Again, the whole idea here is to work in such a way that brings honor to God; that shows that God is a Savior. And it’s obvious that He saved you, because you’re full of peace and you’re full of joy and you’re full of hope and you’re full of faith, and you have loyalty and you’re submissive. All of those, the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control — when you live that out in the work place, you demonstrate God as a Savior who has saved you. Verse 2, “Let those who have believers as their masters not be disrespectful to them because they are brethren.” You think well, my boss is a Christian, so he’s no better than me; we’re equal in Christ. No. In the social structure, he is your superior. You should “serve him all the more,” Verse 2 says, “…because those who partake of the benefit are believers and beloved.” If you have a non-Christian boss, the implication is serve him for the sake of testimony. If you have a Christian boss, serve him because it is right, and because you want to benefit him, and you’re willing to make all the necessary sacrifices to one who is your brother, “beloved.”
So what do we see in all those passages? Well, we see work taking on a completely different perspective from that sort of cursed perspective. And we say again that when you have God pronouncing curses, the curses are mitigated in Christ. When you work in Christ, you work with submission. You work with excellence. You work with respect. You work with honesty. You work with loyalty. And you do it for the sake of witness. And you do it for the sake of worship. And you do it for the sake of eternal reward. And in that way, you find in your work, not that sad cycle of meaninglessness, but the joy of doing something so eternally purposeful.
Well, that’s enough for tonight. Let’s pray.
We thank you, Father, that when you save sinners, you redeem their work, and you redeem their marriages, and you redeem their homes, so that the work place becomes the place of witness, the place of worship and the place of reward. How wonderful that we really are delivered from the full blast of the curse in Christ. May our homes become a little bit of heaven on earth. And the work place takes on a whole, new, fulfilling, joyous meaning for us. We thank You for all the dramatic ways in which the Savior changes us, and we bless You and praise You for your grace in His name. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
