Take This Job & Love It

Take this job and shove it was a 1977 country music song written by David Allen Cobb made popular and performed by Johnny Pechech. The song was about the bitterness of a man who had worked long and hard with no apparent reward for his work like this guy on the screen. Actually I'm hoping he's still working on that waterline if he isn't he's in big trouble. The song even though it was very vulgar and crude the song rose quickly to number one on the country music charts in 1977 and the reason for that evidently was it had quickly become an anthem for those who were angry about their jobs and about wishing they could tell their boss off and in no uncertain very vulgar terms that song provides a vehicle for doing that. We're doing just that very thing. Well the song also became a very popular phrase spinning off other phrases similar to it built on the first part of the phrase over the years there've been a lot of variations of that phrase probably my favorite is a 2006 book written by a US Senator Byron Dorken who concerned about the many American jobs being outsourced wrote a book entitled Take This Job and Ship It. He got his point across. There been many books that have taken this title and twisted it to take this job and love it mostly career counseling types of books and so forth and thus the title for this message because a biblical view of our work is much much different radically different from that promoted in the song back in 1977 and so I want to twist the title as many have and use the title this morning Take This Job and Love It. We're in 1st Timothy chapter 6 this morning so open your Bible to 1st Timothy 6 believe it or not we are going to talk about this theme from a biblical perspective in 1st Timothy chapter 5 Paul has been giving instructions to Timothy as a young pastor how to conduct his ministry in the church and how to conduct the ministry of a church overall he's been giving him instruction about relationships in the church and just a quick review of some of those relationships he says first of all we are all family in the church we are brothers and sisters mothers and fathers so we really are a family and we're to operate as the best families should and then he says the second relationship you need to be sensitive toward is the needy you are to care for the needy amongst you and particularly Paul deals with widows who are truly in need but that would expand to any who are in need you heard about that last week in Pastor Dan's excellent sermon about how the church the early church in the book of Acts naturally shared everything they had with one another and took care of the needs of people in the church and Paul addresses that also in church relationships the third relationship that he deals with is the relationship between people and pastors in the church and that's the last when we looked at we come to chapter 6 and you might think well new chapter new topic but really verses 1 and 2 go with chapter 5 there's sometimes in our Bible's a bit of an unfortunate division of chapters which were not in the original text they were added later in various translations and so really verses 1 and 2 continue the theme of relationships in the church but this time he deals with one that you would think really at first glance doesn't deal with the church and that is masters and slaves but when you think about it more carefully because of the large number of slaves in the Roman world and the fact that most churches would have both masters and slaves in them that social and work dynamic spills over into the church and becomes a church issue and so it does become a church relationship issue how do you deal with that in the context of masters and slaves worshipping together in the church being brothers and sisters in the same assembly of believers now I want to say right up front I'm not approaching this passage or this message in a normal way I know what some of you're thinking you never are normal John the way you preach but this is really untypical if I were preaching this for a seminary class I would concede a failing grade right up front so I just get that out of the way I'm gonna deal with this in a different fashion I want to do two things this morning this passage brings up a topic that we have to face head on and that is the Bible's treatment of slavery it's the elephant in the room whenever you come to a passage like this and so many people when they come to a passage like this and they see master and slave they just kind of skirt around it and try not to look at that concept because that's kind of embarrassing and so we're gonna face head on and the reason for that is this is a major objection to Christianity especially on the part of younger people and so we're gonna we're gonna deal with it head on and then secondly what I want to do and this kind of spins off of that but is somewhat unrelated to it I want to apply what Paul teaches about the master and slave relationship to the workplace and what God teaches us about work relationships in in our lives as believers okay so let's begin with slavery in the church again I said this is a major objection to Christianity you'll hear it in university classrooms you'll hear it on the part of skeptics who denied the authority of the Bible a very common argument against Christianity and against the Bible is that hey wait a second what about the way the Bible treats slavery it doesn't appear to challenge it and some will say that the Bible condones slavery and I know this is a hard issue to get over for many people who are skeptical of the Christian faith how does the Bible treat this issue what are we talking about here so rather than skirt around it I want to face it head on this morning because I know many of you do face this head on and it's in its objection you hear from some of your friends in your classes or from a professor that you may have or from a neighbor or a coworker and so let's just take it head on slavery in the Bible particularly I'm going to deal with New Testament slavery since that's where we are here in order to understand this whole concept in the New Testament how the Bible deals with it we have to understand first of all what slavery was in the Greco Greco Roman world first of all it was a pervasive social structure it was deeply embedded in the Roman Greek life it is estimated in the Roman Empire there were 50 to 60 million slaves one third of most major cities would have been slaves so Rome Corinth Ephesus it is it is estimated the city where Timothy was preaching the church in Ephesus to where this book is delivered probably a third of the the city would have been slaves and in in the Roman Greek culture and society slaves were basically employees who did most of the jobs in society most work most jobs that we would would have today were done by slaves in New Testament times they did run households they did operate the farms but they were also the clerks the craftsmen the teachers the business managers and the soldiers of the day and many other vocations as well Tim Keller is the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City and Redeemer Presbyterian ministers really to intellectuals and the media and entertainment industry in in New York City many of folks from those arenas kind of the cultural elite have been one to Christ in that ministry and so Tim Keller deals with these kinds of issues all the time recently he preached a series of messages on topics that skeptics use against the Bible and he preached a message on the Bible's treatment of slavery and this is what he says he says it much better than I can so I'm just going to read his comments he says slavery in the Greco-Roman cultures of the New Testament is more like indentured servanthood if you're not familiar with that term let me take a few moments away from Keller to explain what indentured servanthood was is an indentured servant was a person who was under a contract to work for someone else for a specific period of time usually for no pay but in exchange for free passage to a new country so for instance in the 17th century most of the white laborers in Maryland and Virginia came from England as indentured servants they signed a contract I will work for you for a period of time I'm not going to be paid for that work but in return for working for you I get free passage to the country and then I can make it once I fulfill my contract to you I'll go out and get my own job and and and so forth Keller says that that slavery in the first century was much more like this indentured servanthood he said it's not what we think of a slavery when you and I see the word slave in the Bible you immediately think of 17th 18th and 19th century new world slavery race-based African slavery when you do that when you read it through those blinders you aren't understanding what the Bible's teaching he goes on to quote historian Murray Harris who wrote a book in 2001 on the concept of slavery in the first century he says he wrote a book about what slavery was like in the first century Greco-woman world he says four things about it number one slaves were not distinguishable from anyone else by race speech or clothing they looked and lived like everyone else and were never segregated off from the rest of society in any way number two slaves were more educated than their masters in many cases and many times held high managerial positions number three from a financial standpoint slaves made the same wages as free laborers and therefore were not themselves usually poor and often accrued enough personal capital to buy themselves out in other words to buy up their contract so that they could be free number four very few persons were slaves for life in the first century most expected to be manumitted after about ten years or by their late 30s or by their 30s at the latest in contrast new world slavery killer says 17th 18th 19th century slavery was race-based and its default mode was slavery for life also the African slave trade was started and resource through kidnapping which the Bible unconditionally condemns in 1st Timothy 1 verses 9 through 11 and Deuteronomy 24-7 therefore while the early Christians like Paul discouraged 1st century slavery saying to the slaves for instance in 1st Corinthians 9 or 1st Corinthians 11 if you can be free then do it they didn't go on a campaign to end it but 18th and 19th century Christians when faced with new world style slavery did work for its complete abolition because it could not be squared in any way with biblical teaching so color concludes this way so the point when you hear the point is when you hear someone say the Bible condones slavery you say no it didn't not the way you and I define slavery it's not talking about the same thing so we have to understand when we come to passages like this talk about slaves and masters we're not really talking about the same kind of slavery that we're so familiar with from that intolerable and despicable time in our history where that was practiced in our country that was deplorable sub-Christian and sub-human having made that distinction I still want to say that slavery in any form is still deplorable and there were types of slavery in the 1st century particularly from conquered armies where the conquered soldiers and inhabitants of a particular country might be made slaves that was deplorable anytime a person is bought or sold like property anytime labor is obtained by coercion anytime freedom is stolen that is sub-Christian and sub-human and it is the deplorable sin it's a bloc on our history as a country but when the Bible talks about masters and slaves it's not really talking about that not really talking about the same thing and so we need to come to it with that understanding so why was slavery not attacked by Paul why didn't Paul in cases like this where there were masters and slaves in the church why didn't he just say that is horribly wrong and the whole system needs to be overthrown why didn't he say that I think there are three reasons number one because it was so deeply embedded in society it was the cultural way of business and commerce in that day across the board in the Roman Empire to dismantle all of that at once would have brought about economic and social collapse both for employer and employee it would have been disastrous for the whole Roman Empire the second thing is the mission of the church was to advance the gospel and if the church became involved in overthrowing the Roman Empire which basically is what would have to be done to overthrow the economic system if they became involved in that that would be that would swallow up the gospel social reform would become the only thing the church could do and so that would have swallowed up the gospel but here's the third reason and I think it's the most important I think Paul realized that the church in order to not be considered a subversive political movement needed to operate differently and really more biblically and that is to go after the heart and what Paul teaches masters and slaves in the context of this economic system in Rome what he teaches them here and elsewhere in the New Testament would ultimately undermine the very concept of slavery and lead to its demise and abolition versus like this for instance in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 28 neither is there June or Gentile neither slave nor free nor is there male or female and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus Paul was saying they're basically in Christ as far as your spiritual standing before God is concerned there are no distinctions in the body of Christ there are no social ethnic distinctions to Gentile there are no economic racial distinction slave and free and again slavery in the New Testament was not a racial thing at all as as we've seen and there are no male female distinctions as far as your relationship with God is concerned you're standing before Christ we are totally equal and so those kinds of teachings plus the kind of teaching he would give in the passage we're going to consider this morning would eventually undermine the whole concept of slavery and would negate it as far as the church was concerned but understanding the difference between what we normally think of what comes to our mind when we read this concept of masters and slaves understanding the difference in what we think of and what Paul is describing in the first century really what Paul is describing and what he commands in the church is more applicable to employee employee relationships and so that's the way I'm going to apply this passage this morning to believers in the workplace so what does Paul have to teach us about believers in the workplace well two verses here a lot more in Ephesians six and Colossians three when he deals with the same type of issues in those passages he deals with both employer and employee both master and servant here he just deals with servants notice what he says verse one he says all who are under the yoke of slavery this is first Tim one a sixth verse one all who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered those who have believing masters are not to show less respect for them because they are brothers instead they are to serve them even better because those who benefit from their service are believers and dear to them these are the things you are to teach and urge on them so Timothy is commanded as a pastor to teach this and urge this on his congregation so what does this teach us about believers in the workplace Paul actually deals with two different kinds of situations in the workplace the first one in verse one is with an unbelieving employer let's say your employer your boss your supervisor is an unbeliever verse one deals with that notice he says all who are under the yoke of slavery now the word yoke is not necessarily describing an abusive relationship the original word and the way it's used in the New Testament it was basically an expression of working under the authority of another that's the way the word yoke was used in fact Jesus uses the word of our relationship with him in Matthew chapter 11 when he says come unto me always at laborer heavy laden and I will give you rest take my yoke upon you fry a meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest under your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light so the yoke simply mean simply meant in New Testament times to come under the authority of someone else working under the authority of another person the word slave here is the Greek word doos which is the word for being in submission to another person that's basically the root meaning of the word it means to be in submission to another person it again is the word that's used of our relationship with Christ Romans 6 we are now servants slaves of Christ we are under his authority and so this concept the yoke of slavery really does mean for someone to be in submission to the authority of another person and it does apply to the workplace then notice he says those who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect notice the term their masters the word master was a word for one with absolute and unrestricted authority they have authority over you they have the right to tell you what to do they have the right to have an expectation of you they are your authority figure again this word is used of Christ he is our master we are under his authority he has the right to tell us what to do and we are supposed to obey him that's basically the concept of the word when he says their masters it's clear in verse one he's talking about unbelieving masters because he contrasts it in verse two with believing masters so verse one is clearly this if you find yourself under the authority of a person who is in authority over you and has the right to tell you what to do does that describe your workplace in all likelihood it does it describes your relationship with your employer your boss your supervisor whatever the case may be in that case Paul says consider your master the one in authority over you worthy of full respect now to consider means to make an assessment in other words to determine how you're going to respond and this assessment is not based on your feelings it's not based on how that person treats you or how you feel about them it is based on their position of authority and so the respect that you are to show the person in authority over you in your workplace is seen in your attitude toward your work your attitude toward them and your faithful service in your job now why does Paul put a stress on that why does he say that's important notice why at the end of the verse so that here's the reason here's the purpose for this command about relating to those in authority over so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered now this is very important why does he stress that we are to be respectful and to work faithfully for whoever is in authority over us in the workplace because it affects how other people first of all see God and secondly how they see what we believe notice there are two very critical parts of your testimony riding on this one is you carry the name of God into your workplace you claim to be a Christian a Christ follower is what that word literally means so you carry the name of Christ you carry the name of God with you and if you do not respect those in authority over you and serve faithfully in your job you are defaming the name of God by the Bible says here you are slandering the name of God but you would also be slandering what you say you believe Paul says we don't want our teaching to be slandered either so you slander the gospel here's how it works as believers we claim to believe and it's true it's true we claim to believe that the gospel radically transforms our lives that it changes our lives now an unbelieving boss doesn't care what you say he's looking to see if your life truly has been transformed and how it shows up in your work that's what he's concerned about and so if it hasn't affected the way you work you destroy the testimony of the gospel in his eyes so what's riding on this this is critical your employers your boss is your supervisors estimation of who God is and the transforming power of the gospel rests on how you relate to him at work that's what Paul saying and that's how critical this is your boss will question the power of the gospel to transform your life if you are lazy at work or if you are insubordinate at work or if you are hostile in your attitude toward him on your job so I think all of us need to ask ourselves on our jobs what is my attitude and what is my work ethic because those are the those are the things Paul's talking about here is our attitude of respect toward those in authority over us which is seen in a faithful conscientious work ethic because that does reflect on who God is and whether the gospel is credible so does your work ethic does your relationship with your boss at work does it reflect well on God and on the gospel it doesn't if you cut corners at work it doesn't if you give a half-hearted effort toward your job now listen carefully it doesn't if you're standing around talking about God when you're supposed to be working you so wait a second John I thought I was supposed to be a witness wherever I am yeah yeah think of that unsafe boss he's paying you to do a job and if he sees you wasting time not doing what he's paying you to do but you're taking his time that he's paying you for to talk about God with everybody else in his eyes that is insubordination and that shows you really your life has not been transformed to the point that you will work faithfully for him should you be a testimony and a witness on the job by all means use every opportunity at break time at lunchtime before and after work whenever you have opportunity connect with co-workers but the way you do it during the work hours when you're on the clock is by working faithfully with a consistent work ethic hard work faithful joyful service to the person who employs you your your employment is not pleasing to God if you're disrespectful to your boss or if you serve and I still love the the old King James terminology in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6 with I service as men pleasers the idea there is boy you'll really get to it and work hard when the boss is watching when he comes around the corner but when he's nowhere to be around he's nowhere to be found he's not around nobody's checking on you you take all kinds of liberties then your job is not reflecting well the transforming power of the gospel in your life and you are not reflecting well on the name of God in your workplace this is important because it is at the very core of our testimony as believers in the workplace there's a young Christian named Anne Snyder who's spent her first three years after college trying to break into the world of journalism while trying to serve Christ as well she's written about in the 2016 book entitled Good Faith by David Keniman and Gabe Lions so she's trying to make it in the world journalism she's a believer she loves the Lord she's trying to get her feet on the ground and then she lands a dream job David Brooks you may have heard of him I just saw him referenced in another way this past week David Brooks is a nationally known columnist with the New York Times he hired Anne Snyder to beat his research assistant so she acted as his sounding board reading early drafts of his columns and offering story ideas for his columns and his books now you have to understand from this book written by David Keniman gave lines Anne is exceedingly intelligent she is articulate so it wasn't surprised that she started doing so well it was surprising that this young professionally green Christian evangelical believer was working so closely with Brooks who was an influential public voice a prominent journalist a thought leader and a non-Christian fast forward to mid-2015 the same David Brooks released a critically acclaimed book called The Road to Character and in the beginning of Brooks acknowledgement page in the front of that book he offered this glowing honor to his research assistant Anne Snyder and I quote Anne C Snyder was there when this book was born and walked with me through the first three years of its writing this was first conceived as a book about cognition and decision making under Anne's influence it became a book about morality and inner life she led dozens of discussions about the material assigned me reading from her own bank of knowledge challenged the superficiality of my thinking in memo after memo and transformed the project notice this he says I have certainly stolen many of her ideas and admired the gracious and morally rigorous way she lives her life if there are any important points in this book they probably come from Anne now you talk about a believer who because of her diligent work is able to make a solid case for Christ and the testimony of the gospel in her workplace and influence such a key thinker as this writer that's what I'm talking about that's what Paul's talking about you live out your testimony you live out the credibility of the life changing power of the gospel on your job by having respect for your employer your boss your supervisor and by doing your job with a consistent faithful work ethic because you take the name of God and the credibility of the gospel with you to work and it's going to rise or fall based on how you do your job that is what Paul say he says this is important so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered so that's if you have an unbelieving employer what about a believing employer well that's what verse two talks about a believing employer and by the way this this may have been a greater issue in the New Testament church because oftentimes you would have a master and a slave an employer and an employee in the same church so how do you deal with that dynamic they're now equal in Christ their brothers in Christ so how does that change their work relationship and think about it even a little bit deeper think of some of the dynamics that might have come up in the early church maybe there is a mature believer has been saved a long time has really grown in the Lord who is employed by an immature believer who doesn't know as much of the Bible doesn't really know as much about how to live out his faith how does that change the dynamics in the church how you relate to each other and on the job or what about an employee who is in a leadership position in church and the employer is not so that the tables returned in the church and you've got the guy who's in under authority at work now in authority at church so how does that work there were lots of these kinds of situations in the early church they had to figure out there was another one in the book of Philemon where a slave stole from his master Philemon onesimus was his name and then he high tales at the Rome to get lost in the big city but God finds him there and he comes to know Christ and he comes into association with Paul who may have led into the Lord and Paul writes Philemon back to help him work through okay now your brothers and equal in Christ he's hurt you as an employee as a slave how do you work all that out it's an interesting letter fascinating letter so the the early church faced this a lot so if you have a believing employer if the slave is a believer but the the master is also how do you deal with that in the church look at verse 2 he says those who have believing masters are not to show less respect for them because they are brothers don't disrespect your master or your authority figure and treat them as an equal on the job on the job even though there may be a brother in Christ and an equal on the same level of the cross in in the body of Christ they are still in authority over you on the job so don't take advantage of the fact that your brothers on the job so he says instead he says they are to serve them even better and be be go above Lord go beyond what's expected in faithful consistent hard work ethic because he says those who benefit from their service are believers and dear to them the idea is this in addition to the fact that you carry the name of God and the testimony of the credibility of the gospel into your workplace now you want to be a blessing to a fellow brother that's even more reason to do your work well and to respect his authority or her authority over you because you want to bless them as a fellow believer so that impacts our relationships with fellow believers in the workplace who are over us we are to treat them with respect given this teaching on the part of the apostle Paul about employee employer relationships I think this is an opportune time to talk about a biblical view of work society as a whole is it does not place a high value on work one survey says that 70% of American workers do not like their jobs I'm not going to take a vote this morning or show hands this survey says 70% of American workers do not like their jobs of that 70% 90% said they did not feel like getting up in the morning and going to work I dare say given those statistics there are a few of you like that here today the average worker is basically views his or her job as this is what I have to do to put food on the table and support my family and maybe a few creature comforts that we have remember Allison Wonderland you remember the old Disney movie and the not out I'm sorry wrong movie snow white and seven dwarfs sorry you remember the seven dwarfs as they went off the work hi ho hi ho it's off to work we go and they're dancing you know it's great they love going to work is that your attitude going to work is it joyful I think most Americans attitude is reflected in the bumper sticker that has twisted that little jingle a bit I oh I oh so off to work I go and that's the way a lot of Americans view work take it from your smile some of you feel the same way about your work well then it's important that we kind of come back to a biblical view of work let me give you four principles that I think summarize a biblical view of work number one work is God's creative design for our fulfillment Genesis 215 is a key verse on this the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it notice this is before sin ever entered the world this is before Adam and East fall in Genesis 3 this is before any of that and God put man in the garden what what what did he want him to do sit back in a recliner and just enjoy the beauty of the garden well he may have done some of that you know he walked with God through the garden in the cool of the evening we know that but no he put him in the garden to work it and to take care of it even even in a world that was perfect there was still work to do in the garden and and I think it was to cultivate and direct and reap the benefits of the blessing of an earth not yet under the curse which was producing boundifully there was some work involved in that now someone chastised me after the first service about making this so drudgery work oriented and no joy involved so let me just plug in right here make Adam did that work with joy and I think we should be doing our work with joy as well it's a part of God's creative design for our fulfillment I'm thinking a lot about that these days because a lot of folks see retirement as well man I'm just going to sit on a front porch rocking my rocking chair watch the grass grow and watch the life go by and you know those folks typically last about six months if you don't have something meaningful to give your life to something you get up for in the morning and say God's given me this task to do you you can't find fulfillment in life because God has built that into us even before sin messed everything up and brought all the junk into our workplaces that we have to deal with today the work was still God's creative design for our fulfillment second principle work as all of life should be done in a way that honors God as all of life work should be done in a way that honors God Paul said this in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do do it all for the glory of God now notice he picks two of the most mundane things we do that we give little thought every day thing we just do it in the course like we eat we drink and so he chooses those very mundane things and he says come on refocus refocus do that for the glory of God and so then he expands it to everything else whatever you do that includes our jobs do it for the glory of God I mentioned earlier that he deals with this more in Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3 look at what he says in Colossians 3 verses 23 and 24 he says whatever you do talking about masters and slaves whatever you do work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord not for human masters now it is you're not just working for your boss your supervisor you're working for the Lord he says since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward it is the Lord Christ you are serving now seeing that as you go to work tomorrow hi ho hi ho I'm serving you Lord Jesus on my job today I am serving you whatever your job is I mean if it's not something illegal you know I mean if it's a if it's an honorable honorable job of vocation that meets the needs of other people then you can you can say I'm really serving Christ so I can do this for the glory of God I can do it out of joy in my heart for God I love the response Martin Luther the leader of the Protestant Reformation the 1500s said to a man who came to him working man approached him and wanted to know how can I serve God and Luther said well what is your work now the man said I'm a shoemaker much to the cobbler surprise Luther replied then make good shoes and sell them at a fair price I love that he didn't tell him to make Christian shoes you know with a little fish sign on him and a little go in a verse on the side he didn't tell him do that he didn't tell him to quit his job and become a monk or a pastor although if if God is leading you to do that and we need more people following the Lord in that way then that's great but sometimes we make a distinction between Christian work and secular employment in God's eyes every job you folks are doing every job that all of us is are doing is a place where we take God's name and the credibility of the gospel to work with us and is a vocation that we should do to glorify God so if you're a business owner if you're a school teacher if you're a physician a nurses assistant or whatever you are if you mo grass for a living whatever you do if you're a homemaker you can do it for the glory of God in a way that honors him principle number three work is the arena where we live out our faith that's exactly what he says in verse one he says treat your masters with full respect and remember the reason so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered it's one thing to say the gospel transformed my life changed my life if it doesn't change the way you do your work then it's all talk my friend hey you may you may be saved and delivered from the bondage of sin and on your way to heaven but our daily lives specifically our work is the arena where we really live out our faith that is where what you believe will really be tested you know that don't you it's going to be tested by co-workers it's going to be tested by a boss or an employee what you really say you believe is going to be tested there like no other place and so if the Christian faith if the life changing power of the gospel doesn't make a difference at work then it's not credible it's not real that is what Paul is saying you take the name of God and the credibility of the gospel with you when you go to work so work is the arena where we live out our faith and then fourth principle work done faithfully for God's glory will be rewarded by God that other passage I've talked about in Ephesians 6 notice how Paul says that in Ephesians 6 verses 7 and if he says serve wholeheartedly again dealing with master slaves employers employees serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord not people now notice because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do whether they are slave or free so whatever you do and in the context is talking about your job it's something about your employment whatever you do during the week to earn income will be rewarded by God for the good you do there you see here again we've made this distinction at we think the judgment seat of Christ wow you know all the missionaries and pastors are going to be on the front rows and I make it in the room but maybe I'll get a little something for teaching at Sunday school class or something like that I think some of us pastors and missionaries are going to be on the back row watching you guys and you're going to be rewarded for the good you did at work I mean for being faithful day in and day out for honoring God in your workplace and for holding high the transforming power of the gospel in the way you worked the impact you had on those around you will be rewarded by Christ that will be rewarded just as much as a sermon that was preached a lesson that was taught a soul that was won in the great film monuments men haven't seen that it's a great movie based on the true story of a group of men that were recruited during World War II toward the end they were recruited out of the the world of museums and art but they were put through boot camp and and put into the army but their specific purpose was to rescue pieces of art and sculpture that were being stolen by the Germans across Europe and squirreled away for their own uses and to enrich themselves and as the war began to turn toward the allies it became apparent that all of that was going to be destroyed before it could be found and so this group of men the monuments men they were called was were enlisted to seek out behind enemy lines sometimes these works of art and and rescue them in the movie a woman named Claire Simone lives a very ordinary life in Paris under the occupation of the Nazis she's an art enthusiast who has been recruited really forced to facilitate the pillaging of these great works of art by the Nazis since she knows art she is the one passed with the responsibility of categorizing these pieces of art and and making sure they get sent to the right location unknown to the Nazis she was placing a little secret code on the backs of each piece of art little colored pieces of of tape and then with a code known only to her writing down in a book she kept in her apartment where those pieces of art were being taken she did this for months and months and months carefully conscientiously cataloging each piece of art marking what that colored sticker keeping a record of it at home not knowing whether or not that would ever be seen or used but just knowing it was the right thing to do not knowing whether it might be discovered and confiscated by the Nazis and she would be probably thrown in prison or maybe even worse killed and then one day one day an American soldier shows up James Granger and he starts asking about these works of art she doesn't understand why but eventually she trusts him and he comes to realize that she has more information than what she's giving and so eventually it all comes out and the art is able to be not only located but rescued much of it before it was destroyed by the Nazis in her own way behind the scenes not knowing whether anyone would ever know of it or see her work at all she did what she knew was right and it was used to save millions of dollars worth of artwork you say well I don't know anything about art don't really care anything about art listen my friend what you take into the workplace the name of God and the credibility of the life changing power of the gospel is more important than any artwork then even even all the artwork in the world and the potential of your faithful service to impact people for Christ and to maybe impact those who are watching you to see if the gospel is real in the way you work the power of that is much more powerful than any numerical value you can place on artwork so do it do it well work as unto God you say well John all that sounds very noble but you don't know my boss and you don't know my job and for many of you that's true I don't but I do know God's word at least this part of these two verses I've come to know them this week and I know that it's true and I know that whatever God says will never fail it works whatever God says is true and it will not fail you say okay okay John I've tried it though and it hasn't worked for me it's made no difference I've tried to be respectful to my boss I've tried to to work hard and nobody else around me in fact they they ridicule me for being so conscientious I don't go along with some of the stuff that's going on they all but it's not working John okay all right I'll give you that but maybe you are expecting immediate results when God is looking at the more substantial long term effect of you being faithful and respectful and conscientious and God honoring just that long obedience in the same direction he will honor I want to tell you the story of Adon arm Judson Adon arm Judson was the first American missionary in the modern missions era sent to the mission field in 1812 he went to what was then called Burma now called Myanmar and he died there 38 years later in 1850 during that time he suffered much for the calls of the gospel he was imprisoned he was tortured he was kept in shackles his first wife and died he was devoted to her it crushed him I want you to understand this is a fully dedicated follower of Christ in missionary but when his wife and died for several months he was so depressed that he went every day and sat beside her tomb couldn't do a thing three years after her death he wrote this God is to me the great unknown I believe in him but I cannot find him man's heart was devastated but eventually his faith sustained him and he began to plug himself back into his work of translating the Bible into the Burmese language after a period of years he got the New Testament done after 22 years he finished the Old Testament and then he died statistics are unclear but when Adon arm Judson died there were somewhere between 12 and 25 professing believers in the whole country and no church a lot of folks would look at that and say what a what a waste what a failure fast forward 150 years 150 years at the 150th anniversary of the translation of the Bible into the Burmese language Paul Borthwick an American scholar was addressing the group that was celebrating Judson's work and just before he got up to speak he was opening the translation of the Bible in the Burmese language he opened the front and he saw in the front page the first page the words translated by Reverend age Judson so Borthwick turned to his interpreter a Burmese man named Matthew Hyatt Winn and asked Matthew what do you know of this man Matthew began to weep as he said we know him we know how he loved the Burmese people how he suffered for the gospel because of us out of love for us he died a pauper but he left the Bible for us when he died there were few believers but today there are over 600 thousand of us and every single one of us traces our spiritual heritage to one man adnarm Judson and Judson never saw any of it now I know he's a missionary but all of us are missionaries if we believe what we've just seen all of us are missionaries in whatever workplace you have remember you carry the name of God and the credibility of the testimony of the gospel with you to work every day and so okay maybe you haven't seen results in three months maybe you won't see it in three years maybe you won't see it in 30 years maybe you'll never see it in your career but I guarantee you if you're faithful to God's word it will produce results God will work through a God honoring consistent faithful conscientious testimony at work if you're serious about being God's missionary wherever you are taking the name of God and the credibility of the gospel with you God will use that be faithful don't give up and when you retire when you die may it be said of you one thing about that person he lived she lived what she believed would you pray with me father help us with great joy to go into the marketplace the workplace tomorrow or what we're today and make a difference for your kingdom there help us to realize we carry your name with us and we don't want your name to be slandered and we carry the integrity of the gospel we don't want people to slander what we teach what we believe so father makes missionaries wherever we are in our vocations help us to speak for you when we can but help us to live out our faith in the workplace every moment that we're there and glorify your name in so doing in Jesus name we pray amen