Well, there's a story that exists about a non-Christian business owner and how he had two employees. And these two employees, unbeknownst to him, both went to two different churches one weekend. And so, Monday morning, the question rolls around. And so, the boss asked his two employees, “What did you do this past weekend?” And they both told him that they had gone to church and that they had professed to become Christians. And this owner was not a Christian, so he didn't really know what to do with that, and so he just proceeded on. But over time, he noticed changes in these two men. Now the first one, he was a nice guy, but over time, the quality of his work declined. The boss would notice that he would often be chit chatting when he should have been working, that he would feel free to come in late, that his lunches seem to get longer and longer, his work seemed less important to him. He seemed more entitled in the workplace. And he was a man that needed constant supervision, constant reminders just to complete the tasks that were assigned to him. Now, the other man was quite different. He too was a nice guy. He was caring about his coworkers, but he seemed to lean into his work. He asked for feedback on how he could improve. No task was beneath him. He always completed his work without needing reminders, and the quality of his work continued to go up. He got faster at it. He didn't have to stay longer hours because he was becoming so efficient and good at what he did when other coworkers were chit chatting, the boss would see this man working hard. And after some time went by, it was time for performance reviews, and in the one performance review, the boss was quite frustrated with his employee, and with the other, he asked him, “What's gotten into you? How did you become so much better of a worker in such a short period of time?” And the man responded, “Well, it's because I became a Christian.”
Friends, as Christians, the way we do our work really matters, and God has something to say to us about it here this morning. So, I'd like to invite you to open your Bible to the book of Colossians. And we're going to be studying from Colossians, chapter 3, verses 22 through 25. If you’ve got one of the Bibles from the back, it's page 984 you can find this text on. But once you've found it, go ahead and stand and we're going to pay close attention to these verses of Scripture and give them our full and undivided attention as we read them together. Colossians 3:22-25, starting in verse 22.
Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
That's the reading of God's Word. You can have your seat. And as we've been going through our study in the epistle from Paul to the church in Rome, we've been seeing that in these last few chapters, it is getting very practical. The Word of God is getting all up into our business about all these different things, how we treat the government, how we treat one another, how we go through disagreements or differences of opinion with one another, how we love one another. And that's what God wants to do when he really becomes the Lord of our life and he becomes our Savior; it's all his now, the entirety of our life is his. It is all for him. And he wants to push his reign and his rule into every nook and cranny of our lives. And we can see that, often, Paul is trying to see how this new person, this new creation that we've been created to be in Christ, Jesus plays out in kind of the everyday relationship. So, often he talks about how does this play out between wives and husbands? How does this play out between parents and children? And then also, we've got this dynamic between bondservants and masters. And here, at the church, last year, we got to do a parenting conference this year, we got to do our first marriage conference. But it's been a minute since we've gotten to talk about this dynamic of work. And if you look at verse 22 it kind of phrases it in a way that doesn't seem like it makes sense to us here in America. It uses this word bondservants.
Now, do you have a tiny number there next to that word in your Bible, like one of the real small print ones, which takes you to the real small print footnotes way down at the bottom of the page? And it's like my glasses; I need a new prescription to be able to see this. But if you can see it, it says “bondservants,” or probably, the other way you could translate it is “slaves”. And then there's this for the contextual rendering of the Greek word dulos. See preface, and you're like, whoa, there's a preface to this thing. What is this Greek word dulos? This Greek word dulos, it means slave. But I think that people who translated and published this Bible in America know that if you say the word slave in the Bible, there's a whole lot that's coming up to people's minds about slaves and slavery, and that has a particular connotation to us in America because of the blight on our society, the evil that was done of slavery here in America, based on the color of a person's skin. We were treating them as less than people, this evil thing that happened in America now. But we’ve got to be careful to remember that this was written long before America ever existed, and so slavery existed back in this time, but it wasn't the same as American slavery at this point in the history of the world. The way that slavery probably would have worked out, the two most common ways were, one is like our country came in and we took over your country, and so now you are our slaves. It had nothing to do with skin color or how you looked. It had more to do with which nation you were a part of. But probably even more common than that was that, hey, if I'm in the spot where I'm living and I've got needs, and I don't have the ability to see those needs get met, I don't have my own resources or my own assets, what would I do? Well, I could hire myself on. I could indenture myself into service in another household, and that I would have a job that I would do for them, and that's how my needs for food and shelter and clothing would be provided for. Right? And this would be people who are in very respected professions, like doctors and lawyers, very well could have been slaves in society at this time. And so, at this time, like, hey, there were, you know, very bad slave owners who were not treating people fairly and justly. But then there were also very good slave owners that treated their slaves with respect and with dignity. It wasn't racial, like we think of it in America. It was more economic, and so there's a lot of similarities to what Paul is instructing bondservants to do in the way that you and I should think about our employment and our work in America. If I'm not independently wealthy, as the kids are trying to be these days, right? What do I do? I don't have my own resources, my own assets, that I'm living off the interest, well, I’ve got to go hire myself on. I don't have my own company, so I'm going to go hire myself on to another company. And while there may not be long term contracts, and if it's not working out well for me, I can get out of it anytime I want to. I still work for them. And some of you are like, yeah, you're right, Pastor Bill, I do feel a little bit like a slave at my job. Yeah, I'm seeing where this is going. Right? And that's the way it works. It is like when you work for someone, they have an effect on what happens in your life and where you go and what you do. You can be very accomplished in your field and still have your employment adjusting your life in substantial ways. I mean, you can be an accomplished basketball player in the National Basketball Association, ready to sign a supermax contract and wake up one day and lo and behold, you have been traded to the Los Angeles Lakers. And to you, Luka Dončić, we say, you're welcome. Right? It can happen to even the best people in the fields. I worked for a company one time here in Orange County, and they decided it was going to be a good idea to send me to do some work in Detroit in December, and you get in the rental car and you're like, what's this squeegee looking thing? Oh, it's not a squeegee. It's an ice scraper, because you're going to have to scrape ice off your windshield while you wait for ten minutes for your car to warm up in the morning. Oh, okay, all right, I guess they do have some control over me.
And we don't like work. Some of us, we feel like we've got a spring allergy to work. We're allergic to it. We don't like talking about work. We would rather be doing anything else but work. I'd like to get to the spot in my life where I don't have to work. And we've got to remember that while work became difficult at the fall into sin in Genesis 3, even before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve had a job to do. Right? Work is not inherently a bad thing or an evil thing. So, let's see what the Lord has to say about it. “Bond servants obey in everything, those who are your earthly master.”
So, if you're taking notes, let's get this down for point number one: “Get to work obeying your earthly masters.” Get to work obeying your earthly masters. Now, who are these earthly masters? Now, they aren't the master, they aren't the Lord, the Jesus Christ, whom we're serving, but Jesus has allowed there to be other people who have positions of authority over us. So, I don't know who that might be for you. Do you have a supervisor? Do you have a boss? Maybe some of us, we are privileged to have many people who are our bosses. We've got layers and layers of bossary going on at our work. My boss has a boss, and then he's got a boss, and then there's this whole corporate structure of bosses who are over me. There could be many different people that this would apply to. Or maybe you're in the spot where you're going to college, and you have a professor or a teacher that you have willingly indentured yourself into their class. You are paying them money for them to give work for you to do, and you have signed up for that willingly. Or maybe you could still be in high school, and it is third period, and this is the teacher that you have in this class. And what does it say to do? It says, “obey in everything.” Obey in everything. Now we have twisted this today. We've got the attitude of like, well, who are you and what right do you have to tell me what to do? That the person telling me what to do, that's the bad guy in our society, the boss. I mean, he or she, all they had to do was wake up in the morning and they were already the bad guy, whether they had done nothing good or evil. And that is not the way that God is telling us to think it is okay that we have people telling us what to do. It's okay. And you know what we should do with the things they're telling us to do? We should do it, and we should do it in everything.
This word “obey” in the Greek, it's this word hupoakuo. From the word akua, we get our thought of acoustics, of how we hear things. And the word hupo means under. So, to obey means to hear under. That it's like, I'm not just talking about auditory processing of sound waves coming in through my ears. It's talking about like I'm placing myself under what I have here. I mean, parents, have you ever, like, tried to get your kids doing something with their lives a little bit, you know, give them some responsibility around the house, asking them to do something like take out the trash? Maybe they're in some kind of device on some kind of video game, Dotado? Do you know, kind of like going on, and you're like, hey, take out the trash. And then maybe you might follow up with them a few minutes later, and you might ask them a question, like, did you hear me? And they're like, yeah, I heard you. And yet the trash has not been taken out. Parents, have they really heard you at that moment? No, they have not. Right? You'll know they've heard you when there's a clean, fresh trash bag, the liner in the can, the trash in the proper receptacle out there on the side of the house. Right?
This is what God is telling us to do to our earthly masters, to do what I am being asked to do. It is not an outrageous thing for your boss or your supervisor to have expectations for you as to what you will do in the workplace. If you're in school, you are not being oppressed by a syllabus being handed to you at the beginning of a semester. Now in as many jobs as I've had, and as I've talked with others about their jobs, it seems like, in every job, there are some things that you like about it, and then some things that you don't like about it. Right? Anything comes into your mind when I say that, right? But here's an earthly master, and they're asking you to do it, but it's not what you really want to do. How do you do that? I'm not necessarily proud to say, but my first job was at McDonald's, humble beginnings. Right? And my first shift, I go in there, and it's a Friday night shift, it's a closing shift, and I didn't realize it, but this is probably the worst first shift you could have, because it was also the last day of the month where, apparently we do an extra special deep clean at the end of the night to clean the entire kitchen. So here I am, and we're doing this, and it's like, we're going to take the grills and they roll, and we're going to move them out and move them to the side. And then, my coworkers, we all gather together and behold what has been living on the floor underneath this grill. And I kid you not, there was four inches of solid grease there on the floor, and the manager had told us to clean it up. And all of my coworkers, they looked at the grease, they looked at me and they said, new guy. And so, my very first day of employment under earthly masters, here I am, and I am shoveling grease and I am using degreaser, not what I was hoping to be doing my first shift, but it's like, this is what I'm being asked to do. I should do it. I should obey them in everything, whether it's what I want to do or whether it's that thing I very much do not want to do. By the grace of God and with many degrees are applied, we actually got that floor completely clean by the end of the evening. Right? It's talking about this kind of way that you would work, where no job that you're being asked to do is beneath you. And it says this. Now it says obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.
And then it gives us something not to do and something to do. And it says this. It says not by way of I service as people pleasers. It didn't take me long at this job at McDonald's to realize there were kind of two different ways that my fellow employees would act when the manager's out and she's around and amongst us and watching what we're doing. Okay, here's the way that we're acting when we're doing that, but then when she goes around the corner into that little office over there, it's like everything changes back in the kitchen; there's a completely different way of operating that is going on. And I started realizing what this eye service thing was. It's like, oh, when I'm being watched, then I operate a certain way, but when I'm not being watched, I operate a different way, because I'm a people pleaser, because I'm trying to just be on the boss’s good side.
So, let's get that down for our first dash under point number one: “Not as people pleasers.” Not as people pleasers, right? That is not the way that God wants us to do our work in everything. We don't want to be the kind of people that we'll give it our best when other people are watching. But then, when the boss isn't hovering, well, now it's more about what do I want to do? And I want to, on company time, go do this other thing that's personal, or I'm going to waste time by going on my phone. But then when they come back around, they're like, how's this going? Oh, I'm going to get right after it, because I'm doing it by way of eye service. Do you have two different modes that you operate in at your workplace? You've got a visible mode and then a stealth mode, right where I'm operating under the radar in a different type of way. Or do you have two different speeds that you operate at, the I'm being watched speed, and I'm not being watched speed.
I mean, we want to be careful to hear what the Lord is saying, that he doesn't want us doing our work by way of eye service for the pleasing of other people. And God knows that pleasing other people is not going to be a sufficient motivation. Most of the time, when your goal is to please other people, you use that as an excuse not to do good work, rather than to do good work, right? Somehow, we are able to convince ourselves that the appreciation and the recognition that we receive is insufficient. It is not enough. I've been working this hard, and all I got in return was a gift card, a pizza party, right? The bonus isn't high enough this year, the promotion isn't fast enough. The paycheck isn't big enough, right? Have you ever found yourself saying something along the lines of, I'm not being paid enough for this, right? I'm not being appreciated enough for this. These are the ways that most people are making their decisions as to how hard they're going to work at their jobs. And we could start getting to the spot where we're like, well, what they don't know don't won't hurt them. They don't know that I'm not working right now, it's fine. If they really wanted me to do this job this way, they would pay me more. They would appreciate me more. We're being told not to do our work that way, not as people pleasers. But what are we supposed to do? Look at what it says, it says, “but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.”
Let's get this down for our second dash: “But sincerely, fearing the Lord.” Sincerely fearing the Lord, that it's not about pleasing people anymore. It's about pleasing the Lord, that what we're doing is we're doing it. For him and the person we're really caring about, who's watching us is him, like God wants to change why you do your work, who you are working for. You're not fearing man anymore. You're fearing him, even when the boss isn't watching. Guess who is watching? It's him. No one else may ever notice this behind-the-scenes thing that you do. But you know, who does notice? It's him, with sincerity of heart, like it's above board, it's genuine sincerity of heart. There's a lot of people that they're actually a little bit of a liar at work where it's like, I want to be known publicly as being this good employee, but in reality, I'm like, this God wants us to be sincere. That if I'm saying, hey, this is my job to work for this company. He wants actions actually, to do what we're there to do, to be truly there to do too many people, they want to be known by others as being a hard worker, but really they want to be a sluggard.
Can we go to the book of Proverbs a little bit this morning? Can I invite you to turn to the Book of Proverbs? Chapter Six. Proverbs, chapter six. It's written from the perspective of a father to a son, trying to teach his son a great many things, and some of those things have to do with work. And in Proverbs 6:6, the father instructs his son, “Go to the ant, o sluggard.” Does anybody have their parents quoting that verse to them growing up? Parents, you should quote that verse to your son, to your daughter. It will help them “Go to the ant, o sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.” What's the thing that the father wants to highlight about the ant that is worthy of commendation and imitation? It's like this. This ant doesn't need somebody managing it. It doesn't need to be watched by someone all the time to make sure that the job is getting done. The ant knows what the job is and what does the ant do? It goes and does it. It doesn't require somebody else. It doesn't require the cracking of the whip to get it to do what it should do. No, it just goes, and it does what it should do. We shouldn't need to be people that we're having to have other people watch us because we're trying to please those people. No, no. We're trying to be sincerely fearing the Lord, and that means like, well, what does he think about my work? Well, here he's having in his book, saying, hey, we shouldn't be sluggards. We should be like ants, where we don't need someone to watch us.
Now, we'll come back to Proverbs a few more times, but go back with me to Colossians chapter 3, because we've seen, okay, we've seen this first thing addressed to the bondservants. We're supposed to obey in everything. We don't get to pick and choose. We don't get to say, hey, I'm here to do this, but not to do this. And we're not supposed to be doing it to please people, but to sincerely fear the Lord. And then, if you were to read all the way to verse 1 of chapter 4, you can see that the other side of this relationship is mentioned where it says, “Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven.” So, the thought is like, even if you're on the other side of this relationship, you've got something that God wants you to think about, and hey, if you've got people reporting to you that are under your leadership, you really think about the way that you treat those people, and you should treat them justly and fairly, because you, too, have a master who is in heaven. And we know that, sometimes, if you're in that role of, I am in management, or I'm the boss, or I own my own company, that can be a lonely role. It can be kind of hard to have other people encouraging you in what you should do.
And so, I'm pleased to announce a ministry that we had long ago that we're restarting here soon, called the Business Ministry, that if you're in that kind of role, where you're in management, or you're kind of the owner of your company, or in something like that, where you got people reporting to you, we would love to come alongside you. We’ve got many people that have operated in that kind of role, very faithfully and in a godly way, that have a lot of wisdom that we'd love to open the Word and be able to encourage one another. And so we're going to have a breakfast in a morning on Saturday May 3, if you want to write that date down Saturday, May 3, we'll have our first one of these, and then we'll have them periodically thereafter, where we'll be looking at this verse of thinking, how do I treat my employees fairly and justly, the way that the Lord would want me to do? So, if you're in that kind of that role and you're like, oh, this isn't really for me, because I'm the boss at my job, but we've got more for you that we'd like for you to be a part of.
But then, there's even more that's addressed to the bondservant here. And if you look at verse 23 there's this phrase, “Whatever you do.” Now, if back in these days, if you had hired yourself on as a bondservant or a slave, you would go and you would work, not necessarily for a corporation or a company, but for a household. And the way even some of these households would operate is it's like we have our own compound, where there's our own land, and there are many, you know, kind of buildings on this land. And so, it could have been quite likely that it wasn't just like you showed up for work, and this is where you work, day in and day out. This also could have been where you lived. And so, you know, we think of like, hey, I've got these responsibilities at my job. But then, we also know home comes with its own set of responsibilities, that there's groceries and there's cleaning and there's bills to pay and there's things to do, and there's all kinds of work that's involved, but it's not necessarily I'm getting a paycheck for it. So, that's what he's saying is, he's not just saying here's the tasks specifically that your boss has given you, but let's expand the thought not just to your workplace work, but to whatever you do. And I was trying to think like what's included in whatever I do? It's kind of like everything that I do is included in whatever I do. And I mean, this would include things like husbands and wives. We're trying to figure out what's going on in the house together. Some of you are like, I'm retired. I'm so glad I don't have to go to work anymore, but is there still work that God has for you to do, even if you're the boss, do you still have work that you're supposed to do at this company? Whatever you do.
Or if you're a student, it's not just the homework assignments or the tests or quizzes I'm studying for. What about like the way I keep my room at my house, or like the responsibilities I have in my home. Are the parents with me? Are we saying, amen? Maybe more parents need to give their kids some responsibility around here, if it's not something I'm being told to do by a boss, what about that? Well, that fits in this whatever you do category, what should we be thinking? It says, “Whatever you do work heartily as for the Lord and not for men.” So, it's this same thought. Before it was like, don't do it to please people, do it to fear the Lord. And now we've got it just kind of said in the opposite order. It says, “work heartily as for the Lord,” positively. Do it for the Lord. Negatively, not for men. Right?
So, let's get this down for point number two: “Give your work your all for the Lord.” Give your work your all for the Lord. Now it uses this word “heartily” here, right? This word heartily, now, this Greek word that it uses, it could be translated “heart,” but it could also be translated “soul”. It's almost like you could translate it, do your work from your soul, like put your heart and soul into your work. Give it all you've got, like, whatever you do, give it everything you are. What kind of description of that is work like? Let's just think about that for a second. Like, what kind of work is that describing? And if I could just speak candidly to you for a moment, growing up in the late 80s and 90s, it didn't seem like this kind of work really characterized Christians. I don't know if I saw the greatest examples of this growing up, I saw way too many examples of people going through the motions just fulfilling the minimum requirements to get by. I mean, there was a time in my life where it almost kind of seemed like Christian equaled less quality. Like, if there was Christian music going on, well maybe the quality the lyrics had a little bit better content to them, but the quality of the music was noticeably less than the other types of music. Or, like, don’t even get me started on Christian movies from that time period where you're like, okay, we're trying to have an encouraging message, but this acting, oh brother, and this plot and those computer graphics, oh man, this is rough. This is brutal to watch. Or if there's a Christian tee shirt, it's almost like it was made in a less quality manner, was going to fade faster than a non-Christian tee shirt, right? And this can be a challenge for us, because sometimes when you become a Christian, you start to realize that there are things that really matter, like the souls of people really matter, and so sharing the gospel with people is so. And I wasn't even thinking about this earlier on or like the one anothers here at the church, they really matter. And what I'm doing to serve the Lord at the church, and it's almost like I see people that they're like, well, this stuff really matters, but then what about this stuff over here? What about this project at work? What about this customer that I have to serve, or what about this work around my house? Like sometimes, if we're not thinking about it correctly, we can start viewing those things as the obstacles to the work that God wants us to do. But really we should be thinking, no, we should be thinking about this in whatever we do, whatever the things that God has, they all matter. It's not like these things matter and these things don't. And so, actually, I should be giving this kind of work ethic, this kind of hardiness, putting my heart and soul into it, into everything that I do. And I think a word that has become too synonymous with Christian effort is the word mediocrity. You know what that word means? It means, of only moderate quality, not very good, friends. That's not the kind of working heartily that God is calling us to do. Right? We're so glad that slavery has been abolished in America. We need to abolish Christian mediocrity in America, where it's like, well, because we're Christians, we don't really do things with excellence. We don't really go all out in what we are doing. That is no longer the way to think about it. And the thought isn't, well, we're just going to do that to puff ourselves up and make ourselves feel better about ourselves. The reason we would do that is because it matters to him, and it's all for him, and we don't want to be the people that have God, this is the area of my life that's for you, and so I'm going to go for it, but then this area of my life, it's for someone else, it's for my boss, or for my family, for myself. That's the way that maybe some of us walked in here this morning thinking about this. We've got some whatever I do is that honestly or we're not doing that well at whatever we do, right? And I was just thinking, If God is wanting to change our thoughts to where I'm not really ultimately working for my boss, not really even ultimately, working for myself or for my family, that it's all for him, that he's my boss, he's the one I'm working for. Well, what if my boss sat me down for a performance review? Like, what if you had a performance review? God calls you into his office and he's got some feedback about your performance. I mean, what kind of rating would you get in that performance review? Excellent performer, strong performer. Or perhaps, would the phrase that would apply to that conversation for some of us be, needs improvement?
Go back with me to the book of Proverbs, because I want us to develop some of these thoughts about how God would think about whether we're putting our heart and soul into whatever he has for us to do. Go with me to Proverbs 22 and the last verse of that chapter, verse 29. Proverbs, 22:29 says, “Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings. He will not stand before obscure men.” What we've been learning in Colossians is we're standing before the King of kings, what kind of skill, what kind of quality of work does he deserve? I've got a question for you in the whatever you do that God has for you to do, does it matter to you to be good at it? Do you have a desire to be good at whatever you do. I mean, are you thinking you’ve got this project at work? Are you just thinking, yeah, just kind of go for it a little bit. Are you thinking, no, I want to crush this. Crush It, right? Or like this customer that I have to serve. I just don't want to kind of get by. I want to be the best at serving this customer that the Lord has given me. Or, what about some of the things around the house? Like, anybody have a desire to be good at doing the dishes? Like I'm just going to crush these dishes, just going to take them down, right? They are going to be so clean, so put away, so neat. It's going to be beautiful, right? I mean, maybe a question you could ask yourself is like, how do you take constructive criticism? Have you heard of this thing? It just feels like criticism, but it's meant to be constructive. It's meant to be helpful. You ever have someone give you an unwarranted suggestion on how you. Could improve something. Thank you. Thank you very much. Like, do you welcome that? Are you like this person is my enemy? I never want to talk to them ever again. How dare they suggest I could be better at what I do? I am already at the top level possible. Really? You’ve got nothing you could improve whatsoever? Or do you like, no, actually, because I care about what I do, everything I do, because the Lord cares about everything I do, and I want to do it the best I possibly can, because I'm doing it to please him. Is that the attitude that we're having, or are we kind of having a minimum requirement kind of attitude? I mean, if someone important was there, like physically, like an actual person was important, and they were looking at what you do, you would really care. The Lord is the most important, and he's looking at everything you do. Do you really care about how you're doing it?
Now, if you're still in Proverbs, go back to chapter 10, verse 4. Proverbs 10:4. And it says in that verse, there are two things contrasted. And it says “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” A slack hand, slack as in slack off, as in not working. Right.
How ironic that the most popular app for workplace communication would be known as Slack. That is a terrible name for a workplace app, because that is not what we are supposed to do. Maybe some people, they are slacking on the Slack and not working, right? And this is contrasted with this other word, diligent, hard working, not waiting around, getting after it, then getting after the next thing. I'm not requiring someone else to get me going. I'm getting myself going. I'm hard working, right? Like that's the way God's teaching us to be doing our work. Now, some of us, at this point in the sermon, they're like, alright, Pastor Bill, I guess I'll never have time to read my Bible again, because I'm going to be so busy washing the dishes at my house or doing the laundry or doing this thing in my job. Guess the gospel is never coming out of my lips, Pastor Bill, because I've just got all this work. Like, do you realize that when God is telling you to work this way, he's not telling you to go slow? Like, quality work does not have to go at a slow pace. Maybe some of us, if God were sitting us down for a performance review, it might not just be the quality of what we're doing that he would want to improve. Maybe it's also the rate at which we're doing it that he would want to improve.
There was one time in my life that I moved to Texas as an adult. God bless the state of Texas. I went to a grocery store and had collected the items. And then there comes that point where you're going to go, and you're choosing which checkout line to go in. It's a big decision, right? You’ve got to choose the right one. And I, you know, committed to the line that I was in, and very quickly, I was filled with regret, because this cashier, this person who was checking out, you know, you kind of see a couple people in front of you, and then you hear that little sound as the items are being scanned, a little, you know, kind of going on there. And you hear one and you're kind of hoping to hear the next one at a certain rate and at a certain speed, and you're waiting for it, and then the next one comes, and you realize the pace at which this cashier is working, this is not the pace of work. This is the pace of leisure, right? Like this person is going slow, and you're starting to get a little frustrated. You're like, oh man, I made a mistake. I chose the wrong line. But then you start thinking, oh, well, what if this person's new? Like, I don't want to be the person who's given them a hard time. And so, when you finally get up there and it's your items being checked out, you see their name badge, and it's like, proudly serving for eight years. And you're like, oh, that is rough. That is rough eight years in and you're still this slow. That wouldn't fly in California.
Go with me to Proverbs, 12, verse 24. Proverbs 12:24, look at what it says. Says “The hand of the diligent,” the hard-working person, that person “will rule, while the” what does it say? The “slothful will be put to forced labor.” We don't call them sloths because they are the snappiest, quickest animals, right? We cast those for the DMV employees in the animated movies because it's going too slow, right? Like that is not the way, like the slothful, the slow. It's like someone is actually going to have to force them to do work rather than them being diligent and just getting after the work that God wants them to do.
Go with me over to Proverbs, chapter 18. Proverbs, chapter 18. In these collection of wisdom sayings that are preserved for us. Proverbs 18:9. Look at what it says. It says this alarming thing. It says, “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.” Whoa. So, I mean, we're learning just a few things that God had recorded in his book of how he thinks about work, and it doesn't seem like he's looking at slacking off very positively right now. If we were to put it in a term that some of us might be more familiar with, what about the term procrastination? Any procrastination enthusiasts here in the room, are you ready to out yourselves? Okay, there are a few of us amongst us. When's the best time to do this? It's later. Later is the best time to accomplish this task. It's not right now, some other time in the future. I mean, we're seeing that God cares about the quality of our work. He cares about the rate at which we're working.
I want to ask you, would you actually spend some time in prayer this week asking God to give you a performance review? Hey, God, is there anything about the way I work in whatever I do that you would want to change, that you would want to improve? Let's be the people that we want to hear from the Lord. We want him to have his rule going on in every nook and cranny of our life. And I did this last week. And so be careful if you do that, because it's like the Lord will break things up. He'll just bring things up to your mind right then and right there. And one of the things that he brought up to my mind is, you know, we all have things going on in our household, and I've got my wife, she does an excellent job in our household. And there's this thing that seems like it's never done, even though she's doing an excellent job with it. And it's the laundry. Have you noticed this at your house, that it's a constant thing that needs attention? And my wife, she doesn't need my help for this. She doesn't ask for my help for this. But sometimes I just find myself wanting to help with this, and I'm like the guy that's like, okay, I've got the wash cycle timed in my mind. I know exactly what moment I need to come back right as that little song is playing at the end of the cycle, so I can move it into the dryer and then put the next load in, and I'm like, firing all cylinders at these first two steps in the process, and then over time, as I'm trying to be hopeful there in my house Now, there are baskets on the floor of clean, dry clothes. And then there's another step in the process at which I've noticed some slacking, right? Oh, you know all the baskets that we own are full. And my thought is, I should go buy more baskets, like I should not be doing that. I should be what's the next step that I should not be slacking on if I'm going to help? I should actually fold. And I shouldn't do, like, low quality folding, like husband folding, like, I should get into some quality folding. And I should maybe not just fold the things. I should actually put them away, where they go, right. Like, like, God cares about all these things that we do. Like, this is the way he wants us to be thinking about it is, you know, and this is not like God is expecting you to be perfect or never to make a mistake. But what we need to be learning is that these things really matter, and how we do whatever we do, it matters to the Lord, and there's a way he wants us to do it where we're putting everything into it. We're giving it our heart and soul.
Go back with me to Colossians, chapter 3, because this sermon is not meant to be a burden. It's not like, okay, Pastor Bill, finally, the rain is gone, the sun is shining, but here we are all walking out of church, just like really low and burdened. Because of all this work that we have to do heartily, there's more to it that we need to know here. And let's look at verses 24 and 25 together. It says “Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord, and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward you are serving the Lord Christ, for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done. And there is no partiality.”
So, let's get this down for point number three: “Remember the reward and the repayment.” Remember the reward and the repayment because some of us it's like, oh, okay, well, there's more that matters to the Lord, maybe, than I had thought about before. And okay, I'm seeing what God wants me to do. But there's this question of, will it be worth it if I'm going to take on more responsibility at my job, what am I going to be looking for? More compensation as a result of it, more reward for my efforts. And I wonder if some of us, the reason that we haven't been doing whatever we do, the way that God wants us to be doing it, is we're setting our sights on the reward too low. Some of us, our goal is, I want to earn a few more thousand a year. I want to have a little bit of a nicer vacation once a year. I want to have a little bit higher of a standard of living, or a better lifestyle, right? Like maybe the rewards that we're going for aren't good enough in our minds, and we need to set our sights higher on things that are even better. If I told you after this that, hey, I've got a month's worth of work for you to do, and it's going to be hard, and there's going to be high standards, but then I'll pay you ten million at the end of it. What would you be saying to that? You'd be like saying, yeah, I mean, maybe for some of you, ten million doesn't really move the needle, and we're glad you're here. Welcome. Um, great to have you here this morning. Now, I mean, as a result of our work, Proverbs does say “the hand of the diligent makes rich,” right? That if you are doing what you do with excellence and you're doing it the right way, that will very often lead to compensation and even financial rewards here and now in this life. But there's something that's so much better than those rewards. I mean, the money we get now we can't keep it the stuff we could spend it on, it won't last but there are rewards that will last forever in the place Jesus is preparing for us. They won't fade away. They won't wear out, they are undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you.
That's what we should be working towards. If we're going to be doing everything we do for the Lord, not for men, and giving it our heart and soul, we're going to have to be knowing that there is a reward, that's what he says, “knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.” Does it comfort you to know that God is the rewarder of those who seek him? I mean, I don't know if we think about him in that kind of way. Enough like, is it comforting to know that even all the secret things that I was doing that nobody else seemed to notice or appreciate it that there could be a day where you would be recognized for those efforts, that God would let you know that those things mattered to him, even if they didn't matter to anybody else. To hear God say something about you like “Well done, good and faithful servant,” to get that kind of feedback from the Lord God himself will recognize you. You are serving the Lord Christ, and he is not one to do wrong to those who serve him. He is the one who rewards those and rewards them lavishly and above and over the top and overflowing and never ending. That's the kind of God you serve. You can have the best boss in the world. They're not going to be as good to you as the Lord is going to be good to you. They're not going to reward you in any way that is anywhere close to the way that the Lord will reward you. And he's saying, know that. Know that like, hey, even when you're doing things and it's hard and it's difficult, but you're giving it your all, and you're not getting the atta boys, you're not getting the appreciation, remember who you're serving and remember the reward that's coming that when Jesus returns, we're setting our hope fully in the grace that's going to be ours in that moment. But then there's also a warning in verse 25. It says, “For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality,” that the people who are the fakers, that they're insincere, that they're just wanting to have a reputation of being a certain way, but in reality, being the opposite way, there's going to be a repayment. And look at the words that are used to wrongdoer wrong. You know when the boss is telling the employees to do something and the employees are given pushback to that, who's in the wrong there? The employees are. They are the wrongdoers. Right? Not doing what they're being asked to do is wrong, and there will be a repayment for that wrong. And he says, there's no partiality. Just because you call yourself a Christian, if you're slacking at work, it's not like God is going to give you a free pass just because you're saying you're a Christian. There will be consequences as a result of that. Some of you might have experienced those consequences. And maybe you should take the blame off of someone else, and you should put the blame right where it belongs, on yourself. And you should think there are some things I need to change. There are some things in my mindset I need to change. It's kind of like choosing your own adventure. For those of us in Christ here in the room this morning, how do we want to be paid back? Do we want to be rewarded by the Lord because we're doing what he says, how he says it, and we're doing it all for him. Or if we still keep doing it to please other people or to please ourselves, and that means that we're just doing it by way of eye service, and we're not sincere in what we're doing, there will be a paying back for that as well that will not be pleasant, that we don't want to experience.
Friends, the way that we work matters, like the competition to hire Christian people in North Orange County in South LA County should be fierce, right? We should have people wanting to break with their HR departments and ask unauthorized questions in interviews, like, are you a Christian? Do you go to Compass HB? You're hired, right? Like that should be happening because we're the type of people that we've got such high standards for ourselves because we're trying to please the Lord that we're doing everything that we're doing for him, and if we're living life that way, we will stand out among our peers. Not because we're trying to be something great, but because we serve someone who is great.
I was talking about this sermon and this passage with someone this week as I was preparing for it, and they were like, oh man, I remember when I heard that passage for the first time. And this is a person that hadn't really had much of a work ethic before. He was a Christian, didn't really have any skills to speak of, but he becomes a new creation in Jesus Christ, and as a result of that, like he heard this passage, and it really rocked his world, and it changed the way that he operated. And then he became this very successful person at his company that even the owners of his company really recognized him as someone who was one of the best employees that they had and someone that they really relied on and valued and respected. And there came this moment a few years back, when they were trying to find more good employees. And so, they looked at this man who went to our church, and they were trying to think, where can we get more people like this guy? And so, they had this idea of like, well, what if we hired someone else from your church? And this person, they had no experience in this industry, no skills to speak of, but you know what they were, they were sincere. They were a man who feared the Lord, and so they got into this new job, where they didn't know what they were doing, but they were willing to learn. And it's like they grew, and they learned, and their performance kept going up and up to where now this other person from our church is being recognized as one of the greatest sales people in this company, and somebody that they're like, whoa. This is awesome. And you know what they did just recently? This person was like, this is so timely that this sermon is happening right now, because I was just talking with these guys this week, and they're like, are there any other people at your church that we could hire? And I thought, what a great testimony of these two men really doing their work for the Lord to where other people are recognizing that, and they're recognizing that that comes from the Lord, that comes from the change that he has done in their life. But now it's kind of at this interesting spot where it's like, well, all of this could come crumbling down with one bad hire, right? Like, oh, these first two guys from this church were good, but the third guy, oh, man, that guy, right? Like, I want to ask, like, should they hire you? Are you the kind of person who's working this type of way that you could go into any industry, any company, and because you're going to want to do what you're doing with excellence, because you're doing it for the Lord, because you're going to be diligent, not a slacker, at your job that any company would be glad to have you.
Are you the kind of person that's not just doing that in your professional endeavors, but you're doing that in whatever you do? That's the kind of people that God wants us to be. And there is great reward for all of us who live the way that Jesus wants us to live. So can we go before the Lord and ask for his help too? Make us these types of people.
Our Father in heaven, God, we thank you Lord that you gave everything for us, God that you gave your body, you shed your blood so that we could have a new life. And Father, it only makes sense that in response to your great and abiding love for us, God, that we would want to serve you with everything that we are. And God, we know that we're tempted to want to keep church things in a church category and other things in another category, but God, you have become the Lord of our entire life. God, you want your rule and your reign to be finding their way into every piece of our life. And God, you're telling us that you care about our work. God you care. You care about how we're obeying our earthly masters. God, you care about how we're doing whatever we do in our life. And God, you're also telling us that, that you want to reward us. God, that when we're doing our work for you, that our labor is not in vain. God, that nothing that we're doing for you we will ever regret doing. And God, if we're serving you with the best that we have, with all that we have, God, we're never going to feel like that's a waste, even though it's going to be difficult, even though there's going to be times where we're not feeling it. In the end, we will have no regrets if we live the way that you're calling us to, God. So, give us faith, God. I pray for some of us that that even as a result of this passage, that our mindset would be changed, God, that we would no longer be doing our work to please people, just to be noticed by them, or even to please ourselves. But Father, that we would be doing our work to please you, not for man, but for you. And God, that we would be able to look forward to the day that we're going to be rewarded by you. And God, what a joy to know that even if other people aren't pleased with us, if you're pleased with us, what does it matter what other people think of us? And so, God, we want to be the people that serve you. God, we want to be the people that obey you in everything that you say, so that in all things you would get the glories you so richly deserve. Amen. Amen.