I thoroughly enjoyed that. I've
heard that before and read it. I've read that many times. But
hearing it read, it seemed like it even made it better. Wonderful. So wonderful. Ephesians chapter
6 and verse 5. You and I have looked at these
passages now three or four times, I guess. Two or three times.
I want us to begin in verse 5 and look down through verse 8, and
I want to go through it expository. Just look at it and see the flow
of it. And that's what we'll do, and then we'll be finished
with this particular section. And then we'll go on to the armor
of God, beginning there in verse 9. In verse 10. Okay, verse 5. And I want to
read this just like it says. Instead of servants, it's slaves. It's many mentioned times in
the Scripture, slaves are mentioned. And if you have your concordance,
your strong concordance or whatever, you can go see and look these
up and distinguish. Sometimes a servant in the Scripture
means a person that you hired, somebody that works for you.
But it's not so here. These are men that were sold,
they were owned, they were slaves. Slaves, be obedient to them that
are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling,
and singleness of your heart, as unto Christ. Not with our
service as men-pleasers, but as the slaves of Christ, doing
the will of God from your heart, with good will doing service,
as to the Lord, and not to men. knowing that whatsoever good
thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord,
whether he be bond, a slave, or whether he be free." I want
to entitle this little study this evening, Encouragement to
Do Good Work. Encouragement to Do Good Work. I don't know if any of you have
ever saw that little TV program, The World's Dirtiest Jobs. If
you've ever seen that, I tell you what, that guy gets in some
jobs that stinkin'. I have seen him in some jobs
that you'd almost hold your nose just to watch it. And I bet there's
some people here that's had some filthy jobs to do. I have been
in some of the filthy jobs myself. Most of you know that I was a
trash hauler for ten years. And I was talking with Dee and
Christy when they were up. the other day, and I told them
what I used to do for a living. I said I was a trash hauler.
So after I told them that, they broke down and told me they cleaned
offices. But I think there's a little bit embarrassed. Well,
I know they were because she told me that sometimes when they
had people come around, some big shots, you know, that they
were just a little bit embarrassed to tell them what they did for
a living. Sometimes, sometimes, dirty jobs, filthy jobs, hard
jobs, difficult jobs, we need to be encouraged. If that's our
job, whatever our occupation is, we need encouragement to
do it well. Encouragement to do good work. Can you imagine being a slave? You talk about embarrassing.
You talk about shame. Can you imagine somebody buying
you off an auction somewhere? Can you imagine somebody owning
you, paying the price for you, having to bill a sale where they
bought you? Everything you did was regulated
by another person. Wouldn't that be awful? That
would be hard to imagine. But that's who he says, slaves,
be obedient to your masters. Do good work for your masters. Slaves. You know all the apostles,
and I wonder sometimes, I just wonder if one of the reasons
they didn't do this was to show these slaves how sympathetic
they were to them. Do you know all the apostles
identified themselves as slaves? I look this up in the scriptures,
and let me just read you some of them. In Romans 1, 1, listen
to this, I call a slave of Jesus Christ and an apostle. He called himself a slave before
he was an apostle. Listen to James 1, 1, James a
slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1, 1, Simon
Peter a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ. Jude 1.1, Jude
a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James. And when John addressed
himself as a slave of Christ, he addressed all of us as slaves.
Everybody that he was writing to, every believer, he said,
you're a slave of Christ. Listen to Revelation 1.1. The
revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show unto
his slaves, things which must shortly come to pass, and sent
and signified it by his angel unto his slave John." We're all
slaves. We're all slaves. Look over here.
I want you to hold Ephesians if you would. And look over in
1 Corinthians 7. 1 Corinthians 7. And look here in verse 20. Look here at what Paul says about
slaves. There had risen an issue when
the Lord saved slaves and when the Lord saved the owner of slaves. What are we going to do now?
I'm a slave, so what am I going to do now? I own people. What am I going to do now? They
had to deal with that issue. Well, here's the way Paul dealt
with that issue. Look at it in verse 20. 1 Corinthians
chapter 7 and verse 20. in the same calling wherewith
he was called. Are you called? Has the Lord
called you? Has he called you by his grace? Has he drawn you to yourself?
Are you a slave? Has he called you being a slave? Then don't be distressed about
that. Don't be anxious. Cure not for
it. But if you may be made free,
then use it rather. If you can obtain your liberty,
use it. Go for it. Obtain it. But look
in verse 22. For he that is called in the
Lord, being a slave, is the Lord's free man. Likewise, also that
he that is called, being free, is Christ's slave. He are bought with a price. Be
you not the servants of men." Boy, we're a slave, but whose
slave are we? We're Christ's slave, aren't
we? We're bought with a price. We're
not our own. We don't call the shots. We're
not the decider of our fate. Our master is. We are slaves
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and there is a real sense, he tells
us here, in which these slaves, they weren't slaves of men at
all. They weren't slaves of their master at all. He said there
in verse 22, 23, you are bought with a price, be not therefore
the servants of men. Well, you're not the servant,
you're not a slave of that Master at all. Not in the strictest
sense of the word. You have one Master, and that's
Christ. You're a slave of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He said back here in our text,
he writes to these slaves and he says this to them, slaves,
be obedient to them that are your masters. And look what he
says here. They're your masters according
to the flesh. It's a fleshly, it's a temporal
arrangement. It's just for a short time. It's
just for a present time. There's a higher calling. Flesh has nothing to do with
this glorious kingdom that we're in. We're in a kingdom above
what is flesh. Flesh is temporary. Are you a
slave? Are you a real slave? Do you
belong to your master, technically speaking? That's just temporary. That's in the flesh. You're somebody
that's experienced a higher calling. You're in a greater kingdom than
this world, the kingdom of this flesh. The outward man perishes,
but the inner man, the inner man, that's what Henry was talking
about, wasn't it? The flesh. What about the flesh? It's nothing
anyway, is it? This is according to the flesh.
Don't worry about it. Don't be too anxious about it.
He's your master, but it's according to the flesh. You really belong
to the Lord Jesus Christ. We're not slaves of men. Be not
the servant of men. We don't work for men. We have
a much higher calling than that. We're slaves of Christ. We work for the Lord. I want you to notice again here,
beginning in verse 5 through verse 7, how the Apostle Paul
says this. Let's just read it again. Look
at this, how he says this. Slaves, be obedient to them that
are masters according to the flesh, with fear and tremor and
singleness of your heart. Look at this. As unto Christ. Verse 6. Not with our service
as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of
God from the heart with good will, do and service as to the
Lord. What's he saying? You don't work
for man. You really don't work for man.
You work for the Lord. You serve Christ. Are you a trash
hauler? You're hauling trash for Christ.
Ain't that what he's saying? Are you an office cleaner? Are
you a backhoe operator? Are you a teacher? Do you keep
the house clean? Who are you doing that for? The
Lord. Isn't that what He said? You
are not the servant of men, you are the servants of the Lord,
as unto Christ. Be not the servant of men. The
world does not understand what this is teaching. The world won't understand why
the Christian works like he works. Have you ever heard anybody say
on your job, or they say to you on your job, why don't you cheat? Have you ever had anybody come
up to you on your job, and maybe you're working where you have
the opportunity to cheat, to take shortcuts, to lie, and they
want you to do it? Oh, they say this. No one will
know. Nobody is looking. You won't
get caught. Everybody does it. And you know
what the Christian's answer should be? The Lord knows. Am I going
to cheat the Lord? Am I going to lie to the Lord?
I'm working for Him. This is the Lord's work. This
is why Paul tells these slaves here to be obedient to your masters
according to the flesh. Look at this. With fear and trembling. Not the fear of man, not trembling
because of their masters, but because you're working for Christ.
That's it. If we haul trash, if we clean
offices, if we keep the house, we're doing it for Christ, with
fear and trembling. And what he's saying here, the
duties and obligations of a slave or anybody else, is just as important
as these apostles. You mean to tell me, Bruce, the
work of a slave is just as important as the work of an apostle? Absolutely,
that's what he's saying. That's what he's saying. With
fear and trembling. Listen to what he says in 1 Corinthians
2.1. Listen to this. Brethren, when I came to you,
I came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
unto you the gospel of God. I determined to know nothing
among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified, and I was with
you in weakness and fear and in much trembling." Fear and
trembling. He says to these slaves, the
same attitude with which you serve your master is the same
attitude that I serve Christ as an apostle because we are
both serving the same master. You be obedient with fear and
trembling because that's the way you serve Christ. And that's
the way I serve Him as an apostle. You see, it's not the work so
much is it? It's who you're working for.
Fear and trembling. Why? Because we're servants of
the Lord. We're doing the will of God from
our hearts. Fear and trembling. Serve the
Lord with fear, with holy reverence, and rejoice with trembling. Work
out your own salvation with fear and with trembling." The same
word, with the same word. Why would we fear and tremble?
Because we're working for the Lord. I don't want to fail Him.
I don't want to mess up a job, do you? It's not the man. It's not my boss. It's the Lord. It's the Lord. Oh, encouragement
to do good work. Why? Because look who we're working
for. As unto Christ. Boy, every job,
every honorable, every honest job is an honorable job. We should
never be ashamed of whatever occupation we work at because
we're working for the Lord. As unto the Lord and not unto
men. And there in verse 5, he adds
this, not only should we be obedient to them that are our masters
according to the flesh with fear and trembling, but he says here,
in the singleness of our heart. Don't be double-minded about
it. Have a single eye. Sincerity of mind, sincerity
of motive, sincerity of purpose, and what would that be? To please
Christ. to please Christ in our work,
with a single eye, never to fail Him. And now in verse 6, he goes
on to a negative. And if you read the Bible and
study the Bible a lot, you'll have to learn to look at the
positives and look at the negatives. And we learn just as much from
the negatives as we do the positive. He tells us the positive, be
obedient with fear and trembling, and singleness of your heart
with a single eye, with a single purpose, to do good work. And
then he comes here in verse 6 to the negative and look at this.
Not with our service as men-pleasers. Oh, isn't this ingrained in us?
Our service. Men-pleasers. Oh, help us. Lord, help us. Deliver us from
seeking just a pleased man. And we've all seen it, and we're
disgusted when we see it in other people, and we should be disgusted
when we see it in ourselves. If you've worked around people,
you always see some people, they're watching for the boss. And when
he's not around, they're sitting around. And you can't get them
to happy, they won't carry their load. But as soon as they see
the boss, what do they do? They want to make impression.
It's that old spirit of the Pharisees. All they do, they do to be seen
of men. But old Paul says, don't be that
way. Not with our service. Not with
men-pleasers. Don't do that. Don't do that.
You're working for the Lord anyway. And He always sees us. He is
always present with us. As the slaves of God, doing the
will of God from the heart. Oh, what a high calling this
is. Look at this. Doing the will of God. What a
blessing. What a privilege that you and
I have as children of God to work in this world no matter
what it is. Doing the will of God. What do
you do for a living? What's your occupation? What
do you do now after you retire? Whatever you do, don't ever look
upon it as drudgery. And God help us from having this
sense of being bored with what we do. Why? Because, look at
this, you're doing the will of God. Servants obey your masters. Why? Because this is the will
of God. Doing the will of God. And this
word here, good will, doing service, with good will. This word, good
will, It means conjugal affections. It has to do with the marriage
state. There are some prisons that have
conjugal visits. You may have heard of that. Not
many prisons have it, but special kinds of prisons have conjugal
visits. If you are a man, for instance,
in prison, your wife can come and visit you. But it's a special
visit. It has to do with a marriage
relationship. They'll provide you with a place
of privacy that you can spend time with your wife, his husband,
and wife. They call it conjugal visits. Can you imagine being in prison
for two years, and they come to you and say, you're going
to get a conjugal visit from your wife? How would you feel
about that? Oh, my goodness. Wouldn't that
be wonderful? Oh, you'd leap and shout with
him. Oh, the excitement of it. My wife is coming. We get to
spend time together. Boy, the Bible gives us words
that can relate to us, doesn't it? You'd almost think sometimes
it's almost off-color. But he relates to us. And now
he comes here and he says, Do the will of God like a conjugal
visit. in the great pleasure and delight
and the satisfaction as you would do with a conjugal visit from
your spouse with good, well-doing service. See what I'm saying? Doesn't that take the boredom
out of your job? It takes the drudgery out of
it. I tell you, I've had some jobs. I've had some jobs. I've
had some jobs where I came out and I was white. My clothes were
white. That I swear to you so much. They used to feed us salt
pills. And I have come out and sat in
the truck for 10 to 15 to 20 minutes, just trying to rest
a minute to get on home. Bad jobs. And sometimes you want
to groan, you want to complain, but never again. The will of God is in our heart
with delight. If it's God's will, how could
we complain about it? Oh, it's hard, Bruce, you just
don't know what goes on in my work. Brothers and sisters, I
do know. It's awful the things we have
to work our way through, isn't it? The language you have to
listen to, and it can't be helped unless we go out of this world.
But won't this help us? Won't this help us work our way
through this drudgery and the hard and difficult tasks that
we face doing our work? Remember, it's the will of God. I wonder what it would be like
living in a communist country. Can you imagine living in North
Korea? Working at a factory where you
knew that they were making bombs that could bomb some free nations. How would you handle that? I'll
tell you the best way to handle it and the only way to handle
it. You're not working for that government. You're working for
the Lord. But you say, Bruce, wait a minute,
working making bombs? Working for a master who owns
you? I don't see how they could do
that hardly. You're telling me I've got to work for that master?
You're telling me I've got to be obedient to him, the man that
bought me and owns me? Tell me where I can go, how many
kids I can have? I'm telling you this. You're
working for the Lord when you do it. You're in a communist
country under a dictator and you're working in a factory that's
making bombs. Ultimately, you can do your job. You can delight
in your work because you're doing it for the Lord. Now, isn't that
wonderful? What else are you going to do?
Just starve to death? See, when we turn it and say this is the
Lord's work, He can take care of where the bombs go. But he expects me to work because
I'm working for him. Boy, the gospel is for everybody.
Sometimes I think the gospel is just for us Americans. What about these people in these
other countries? That's under these dictatorships and communism
and all of that. Is the gospel for them? Could
a man be a Christian and live in China? In North Korea? In Iran? How would he do it? How would you work for a government
like that? You work for Christ. You work for the Lord. And do
it with delight. I got so aggravated, and I've
said this to you before, I used to get so aggravated at the union.
I'm still a union member. I'm still a teamster. And I used
to get so aggravated at those guys. And sometimes, to be honest
with you, I got too aggravated at them. I got aggravated at
the company on one hand. Take things away from the men
that they shouldn't have taken. Oh, the union on the other side,
going on the wall, catch strike. I got sacrificed at them. I wish
I realized then what I do now. You don't work for the union.
You don't work for that company. You work for the Lord. These
are things that's wrong. Sure, there's things that's wrong.
Absolutely, there's things that's wrong. There's things that's
wrong, brothers and sisters, in the workplace that you and
I will never get straightened out. But here's something that
will encourage us to be honest at work and do good work. We're working for the Lord anyway.
We're working for the Lord anyway. Look here in verse 8 now. No,
he says in verse 7. Look in verse 7. With good, well-doing
service, as unto the Lord, and not unto men, And he adds this
in verse 8. He goes on to verse 8. Knowing
that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he
receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. Knowing that
whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive
of the Lord. He's telling you no man will
work for the Lord in vain. You'll not work for Christ for
naught. Nothing you do for him will go
unnoticed and unrewarded. God is not unrighteous to forget
your work and labor of love that you have showed toward his name.
What work is he talking about? Slaves, be obedient to your master. When you ladies wipe the dish,
when you vacuum the floor, that will not go unrewarded because
you are doing that for him. You serve Christ. You say, Bruce,
that minute, that minute, whatsoever good thing any man doeth, anything,
a cup of cold water, making a phone call to encourage somebody, paying
a visit to a sick folk, whatever, anything, anything that you do,
you'll receive of the Lord. You may help me. I read Donnie's
article in the Bulletin. It makes me ashamed of myself.
Because most of you have done so many things for me, and I
can think of times when I forgot to even thank you. Thank you. But I tell you this much, you'll
never do a thing for your Lord but what He notices. And He'll
notice it here, and He'll notice it yonder at the judgment. Whatsoever
good thing, all in trash? Cleaning the office? Yeah. Yeah. Whatsoever good thing. And you
know he's talking about slaves working for their masters. He's
talking about whatever you do, it's going to be nice. And look
at this. Whatsoever good thing, any man
do it. Any man. Any person. See, it
doesn't matter what sex we are. It doesn't matter how old we
are. It doesn't matter who we are. If we're in Christ's kingdom,
we work for Him. And whoever we are, slave or
master, it will not go unrewarded. Whatsoever good thing any man
doeth. I want you to turn over to 2
Corinthians chapter 5. Brother Glenn read this this
morning. 2 Corinthians chapter 5. And we'll close with this. understand everything about the
judgment. And I think my main problem is
with it, I'm not just willing to believe it. It's like some
of these Calvinists and hyper-Calvinists that were saved by grace, and
how in the world is there going to be a judgment of good deeds
and evil deeds? if we're saved by grace. So I'm
trying to twist all these things around and get them in the proper
pigeon hole, and sometimes I'm just not willing to believe there's
going to be a judgment until I come to the Bible. And I'm
forced to admit it. There's going to be one. Do you
remember when the Lord Jesus gave us that parable about having
those three servants, and He gave five talents to one of them?
And said, now you go work in my kingdom. You go trade. I've
given you this, and you go trade. And he earns five more talents.
And he gives to another man two talents, and he goes trades,
and he earns two more talents. And he gives to one man one talent.
Every man according to his ability. That's what the judgment's going
to be about, isn't it? What we did with what the Lord has given
us. according to our ability, our
opportunities. And he called them when he came.
He went into a foreign country. He was gone a long time. And
finally he came and he called them to give account of themselves.
And the man that had earned five talents more, he said, Lord,
You gave me five talents. I've traded and I've got ten
talents. What did he say? Well done. Well done. You're a good and faithful servant.
Enter unto the joy. He came to the man that had two
talents, and he said, Lord, I've traded and I've got four. He
said, well done. He didn't say, well, you've not
done quite as good. He said the same thing to him
as he said to the other guy. He traded according to his ability. He doubled what the Lord gave
him. He came to the man that had one talent, and he said,
Lord, I knew you as a hard man, and you reap what you didn't
sow. And I was so afraid of you, and
I went and hid your talent in the ground, and I've got to hear
you, or you can have it back. And he said, you wicked son.
You sloppy, you lazy, no count man. You didn't trade because
you're lazy. And he said, you bind him hand
and foot, and take him and cast him in hell. Do you understand
all that? I don't either. I don't either. But it tells
us there's going to be a judgment, doesn't it? And we're going to
be judged according to our abilities, what we did in this flash, according
to what we've done. Look here now, this is what Glenn
read to us this morning. Look here in verse 9, 2 Corinthians
chapter 5, and look in verse 9. Wherefore we labor, we labor,
that whether we're present with the Lord in heaven, or whether
we're on this earth absent from him. Oh, we labor. Labor in faith. Labor in love.
Labor with a heart, Glenn. Why? That we may be accepted
of Him. Not talking about being saved.
He's not talking about being regenerated. We're not working
our way into His presence. He's talking about something
else, isn't He? Look at this. For we must all appear before
the judgment seat of Christ, that every one of us may receive
the things done in His body according to that which he hath done, whether
it be good or bad." I'm just going to believe that. Don't
ask me to explain it. I can't. But don't explain it
away. Bruce, how does that jive with
being saved by grace? I don't fully understand. But
it's not for me to understand as much as just to believe it. I will stand before the Lord
Jesus Christ. someday and give account of being
His servant. How have you worked for my glory? Have you used the abilities that
I gave you? Have you taken the opportunity
as I opened doors? And I'll stand there and give
account. I believe that. I believe that. That makes me a little bit apprehensive.
It puts a little bit of dread in me. But I tell you this much,
it makes me want to be extremely careful. I know something about
why Paul said, with fear and trembling now, why do we want
to trade our talents for more talents? Because we're going
to stand there and give account of ourselves if we've wasted time. If we've
not taken the opportunities that He's given us, what does that
mean? I don't know. I don't know. But I just know
this. We'll stand there and give account. And then he says this in verse
11, knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade man. Oh, what a solemn time. What
a solemn hour the judgment will be. that we may receive the things
done in our body, good or bad. And there is no respected person
with God. No respected person. I tell you one of the most glorious
words that you and I could ever hear, that will make us leap
and shout in the low bottom of our souls, is to stand before
the Lord of Glory and hear Him say this to you, Well done, thou
good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a few
things. You were a slave. That man owned you. He bought
you. Sometimes he beat you. Sometimes he was mean to you.
But you served him as you would serve me. You was obedient to
him as you would have been to me. And you did it with a measure
of delight. Well done, thou good and faithful
servant. You swept your house. You raised
your children. You taught a Sunday school class.
You were faithful to me. Well done. My good and faithful
sir. I tell you, it's almost embarrassing
to think about here because we look at ourselves and see the
failure, we see the sin in everything that we do. But yonder, yonder,
He'll say, I know why you really did it. I know all that you did.
I know your motives behind it. Well done, good and faithful
servant. Enter down to the joy of the
Lord. Oh, encouragement. Encouragement
to do good works. And he goes on in the last part
of our text and he says, and you masters, do the same things
to them. The same thing that applies to
the slave applies to the master. Boy, I tell you, it's difficult
to be a master in any sense. Did you know it? I don't envy
men who own their business. I don't envy Bob and I don't
envy Carl or anybody that owns their own business. One man said
this about being a businessman. He said you have to run your
business like a business to stay in business. Or else you run
it in the ground and have no business being in business. And you know what's going to
be said of you if you run your business. Sometimes your employees that
don't understand, they're going to call you greedy. You're not
doing for me what you're doing. It's tough. It'd be tough being
a business fellow. Got to remember this, just as
your servants work for the Lord and not for you, you work for
the Lord yourself. And remember that. No matter
what we do, we employee or employer, work for the Lord. Work for the
Lord. And there is no respect of person
with God. Let's pray.