Title: Working Hard Unto the Lord
Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:1-2
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
Well, this morning we're going to be working with a topic that has been relatively controversial in our nation's history, and if you have read ahead in your text this morning, you know what we're talking about, and this is going to be the issue of slavery. I say controversial in the sense that so many people either misunderstand or misconstrue the Bible's teaching on it. Add to that the rampant sociopolitical campaign in the last several years to both smear Christianity and American history as being so-called systems of oppression.
The popular contention made by progressives and radical leftists is that America was founded on the institution of slavery and got this authority to do so from the Christian Bible. This is a claim that has been propagated by institutions such as the 1619 Project and others, and yet when you look at history, it paints a very different picture. In truth, the spirit of America was not that that arrived on the shores of Jamestown in 1619.
That was somewhat of a colony, a settlement, but rather the spirit of what we know today as America really came in 1620 on the shores of Plymouth Plantation, and while not every single settler was a Christian, there's no denying that Christianity was the dominant ethos in our nation at the time. As to the issue of slavery itself, however, it's important to note that for most of the 17th century in the North at least, slavery was not a dominant institution. None of the pilgrims or the Puritans brought or owned slaves.
We don't really see this kind of thing until the end of the 17th century, but even then the strongest opponents to it were Bible-believing Christians. As soon as slavery took root in this country, almost immediately there was an abolitionist movement against it. Cotton Mather, who is a Boston pastor, is oftentimes demonized for supposedly oppressing women and oppressing minorities, but was actually a moderating voice for fair treatment.
He was not an abolitionist per se by the definition, but Mather abhorred the practice of what he called man-stealing, which was, you know, stealing people from overseas and bringing them here against their will to be slaves. He abhorred that practice because it was condemned in the Bible in places like Exodus 21-16. Mather actually advocated for the education of black children and even wrote a treatise on evangelizing slaves in 1706.
A few years prior to that, in 1700, a Christian judge named Samuel Sewell wrote the very first anti-slavery tract entitled The Selling of Joseph. Using the Bible as his authority, he argued, quote, all men, this is 1700, all men as they are the sons of Adam are co-heirs and have equal rights unto liberty, end quote. 1700.
Of course, many scholars are quick to note that the Bible never actually calls for the abolition of slavery, but neither does it condone it either. Instead, it treats it as a present reality in many eras of history, and it instructs people on how they are to be faithful to God despite it. However, even though the Bible doesn't call for abolition, the principles of the gospel ultimately lead to that conclusion.
Since the Apostle Paul entreats Philemon, for example, over his slave Onesimus, we see those principles even there. And yet by the 1770s, we see American Christians citing the Bible as justification for abolition of the slave trade. In 1774, it was actually a Connecticut pastor named Levi Hart who wrote one of America's first official proposals for the emancipation of slaves entitled Liberty Described and Recommended.
It was even by secular standards, it was a groundbreaking proposal prior to many, many decades prior to the Civil War. He wasn't the only one. Samuel Hopkins, a pastor in Hartford, Connecticut, Jonathan Edwards Jr. were all prominent abolitionists who rallied to purge the nation of slavery.
And by 1807, after 20 years of lobbying in Parliament, it was a Christian politician named William Wilberforce who succeeded in abolishing the transatlantic slave trade in England. Of course, there will always be those who claim that Christians in history did too little too late. Modern ethicists love to judge people of the past for their many moral blunders.
But as I've said before, we will not enjoy, they will not enjoy having to defend themselves against future historians who judge them for sitting idly by while 63 million babies are killed in the womb through abortion. But let's not lose sight of where we're going today. What does the Bible say to those who are under the yoke of slavery? And furthermore, what does this teach us today as Christians who are living in a post-slavery America? So, let's look at this together.
Turn over your copy of Scripture to 1 Timothy chapter 6. We're only going to look at two verses today, but 1 Timothy chapter 6, as we've been working our way through this exposition here, the Apostle Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus through his disciple Timothy, and he's expounding on the principles and the practices of true Christian ministry. Some of what has been covered so far is for church leaders, and we saw quite a bit of text on the issue of church leadership, elders, deacons, things like that. But other sections are primarily focused on church members and the way that we do church as a body of believers.
But in chapter 6, he puts the finger on a touchy subject, even in that day, the issue of masters and their slaves. Now, one thing we have to remember when we look at the Bible, and it's very hard to do this sometimes because of who we are and where we've been as a nation, but we have to remember that slavery in the ancient world was a different institution than the chattel slavery of early American history. In the first century, the Roman Empire was built and sustained through slave labor.
It's estimated that upwards of one-third to as much as one-half of the Roman Empire consisted of slaves. It was a large percentage of their population. But what's different about our history in America and the ancient Roman world is that their slavery was not based on race, rather it was essentially based on economics.
There were several reasons a person might be a slave in the world. Some people became slaves through becoming prisoners of war, while others were enslaved because they were condemned, they were prisoners. And so oftentimes, if a person was guilty of some kind of a heinous crime, they would then also, in addition to serving their sentence, they would serve enslaved to somebody for labor, again, prisoners of war, as I mentioned.
But perhaps one of the most common reasons why slavery was perpetuated was because of indebtedness. Indebtedness. If you owed somebody money and you couldn't pay, you would work for them until your debt was paid off.
Of course, there were some cases where parents sold their children into slavery to pay their debts, and there were other situations where people were kidnapped against their will and forced into slavery. But the treatment of slaves was a very hot topic in those days. For those who were in Israel, and you read about this in the Old Testament in the first five books of the Bible here in the Pentateuch, in Israel, if they were enslaved through debt or through war, the Bible commanded fair treatment for them and actually secured a provision for their release after a set amount of time.
People were not meant to be slaves for their entire lifetime, and the Bible prohibited that kind of practice. But Rome had its own code, and it was in some cases very complicated. But nevertheless, for some, slavery was tolerable and even preferable.
There were those who actually wanted to be slaves more than having to eke out a living on their own. If you had a good master or good employment, you would want to be there. But for other people, slavery was, as you can imagine, pretty miserable.
And yet, once the gospel came to the Roman world, it began to change the dynamics of everything, both for slaves and for free men coming to Christ by faith. But here in 1 Timothy 6, verses 1 and 2, the Apostle Paul addresses the believers that are in the church who themselves are enslaved to other people. Because once they belong to Christ, what should they do? That's a huge question.
If you're enslaved, or maybe you're either a slave or a master, and you become a Christian, and now you join the local assembly of believers, what do you do with this institution? 1 Corinthians 7.20 exhorts believers then. He says, let each man remain in that condition in which he was called. In other words, don't try to radically change your situation.
He adds, were you called as a slave? He says, do not worry about it. But if you're able also to become free, rather, do that. And so if you can be free, then sure, be free.
But if it's not possible, or if it's nearly impossible, he says, don't worry about it. Because the question is, why push for freedom? I mean, we as Americans, again, with our history, we're all about freedom. You drive down the street, you see trucks with freedom on the license plate.
I mean, it's a big deal up here, right? Essentially, here is the issue for the Apostle Paul. If freedom is not a viable option, if it's not possible to obtain, a person could spend their entire life, all their time, all their energy fighting for earthly freedom, and yet neglect to grow in their understanding and experience of spiritual freedom in Christ, and miss the whole thing. You could pursue, and some people have done this, they spend their whole life rallying for their cause, and yet they miss heaven.
You could do a lot of good here, but if you don't come to Christ, if you don't experience freedom in Christ, freedom from slavery to sin, freedom from the judgment of God, if you don't go through that experience, then everything we do here is meaningless on some level. And so Paul addresses here, in brief, two prominent situations for many of the early believers here in Ephesus. And the first one here is the responsibility of Christians toward non-Christian masters.
So verse one is going to deal with the Christians' experience, slavery to masters, with a non-Christian master. So look at 1 Timothy 6 verse 1. This is the Apostle Paul writing to the church here. He says, "'All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.'" So here Paul is addressing, he says, all who are under the yoke as slaves, under the yoke.
That's a term that's referred to a beast of burden. It's a phrase for a beast of burden. But it also served as a connotation for those who were in bondage or submission to someone else's authority.
For those in the church who were slaves, who were under the yoke, who were in submission to someone else's authority. And again, statistically, that could have been up to half the church. And so when Paul's saying these things to Timothy, and Timothy is relaying this to the church, it's possible that a third to a half of their congregation was in this situation.
He says, they're commanded here to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor. Now, this is the third time in this letter so far that Paul has exhorted the church to honor someone. First, we read about back in chapter 5, verse 3, that we were to honor true widows.
Next, we were seeing that we were to honor faithful elders in chapter 5, verse 17. And now Paul is telling enslaved Christians in the church to honor their masters. Of course, we saw this word honor several times before.
The Greek word honor is timē. It can refer to reverence or respect, but can also include financial provision. Here, we understand here that this is most certainly referring to reverence and respect.
And not just a little bit of respect. It's not just, oh, you know, try to be nice to them. Give them a little bit of honor.
Don't make their life too difficult. No. He says, regard them as worthy of all honor.
All honor. But what does this refer to? Well, there have been several similar passages. There's actually quite a few passages in the New Testament that deal with issues of slaves and masters.
But just for an example, in Ephesians 6, 5, Paul says, slaves ought to be obedient to those who are your masters with fear and trembling in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ, not by way of eye service as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. And so, just from that verse alone, honoring masters means obedience. It means reverence and fear.
It means sincerity. It means earnestness. That's what this picture is being painted, at least in that verse.
You add to that Colossians 3.23, whatever you do, do your work heartily as to the Lord rather than for men. Add to that Titus 2 verses 9 and 10. It says, we are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith.
That's what it means for slaves to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor. But what is the purpose of this? Is this that the Bible wants slaves to be treated like doormats? Is that what this is all about? Paul actually gives the answer in 1 Timothy 6.1. He says that we do this, you give your master all honor so that, that's the result right there, that's called the aina, there's a word that's aina, so that and the result that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against. Literally spoken against is blasphemous.
It's blasphemed or regarded poorly. What is the connection here? What is the connection? The concern is over witness. Witness is the issue.
Because say one of these slaves becomes a Christian, they hear the gospel, the gospel is a wonderful message of salvation, that they're redeemed in Christ. Redeemed is literally bought back out of slavery to sin. They're redeemed, their sin debt is paid.
That's very attractive to a slave who owes a master a lot of money in debt. Their sin debt is paid, they're granted spiritual freedom through the cross. They see that message of freedom and salvation in Christ and the temptation is to be, to rebel against their master on earth, to not pay their debts that they had accrued, to disrespect them completely and say, I'm free, God says I'm free.
Go pound sand and run away, right? That's the temptation. But in doing that, if they were to do such a thing, in the name of Christian liberty, they would sully not only the name of God, but the doctrine of Christ. Because how is the unbelieving master going to receive that? What's their perspective going to be? Again, an unbeliever.
If you go and rebel against your unbelieving master, they would have cause to speak against the gospel. So, this is what your gospel produces. Disobedience, rebellious, thieving.
Some God you serve, and that's the accusation, isn't it? That's the blasphemy that would be accrued because of such behavior. And that's the real issue for the early church. But frankly, it's also the issue for today.
Because here's the thing. You read a passage like this, and it's very easy for us, and I know that it's tempting to do this when you're reading your Bible. You get to passages like this that are historically kind of disjointed from where we are today, and you look at where we are today as American Christians, and we say, well, that doesn't apply to us.
There's no slavery anymore. So, we can just skip over those verses. But there are principles here, right? Because Western culture, as far as we're concerned, does not have slavery anymore.
Now, there are 45 million, estimated 45 million slaves in the world still today. Not here, but there is still slavery in the world. So, in some context, people are still reading that with that eyesight.
But that's not how we see it. But how do we make application to this? Well, it comes by way of our employment, our working. Because generally speaking, all of us here, even this morning, if you have a job of any kind, all of us who work are either bosses or employees.
And you say, well, I'm self-employed. Well, then you're your own boss. But it falls into one of two categories.
You're either a boss, and you run things, or you're an employee, and you work for somebody else. Now, you may not be a slave, but if you work for a boss who is an authority over you, the question then is applied, how do you act? How do you regard your boss? Do you regard your boss as worthy of all honor? But you haven't met my boss. It doesn't matter.
The Bible gives no qualification here. It doesn't matter if you have a good boss, a bad boss, a good master, a bad master. It doesn't make a difference.
The imperative for the believer is integrity and godliness. Do you regard your authority figure, your boss, your master, so to speak, as worthy of all honor? Again, that is most certainly the application for us, especially if your boss is an unbeliever. If they don't know Jesus Christ, this is really important, really important, because the witness of the gospel is at stake.
The gospel is at stake. Are you obedient, as Ephesians 6, 5 says, or do you just do what you want and hope he doesn't notice? Do you respect your boss? Do you honor them, or do you badmouth them as soon as they leave the room? Do you work hard, or only when they're watching, as men-pleasers, the Bible says? Of course, Colossians 3.23 says we are to work heartily. You're supposed to work hard as unto the Lord.
Are you well-pleasing? Are you not argumentative? Are you a thorn in your boss's side, or are you an employee that when they go to talk about other people, they say, I have this employee. He says he's a Christian. I don't know anything about his faith, but I'll tell you, he's a good worker.
She's a good worker. They are faithful. They're on time.
They do hard work for me. I don't know what their faith is, but I'm glad they're with me. Is that the witness that you have with those that you work for? These are things to consider because even if you don't give your boss and those around… Let me back up.
Let me say this again. This is important because if you don't honor your boss, you're going to give them cause to blaspheme the name of God or the gospel. You're going to give them cause.
And I've talked to people before where it becomes very clear that they are not very good employees, and then they'll tell me stories about how they're trying to lead their boss to Christ. Your boss is not going to listen to a word you have to say if you're not a good employee. Now, you don't have to equate one to the other.
I mean, they can come to Christ in any possible way in terms of gospel presentation. They could hear your truncated gospel with no fruit behind it and still come to Christ, but you don't want to create that stumbling block for them. You don't want to create an obstacle to stand in the way of that.
And so, again, applied to us. Again, this is about slaves and masters, but applied to us in our context, this is certainly the application that we are to honor those who are in authority over us. But what about if your earthly master, or in our case, boss, is a believer? What if they actually do know Christ and love Christ? Well, that's what Paul addresses next.
Verse number two there. Again, verse one is about non-believing masters. Verse two is about those masters or bosses who are believers.
Look at verse two. Those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but must serve them all the more because those who partake of the benefit are believers and beloved. Teach and preach these principles.
Now, what is not included here and what is included elsewhere are Paul's instructions for masters. We read these in places like Ephesians 6-9, Colossians 4-1 most notably. So, masters in the ancient world were to be fair and just.
They were to treat their slaves well. Now, you might expect the Bible to talk to slave masters and say, all right, slave masters, now that you're Christians, you must free your slaves. But the Bible doesn't say that.
It doesn't directly tell them to do that. Remember, the first century in Rome, slavery was a different kind of institution. It was a different situation because it's possible that a slave owner, a master, could legitimately have slaves as more like a boss-employee relationship.
It might not necessarily be a sinful thing. In some cases, it was a sinful thing, but there were situations when it might not be. Where if they ran a whole large house and they had servants and slaves in their employment, that might not be sinful.
And so again, there might not be a mandate for them to just free their entire workforce. But here's the thing. Once a master became a Christian, everything changed, especially if their slaves were Christians too.
In fact, we have one such situation from Paul's letter to Philemon. So, if you want to flip over just a few pages ahead in your Bible to Philemon, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus Philemon. Philemon is one of those letters that if you blink, you'll miss it.
It's very short, but there's a lot in here. I think when we went through this a few years ago, I think I spent three weeks on this letter. There's a lot here.
It's a wonderful letter. Here's a situation where the Apostle Paul had a Christian friend, possibly a ministry partner, who had a slave named Onesimus that ran away. But while the slave was away, he actually heard the gospel and was converted to Christ.
And so, now this runaway slave is a Christian. And so, Paul encounters Onesimus, and it's possible that Paul actually led Onesimus to Christ. We don't know for 100% sure, but we think that's true.
And so, once Paul is with Onesimus and knows, realizes they have a mutual connection here, Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon, letter in hand, asking for forgiveness, and ultimately, we can read this, ultimately for freedom. And so, look at this with me here, Philemon verses 10 through 20. This is the Apostle Paul on behalf of Onesimus writing to Philemon, who's the master here.
Paul writes, I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, who formerly was useless to you, but is now useful both to you and to me. I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart, whom I wish to keep with me so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel. But without your consent, I did not want to do anything so that your goodness would not be in effect by compulsion, but of your own free will.
For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but far more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me. But how much more to you, both in flesh and in the Lord, if then you regard me, a partner, except him as you would me. But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account.
I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will repay it, not to mention that you owe to me even your own self as well. Yes, brother, let me benefit from you in the Lord.
Refresh my heart in Christ." Pause right there. I want you to notice here that Paul does not command Philemon to free Onesimus, but basically reasons that he should. Okay? He doesn't give an outward command, but he gives an argument.
Look at the argument here. Verse 12, he basically says, Onesimus is my friend and he's helped me a lot. Okay? He's my friend now.
I know he's your slave, but he's my friend and he's ministered to me in my imprisonment. Verses 15 and 16, now that he's saved, now that he belongs to the body of Christ, don't receive him back as a slave. In fact, receive him back as a brother also.
Verse 18, if he owes you anything, if he's stolen from you, if he ran away and you lost any money, charge it to me. Then he actually says, Paul, I write this with my own hand. He's signing his name as a legal ledger.
If you have any debt that needs to be paid, I'll pay it, Paul says. Charge it to me. Then verse 19, oh, and by the way, I love this.
Oh, and by the way, you owe me your life as well. You got to love the pressure that Paul puts in such a godly way. He says, if he owes you anything, I'll pay it, but you owe me, so maybe we'll call it even, right? Verse 20, he says, but do what's right.
Refresh my heart in Christ. So, you know, Philemon gets this letter and goes, ah, come on, right? I mean, how do you argue against that? Because again, transformation in this man's heart has already taken place. Onesimus is a believer now, and so now their relationship has changed.
Philemon's a believer, Onesimus is a believer, and now they have this mutual advocate in the Apostle Paul, and now they're together, oneness in Christ. Again, this is a call for masters to exercise godliness and fairness. But what about the slaves of Christian masters? Go back to 1 Timothy 6.2. What do they do? What happens if you do have a master, an authority figure, a boss who's over you who's a Christian? Well, Paul tells them, if your master is a believer, if they are believers, then you must not be disrespectful to them.
Don't be disrespectful. This word for disrespect is kataphroneo. It refers to thinking down upon or to despising, to look down your nose at them.
Well, how and why would this happen? Well, imagine this, okay? You have a slave master. You're the worker. You're the slave.
You come to faith in Christ. They come to faith in Christ. Now, you're actually joining together on Sunday morning in your local assembly, and you're worshiping God together in the same body of believers.
It's tempting, then, to sort of disrespect them and exploit Christian equality, right? That'd be very easy. And I'll tell you, it happens even on the job site. It's easy to have a certain relationship outside and then come in here and have a very different relationship.
And it's tempting here to disregard, to disrespect, to even despise the relationship that you have with your boss or master out in the world. And I've seen situations where employees in church will tease and even humiliate their Christian bosses at church because they can get away with it. They can kind of look down their nose at them a little bit because all's fair now.
We're all brothers and sisters in Christ. And so, this is my opportunity. I can't pull one over on them at the job, but I can do it here.
I've seen it happen, especially if the employee has any kind of position at church where he is seen to be over the person who's his boss here. Say he's an employee at his work, but he's a deacon here. It's very tempting.
Our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. It's very tempting to lord even that position, ministry leader or even an elder, to lord that position over your boss at work and flout that here in the body of Christ. But as you can see, that's a stumbling block for both, isn't it? That's a huge problem.
And so, he says, just because they're brethren, Adelphoi, brothers, doesn't mean you withhold respect and treat them poorly. Don't disrespect them. Honor them.
Still, even as brothers in Christ, honor them. If anything, Paul says, you must serve them all the more. Guess what? When you become a Christian, they become a Christian, you got to work harder for that guy.
Give him more than you would give him otherwise. Well, why? Well, because as a Christian, you should now be a blessing to your Christian boss and not a hindrance to him or her. Well, why else? Paul adds this, because those who partake of the benefit are believers and beloved.
See, when you work for just any old boss or say you work for some faceless corporation, it's easy to say, well, I'm just working and I'm doing work for the sake of work, and it doesn't really make too much of a difference. Albeit, Colossians 3.23 says that we ought to work heartily, we should work hard as unto the Lord. So, even if you work for a faceless corporation, work for your direct boss as though you're working for and serving God.
But when you work hard for a Christian, the benefit you provide through your good labor is enjoyed by someone who is both a believer and beloved. We love each other, don't we? And if you're in an assembly with your boss, don't you have a love for them? Just inherent in who you are in Christ? They are beloved. This is your brother or your sister now in the Lord that you're working for.
As believers, they themselves are beloved, not just by you, but they're beloved of God. They're already made in the image of God. That's the kindness and the respect we owe to all people because of the Imago Dei.
But now, if they're in Christ and they belong to Him, they're valuable to God. They're beloved of God. You don't have a right to disrespect them or to treat them poorly.
If anything, you should be working harder for them and to honor them, to love them. You have the opportunity now to bless them with your good work. Your labor can be a blessing to them as a brother or sister in Christ.
On the other hand, to take advantage of them because they're a believer, to give them shoddy work, to not finish the job, and that's tempting too. But it's not even about work anymore at that point. Now you're talking about the issue of love here.
Do you even love them? And I've seen that too, and I know you probably have too. Someone will advertise, we're a Christian business. And I've seen some situations where they put a Jesus fish on the back of their work van, and yet they do terrible work for the public.
It's like, just take the fish off. Seriously, you're blaspheming in the name of Christ. You're ruining our witness.
So, don't use your faith as an excuse to give other people, certainly believers, shoddy work or poor work. If anything, it should be quite the opposite. We should be excelling in our hard work and our integrity.
Why? Well, because God is our Father, and we work not to other people, we work unto God now. Again, it's an issue of love. But here's the thing, if you serve others well, especially Christian bosses, Christian masters, if you serve them well, you're making your offering of love to them out of reverence for Christ.
In fact, for most of us, our labor, our hard work is one of the greatest gifts we have to offer other people. I've seen so many situations, many situations even here in this assembly, where you have taken your gifts and your talents and your labor, and you've gone and served somebody else, and I'll hear about it after the fact, and they'll say, so-and-so came to my house, and they did this for me, and I am so blessed. It's like, you don't have to say anything, you don't have to perform anything, you don't have to pray a certain way.
Simply by doing what God has given you an ability to do, you're blessing the congregation. You're showing in a tangible way the love of God for them. It's a remarkable thing.
Don't discount your natural talents and work abilities. It's an amazing way you can serve and love other people out of reverence for God. Of course, again, the language of these verses, going back to verses 1 and 2 here, the language of these verses, it is still hard for us.
We read that word our skin crawls, doesn't it? Especially considering our history, and we can't fathom ourselves as being slaves. We can't fathom the idea of anybody else being a slave. But here's the thing.
Romans 6 makes the argument that every single person is a slave. All of us are slaves. And Paul says, you're either a slave to sin or you're a slave to righteousness.
But either way, we are enslaved to a master. And if we think that we're free, we could do whatever we want, we're just neutral moral agents, you got another thing coming to you. The truth is that all of us serve a master.
But if we're slaves to sin, then the outcome is most certainly death. And that's the thing that those who live their life apart from Christ, and they don't even see it, but they're enslaved to their own lusts. They're enslaved to their own flesh.
They're enslaved to their own desires of what they want for their lives. They're enslaved to that. They have no regard for God at all.
They're enslaved to their own self and their own sins. But if we're slaves to righteousness, if we're slaves to God, that's what Paul calls himself many, many, many times in the New Testament, doulos teu, slave of God, doulos Jesu Christi, slave of Jesus Christ. If you're a slave of God, a slave of righteousness, then the outcome, the Bible says, is sanctification unto eternal life.
You know who else was a slave? Jesus. Jesus was a slave. You read the Servant Songs of Isaiah, you read Isaiah 53, I mean, it's very clear, the suffering servant, that's a massive theme in the Old Testament.
But even in the New Testament, Philippians 2, 6, and 7 says that while Christ is God, there's no doubt about that, Christ is God, he did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped while he was here on on earth in the flesh. And yet, the Bible says he emptied himself, taking the form of a bondservant, doulos, slave. Jesus made himself a slave.
And Paul says he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus became a slave for us to pay our sin debts, to redeem us, to buy us back from spiritual slavery, and once redeemed in Christ, we're freed. It doesn't matter what your earthly condition is.
Slave, free, whatever the situation, doesn't matter. If you are in Christ, Galatians 3, 28 says, there is neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free man, there's neither male nor female, you are all one in Christ Jesus. Our earthly situation, eternally, does not make a whole lot of difference.
Who we are in Christ is everything. Again, regardless of your situation, rich, poor, male, female, slave, free, master, servant, regardless, there is unity, there is oneness in Christ. And so, no matter who you are, what your situation is, we are exhorted by the Scriptures, considering what we've received in Christ Jesus, that he bought us back from slavery to sin and death.
He paid our fine, he paid our debts, he blessed us with inheritance in heaven, he seated us in the heavenly places in Christ, the Bible says. He's blessed us with riches beyond anything we could possibly imagine. And you might sit here and think, well, I don't feel very rich.
It's because we don't understand the riches we have in Christ, the spiritual inheritance that's waiting for us in heaven. It is not all about here. We've been blessed by God.
And so, if you are the recipient of such blessing, such freedom, such deliverance, such forgiveness, such life eternal, then use your time here to serve well, to work hard unto the Lord. I often think about this phrase a lot. I probably stole it from somebody.
I don't know where I got it from, but I want to go to heaven tired. I just want to work until I can't work for the Lord anymore and then go home. And that's not because I have some idealistic, you know, death wish to kill myself in the pulpit.
That's not a bad place to go, actually. But what else could you do? Work hard for the Lord until he brings you home. Isn't that a wonderful idea? To give him your whole life, knowing that you'll have eternal rest with him in heaven.
Does that mean we don't have any joy here? Of course not. Yes, we have joy. We have blessing.
There's a lot that we can be thankful for here. But don't use your Christian faith as an excuse to be lazy, to rip people off, to give them less than what's honorable and what's of integrity. I want to close with a story that I might have shared before, I don't remember.
But it's an ancient story about a woman named Perpetua and her slave Felicity. It comes in the third century in Carthage. A noblewoman named Perpetua became a Christian along with her slave, a woman named Felicity.
And once they became Christians, they also became illegal. Christianity was persecuted in Carthage at that time, but yet because of their bond of affection in Christ, they actually became very close and they loved each other dearly. Even though they were master and slave, they had a genuine palpable love for one another as sisters in the Lord.
But when persecution came, the two women, they refused to renounce their faith and they were arrested. And they were scheduled to be executed publicly. And when they were brought to the Colosseum and they were brought out in front of the crowds, both women held hands together and stood together, not as master and slave, but as sisters in Christ.
They were mauled by beasts and they were eventually killed by gladiators. But their story remains forever because it demonstrates their courage, their boldness, but also their bond of affection. That they are one in Christ, just like we are one in Christ.
They were both believers and beloved. Our bond in Christ transcends all things, social class, race, economics, culture, politics. We're one.
We are one. And yet let us never use that fact as an excuse to disrespect or dishonor anybody. As we work hard on earth, let us do so to bear witness to the gospel of Christ in the name of God, to bless others who are recipients of our hard work, and to honor God in all that we do.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word, even though, Lord, there are situations where our cultural and human condition is challenging because of the sins and the faults of others, Lord. And yet we come to Your Word, and the Bible says that the Word of God is pure and clean, that we see Your heart, we see Your intention, Lord.
Not to sanction wickedness, which is done by those in their wickedness, but Lord, rather to give us an example, a model, a directive on how we are to live our lives of godliness and integrity, even in the face of a sinful and fallen world. Lord, that we are to work hard unto You, O Lord, that we are to bless others with our service and our hard work, we are to bless others and love them, and hold them in high esteem, Lord. Not because they themselves are inherently worthy of that, but because, Lord, You are worthy of our good work, our hard work, and the integrity that goes along with that, O Lord.
Father, we know that we belong to You because of the work of Christ, that He gave His life as a ransom to buy us back from spiritual slavery. And Lord, there might be people here today who they themselves find themselves as slaves to their own sins, that they just can't break free, or maybe they've never considered the fact that they don't, they owe You their lives, and yet they don't regard You as God. They've never confessed their sins to You, they've never acknowledged their sin before You.
But Lord, I pray that You would pierce their heart even now, convict them of their sins, Lord, cause them to repent and to trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. You went to the cross and You paid for us, past, present, and future. You paid for us to free us from this bondage, Lord, and deliver us into freedom, the freedom in which we now stand.
Lord, we're so grateful, even if our situation here on earth is not what we would want it to be. Lord, we're thankful that we have freedom in Christ, that You've lifted the bonds of affliction, You've lifted the bonds of sin and shame, You've given us a new hope in Christ. Help us, Lord, to realize that new hope by trusting in You above all.
We thank You for Your Word, we thank You for the grace that we've received in Jesus Christ, and we do all things for the glory of His name. Amen.