All right, let's turn to our reading tonight,
and you'll be very amazed, folks, to find
out that while the family had just two
verses on them, though we borrowed heavily from
the companion epistle, Ephesians, last night, just two
verses, we have verses 22.
That's Colossians chapter 3, of course, 22 through
chapter 4 and verse 1.
And I'm not going to read all the
verses because we shall be dealing with them
in detail, and it'll save time.
But let me just read the opening verses.
At verse 22, servants, literally slaves, servants, obey
in all things your masters according to the
flesh, not with thy service as men pleasers,
but in sincerity of heart, fearing God.
And whatever you do, do it heartily as
to the Lord and not unto men.
But the verses will take us right into
the fourth chapter.
Somebody asked straight away, why does Paul give,
in this particular epistle, a relatively short statement
on the family as against this rather lengthy
exhortation concerning servants, masters, and work?
Of course, many answers have been given.
Paul may have had in mind the issues
raised by Onesimus, who was the bearer of
this letter, incidentally, back to the church, the
runaway slave, the companion of Paul for a
time, and, of course, the treasurer and guardian
of this wonderful epistle that we have for
exposition tonight.
But more likely than this is Paul's concept
of the work ethic, as given by the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, or what I'm
calling the primacy of work.
Most people spend the greatest portion of their
lives working, earning their bread and butter, honestly
and justifiably.
Now, whether or not these were the thoughts
in Paul's mind, we're not sure, but he
has a tremendous statement to say in these
verses concerning servants and masters and the work
that we're called to do.
I do want to pause, however, and say
this, that there's no passage in the word
of God which dignifies the ministry of service
in whatever level of life you find yourself.
There is nothing sloppy, and there is nothing
undignified about work.
God has elevated work to its highest position
by creation and by redemption.
By creation, he created man and then created
a woman and gave them work to do
long before the fall in that beautiful paradise
of Eden.
That's creation.
By redemption, all work has been hallowed by
the incarnation.
When God broke into time and contracted to
the measure of a woman's womb and was
born, and as a little boy grew up
and worked at a carpenter's bench, as we're
going to see, and actually dirtied his hands
at that bench, and made not only the
yolks that were sold, so tradition tells us,
to all farmers around, I want to tell
you something, all work was hallowed forever and
for eternity.
So any people who take a low view
of work have to listen very carefully tonight,
as we were exhorted in the announcements.
In fact, Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3
10, if anyone will not work, neither shall
he eat.
Neither shall he eat.
God has hallowed all work, and especially the
vocation to which you are specifically called and
appointed.
But I want us to enter this wonderful
passage tonight with great carefulness and with your
Bibles wide open before you, and notice three
tremendous movements in Paul's reasoning here.
As a guide in God to all work,
he states three things that I want us
to look at.
First of all, the Christian's commitment to work.
Underscore that, please.
The Christian's commitment to work.
Servants or slaves, in all things obey those
who are your masters, fearing the Lord.
Abbreviated, it is the Lord you serve, masters.
You too have a master in heaven.
And that covers the whole reading.
It is self-evident that the whole emphasis
in these verses is on the theme of
worship this evening, the Lordship of Christ.
The Lordship of Christ.
It is Christ the Lord whom you serve.
And that's going to be repeated all the
way through this message tonight.
It's Christ the Lord you serve.
The central thought is summed up in those
words.
It is the Lord Christ, or Christ the
Lord you serve.
And Paul saw all service as an opportunity
for demonstrating the Lordship of Christ in terms
of our behavior patterns and our ministry here
upon earth.
Jesus Christ is Lord.
In everyday life, this should be expressed in
two ways.
Will you notice?
Number one, submission to Jesus as Lord in
our daily work.
Submission to Jesus as Lord in our daily
work.
Having declared it is the Lord Christ whom
you serve, Paul adds, immediately servants in all
things obey those who are your masters.
And masters, you're not excluded.
You too have a master in heaven.
Now slaves in Paul's day had it rough.
They were little more than the beasts of
burden with no civic rights.
A master could walk out on his servants
and lash them with a whip or pierce
them through with a sword.
And they had no reprieve and no redress.
They could do nothing in answer to brutality
or cruelty.
All they could do was accept what they
took or else fight back and of course
be destroyed at once.
With this in mind, Paul introduces into this
oppressive, oppressive I repeat, situation a fact and
a force that was forever to destroy slavery.
I've heard preachers from pulpits say there's nothing
from Genesis to Revelation which is against slavery.
My friend, the dynamism of the message I'm
going to bring tonight shows that no way
could slavery or inequity or injustice exist if
this passage under the lordship of Christ is
understood.
Look at it for a moment.
It's a fact and a force that Paul
introduces here that changes our whole attitude as
well as our activity in everything we do.
The point is that if Jesus Christ is
Lord of all life, then servants and masters
are responsible and accountable to God for everything
they do.
That changes everything.
Attitudes and activities have to be different.
The only question is, is Jesus Christ Lord?
Here is a servant who rebels.
Very well then, Jesus Christ is not Lord.
Here is a servant who disobeys.
Very well then, Jesus Christ isn't Lord.
Here's a master whose crew or crew takes
advantage, exploits him.
His servant, Jesus Christ, is not Lord.
It's not Lord.
For all, all service is commitment, but it's
commitment in the sense of submission to Christ
as Lord in our daily work.
That's why I love to pray almost every
day of my life.
In my quiet time, a little chorus I
learned when I worked with the CSSM on
the beaches of Great Britain.
Lord of every thought and action.
Lord to send and Lord to stay.
Lord in writing, speaking, giving.
Lord of all things to obey.
Lord of all there is of me, now
and evermore to be.
Submission to the Lordship of Christ.
Are you committed to your work?
It should be the expression of your submission
to the Lordship of Christ.
But let's go deeper into it.
It's more than that.
And here is what I want to weigh
very heavily tonight.
It is a confession of Jesus Christ as
Lord in our daily work.
It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.
When Jesus is Lord in everybody's life, that
Lordship will be confessed in the work you
do.
A.
T.
Pearson once put it this way, a light
that does not shine, a spring that does
not flow, a germ that does not grow
is no more an anomaly, a contradiction than
a Christian who does not witness.
And no way, no way can you hide
that witness.
In fact, it's the Lord Jesus who said,
let your light so shine before men that
they shall see your good works and glorify
your Father which is in heaven.
This idea that because I'm a Christian, I
must keep my life under a bushel or
put my life under a bed is just
what the Lord Jesus absolutely condemned.
You see, to put your life under a
bushel is to be too busy for God.
And people can be too busy in their
work to witness.
But to put your life under a bed
is to be too lazy to witness for
God.
And the light doesn't belong under that bushel,
and it doesn't belong under that bed.
It's to be put on a candlestick wherever
you are so that men may see your
good works and glorify your Father who is
in heaven.
Now I want to come down to something
which deeply concerns me.
In a very real sense, work is a
platform for the preaching of the Lordship of
Christ by life and by lip every day
of your life, without exception, without exception.
You see, we go to church on Sunday,
but if you're truly theological and understand your
Bible correctly, the gathering together of saints, whether
in houses as in the early church, or
whether in a temple or a tabernacle like
this, is for worship.
That's where we come together for fellowship.
That's where we come together for encouragement.
That's where we come together for the ministry
of God's Word.
That's where we come together for refueling for
another week.
The church, the church gathering is for worship.
Very incidentally is it corporate witness, very incidentally.
But we leave our Sunday ventures, we leave
our Sunday churches, we leave our Sunday pulpits
to go out for a week of six
days of witness.
And you say, how can I witness?
In your work.
Otherwise, Christ is not Lord.
Christ is not Lord.
And the only reason why he doesn't take
us to heaven the moment we're saved and
rapture us right away, is simply this, that
he's left us down here through our ordinary
avocations and vocations, our work life, to declare
that Jesus Christ is Lord of all life.
Not just Lord of our singing, not just
Lord of our reading of scripture, not just
Lord of our preaching, not even Lord of
our ministry work, but he's Lord of that
factory, he's Lord of that judge's bar, he's
Lord of that campus, he's Lord of that
classroom, he's Lord of that garden, he's Lord
of every single occupation represented here on earth,
done under his Lordship.
I'm going to go a little further.
If this is not true, then the church
is the coward's castle, and the rest of
our time is a waste of our time.
If this is not true, I repeat, then
the church is the coward's castle, and the
rest of our time is a waste of
our time.
If evangelism of the world depends on one
day a week, God have mercy on our
wretched souls, and we're in bad shape.
Indeed, this may well explain why the witness
of the church leaves so much to be
desired.
And it's important to add that a real
and radiant witness can be affected in every
single situation of work, without stealing the boss's
time, or being intolerable.
Because, as we shall see in a moment,
the kind of work you do is so
faithful, so efficient, so loving, so courteous, that
the boss cannot want you to do anything
less than that.
Your life is telling out a message for
the eight hours, or ten hours, or whatever
you put into that work day by day.
I've had a wonderful day.
Had two hours with a dozen evangelists or
more in the pastor's vestry.
It was one of the highlights of my
entire visit to Australia.
And I want to tell you, we had
a whole batch of sandwiches and lovely goodies.
I managed to nibble one and a half.
The questions came so hot and so fast.
But you know what came through more than
anything else?
Stephen Offutt tell us, in our evangelistic work,
and especially in our church work, how can
we break through the hard crust of an
unrelenting, unconcerned, apathetic world out there?
So that we get up into our pulpits
Sunday after Sunday, and you say, preach the
gospel, but there's no one to preach to.
Reminds me of a church I went to,
and I told them I was bringing an
evangelistic message, and I wanted them to bring
in the unsaved.
I got up onto the platform with the
pastor, and I said, brother, in a whisper,
of course, are there unsaved here?
He looked around.
Yes, he said, there is, there is.
I said, how many?
One.
I said, who is he?
It isn't a he at all, it's a
she.
I said, where is she sitting?
Over there.
I said, that's my wife.
I want to tell you something, he didn't
expect what he got, because I never preached
an evangelistic message that night.
Never preached an evangelistic message that night.
I want to tell you something, I've known
me back.
Not because I wasn't invited, but I tell
you, I laid it on the line.
I laid it on the line.
You see, basically, I am an evangelist, and
I want to tell you something.
When I go around and say, now then,
let's have an evangelistic endeavor.
Let's make sure that each one brings one.
Pre-evangelized people for whom you pray, that
through the evangelistic gift of harvesting, we may
bring them to birth.
And I see people looking at one another
saying, I'm saved.
I don't know anybody.
I just don't know anybody.
And we have made ourselves holy huddles that
are insular to a desperate world outside.
Why?
Because we have lost the work ethic.
Because every one of us spends more time
at work than in any other thing we
do except sleep.
And to imagine that God intended that your
eight hours a day should be totally useless
to the rest of the week, is unthinkable,
is unthinkable.
Sunday should be a converging point of people
who've been pre-evangelized all through the previous
week, by the light that's been shining, not
under the bed, not under the basket, but
on a candle.
And people have seen something so miraculous, so
supernatural, so courteous, so efficient, so wonderful, that
they've had to say, hey, what's the secret
of your life?
Come with me and I'll tell you the
secret of my life.
I go to a place on Sunday where
I learn all about it.
All about it.
Now I'm not talking out of ivory towers.
My dear sweetheart and wife is better and
here, praying me through this message, and she'll
tell you and concur with absolute affirmation that
the greatest thrill of my ministry in Wales
and then in London and then in New
York City wasn't to see people get converted
through television, that was wonderful, and radio, that
was wonderful, and through our own preaching, that
was wonderful.
My greatest thrill was to stand at the
communion table every Sunday morning, not at the
door to slap Christians who don't need any
encouragement at all if they have any maturity,
but to know the pastor has something more
to do, but I stood at the communion
table every single Sunday to receive, to receive
in love and tenderness and joy 30, 40,
50 people who had been led to Christ
by the membership of the church who had
never heard of Stephen Olford, never heard him
on radio, never seen him on television, never
heard him from the pulpit, but they had
been making Jesus Lord of their work life.
Now I want to tell you, your churches
will never grow until that begins.
One of the tricks we have today, of
course, is to bring a Billy Graham or
a Layton Ford.
I see no pattern for that in the
New Testament anywhere.
I am for Billy Graham, 35 years, personal
friend, talked about it many times, been on
hundreds of thousands of platforms with him, preached
with him in many parts of the world.
I know Layton Ford, the great crusade starting
in Sydney shortly, and I think there is
a great value in the bringing together of
churches for united witness and raising the consciousness
of evangelistic impact and even the conviction of
sin as the Savior is lifted up in
crusades of that kind.
But I've come full circle and I believe
evangelism ought to be done in the local
church with a fired-up pastor and members
who are ready to bring in the unsaved
and then to do the follow-up work
all on their own.
And that's not going to happen until eight
hours of every day, from Monday through Friday,
or if you work on Saturday, you are
making the platform, the platform for the Lordship
of Christ in commitment to your work.
Listen, the Lordship of Christ, the platform for
the Lordship of Christ, your work, your work,
your work.
To me, this was the real test of
my own personal ministry, and this should be
a challenge to all who fail to see
that church is the place for worship, the
world is the place for witness.
All right, let's go a little further and
notice not only the Christian's commitment to his
work, but the Christian's involvement in his work.
Servants, in all things, obey those who are
your masters on earth, not with external service
as those who merely please men, but with
sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
Whatever you do, do your work heartily.
As for the Lord, rather than for men,
masters, grant your slaves justice and fairness, knowing
that you too have a master in heaven.
Now, there's no point in making Jesus Lord
either by your submission or by your confession
if that doesn't come through in involvement in
your work.
What do we mean by that?
Let's look at it very carefully.
Where there is commitment to our daily work,
there will be involvement in our daily work.
If Jesus Christ is Lord of our lives,
then all we do and say as servants
and as masters will reflect, reflect that Jesus
Christ is Lord.
And there are two words that I'm going
to choose to sum up this whole passage
right here.
What are those two words?
Number one, faithfulness in our work.
Faithfulness in our work.
Servants, in all things, obey those who are
your masters on earth, not with external service
as those who merely please men, but with
sincerity of heart, hearing the Lord.
Masters, listen, grant your slaves justice and fairness.
Now, it's awfully easy to read those words
in this comfortable auditorium.
It's so easy right here in Australia to
be free just to emphasize those words.
But do you know what the background to
those words really meant to the slave or
even to the master?
The uncongenial conditions of employment and the unscrupulous
characters of the employers in Paul's day made
it virtually impossible to follow that through.
And yet Paul gave no ground, no ground
at all.
In many instances, this is true in our
time, and I've heard of people being sneered
at and scoffed at, even right here in
the city, especially at break time when they
tried to bring a word of witness in,
while the unconverted person was choosing where he
was going to put his next bet, or
drinking, or engaging in coarse conversation.
Oh, it's tough, but Paul doesn't waver.
He doesn't waver.
He still maintains faithfulness to the Lord, faithfulness
to the Lord.
Notice what the servants are to do.
Servants are to see that they work not
with eye service, as men pleases, but with
sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
Do you know what eye service is?
It's hypocritical service.
It's a serious form of dishonesty.
It is all show without reality.
And oh, how that exists, especially in high
places of government, like the members of Parliament.
Men pleases is the other thing.
They're just as bad.
Such people work with ulterior motives, and this
inevitably leads to bribery and corruption.
Have you ever heard of bribery and corruption
in high places?
So Paul says they must serve with sincerity
of heart, fearing the Lord.
Now, that phrase, sincerity, in this particular context,
if your exegesis is found, that word, sincerity
of heart, literally means without a fold.
Without a fold.
Here's my handkerchief, and there it is, wide
open.
There it is, floated, full folded.
It's without a fold.
Do you know what a fold is?
A cover-up.
Nothing under the counter.
No black market.
Nothing hidden.
All work will be performed, says Paul, transparently
and above board.
Faithfulness of this kind calls for three things
that are inherent in the whole concept of
faithfulness.
One, integrity.
Two, efficiency.
Three, consistency.
Let's look at those just for a moment.
What is integrity?
Integrity is moral faithfulness.
If Jesus Christ is my Lord, and my
submission is complete, my confession is clear.
How can I let my Lord down?
No one was a better worker in every
kind of situation in which he was placed
than Joseph, that glorious character of the Old
Testament.
It's awfully hard to find one single negative
thing about Joseph in all of his history.
But you remember when he was given work
in Potiphar's house, and he did it so
well that he came into the favor with
the whole family?
And then how that wicked wife of Potiphar
tried to snare him into sinning, and he
cried out, how can I do this, and
sit against the Lord, and fled, and was
put in prison?
But God saw his integrity, and vindicated him,
and vindicated him.
Integrity is moral faithfulness.
It calls for and what my beloved brother
sang so poignantly and pointedly at the beginning.
Loyalty.
Honesty and loyalty.
Integrity.
The other ingredient is consistency.
That's mental faithfulness.
It calls for a mindset that steadfastly seeks
to be punctual, pleasant, patient, and purposeful in
all that you do.
Let me ask you, young lady, how do
you enter the office for your secretarial work,
or that word processor, or whatever, on Monday
morning, or possibly Friday morning, last day of
the week?
Are you punctual?
Are you pleasant?
Are you patient?
Are you purposeful?
That's mental faithfulness.
A steadfastness to do that.
Then we come to that word efficiency.
That manual faithfulness.
Manual faithfulness.
It calls for quality work under all circumstances.
We must remember that the divine mandate is
to do all to the glory of God.
I can't lift a Coke can to my
lips.
Whatever you eat or drink, do it all
to the glory of God, says Paul.
So everything I do, everything I do, every
nail I hammer home, every single room I
dust must be for the glory of God.
And when God says, do all to the
glory of God, do all, do all, he
means A-L-L, all.
That's not hyperbole.
That's mandate.
And this demands faithfulness.
This demands faithfulness.
Heather and I moved to Wheaton from Florida
some years ago.
The circumstances are irrelevant at this point, but
we went ahead of our luggage and all
our household effects because we were going to
rent a little apartment in what's known as
the Vatican of the evangelical world, Wheaton.
And we found a little apartment up on
the 19th floor.
Do you know what happened?
All the moving business went on strike.
And the truck that had all our belongings,
the most precious belongings that we have here
upon earth, was held at gunpoint.
The truck behind it was burnt to the
ground.
And our truck had all the tires blowed
out.
So for two whole weeks, we were in
an empty apartment without a stick of furniture.
Our David was studying at the time at
Wheaton, and we borrowed a mattress from him
and a sheet.
It happened to be very warm weather, so
we just slept on a mattress on the
floor.
We had a little kind of a camp
table, and we gathered some crockery together, and
we went out mostly to eat.
But when we ate, we had just that
with a few boxes around us that we
sat on.
But you know, while we're concerned about all
this business, I lay back on that mattress,
and I happen to have an engineering background,
and I cannot stand a picture on the
flange, or out of skew.
And you know, no pictures were up.
The walls were bare.
But I began to look at the fittings
in that apartment for which we were to
pay a handsome sum.
Do you know those hardly a socket?
By a socket, I mean where you put
the plug in, you know.
A socket that wasn't off square.
And you know, I just threw up.
I thought, Jeremy, where is the work ethic?
How can men ever take pride in this
kind of work?
You know, when the Lord Jesus finished a
plow, or a piece of furniture, as antiquity
literature teaches, even if it's apocryphal, they said
it was the best work to be found
anywhere in the Holy Land.
And I want to tell you this, if
your light shone that bright in your faithfulness,
I want to tell you, the door would
be wide open to give the explanation.
Sanctify Christ as Lord, and be ready always
to give to everyone who asks you a
reason for the hope that is in you.
And as for masters, they're to be just
and fair.
Faithfulness is expected of them also.
In those days, as in our time, greed
for wealth and lust and power could lead
to all matter of injustices and inequities.
But for the Christian master, this cannot be.
He, like the servant or employee, is answerable
to his Lord.
And he must be fair, and he must
be just, and his actions must be transparent.
Servants and masters alike are to be faithful.
As I was thinking about this message tonight,
my heart left within me as I went
back many years to my boyhood days, and
I recall a paramount chief who got a
terminal disease.
And my dear father had to tell him
that he wouldn't live very long.
But he's an honorable man.
In fact, I believe, a born-again man.
And he wanted a successor.
And he told my father how he was
going to find his successor.
And I happened to be a witness to
what took place.
He screened a whole lot of younger men,
eventually chose three.
And one day he said to those three
men, I want to see you at daybreak,
and I want you to appear before my
hut with a calabash.
That's a gourd all hollowed out.
A gourd, a calabash, and a sift, a
regular sift, a sift for sifting corn, a
mandioc meal, and the rest.
I want a calabash and a sift.
You three men, daybreak.
They were there.
The old man threw his skin over his
shoulder, went down with him very slowly to
a river at the bottom of the village.
And he measured several, several paces from the
river up the hill.
And he told the three men to put
the calabashes down.
One, two, three.
Now he said, I'm going to give you
the signal.
And when I say go, I want you
to go down to that river.
I want you to plunge your sieves into
the river and bring up water to these
calabashes.
And I want to see who gets the
most water into their calabash.
Now are you ready?
Are you ready?
Go men!
And he slipped into the undergrowth of the
forest, of the bush, as you call it
over here.
Well, the first man ran down, plunged his
sieve in, came up, and he wasn't halfway
up.
When it was almost bone dry, he tried
it again, tried it again, threw down the
sieve and said, he doesn't mean it.
He's testing our intelligence in quitting.
I'm quitting.
And he went off.
The second man, he lasted a little longer,
about noon, and he quit.
He made the same excuse.
The third man went down and came up
and went down and came up until he
almost had a river flowing in two ways.
But only a few drops at a time.
He went right through midday as the sun
went down.
He was still working.
When out from those bushes came the old
chief with a smile on his face.
He said, those men thought I was testing
their intelligence.
I wasn't.
I was testing their faithfulness.
You're my man.
I didn't expect you to be successful.
I'm no fool.
But I did expect you to be faithful.
Well done, good and faithful servant.
Are you faithful?
That's what it's all about.
Faithfulness.
But not only faithfulness, not only faithfulness, will
you notice the next word?
Fervency.
Fervency in our work.
Oh, I wish I could take off on
this one.
Whatever you do, do your work heartily as
for the Lord rather than for them.
You know what that word heartily means?
The word heartily means out of your soul.
Literally out of your soul.
Christian endeavor ought to be characterized by an
enthusiasm and diligence not even found in unconverted
people.
Someone has said that where there is no
heart, there is no art.
And that's not just play on words.
It's the truth.
The reason why we do not see good
workmanship today is because people have no longer
heart in their work, leave alone pride in
their work.
They're not interested.
They're soon a strike.
Soon a strike.
Now, people often criticize me for expending so
much energy in the pulpit.
But I can't help it because I'm committed
to the biblical concept of enthusiasm.
And I believe that our Lord Jesus was
the most enthusiastic person who ever lived.
Now, how he expressed it is another matter.
But when he drove those men out of
that temple and overthrew the money changers and
drove out the animals, I want to tell
you this, the disciples were absolutely shocked and
astounded and stood back and said, what's all
this about?
And Jesus said, haven't you read your Bibles?
The zeal of God's house has eaten me
up.
That's our word, zeal, fervency.
Translated fervency in Romans 12, same word, zeal,
zeal, zeal.
Not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving
the Lord.
That's our word.
It means actually, very simply, boiling hot, boiling
hot.
We could almost use it as a domestic
word, boiling hot.
When the Lord Jesus addresses the Laodicean church,
which some people say is so characteristic of
our age now, he says, I wish you
were cold, frigid in your hostility, belligerent, totally
against me.
I would honor that.
I'll know where you stand.
Or that you're boiling hot, boiling hot.
But because you're neither cold nor hot, but
lukewarm, I will spit you out of my
mouth.
If you want to know why churches are
such a sickly mess across the world today,
the judgment has already been enacted.
And that can be true of individuals, it
can be true of churches.
Jesus cannot stand lukewarmness.
Cannot stand lukewarmness.
I want to ask you, what about your
fervency?
The world has borrowed a word from us.
In fact, they've stolen it.
It's the word enthusiasm.
Do you know what the word enthusiasm is?
It's entheos, entheos, means possessed of God, full
of God.
Anyone who's enthusiastic is full of God.
You put faithfulness and fervency together, you've got
involvement.
You've got involvement in the Christian work ethic.
The Christian work ethic is something we've forgotten
all about, and I was deeply moved by
that opening prayer on that very issue.
And we as Christians are to blame for
a lot of it.
When we see that the Christian qualities that
God expects of us are performed in our
daily duties because Jesus Christ is Lord, I
want to tell you, there's no problem in
getting people into church.
They want to know the reason.
They want to know the answer.
Quickly, there's one last point that was brought
up so beautifully in the music.
The Christian's fulfillment of his work.
We've looked at the commitment.
We've looked at the involvement.
Here is the fulfillment of his work.
Whatsoever you do, do your work heartily as
for the Lord rather than for men, knowing
that from the Lord you will receive the
reward of the inheritance.
For he who does wrong will receive the
consequences of the wrong which he has done,
and that without partiality.
Masters, you also have a Lord in heaven.
Now the fulfillment of our work is determined
by the ultimate goal that we have in
view.
However pleasant or unpleasant, however congenial or uncongenial
may be the circumstances here upon earth, there's
a day of reckoning coming.
There's a day of reckoning coming.
And once this truth really grabs you, once
this truth really penetrates your mind and heart,
it'll change your whole perspective, whatever you are.
And you're not a slave under the whip,
whatever tough situation you may be in.
But Paul wrote these words to slaves.
To slaves.
We soften it with the word servants.
To slaves.
And he says, listen, there's a reckoning day
coming.
A reckoning day coming.
And get that goal in view and you'll
have a new perspective and a new sense
of fulfillment in your work.
Two things.
In closing, what motivates our desire for that
fulfillment?
Number one, the censure of our Lord in
a coming day.
I repeat, the censure of our Lord in
a coming day.
He who does wrong will receive the consequences
of the wrong which he has done, and
that without partiality.
When we stand before the judgment seat of
Christ, it will not be a matter of
whether I'm a servant or a master.
Everything will be naked and opened under the
eyes of him with whom we have to
do.
If our service has been done for the
glory of God, there'll be no shame.
No shame.
We shall look into his happy face and
hear him say, well done, good and faithful
servant.
Enter thou into the joy of our Lord.
On the other hand, on the other hand,
if our work has been wood, hay, and
stubble, whether it happens to be in the
work life, which is your ministry.
Not the gold, silver, precious stone.
Listen, it'll suffer loss.
It'll be burned up so as by fire.
And the word will be, you slothful servant.
You say, can that be true in heaven?
Yes, it can be true in heaven.
And I'm not talking about the Thronos for
the unregenerate, I'm talking about the Beamer.
And if you were judged any other way
than what you deserve, heaven wouldn't be heaven.
You'd never be happy in heaven, to be
honored for what you never did.
But we've got memories in heaven, we have
memories in heaven, and you will remember whether
or not you made work your platform to
demonstrate the Lordship of Christ, or whether you
fooled away your time in dreamy unconcern.
Every man's work shall be judged so as
by fire.
The last thing in the world you want
is the displeasure of your Lord, his censure.
But thank God there is the other side,
the pleasure of our Lord in a coming
day.
The pleasure of our Lord in a coming
day.
Whatsoever you do, do your work heartily as
for the Lord rather than for men, knowing
that from the Lord you will receive the
reward, the reward of inheritance.
The greatest joy that we can ever experience
in time or in eternity is just to
see the Savior smile and say, well done,
son.
Well done, daughter.
Enter into the joy of your Lord.
I didn't expect the success the world looks
for, but I did look for faithfulness and
fervency.
I did look for work done right out
of your soul, and you did it.
Let me embrace you.
Come in.
Enjoy the pleasure of my Father.
Even when our work is hard and discouraging,
we can always sense when we have the
savor of his favor, the savor, the aroma
of his favor upon us.
But whenever joy, whatever joy we may experience
down here is only partial compared with what
we're going to have in that day if
we have served him faithfully and fervently.
Paul affirms this when he says, if any
man's work abides which he has built thereupon,
he shall receive a reward.
When the Lord Jesus was here upon earth,
he said, I always do the things that
feast my Father.
And I want to tell you something.
He did that during those 30 years in
obscurity at a carpenter's bench with shavings flying
around and sawdust in the air, just as
much as when he laid his hands upon
the leper, or put his beautiful hands upon
the heads of little children, or when he
broke bread and fish and gave to the
multitude, or called dead people to life, or
whether he taught on the mountainside or preached
to the multitudes, there was no difference, no
difference.
In one instance, God said, my beloved son
in whom I'm well pleased.
In the other instance, my son in whom
I'm well pleased.
That same Lord Jesus of Nazareth, who took
his humanity back to heaven and poured out
his Holy Spirit, that that light he lived
down here might be lived in us and
through us by the Holy Spirit under his
Lordship is a sufficiency for working as he
intends us to work.
The sufficiency of the Savior for our work
life.
Commitment to my work.
Involvement in my work.
Fulfillment of my work.
Not his censure, but his pleasure.
Ron and Pat, as I prepared this message,
some words came to me.
I'd love you to put some music to
them, but I want to close with these
words.
Lord Jesus, I own your sway as I
go to work today.
Make me faithful, fervent, true in the task
I have to do.
Give me grace to serve you well, that
my life for you may tell to my
workmates who observe and my master whom I
serve.
Let me work for you each day as
I journey on life's way so that when
my course is run, I may hear your
words.
Well done.
Let us pray.
Each night we've opened the altar.
I just put it in that way.
We just made available the opportunity in the
closing hymn for people who have come to
grips with eternal truth and with Jesus Christ
as Lord at the level of the particular
message I've delivered each night, to come quietly
and kneel at the front and then return
to their seats unless they want to remain
for counseling.
We're doing that again tonight.
And last night there were people kneeling at
the altar.
And Monday night there were people kneeling at
the altar.
And I want to give a further opportunity
for you to kneel at the altar tonight.
The issue, the supremacy of the Savior for
our work life is Jesus Christ, Lord of
your work life.
Oh, it's so easy to sing he is
Lord in church.
So easy to even say, well, he's Lord
of my life in a general way.
But let's come to where it really, really
touches life's situation at its longest
and most penetrating level, your work life.
Your work life is Jesus Lord of your
work life.
How many people in your office have been
converted since you started work?
How many people in your classroom have ended
up as people in your Bible class?
How many people in that factory have turned
from darkness to light because Jesus is Lord?
How many people are coming to your church
because they want to find the secret of
your life?
Will you make him Lord tonight, undisputed Lord?
And then with a commitment, involvement, and fulfillment
in the area of your work life, go
out, not to put the light under the
bed or under the bushel, but on the
candlestick of unashamed witness.
Lord, seal home to every heart, to my
heart, afresh, the mighty truth of your word,
and bring the harvest worthy of your name
tonight as we sing together our hymn of
response.
We ask it for your dear name's sake.
Amen.