Here the Apostle Paul says, Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh. 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. With goodwill, render service as to the Lord. And not to men. Knowing that whatever good thing each one does. This he will receive back from the Lord. Whether slave or free. I want to talk to you this morning about the subject of work. And by that I mean your career, what you do for a living, what you would call your calling. And what I want to ask you to start with is whether you like it or not. When you think about your career, your job, what you do for a living, your calling, do you like it? Or do you like what you do? Or would you say that you hate it? You're just getting a paycheck, maybe. And you wish you could do something else. If you had a special button to push and you could get any job in the world and it were in front of you, you know, would you push it? And what job would you get? The world, best I can tell, has a distinctive way of answering this question, the way that they evaluate jobs. I know this is not a perfect analysis, but as I thought about it a few minutes, I think there are at least five attributes which, in one combination or another, if they're there, the world says, that's a good job. If they're not there, they say, well, that's not a good job. Number one, how much it pays. Number two, how much power it gives you. Number three, how much attention it gives you. Number four, how easy it is. Number five, whether you work for yourself or someone else, whether you own the business or not. You can just simply Google to see the world's assessment on the best and the worst jobs that are out there. And you'll see this. The church has a wrong way of answering this as well. What would be a good job? Maybe you've often heard this. There's no higher calling than to be a preacher. I disagree. I think it's a bad teaching to tell people. You're going to see from this verse today. But we think surely to be a minister, to be a missionary, to have a podcast, to write books, to be an author, to be someone that people gather around the Q&A to get your thoughts. on things that that must be to just travel the world and tell people about the Lord. Surely that's a life that's glorifying to God. And. But my job, I'm just an assembly line worker. I'm just a mom. Doing the same laundry again and again. Washing the same dish again. I just cleaned it and didn't even have time to dry before it's dirty again and Clearly there's nothing significant about what I do because there's never a pageant for me There's never an award ceremony for my job there's never trophies and speeches and conventions held to honor the great, incredible achievement of what I'm doing. And so I don't get any attention or pay. I mean, if you're a mom, you may not get any pay. And then you don't get any vacation time because when you go on vacation, your kids go with you. But anyway, you don't get any attention. You don't get any of these attributes that the world values. It's not easy, you might say. I don't own the business. I work for people. I clock in, I clock out. I'm dirty. I'm not a missionary. I'm not a professional athlete. I'm not an amazing artist that everybody just thinks is super unique and has cool views of the world. I'm not a powerful politician. I'm not a wealthy person. I'm one of these people Paul calls in 1 Corinthians 1, the are nots of the world. Think on that list, maybe the 11th or 12th, once you get out of the medical field is to be a CEO. And I'm not that I'm not. successful in the way that the world uses the term successful. And it's obvious. You can see how the world assesses my work by the lack of laudations upon it. Everything around me just screams that I and my work are meaningless and depression both in the church and out, often follows this heartbeat, swinging back and forth. I have a good, one of these good jobs, and I'm happy. I have one of these bad jobs. I'm sad and struggling with the meaning of life. And parents can fall into this too. You know, how many times have you heard this? Well, how's Joey and them doing? Oh, they're doing pretty good. He's he's an anesthesiologist. He just got done and they've got kids. Oh, wow. They must be really proud. And oh, yes, we are. And this whole conversation has nothing to do with Christ. And it's the very same thing the world values. I'm not saying don't be an anesthesiologist. If you can be one, be one. We need them. And I'm not saying to not be proud of our kids for the things that they accomplish, even if one of them is anesthesiology. But you can just hear the values. When people talk to you today, every single conversation you have, somebody, everyone is a salesman. Someone is trying to convince you of their schema of life. This is what really makes life tick and valuable. And therefore, you need to go after this. And it's typically whatever they themselves are currently pursuing. And so there's a whole lot more being communicated when a couple of parents sit down and they talk this way. Whole philosophies that have impacted the entire planet are based on this. Marxism has the phrase, workers of the world unite. Why? Because of the demeaning nature of just being a slave. You're just a slave by these crooked capitalists. And don't be a slave. It's the worst thing you can do. And so get rich or die trying. Get power or die trying. Well, in a Greco-Roman world, they had that in common with us. Being a slave was about the lowest job on the totem pole, you'd say, that you could have. What's amazing about that fact is the historians guess somewhere between 25 to 40 percent of Roman society was enslaved. That's a lot. And matter of fact, the Roman Senate at one time thought about making a law that the slaves had to wear certain clothing and they decided against it because they feared that they would realize how many of them there were and that there would be an uprising. So there's your government helping you out again. The point is, it means when Paul wrote this letter to the churches in Ephesus and surrounding, it's highly likely that the congregation had a slave complexion to it, that there was maybe, what would you say, a high likelihood of a quarter? Maybe even half, maybe even over half of them would have been slaves. Now, there's a couple of things that have been pointed out in those that study these verses that are amazing. And I saw them this week and I'm going to share them with you. The first is not that Paul would say something to the issue of slave master relationship, because like I said, it's It's distributed throughout Roman society. Of course, he would say something. The first thing that historians and commentators point out that's unique about Paul's approach is number one, which leads us into the right direction of concluding why he did this, is that he addressed the slaves directly. Before Paul, no one had done that. They only addressed the master. in the relationship and gave him some instructions on how. You see, a slave was viewed as beneath the dignity of even speaking to. So they didn't even get addressed. So something is new in Paul's approach that you see right off the bat, that Paul seems to have this idea. You got to remember for Paul, he never leaves his doctrine behind. Paul is not the kind of guy that is in the ivory tower, only worried about theology and never changing the tire. But he's also not the guy in the soup kitchen serving who has forgotten his systematic theology. He puts them together. He's in the soup kitchen serving because of the Trinity. And his knowledge of the Trinity drives him back to the soup kitchen of serving. So Paul had these two things together. So here he is thinking about the thesis statement of this book in chapter one, verse 10, that God is summing up all things in Christ. Well, is it all or not? You see, so he's simply applying that Dante said, OK, that includes redeeming this area of culture. So that's what he's doing. So the fact that Paul addresses the slaves tips us off to something radical has occurred. And then you ask yourself this. Now, if if only about 40 or maybe a little more than half, best guesstimation, the Ephesians had this for a career. You might think, like, if not all that means not all the Ephesians would have been slaves. And if not all of them would have been slaves, why would he exhort only the slaves? Does the other people working other jobs not need to be exhorted? It's a very interesting question. Why focus on the slaves specifically, this one career, and only? Why not then say, oh, and the rest of you? Now, we don't know for sure and the text doesn't answer this question explicitly, but most people think and the truth comes out the same either way. But I think this is the most likely explanation that in Paul's household code, which you find in like Ephesians and Colossians and so on, where he goes, marriage, family, work. He always goes to slavery, even though that wasn't what everyone was doing. And they think he does it for this purpose, that he takes the lowest career possible that anyone in the congregation could have. So as to say now, if a slave can glorify God in his work, then you all can glorify God in your work. If you can glorify God in slavery, then you can glorify God in any career. And remember, since glorifying Christ is, according to Paul, the very meaning of life, it is identical to life. To live is Christ, he told the Philippians. And so for Paul, the only thing that gives life value is this question you ask, is what I'm currently doing somehow like bicycle spokes connected to the centerpiece of the universe, which is Christ? If it is, it has lasting meaning. There's only one life. to will soon be passed and only what's done for Christ will last was Paul's view. Everything else is not lasting. Donald Trump's not lasting. I mean, he will eventually go the way of all the other previous people. and be indistinguishable from the ant bed out there, he will turn into dust and his memory will fade and the world will move on. Even those that went down in that submarine apparatus, it's only going to be on the news for a week. And you're no longer the center of attention. There is nothing you can do in this world to stay at the center because God who created it and who's carrying it along towards its goal has willed to put Christ at the center. And so that's how it will be. And that's how it will end. And every other attempt will end in vanity. So why focus on them specifically? That's why. Paul is wanting to show us that again and again and again, you can glorify God in any circumstance and job. And so from the lowest, put it this way, from the lowest place, you can live for the highest purpose. That being said, we have to think, you might want to complain about your job. You don't get paid enough, maybe. You don't get enough time off. You're not respected enough. But every single one of us ought to thank God that we're not a slave. Because if we were a slave, The Bible wouldn't even begin with trying to help you out of it. It would start with telling you to be obedient in it. Imagine that word. You come to church, brothers in slavery, and you say, well, do what you're told. Talk about a hard saying if you can hear it. So we need to look into this and we need to just, you know, let me just say at the beginning to kind of prove to you how bad this life of slavery was. We know this. It's a bit in our consciousness in the West for good and bad reasons. One being because we tend to anchor it entirely into the African-American slave trade, but actually the English word slave comes from this German word slav, and there were more slavs enslaved throughout the history of the world than African-Americans, and they're white-skinned people. So slavery has been throughout the fall and creation since the fall. since we embrace slavery to the devil. Slavery has been there. And so in the Roman world, it was there, there were three kinds of slaves in Rome. You could be born into slavery, you could be captured in war and forced to become a slave, or you could sell yourself voluntarily into slavery, become somewhat of an indentured servant. Either way, When you were sold, this is just a snippet of their life, daily life that they would have been living. When you were, so you can see the impact of Paul's statement here, the historical context into which he said the verses we just read. Either way, you would be sold and resold, you know, and every weekend in Ephesus, they had a market. And slaves would, if you were a slave, you would be stood upon a platform and you would stand there during the whole market, naked. Maybe you had a hat put on you or not. If you had a hat put on you, it indicated that you come as is. If you do not have a hat, it meant that there's a six-month guarantee to your health. You don't get sick or die for six months. If you get sick or die within the six months, then your owner can get a refund, get his money back. You didn't vote. You had no citizenship. You had no say. Not one single person in society cared what you thought was just, right, anything. And you had no recourse to law. If you met someone and started a family, you could just get pulled apart from that family. It didn't matter who you loved, who your children, you could have physical, biological children, did not matter. They go this way, you go that way. No rights, no anything. So I would just submit to you that you might be able to think of a lower job, a lower situation in life, but it's fair. It's at least fair to look at this as the lowest. And certainly no one in this room has a career lower than this. So here is Paul's argument. His argument in essence is this, because God is summing up all things in Christ, that means every single thing needs to be redeemed. Every single thing is like a king conquering a territory. And you can honor the king by any territory that you take dominion of. It needs to be used for him. Or it's like being in the temple and and things have been knocked over in the temple. You can honor the Lord by turning anything back upright in the temple. So the whole entire thing needs to be redeemed. And proof of this point is really masterful of Paul here is to take the worst possible career and to show that it can be redeemed. and to show that you can glorify Christ in that career. And then the rest just follows by a fortiori, the lesser to the greater. If you can do it there, you can do it anywhere. And since that's all that matters to life, then you can actually live for the most valuable thing in reality while a slave. You can live for the most valuable thing in reality If you're a slave or a king. Being a slave or a king is irrelevant. Living for what matters is what's relevant. So Paul says, do your work, but do your work for Christ. That's essentially what he's going to say here and prove that it can be done for Christ, that this is what matters. And since this taps into the very meaning of life, you will be able to do it. This is what gives anything value serving Christ. Whatever you're doing, if you're not living for Christ, you're just breathing until you die and perish and everything you build is washed away by time and forgotten. But if you're living for him, then you are doing things that are eternal, that last. To use an analogy from Gladiator, it echoes into eternity. Everything else is silent. You holler and it's over and done and there's no echo. Think of it this way. Kids can imagine this. Imagine someone has $10 million. They have two collections of $10 million. And they give, you know, a bum on the street in LA, just a homeless man on the street in LA, they hand him $10 million. And then they go to whoever you might say is someone in ELEC that owns a business or something like that and is someone important, the mayor of ELEC, let's say. And they give the mayor $10 million. So they go to this homeless man, they give him $10 million. They go over to the mayor's office, they give him $10 million. Which one has more value? Neither. Which one cares at that point, whether you're the mayor or the homeless guy? You think the homeless guy cares? Instantly, he no longer cares that he's homeless because of the surpassing value of what he holds in his hand now. It makes his homelessness irrelevant. Similarly, that's the way Paul thought. Living for Christ is the ten million dollars. Whether you're mayor, homeless, Irrelevant. The thing that gives life value is that. In terms of the context, then, as you look at this section we've been working through, starting in verse 22 of chapter five on how to change the world, this fits in like this. Paul is told, how do you change the world? Wives, submit to your husbands. Then he said for the husbands, love your... Well, let me put it this way. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives as the Lord loved the church. children, obey your parents because Christ commanded, the Lord commands you to. And then fathers bring up your children in the padeia of the Lord. And then now he says slaves work as to the Lord. You see the theme? Every single one of them. Do it unto the Lord. Do it unto the Lord. It's the centrality of Christ's Lordship. This slogan, which is very beautiful and great. And we should thank God for Canon Press and the ministry of Douglas Wilson up there. But all of Christ for all of life is right here in the book of Ephesians. This idea that he's summing up all things in Christ and therefore You know, the marriage is oriented toward that lordship and the family is oriented toward that lordship and the civil sphere of work is oriented toward that lordship. This thing that we've been taught of the secular sacred distinction is wrong. Everything is sacred for the Christian. There is no sacred and secular. So. This is not something that should just be for Canon Press. You need to them. It is something to work into the lives of all Christians in all churches. Now, I just want you to notice it's not hard to see the way that Paul proves this very particular case for slaves. So if you look back at the text, we read verses five to eight. And it's easy to remember three times he uses the word as in connection with Christ. And these are phrases or clauses that are meant to show the distinctive way a Christian is to work, how they are to work, in what manner they are to do their work. In other words, they are to work just as lost people work. I mean, lost people, unbelievers work, believers work. So work, but don't do it in the way that they do it. Don't do it in the manner that they do it. Don't do it how they do it. Don't do it from the same motives that they do it. So in verse 5, he says as to Christ. In verse 6, he says as slaves of Christ. And in verse 7, he says as to the Lord. So essentially, you just have one imperative command at the beginning of verse 5. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh. So just be obedient to those who are your masters and you can stop. Every word after that orients it toward Christ. So everyone, every slave in the Roman world was instructed to be obedient to their masters. And Paul's saying that, he said, go ahead and be obedient to your master, but for a totally different reason and have totally different thoughts in your mind. And do it in a totally different way. And what each of these do is simply say this. Do what you're told as if Christ told you to do it. That's Paul's message. Do what your boss tells you to do as if your boss were the Lord Jesus. That's something. What would you do if the Lord told you to file the papers in the filing cabinet this way? Would you argue with it? Would you say, oh, but no, no, no, they need to know. Yes, sir. And you go do them. Paul says, relate that way to your boss. As long as they're not asking you to sin. Do what they tell you to do as though Christ were the one telling you. So work for Christ in each of these three. It's like three. He's got only one point. Work. You know, obey just like any servant is doing. But the reason, the distinction is do it for Christ. And with these three as statements, he's only making one point. It's like three turns in the same screw to get it into the board of our heart to say, do it, but do it as to Christ, as slaves to Christ, as to the Lord. He's just repeating it. There's only one point. So let's look at it briefly. here at the end. Number one, if you look at verse five, you see the first ask phrase at the end there. He says, do what your boss tells you to do. As though Christ were the one telling you to do it. Note several things. The word play. Your masters according to the flesh. In Greek, it's kurios for Lord. He's saying obey your lords according to the flesh. Obey your earthly masters, Colossians puts it. So the whole tinge of the statement is a word play on Lord. He's the Lord of the lords. The very word Lord reminds you of the Lord. It reminds you of this distinction. It reminds you of this hierarchy. And so you serve him, but it ain't even about him. You're looking through him to the Lord. You're not even doing it for him. And a boss should come to see that this would be perfect. This would be just grand display of what Paul is saying. If someone asks your boss about you and how good of an employee are you, and he were to say this, it would be awesome. If he were to say, most of the time, whatever I ask that person to do, they do it. Or to say it this way, this person does not serve me and does not even care what I think. They only care about this other person named Jesus and what he thinks. And then the person's like, well, that's probably a horrible employee. And then they end it by saying, and most of the time that means they do everything I tell them to do. that they don't view themselves in bondage to me at all. I mean, they literally laugh at the idea that I'm their master. They think it's comical and funny. They think I'm playing king. I got the little Burger King hat on. They just kind of laugh at me and me thinking that I'm somebody. And they think I'm taking myself too seriously. But what it means is, The great majority of the time, they're my best employee. So this wordplay, then note the worship language of fear and trembling. If you know Paul, this pair is used in the Old Testament and it's only used by Paul in the New Testament. And fear and trembling, these are emotions that belong toward the Lord. You should fear, like Jesus said, not them that can only kill the body, but him that can destroy the body and the soul. So this certain fear toward God, a certain trembling, the kind of tremble that you would have at disobeying the Lord, at dishonoring the Lord, at sinning greatly if you're a believer. Just the thought of it could make you tremble that you just sin in a great way against the Lord. And he's saying, have that kind of attitude when your boss tells you to do something. Let there be some trembling in the soul that this is a matter of obedience. This is a matter of worship. This is a matter of my relationship to the Lord and the way I worship the Lord. And so you're seeing that worship. is more than just coming in here and sweating and throwing your hands everywhere. Worship is Monday through Saturday. Worship is filing papers, sweeping floors, drilling holes. So he's saying do that with fear and trembling, include that, let that be a part of your worship to him. And then note the sincerity of heart. Mean it. Mean it. Don't be like Haman carrying Mordecai through the street, carrying out the king's instructions with a frumpy face and upset and pouty and grumbling. No, no, no. Do it with sincerity in your heart. Number two, second turn of the screw. In verse six, he says, do what your boss tells you to do, not just when he's watching. In the coffee shop today, this week, someone walked in out of nowhere and they had on a tucked in polo and they had a clipboard out. And they immediately asked the owner where such and such was. It was a surprise visit. They were there to check all the things that a restaurant is supposed to have. And you could just see the look on the employees. It was like the second coming had overtaken them. And everybody was trying. And as soon as the lady, I saw one employee like text on the group text, like, they're here, everybody. Paul is saying that if you and I work at that place, our conscience should make us feel ashamed if we operate that way, because we're sinning. He's saying, prove that you're a servant of Christ by running at the same speed when your boss is in the room and when he's out the room. Because otherwise you don't serve Christ. You serve men. Prove that you serve Christ by making men irrelevant. Do you see that? It's a kind of freedom. There's two kinds of freedom, OK, with regard to people being over you. Nobody likes somebody to be over you. I don't like for somebody to be over me. I'm human just like you. But there's there's two ways to do it. One is you stay under. You just bristle and you just like, I'm not a kid. You don't talk to me that way. And that's what you do to try to get this tyrant off of you. But the other way is you fly above it. If the tyrant says, give me your coat, then you give him your shirt also. And he's like, I didn't ask for the shirt. I told you to give me the coat. And you say, I know I just did extra just to show you that I don't serve you. I went the extra mile because the real Lord of Lords told me to do that. You see that? So you're doing what your boss says, but you're going above it. So you're defying his authority by going above his authority. That's the way it works. You're when I say defy, I mean, like you're showing he's not as big a deal as he thinks he is, not by disobeying him, but by over obeying him. And that's where he's really put in a predicament because he's going to be mad at you like you did all your work. It's like you did all your work and you washed the dishes on the way out. Is he going to be mad at you? And why did you do that? I didn't tell you to do that just to go above and beyond and serve the Lord. So that's what Paul means by don't just do it when a camera is on. We live in the day of cameras and histories and searches. And and so it's even more so in our day. Also, don't do it. Man pleasing would be working really hard. Like you're not just not working when the boss is there. You're working really hard when he is there so that he will notice so that you'll get a raise. That's man-pleasing. Don't do it from that motive. That's a poor motive. Paul is saying, let your motive be that you're doing the will of God from the heart. That's why you're doing it. And you're slaves of Christ. Do you see that? Like you're a slave of this God, you're also a slave of Christ. And that is enveloping and swallowing up the whole idea. So third, he says in verse seven, the last as phrase, do what your boss tells you to do and do it as to the Lord, as to the Lord. You can see this theme all the way through him and not to men. That's the drum he's beating. Do it as to the Lord, not to him. Do not serve your boss. is actually part of the command of God that is necessary to ingest in order that you may really serve your boss. You're serving Christ. It's I don't know if you see how staggering this is. We still have this sacred, secular distinction where we think like what I do as a as a pastor and a preacher, this is serving Christ. But but this is out here just that's not the way Paul thought. You're washing dishes, same old laundry. Paul thought of that as serving Christ just as he thinks of what I'm doing at this very minute is a service to Christ. If your boss tells you sweep the floor that way, again, as I said, you wouldn't argue and say, no, sweep it this way. If the Lord told you, if the Lord showed up today, and gave you an assignment, said, you know, Liam, do this. Josh, do the Kevin, do this. I mean, you know you wouldn't argue with him. So that's the mind-renewing thing we need to do. We need to realize that we're being told to serve our boss that way. That's what makes us different from the unconverted. Note the goodwill here. He says, do it. This time, not with sincerity, but he adds with goodwill. And I wanted to make a comment here at the end. That means not half-heartedly only working for a paycheck. Not half-heartedly only working for a paycheck. With goodwill means you're trying to do good to the business. You're trying to actually do good. Now this is the way people normally operate. If I don't own the business, I don't care about anything from the business but my paycheck. I want to know what is the bare minimum I need to do so that I get paid. And that's the rate I run at. That's typical. Just selfish out. I'm here for me and mine and what I need to do to make sure I get me and mine and get a C grade and keep the job. There I am. Now, if you're the owner of the business, that's not how you're thinking. How to make this thing better every single day. How to make this thing better than it was yesterday. You care about it. You sink everything into it. Paul is saying work for that business, even though you're not the owner of it. It's better than just saying as if you were the owner of it, but as Christ were the owner of it. And Christ wants you to better it. Make it a better business than when you got there. You shouldn't have to own a business to care about it if you're a Christian. So note the grounding here. and being motivated by your coming reward. Verse eight, knowing. So this is a participle, whole participle phrase. It's saying this is the manner in which you are to be doing it. So so this is beautiful. Look at the doctrine here. Knowing you said all that knowledge. What good is that knowledge? Paul says, if you if you know something, Then you're serving. Yes, sir. Yes, master. Yes, master. And the whole time you're doing you're not just hollow, just tired. And what did you ask? You're knowing it's a it's a present continuous verb. That means moment by moment by moment, you're meditating on the thought that every single thing I do, the Lord Jesus notices and is going to repay me. And that's who I'm serving. When we were singing great is thy faithfulness. I mean, you think a master has a shifting shadow. What's a shifting shadow? It's like there's a rock here and it just has one shadow and there's other people moving. It doesn't move. And so there's this trustworthiness to God that like it's OK to serve him. If he made a promise, he's going to keep it. You remember the good Samaritan? You remember he brought the guy to stay in this inn? He says, take care of him. And when I return, I'll repay you. That's how a Christian is told to work. Serve this place. Make this place better as though I told you to do it. And on my return, I will repay you. So do what your boss tells you, no matter if he or anyone else in the world ever gives you an award. No matter if even the Christians in this church become worldly in their thinking. And they don't think what you're doing is valuable. If no human being on earth thinks that what you're doing is valuable, you are doing it. Whether you get no award, no banquet, no ceremony, no special event for everyone to acknowledge your work. Oh, we're so proud of you. You did so hard. Stand up and give a speech. There's no orations. There's no nothing. There's no praise whatsoever. Still go on doing it because you don't have to matter to this wicked society to matter to God. And that is a beautiful thing repeated over and over and over in the gospel. Why did he appear to Mary, a little girl? Because you don't have to matter to society to matter to God. Why to Elizabeth, who was an outcast? Because you don't have to matter to society to matter to God. Why to the shepherds out in the field? Why to the poor and the crippled and the lame? Because the message over and over and over. is that you don't have to matter to this wicked world to matter to God. And with God, one is a majority. Jesus was always trying to teach the disciples this from the very beginning. He said the Gentiles lorded over people and they like to be the sergeant. Get in line, do this. They like to be the boss. They like to have people come into their office, have a seat in my office and have all their books displayed. They love those moments. They crave those moments. They love being able to tell men what to do. And you who've been in the workforce know If you've seen it, you've seen that force in yourself and you've seen it in others and you've seen men tussle. He said the Gentiles do it that way, but it's not this way among you. We're supposed to be a different culture in a different way about us. And notice he says Christ will reward you in the end. Whether slave or free, that's so beautiful. Do you see? I mean, that confirms it free. I thought we were talking about slavery. Now we see Paul's point. Now we see the point. The point is whether slave or free, this is a beautiful break, because now the application is to the free people. So do you see what he did? He spent the whole time on the slaves and then at the end says, whether slave or free. It's so beautiful. It ends, the last word is on the group of people that the whole paragraph wasn't even about. And this phrase is a distinctive Pauline phrase. Maybe you remember it from Philippians. Whether by life or by death. Remember that? He was in prison. And he thought he might die. He might be set free. And he said, I don't know. But the thing is, my earnest expectation and hope is that in everything, Christ will be exalted through my body. And he says, whether by life. Or by death, in other words, you're not even talking the way Paul thinks is slavery or free, irrelevant, life, death, irrelevant. He just got through saying whether in pretense or truth, Christ is proclaimed by these people. So we got Orthodox reformed people. out there proclaiming Christ in order to cause me problems. And he's able to rejoice in that. Even though they have squalid motives, you see that whether it's alternative, whether it's a conjunction, a disjunction where you have this alternative and that alternative. He brings it up again in Romans. He says, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. He says, not one of us lives for himself or dies for himself. If we live, we live for the Lord. If we die, we die for the Lord. So then, so then there's a conclusion. Whether we live or we die, we live and die for the Lord. Whether absent from the body or present, We have what ambition? To please him. Remember what he told the Colossians, Christ is all and in all. Christ is all that matters, and therefore he's the only thing that matters in anything you do. That's what Christ is all and in all that matters. He says it again in the famous verse, 1 Corinthians 10 31, whether what you eat or whether you drink. Do it to the glory of God. That's a circumstance. Drinking is a particular circumstance. Eating is a particular circumstance. He says drinking and eating are even irrelevant. The only thing that's relevant is bringing honor and glory to Christ. This is why at the end of Philippians, he could say, I know how to get on in any circumstance, whether this or that, whether this or that. This is why he comes to the Corinthians in first Corinthians seven. They're like, oh, should we? What about our marriages, Paul? What if we're single? What if we're married? He says, guys, he says the time has been shortened. So that from now on, from now until the end of the age, those who buy a house should purchase it as though they were not even purchasing it. And those who cry should cry as though they were not even weeping. And those who rejoice should rejoice as though they literally, if you're healthy and you say the baby is born and he's healthy. Yeah. Praise the Lord. He's not sick. That's literally irrelevant. The only thing that's relevant is, will this child at some point come to know Christ? And if being healthy leads them opposite direction, then you better believe it. I would rather than be born crooked in every single way that they might be straight in one way. Because that's all that ultimately matters. And this will pass. This will pass. Do you remember what he told Agrippa? Paul, you almost persuaded me to become a Christian. Do you remember what he said? Whether in a short time or a long time. matter to me. Isn't that something? Time becomes an issue. It becomes two different circumstances. Short, long. How do you endure that? What did he tell the Corinthians? They're mixed up about their preachers and who's talking to them. He says, look, whether it was Apollos or Cephas, doesn't matter. It was the same gospel. Right. Y'all are hung up on the wrong thing. It doesn't matter what fleshly human is currently in front of you preaching. It's the higher issue. It's the truth that he's talking about that matters. The Christian life is such a great, powerful, invincible life. that it can be lived in any circumstance. 90% of our problems are hung up on circumstances. And Paul has tapped into the idea that it is such a life, it can be lived in any circumstance. Seriously lived. That's why he says, sincerely from heart. You can be singing, swing low, sweet chariot, in a cotton field, glorifying Christ more than a king. Because it lasts for eternity. Remember the story of Mordecai? Esther has to, they're in Persia, and Esther has to go and be taken into the heart of the king. And Mordecai does a good deed to the king. Somebody was plotting to kill the king, you remember? And Mordecai sends a secret message. He saves the king's life. And then the king did nothing. It was never even noticed. It got put in the classified documents file, the C-SPAN. You know, it runs at 3 a.m. They run, you know, government records. It got filed in there. There was no party. There was no anything. Until one day, the King just so happened. It wasn't God's doing. He just so happened. and not be able to sleep. And he says, turn on C-SPAN, read the royal records to me. And he hears what Mordecai did. Where is this guy? Where is this guy who served me this way? Go and find him. From the depths of the sea in Hades, go and find him and raise his body and stand him before me that I might honor him. Jesus says in the Gospel of John, whoever honors the son, the father will honor him. And he parades Mordecai. in front of everyone who had forgotten him and pay no attention to him. And it says in Revelation that he will make people bow down in front of you. That's the way to serve Christ, that you know, knowing, knowing that the reward from him is coming. And the great reversal is coming and all of the whole creation will know and see that I served the Lord and gave myself to that which matters. And everyone who did opposite, who looked like some great thing, will have lost all things. and realize you lived for a wrong thing and you wasted your one life. How do workers change the world? By working for Christ, no matter what the job is. Because working for Christ is what matters. what work you do does not matter. Let's pray. Lord, we worship you today as best we can. We honor you, glorify you. We boast in you. We declare you. We want to sing of you and talk of you, preach of you. and make it clear that you alone are worthy, you alone have been raised from the dead, you are the holy one, the righteous one, the one who's obedient, the one who's holy, the one who's never failed, the one who's the amen and the faithful son of God. who's been raised from the dead, declared Lord, and to whom are all things. And they exist for you. And we want to pray, Lord, that you would save us again more and more from the schema of the world, the outline of value that the world for your people, whether high or low, this week the low, next week the high, this week the low, those whom the world is not worthy. As it says in Hebrews, there are people who wandered in caves, in holes of the ground, men and women of whom the world was not worthy. Those who are discouraged, Lord, those who are thinking, I'm forgotten and my way is hidden from the Lord and no one knows and no one sees and my life is useless and pointless. That they would come to see Lord as your eye watches over the sparrow. So you watch over them. And you see them the way you saw Nathaniel under the fig tree. The way you saw Hagar, you are the God who sees. And the way you saw Mordecai, you are a just God and a faithful God and all will be righted in the end. You will do right and you will honor your So help us, Lord, in these that are in low circumstance, to renovate the way we look at our work, have a complete new view of how we look at our work, and to apply this sermon by, in the Working hard as though we were doing it for you because we are and you view it as toward you and for you and we can please you and you can be pleased with us as we work in our jobs. I pray for the upcoming generation. the children that they would be taught that work is not a lamentable thing. It is a pre-fall thing, an activity of man. We were made to work. And it happens after the consummation of all things. We will serve you in the new heaven and new earth. And that they may tear down this wall, as Reagan wanted to tear down this wall, that we might more and more tear down the wall of the sacred secular distinction and come to see that you are telling us all of life is sacred, whether we eat or drink, whether we work or not, it's all to be done for your glory. It's all a way of serving you. And no one has a more special job when it comes to glorifying you. So rescue those Lord, those mothers, those people in low jobs. Give your people strength, I pray. that shed such a light, such a glory on our way. Lord, we thank you for your word is such truly a treasure and a light. Where would we be without it? So thank you for this day. Thank you for all your people. Those who are struggling, I pray with their work, you would encourage them by this word. if you want to place a hand on it