people pleasers. Listen to how one person describes making too much of work: I have an iron will, and all of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy... I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being and then I get to another stage and think I m mediocre and uninteresting.. Again and again. My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that s always pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I ve become Somebody, I still have to prove that I m Somebody. My struggle has never ended and it probably never will. That was Madonna describing her drive for her work. That is people pleasing, the number one person being yourself. We can over value work, making it our source of security and significance. If you make any work the purpose of your life even if that work is church ministry you create an idol that rivals God. Your relationship with God is the most important foundation for your life, and indeed it keeps all the other factors... from becoming so important to you that they become addicting or distorted. We can also error the other way making too little of work. Doing work as eye service is working when being watched, otherwise stealing minutes away to check the scores or send a text. This is working for 5 O clock, or working for the weekend. This is sleeping on the job. This is laziness, or what theologians have called Acedia or sloth, one of the seven deadly sins. Dorothy Sayers says Acedia means a life driven by mere cost benefit analysis of what s in it for me. She writes, Acedia is the sin which believes in nothing, cares for nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing and only remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die. Work that is man centered either makes too much of work, crushing the soul under its weight, or makes too little of work, withering the soul away in the purposelessness. 4

5 5 Where should our focus be? We are to work as to the Lord. As they say in Haiti, we work for the Big Boss. What does it mean to focus on the Lord as you work? It at least means to be aware he is always watching, always present. It is also doing the work to the best of your ability. If he is the builder and designer of all things, this small thing you have to do is actually very important. It also means treat the people you work for or with as equals, constantly aware of their value in God s eyes no matter how they treat you. Of course this cannot mean you let people treat you like a doormat, you don t ultimately answer to them, you answer to God which means you serve that person freely, not out of compulsion as if you owe them something. You are simply treating them how God wants you to. Do you make too much of your work? Is your identity being a super mom? Do you find it hard to turn work off or not check the ? If so, you must understand this is an idol, something that has replaced God in your life. It will eventually crush you. You must turn, repent of this, and change the focus of your work to working as to the Lord. One thing you could do is being disciplined with taking a weekly sabbath. Stay at home mom s one day a week get out of the house, away from the kids, and spend time with the Lord. Full time workers, take a true sabbath day with no overtime, no , no cell phone, no laptop. For one day a week, shut it down (this includes home projects). This is a discipline and will not be natural, it will take time to change your focus to the Lord. Do you undervalue your work? Are you lazy or apathetic, bored and wishing you could change your job? Here is the question for you, is your work just work, or is it a vocation, is it a calling? This doesn t mean it has to be flashy, you just have to know God cares about what you are doing. Paul said these slaves serving their masters with sincerity of heart are doing the will of God. No matter how small the task, if it is the one thing the Lord has for you to do, it matters and he sees, and he delights in your work. Pastor, worship leader, and songwriter Louie Giglio describes his menial work as worship like this... As a college student in Atlanta, I worked part time at the Centers for Disease Control. Pretty impressive, huh? There I was stemming the spread of infectious diseases, developing groundbreaking technologies to improve life and alleviate human suffering! Well, not exactly. To be precise, I was the photocopy boy in the Centers medical library. My main activity was making photocopies of the hundreds of articles that various doctors wanted for their personal use. I didn t exactly have an office more of a cubbyhole. The photocopier was in a four by eight foot room beneath a stairway at the back of the library. The slanted ceiling dropped below head height on one side. The room overflowed with carts loaded with medical journals waiting to be copied, each having white slips of paper sticking out of them, telling me what to do next. Hour after hour after hour, it was just me and that machine. Day after day, the requests piled up. The copying continued. 5

6 6 But God was doing a lot in my heart in those days, and the job for me became something more. I m not trying to over spiritualize what happened (we didn t end up having a revival in the library), but by God s grace, I was able to turn that copy room into a place I loved. For one thing, I wanted to be the best copier on earth, never leaving work until every waiting article was reproduced, something that often required improvements in my technique, speed, and productivity. I would not be denied. But also, this job gave me lots of time to hang out with God. Photocopying, though manually intensive, doesn t overly deplete the brain. Which left lots of time for thoughts of God. Time to talk to Him. Time to worship. Time to listen. Time to pray. Everyone working there knew I was a believer, but they weren t exactly asking me to lead a Bible study or talk about the Savior. My witness was my work, and work was my worship. The way I did my work was possibly even more significant than anything I could do or say. I became, to put it modestly, the master copier. And you know what? I think the way I did my work reflected something good about the character of God. When I left, it took three new employees to match my pace! And who knows one of those articles might have contributed to the untangling of some global disease. (For that, you can thank me later!) For work to be worship we need change our focus to the Lord. This leads us well into our third point, which will be brief. Track Our Attitudes at Work Back in verse 7, Paul says serve with a goodwill. A goodwill is eager, whole hearted zeal, enthusiasm. Not reluctantly or calculating. It s letting your heart dance/sing as you work. This is what verse 5 described as working with a sincere heart OR what verse 6 doing the task from the heart. This is about your attitude. Question, is that how you feel when your alarm clock goes off? Kids, is that how you feel at 7am before school? Does your heart dance when you get MORE homework for the week? Are you enthusiastic about another meeting or about standing in the same place all day, looking at the same machine, listening to the same people, making the same wage? Mom s, are you singing while you change a poop filled diaper for screaming and squirming toddler? Are you singing as you fold the laundry? Think of the stuff that erks you the most in whatever you are being asked to do right now in this stage of life. What is your attitude in that moment? We typically would say it is bad, but what we mean is I would rather be doing something else. Or, I can think of 100 things I would rather be doing. Your heart is divided. Your will is not eager or good it is frustrated and dragging its feet. What should we make of this? This instruction to be good willed seems manipulative on our emotions. Slap a smile on. It is like the parent saying I ll make you clean your room and you ll like doing it. I don t think this is what Paul is endorsing. I really don t think you can simply change your attitude. Our emotions don t work that way. I think rather we track our attitudes at work, and when they are bad, we trace them back and ask why? Is it this person I am dealing with? Am I just too tired? Do I think this homework is unimportant? Would I simply rather be doing something else? You can trace your bad attitude at work back to your focus. You cannot change your attitude but you can change your 6

7 7 focus. You cannot change how you feel, but you can change what you think about any given situation, and that in time will change how you feel. Howard Hendricks tells the story of being on an airliner that was delayed on the ground. Passengers grew increasingly impatient. One obnoxious man kept venting his frustrations on the stewardess. But she responded graciously and courteously in spite of his abuse. Later, a cranky old man spilled his coffee on himself, blaming the flight attendant, and spewing harsh words at her. She kindly helped him clean up the coffee. Not too long after that, a child was throwing up onto her embarrassed mother. The flight attendant affirmed the mother and took care of the child s mess. She did all this with kindness, efficiency, and excellence. Let s dissect this a bit. What are things the flight attendant could possibly get frustrated at? Lying behind what we see in this whole scene could be that she is sick of being stuck on a plane and would rather open a bakery on main street? She could still frustrated about the argument she possibly had with her husband just before she left for work? She could be anxious and on edge about a parent teaching meeting about her 12 year old son. Even if nothing is looming under the service, some people are just difficult and selfish, like the cranky old man. We feel quite justified in getting frustrated at them because they ARE wrong. The sick kid surely cannot help it, but the smell on top of everything else is just infuriating. After they finally got airborne and things calmed down, Dr. Hendricks called the woman aside and said, I want to get your name so that I can write a letter of commendation to your employer. He was surprised when she responded, Thank you, sir, but I don t work for American Airlines. He sputtered, You don t? No, she explained, I work for my Lord Jesus Christ. She went on to explain that before each flight, she and her husband would pray together that she would be a good representative of Christ on her job. She sought to please God first. Do you think this lady s emotions of frustration pulled on her? Definitely. So what was different? She tracked her attitude and when she was tugged to focus on the difficult people or focus on everything she is not getting out this situation she refocused, remembered she is working as to the Lord and centered herself back on the truth that all work is worship. You cannot change your emotions on the fly, but you can track them, trace them back to a wrong focus, and refocus on the truth that you are working wholeheartedly for the Lord. Experience the True Reward for our Work 1. How did God come to earth? As a carpenter. He even gave that business up to be a fisher of men. Why, what was the value of this spiritual work? What was his focus as he endured the cross and despised the shame people hurled at him? a. 1. To focus on his Father in Heaven. b. And 2. to redeem us we make a God out of our work or simply exist frustrated because of our work. 2. The different attitude is reason enough. 3. But verse 8 makes an astounding promise. 7

8 8 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavours, even the best, will come to naught. Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God's calling, can matter forever. Tim Keller 4. The spiritual harvest, in your own sanctification and in gospel opportunities. What if this church works this way? Satan will not like it. Connect to o church arise Hear the call of Christ our Captain An army bold whose battle cry is love! not money Every eye and heart will see him Put strength in every stride give grace for every hurdle Of a servant good and faithful Benediction: Colossians 3: Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 8