Ephesians 6:5-9: Our Job Descriptions

 Okay, friends, if you are able, would you please grab a Bible and open with me to Ephesians chapter six right after worship. Today we are gonna have our missions fair. In this room, we're going to hear from those who are doing beautiful co belligerent work for the kingdom. And so we encourage you after worship.

To join us in this room to stay and to hear how God is at work through organizations that we support and churches we support. Uh, in Tulsa Metro, we've been in a series in the book of Ephesians for the past several months, and some of you're using these scripture journals. There are more available in the book, nook Outside if you wanna use these.

Every other page is blank so that you can take notes during the sermon. So please avail yourself, uh, to that. And if you're willing and enable, would you stand with me as I read from Ephesians chapter six? I'll read verses five through verse eight.

Bond servants obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling with a sincere heart as you would Christ. Not by the way of I service as people pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man knowing that whatever good anyone does this, he will receive back from the Lord.

Whether he is a bond servant or is free Degrass withers. Flowers fade, but God's word stands forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, please.

One of the great tragedies of the church in the last a hundred years, really since the Industrial Revolution, is that many churches and movements of churches have done discipleship in a beautiful way, but they have failed. To teach us how to apply the gospel at work. And this passage in Ephesians chapter six, beginning, uh, here at verse five, invites us to that conversation.

Now, you have to know that in Paul's day, a third of the citizenry that is a third of the people were involved in slavery as those who were enslaved. In ancient times, slavery was not the race. Race-based chattel slavery that we think of. The pre-Civil war in America. To be a slave in that day meant that you might actually earn a wage, you might actually be able to purchase your freedom.

That's why he says whether slave or free a bond servant. People were enslaved in the ancient Roman world, often because of economic, because of debt. Because of obligations that they're receiving from their fathers, that they are serving out for the sake of their own families. And while today slavery, please hear me, still exists,

it's a shocking reality that slavery still exists and Paul never condoned slavery. It was as evil back then as it certainly was before the Civil War, and it still is today. As we look at the text today, Paul is teaching us about what it means to be a household that walks in light entirely in light of the gospel.

And so when you come to a passage in Ephesians chapter six, that you're preaching Expositionally through scripture, the application for us today, oh friends, is how we as employees are able to view those in authority over us at work and to walk in the light of the gospel, even in the place where we spend arguably most of the time of the week.

Namely in the office or at work or serving our company. And so this week it dawned on me again as I was working through, uh, job descriptions for our staff, and it dawned on me that as I looked at this, like this is like the asterisk that identifies every one of our job descriptions as Christ. And I wanna ask you honestly as your pastor, as we look at this passage today, how well are we taking the gospel to work?

And before the end of the sermon, I'll share with you at least four ways that we can live out the gospel at work in ways that might surprise you. Because the depth of our discipleship as believers means that it goes wide to the world, especially to those places where we work and serve.

If I were to put the sermon in a sentence, I would say that walking in light of the gospel, we are to serve our earthly supervisors with integrity and sincerity. Because you in so doing serve Christ, walking in light of the gospel, we are to serve our earthly supervisors with integrity and sincerity because we serve Christ.

Paul shows us in this text first that we are to obey our supervisors. Now, if you're a student, you can say, obey your teachers. If you have a boss, you can say, obey your boss. If you wanna fill in the blank to make it specific to what your occupation is, fill, fill it in. Some of you own companies. You run companies, oh, don't be fooled.

Of course you still have a boss. The boss is the Lord himself. Some of you, the boss is the stockholders of your company. For some of you, the boss are those who still hold power on the board of that company. Even for ministers, my boss is the session of this church and the presbytery of the hills and plains presbytery, and ultimately of the Lord Jesus himself.

Every single one of us are under authority. Do we obey them? Because you know that they are in place, not because they may necessarily have deserved that spot. They're the best at that job. Some of you have managers that are not great managers, but nevertheless, the Lord in his providence, his providence is his most fully wise and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions, even the action of putting them in authority over you at work.

And so the command here is to obey the Greek word to obey, and the Greek word to listen are very closely associated. I think that's really interesting. Do you listen? Do you know your job description well enough? Oh, Christian.

You know, it was, uh, Martin Luther King who famously said that if we are called to sweep streets, we are to sweep streets to the glory of God. If we are to sweep. Streets we are to do it. As well as Michelangelo painted pictures or Shakespeare wrote poetry or Beethoven composed music. We are to sweep streets so well that the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well, and I wonder if they could say that about you.

Plumbers, engineers, attorneys. Listen, all of our jobs come with incredible baggage too, don't they? The reputation of some of our jobs precedes us. Do you defy that reputation? Do you recognize the structure of your occupation? Do you lean in to the, where the industry is going and identify even systemic problems in that industry?

And are you as a Christian being able to push against that darkness? Paul says, we are to obey. Our supervisors and how are we to do that? Well look what he says. He says, with fear and trembling. That's how we're to do it with respect and honor. Paul, when he says fear and trembling doesn't mean that you're shaking in fear.

It means that you do so with the kind of reverence and respect that becomes an employee toward his supervisor. Do you serve your supervisor well with respect, not begrudgingly. It says secondly, that we are to serve with honesty, with a sincere heart, with singleness of heart. Integrity of heart is literally what the Greek says that we are to do so with no hidden motives or duplicity, we are to work with a transparent honesty, and that means that we're truthful about results.

Listen, I know some of your stories. You've told me some of your stories. Some of you give incredible leeway to fudge numbers, but that is not what a Christian does. He is transparent and he serves with a sincere heart because ultimately he is serving the Lord. Are you with me? He says thirdly, that you are to serve as you would Christ.

Listen, whether you're a butcher or a baker, or a barista or a candlestick maker, we are to serve as though we are serving Christ himself. There is a reorientation to our service. Yes, you find yourself in this situation in life. This is your particular employment for this time in your life. You may have a different employment in the future, but for right now, you're called to serve as though you're serving Christ himself.

That means every coffee that you pour, you're pouring as though you're serving Jesus himself. Every person that comes to the register, you greet them as though you're greeting Christ himself. Everyone that walks into your shop, you're receiving them with a sense of hospitality and lavish grace as though you're receiving Christ himself.

Does that drive you? Paul says, very practically, oh. Church. This is how you are to serve those in authority over you. He says, you are to do it with fear and trembling with a sincere heart as you would Jesus. And then he says, this is how you're not to do it. I've shown you how. Now let me show you how you're not to do it.

He says, do not do it by way of eye service. Dulia is a word Paul made up in Greek. By service. He can't even think what the right word is. He makes the word up. He says, you're not to do it. To be noticed. You're not to work hard. Only when eyes are watching you. You have to only clean your desk up whenever the boss comes.

Paul says, your boss's eyes aren't actually the real measure of the quality of your work. It's the Lord's eyes who sees everything, even the things that are dead in secret. And if Paul is saying this to those who were enslaved and how they are to view their work in light of their master's care over them, how much more are we, those who are free and able in our society today to work with gladness?

How much more it should be incumbent upon us to do these things? Not by way have I service to be noticed. What does he say next? Not as people pleasers gulp

not to gain applause.

We all like hearing great job. But if human applause becomes our fuel, my friends, you will burn out quickly. And you know this in your own life because this is why so many of you post on social media, you're, you have this kind of sinful tendency that you want applause and it drives you at work even. And of course, it's good to wanna do a good job, but when your motive.

Shifts from doing a good job for the sake of the work itself to doing a good job in order to climb the rungs of the ladder. Your motive has shifted and all of a sudden you're working in a way that Paul says you are not to work 'cause it's not pleasing to the Lord. And ultimately it is deeply unsatisfying to you, not as people pleasers.

Your motivation should be to please your savior. And that's why you can keep going in your job when nobody says thank you to you because you're serving the Lord. Think about the street sweeper that Martin Luther King Jr. Spoke about.

Know not only how you are to do it and how you're not to do it, but how are you to refine your role in light of Christ. This is what the last part of verse six through verse eight says. If you were to do it, it says at the very end of verse six, as a bond servant, as a do loss, as a slave of Christ, your primary title isn't.

Assistant manager isn't. CEO isn't teacher, isn't pastor. Your primary job description is that of a dolo. We are bond servants of our savior, the Lord Jesus. We are to the next part of verse six. It says, we are to do the will of God from the heart. Obedience grows out of an inner desire, A changed will. Our wills in their natural state are not able to obey the Lord.

It is the Holy Spirit who changes our will to desire what is true, beautiful, and good. And he puts that appetite in our heart and drives us to gladly want to serve God from the heart. That means that as you drive to work, you are to say, Lord, would you help me as I go to work, to work today? As you yourself would then notice it says in verse seven, rendering service with a goodwill as to the Lord, not men.

A goodwill means cheerful, a cheerful spirit. It means that you're glad to be there and if any of you are in a job where you just don't like, I just want you to imagine what it would be like if you didn't have a job. And then we were back waiting in Breadlines right after the Great Depression. And I know some of you're frustrated with your jobs and it's a good and right holy thing for some of you to feel like you're called to something different.

But the Lord in this providence has put you where he has for right now to be able to live it out as a believer, holy unto the Lord. Rendering with a goodwill with a cheerful heart. Your service as to the Lord, not to man. And that attitude, my friend, stands out in a very cynical world, doesn't it? And each of us know at work, we know people at the office who are just yours.

They're just people who are just hard to be around, right? They're always talking about the negative things in life. And I'm not saying be Pollyanna-ish and pretend everything is right, but I'm saying serve with a cheerful heart. Why? Because you're ultimately serving your savior, Lord Jesus. You're extending his hands and feet into that industry, in that area for the sake of the kingdom.

It continues with these clauses supporting what it means to obey, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive back from the Lord. Here's the promise. The Lord himself will reward you for your faithfulness. Now, this is not about your justification. By faith, he sees you as having the righteousness of his son because he's given you his alien righteousness through the work of Jesus.

But in some way, you are rewarded whether that is the experience of your job, the joy that you have in it. He rewards you for your faithfulness. That's what the text says. Promotions may come and go, but his well done echoes through eternity. Your labor may be unseen, but my friend Christ sees it and he will make his recognition known in eternity.

So dear brothers and sisters at this church, I pray that Christians can work with the kind of integrity of. Skillfulness of hand that we extend the good news of the gospel and the way that we bring the gospel to bear even in our workplaces. Christlike leadership, not climbing ladders is our goal. And point number two, we can only do this with the strength God provides.

You cannot do this on your own. We do not believe in an anthropocentric, a human-centric religion. We believe in a God-centered religion. That means that his Holy Spirit, who is giving you gifts, empowers you. By his strength to be able to step into the workday Monday through Friday, five sevenths of your week, to serve him with abandon and joy and love, and it, it becomes an extension of worship in a beautiful way as you serve those who are in authority over you.

For students, it means the same thing with school, like your job is to study hard and you serve your professors and you keep up with their reading, like this is your holy act of worship. I know it's a lot of reading. That's part of the journey. He's training you now to learn how to continue present active indicative of these verbs in Ephesians to continue to obey again and again and again, especially when it gets hard.

We can do this only with the strength that Christ provides, and you know why? Because Christ was the perfect worker. Christ was the perfect laborer on our behalf. Jesus would ask nothing of us that He himself hasn't already done. And in seeing that Jesus had the ultimate job, we're actually able to step in to our jobs, especially our jobs that were difficult.

Imagine the Lord Jesus who for all eternity lived in perfect bliss and holiness with his father and the Holy Spirit for eternity passed and his father asked him to take on flesh. To become in fleshed at a point in time in history, fully God become fully man, and to do a job to save all those who were the lords in all creation for his glory's sake.

And you know what Jesus said for the joy set before me, I will do it. He did it with the cheerful spirit and he did it for you. He did it with fear and trembling with respect and honor. He said, in Gethsemane, father, not my will, but your will be done as he sweat drops of blood. Your Savior did it with a sincere heart.

He said when he was tempted that my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work, he was tempted in every respect that you are. And yet he remained without sin, and it's because his righteousness covers you, that he allows you to do the work that you're called to do as an employee with joy and with intentionality.

He didn't do it by way of eye service. Oh, he could have. He was the king of the universe. And yet after he healed the man of leprosy, do you remember in Luke chapter five, he charged him not to tell anyone? He repeatedly told his disciples,

be quiet about my identity. Matthew 16, Matthew 17. Jesus worked quietly. He was never self-promoting. He was content with his father's eyes alone.

He didn't work as a people pleaser. When the crowds tried to crown him, king Jesus withdrew again and again and again

to be by himself and pray.

Jesus refused to exchange his divine mission, his divine job description for public approval. Jesus was a bond servant of his father. Isaiah. Foretold that he was despised and rejected by men, and Jesus said of himself, son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Jesus was able to do the will of God from the heart for the joy that was set before him. He endured the cross scorning at shame. He Hebrews chapter 12, don't you see that it is this Jesus who is by His spirit empowering you to go and to live out your calling that you're asked now to do. Your discipleship does not end when you leave these halls.

Your discipleship continues all throughout the course of the week, and it may be the most vacuous area of your life spiritually, the way that you act Monday to Friday. One of the privileges of being a pastor is that I don't get to hide from my friends what I do at work

or my family. Some of you, you have guardrails and ways to hide your personality. I mean, some of you are just real jerks at work and your industry affords you a measure of anonymity or a protection because of your position or your power or whatever it is. But the Lord sees all of that, and he wants you to be a person of full integrity every step of the way, and that is hard, especially for those of you who are in leadership.

Isn't that something beautiful? Because the Lord, the ultimate leader, was the one who took upon his divine job in the incarnation to come and live a life we could not live and die a death that we should have died. And he did it with a cheerful heart, knowing that his service was rendered as unto his father, not unto himself.

And even as he suffered his excellence in his work, shown the Roman soldier looked at Jesus and said, surely. Surely this was the son of God

and Jesus knew that he would have a reward from his father. He humbled himself and he became obedient to death. And therefore, God highly exalted him. Listen, that same Christ who is exalted through the ascension now empowers you as you work. Bond servants over the course of the week. Paul says, we are to obey our earthly masters.

We are to obey our supervisors or our boss, or our teachers. You can fill in the blank of who that means, and we are. He shows us how to do it. He shows us how not to do it, and he says that we are able to do it with the strength that Christ provides. Now, we practically, if you will, look in the back of your chairs and you'll see the cards.

There's one that says, rest for worship. Growing community and the rediscover your calling in card, would you take that card out in the back of your chair? It's gray. Would you look at it with me? And I want you to take this card. I want you to stick it in your Bible, but I want you to flip on the back and I want you to see the four words that are in there are four E's.

They're in bold there. Whether you are an engineer, accountant, plumber, doctor, teacher, stay at home parent or something else. Scripture shows us at least four ways to live out our calling in the gospel. The first is ethics. You live out the calling of the gospel by operating clearly within the legal and moral codes of your field of expertise.

Now, this goes without saying that you are to obey your earthly supervisors in so far that what they're asking you to do is legal and moral in the course you serve God and not men, if they were ever to ask you to do something that would be unbecoming to the Lord himself or against his word. We serve with ethics.

Can people say that of you?

Second, we serve by the experience. We enjoy the work itself and the thrill that it brings to us. We see that it is part of our sanctification and part of our discipleship. We live out the gospel in the way that it shapes and forms us through the unique pressures that our work environment provides for us.

Or if you're a student school. Third, we extend the gospel by evangelism. Now, for some of you proselytizing in your place of work is going to get you fired,

but nevertheless, we have eyes to see how can we, in the midst of our relationships with those of us at work, share a reason for the hope we profess and how are we to do it in such a way that both honors our supervisor in our company, much like Daniel as. Abby and Kevin read earlier, much like Joseph did for their bosses.

Daniel served a pagan king Nebuchadnezzar, and he did so faithfully. Joseph served a pagan king, and he did so faithfully, so much so that the Potiphar set his entire household under his care because what he did, he did so very well. Fourth, you can do it with excellence. You can perform the best quality of care for your employer and clients that you're capable of offering.

But there's a fifth EI might say enrichment do so in a way that enriches your own spiritual life, where you see that the rhythms and the patterns of your life, your discipleship is lived out through that. If you, if you love to read books, there's a great book called God at Work by David Miller, who is probably the foremost expert on the history of the faith and work movement.

It's an amazing book, and these four ees come from David Miller. They're not my own, but I wonder which of these four ees you would say that you struggle with the most at your place of employment. Do you do your job with excellence? Do you view it as a opportunity for enrichment? Do you. Enjoy the experience and the thrill that it brings to you.

Some of you have worked really hard to be in the jobs that you are. Do you enjoy them? Are you always thinking about in your discontent? What's next? Do you just rest in it and enjoy it? And are you willing and able to share a reason for the hope you profess with your coworkers when the Lord gives you the opportunity?

Now, these are just very simple ways, but I encourage you to pray through them this week on how you are to be one who obeys your earthly masters as unto the Lord. So tomorrow, as you walk into your workplace, I want you to think about Paul's words to the house in Ephesus. Children and parents, husbands and wives, slaves and masters, and I want you to think O employee.

Next week we'll talk about those who are in authority over others at work, but O employee you as you serve your employer, whether it's in an office tower or it's in a classroom, it's in a hospital ward or construction site, or the laundry room at home. Would you be willing and able to say, Lord, help me to do this heartily as unto you, my master and king.

We can do it only by the strength the Lord provides and Trinity in. So doing that and rediscovering our calling, we began to see how the gospel bursts forth Monday through Friday in ways that just deepen our joy of being called his beloved family. Hallelujah. Maybe live it out together. Let's pray.

Father, would you help us to see our work as an extension of our worship? Would you help us, father, just as Paul encouraged one third of the Roman world, and especially in the Ephesian Church, so many there who had come to Christ, who were still in debt to earthly masters, would you help us, father, to serve you in integrity of heart, skillfulness of hand.

Not to please people, not to do it for appearance, but to do it heartily as unto the Lord. And would you remind us that though you do not need our good works, our neighbors do, and would you help us to live for others in such a way that they say, surely this one is marked. By the love of Christ, in whose name we pray?

Amen.

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