A GOOD ‘WORKPLACE’ WITNESS
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on June 13, 2010 under 2010 |
Preached Sunday, June 13, 2010
from
Titus 2:9-10
Theme: Christians are to ‘adorn’ the gospel by being faithful in the work they do for their employers.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
Over the past several weeks in our study of Paul’s New Testament letter to Titus, we’ve been fleshing-out the details of Paul’s command to Pastor Titus in 2:1; “But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine . . .”
Titus was a first-century pastor who was responsible for the spiritual oversight of several churches on the island of Crete. It was a difficult and necessary responsibility; because these churches—not unlike our own church today—existed in a cultural atmosphere that was ungodly. The Christians in those churches often felt the pressure of the sinful practices that were going on around them. And to make matters even more urgent, false teachers had been creeping into those churches and were bringing their influences upon them—false teachers who, as Paul said in 1:11, “subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain.” And so, Paul urged Titus to—among other things—diligently instruct the people to live in the midst of such a cultural environment in a way that is consistent to their Christian faith; and to, as he says, “speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine.
And I like to think that as your pastor—in preaching this sermon series—I have been seeking to obey that very same command toward you.
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Now; as we’ve seen so far in our study, Paul applied this command to specific spheres of relationships within the family circles of the church. We’ve seen how he touched on several of these various relationships when he told Titus to exhort
that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things—that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Likewise, exhort the young men to be sober-minded, in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you (Titus 2:2-8).
It was crucial that everyone bore a positive witness for Jesus Christ in these different relationships, because the unsaved world was watching them—and was assessing the gospel they heard from the church on the basis of what they saw. The Christian older men, and older women, and younger women, and younger men, were all to live in such a way as to ensure “that the word of God may not be blasphemed” (v. 5), or so that those who oppose the gospel “may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you” (v. 8). And even Titus himself—as the pastor—was to be involved; making sure to stand as a faithful example of a man of God to all the rest.
But there was one more relationship within the ‘family circles’ of the body of Christ that Paul needed to call to Titus’ attention, and that was the relationship of the believing slaves or bondservants to their masters. And so, in verses 9-10, Paul goes on to tell Titus,
Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things (Titus 2:9-10).
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In our day, we have a deep repulsion to the whole idea of “slavery”. We have a lot of sensitivities to this subject that are historically rooted in racism; and that are thus emotionally painful. But this was not the case in ancient Rome. Slaves or bondservants were not necessarily of a different race than their masters. They were a very common part of households in the ancient Roman empire. In fact, some historians have estimated that one out of every four persons in the ancient Roman empire was a slave! And so, before we get too far along, it might be good for us to think about the Bible’s teaching about slaves and bondservants.
Now; it needs to be said at the outset that the gospel of Jesus Christ is that message from God that truly sets people free. In fact, it makes people genuinely ‘freer’ than any civil liberty could possibly make them. As Jesus Himself has said, “Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). But when you read the Bible’s teaching about the institution of slavery, you find something very interesting. It doesn’t command that the social institution of slavery be brought to an end by bringing pressure on civil structures of a culture from the outside. Rather, it does something that no man-made liberation movement could ever do. It transforms the hearts of the people in that culture; so that ‘born again’ people bring the liberating influence of Jesus Christ upon their culture from within—one person at a time—through the social and civil relationships that are already there.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers, for example, he knew that many members of the Corinthian church came to faith in Jesus Christ while being slaves. And remarkably, he didn’t urge them to demand their freedom. Instead, he urged them to remain were they were. “Were you called while a slave?”, he asked. “Do not be concerned about it; but if you can be made free, rather use it” (1 Corinthians 7:21). Paul taught believing people of his day that, whatever state they were in when they came to know Jesus Christ, they ought remain in that state and “use” it for the gospel. If they were free, they should stay free—but live as an inwardly-transformed freedman who uses his freedom for the cause of Jesus Christ as the Lord’s slave. If they were a slave, they should not fight to be made free. If offered their freedom, they should by all means take it! But instead of demanding freedom, they should live as an inwardly-transformed slave who uses his slavery for the cause of Christ as the Lord’s freedman. “For he who is called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise he who is called while free is Christ’s slave” (v. 22). As Paul says, “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men” (v. 23)—meaning that, if someone was a slave in Christ, they should live as a slave who is ultimately not the slave of men but of Jesus Christ. They should stay in the place where God had sovereignly called them; so that they could continue to live within those various human relationships and use them to bring the message of Jesus Christ to others through them!
Now; that’s a pretty radical ‘take’ on slavery, isn’t it? The Bible makes obedience to Jesus Christ, and the spread of His gospel, the thing that’s more important than even civil liberty. It’s certainly not what you’ll hear from the people of this world. But the New Testament teaches this idea in several different places. Paul taught elsewhere that a slave or a bondservant was to be obedient to their earthly masters as if rendering obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ; because they are, in reality, the Lord’s slaves and are serving as His ambassadors to a lost world. In his letter to the Ephesians, he wrote;
Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free (Ephesians 6:5-9).
And note that this was to be done not just to be seen favorably by men, but out of a sincere desire to serve Jesus Christ. Paul wrote a very similar command in his letter to the Colossians; saying,
Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ (Colossians 3:22-24).
They were to not only do this if their master was good and kind and deserving, but even if their master is harsh and unworthy. The apostle Peter wrote;
Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God (1 Peter 2:18-20).
And they were to make sure that they do this even if—as was sometimes the case—their masters where fellow believers! If a believing slave was to so faithfully represent Jesus to their master that their master also came to Christ, they were not to then ‘slack-off’ in their obedience just because their masters was now a brother or sister in Christ. That kind of behavior wouldn’t speak well of the gospel to those who saw it. Instead Paul wrote to Pastor Timothy and told him;
Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed. And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things (1 Timothy 6:1-2).
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Now; you may be listening to all this and thinking to yourself, “So what? I am not a slave. And I am pretty certain that—last time I checked—I don’t have any bondservants working in my household.” I, of course, recognize that I’m preaching this message in a cultural situation that is much different from that of the one Titus was in. And praise God for that! We enjoy a civil liberty in our nation that is truly a rare blessing in human history; and we all now live—after many years of struggle—in a society in which none of its citizens are slaves of other men.
But let me point out a couple of things. First of all, if you are a believer in Jesus, you may not be the slave of any other human being, but you are absolutely the slave of Jesus Christ! You have been bought with a price! Now; to be the slave of Jesus Christ is to enjoy a greater liberty than any freedman outside of Christ could ever experience. He’s the most delightful Master any slave could serve. And what’s more, He Himself doesn’t speak of us in a demeaning way as slaves; but rather says, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). We serve a Master who delights to call His faithful bondservants His friends! What a blessing! But nevertheless, His bondservant or slave is what we truly are. In everything we do, and in every relationship we’re in, we must individually remember that we remain the slave of the greatest, most blessed, most loving Master anyone could serve.
And second, let me suggest to you that as Jesus’ slaves, the basic principles Paul is laying out in this morning’s passage do apply to us. And one way that they apply to us is in our employee/employer relationships we freely enter into in the workplace.
The role of an employee is the closes parallel to the “slave/master” relationship you and I experience today. And let me just ask: Are you fulfilling that role faithfully as the faithful slave of Jesus Christ? Do you realize that the unsaved people of this world look at every aspect of your life to see if the gospel of Jesus Christ that you proclaim is true—even in how you do your work? Do you realize that even if you work for a company that doesn’t allow an open discussion of religious matters at the workplace, your employer may still know that you profess to be a Christian; and that he or she is assessing the truth of the gospel by what is seen in you?
When you look at things that way, you see that this morning’s passage suddenly turns every believer in our church who works for someone else into a missionary—Jesus’ strategically placed “slave”, who serves as His ambassador for the gospel to some people who might not ever otherwise hear it!
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Let’s look carefully at this passage, then, and see what it says about being a good witness for Christ in the workplace. First, you can see that Paul urges believers to be good witnesses to their employers . . .
1. BY BEING OBEDIENT TO THEM.
Paul tells Titus, “Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters . . .” The word 1 that Paul uses in the original language means “to place under”. It was a military word that was often used to describe how one officer was ‘ranked’ under another; and thus it became a figure of speech for ‘obedience’ in the sense of being subordinated under someone else. The New International Version has it that the servant is to be “subject” to their master—which conveys more than just action, but also attitude.
One of the ways a Christian is to communicate to their employer that they truly are a follower of Jesus Christ is that they are to have an attitude of willing subjection to the authority of those that Jesus places over them, and to obey them with respect to their area of authority. And this would most certainly include the authority of one’s employer. They are to be subject to the Lord Jesus by being obedient to their employer.
Now; I appreciate it that Paul doesn’t say that every bondservant is to be obedient to every master. Rather, he says “to their own masters”. A Christian is to be obedient to that person—or to those persons—with whom they have entered into a legitimate employer/employee relationship over the specific areas that concern their work. The boss doesn’t have a right to call you on your day off and order you to come and wash his car. But this would also mean that the believing employee is to obey their own master directly; and not disrespect their master’s authority by illegitimately “going over their heads”.
I heard about a businessman who was talking with a friend. His friend said, “So, how many employees do you have working for you now?” And his friend said, “Oh, about half of them.” As Christians, we ought to be characterized as in that group who actually “work” for the people we are employed by. What a difference obeying just that one command alone would make in our witness for Jesus Christ!
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Now; you can be subject to someone, and truly be said to be working for them; and yet not be “pleasing” to them in the way you do it. Paul, next, urges that the believing bondservant be a good witness to their boss . . .
2. BY BEING WELL PLEASING TO THEM.
Paul writes that they are to be told “to be well pleasing in all things . . .” Some translations have that phrase “in all things” in connection with the previous words; that is, that the bondservant is to be obedient to their masters “in all things”. Other translations have it in connection with the phrase we’re now considering, as it’s found in the translation I’m using: “to be well pleasing in all things . . .” But in the end, I suppose that it doesn’t make that much difference. If a bondservant is obedient to their master “in all things”, then they’ll certainly also be well pleasing to them “in all things” as well.
But it is to be “in all things” that they are to work with a commitment to be “well pleasing” to them. I think a very simple way to understand what that would mean to be “well pleasing” is to think about what your employer’s expectations are for you—and to try to exceed those expectations. Do they want you to show up for work on time? To be on time would be expected; but to be “well pleasing” would mean showing up five-minutes early, so that you’ve already begun when the time clock starts. Do they want you to leave your work station clean at the end of the day? To do so would be to merely fulfill the most basic expectation they have for you; but to be “well pleasing” would mean to leave it in such a way that it demonstrates you really care about how your work place makes them look. To merely “do your job” is “expected” at the most basic level; but to do it in such a way as to always exceed the expectations, and to seek to make your boss look good in the process, is to be “well pleasing” to them.
Even if the work place is predominately ‘secular’; let’s make sure that employers—even secretly—prefer to hire Christians, because they work in a way that’s “well pleasing” to them “in all things”. Let them learn, by experience, that Jesus’ bondslaves are the best people to hire. That’s something that will testify positively to them of our true Lord and Master.
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Next; Paul tells Titus to urge the believing bodnservants to witness to their masters by . . .
3. BY NOT ANSWERING-BACK TO THEM.
Paul says that they are to be characterized by “not answering back”—that is, not arguing them, or speaking against them, or talking-back to them. And if I may say so, that alone would make a Christian stand out in the work-place!
When I think of this, I also think of how people can avoid “answering back” to those in authority over them with their words; but still, nevertheless, “answer back” in subtle, non-verbal ways. There’s the roll of the eyes. There’s the shaking of the head. There’s the frustrated ‘exhale’. There’s the quietly whispered “Whatever . . .!” There’s the manner of doing the work in such a way as to make it clear you don’t agree with it. And then, of course, there’s the practice of “answering back” to them with words—but not to them directly! Some folks are expert at this! There’s the practice of letting everyone else know what you think of what you’re being asked to do. There’s the “lunchroom expert” that has an opinion of what’s wrong with management; and what they ought to do ‘if they had any sense’. We’ve all seen these practices in action. Sadly, most of us are guilty of a few of them at one time or another.
Something I learned long ago, when I worked as a graphic artist for a print shop, was to put a sign up at my work station that just had the two letters “PF” in bold type. It was a constant reminder to me to pause before beginning each new assignment, and “pray first” before getting started. Two interesting things happened. First, my boss came by and asked, “Why do you have a sign that says ‘PF’ up on your wall? What does that mean?” And so I explained to him that it meant “pray first”; and that it was a reminder to me to pray before beginning every new task he gave me—asking that I’ll do a good job with it, not make any mistakes, and help him make a good profit. He said, “You mean you pray for your work? Every job I give you?” And I said that I tried to. “Oh—so that’s what that means! ‘Pray First’. I was racking my brain trying to figure it out! I thought it meant meant ‘Payday’s Friday’”. We both had a good laugh; but even so, it was an opportunity for me to bear a witness to my boss of my true Master.
And the second thing that happened was that I learned I could not complain about a job, or answer back to my boss about it, if I was also praying about it. I found I just couldn’t ask my divine Master’s help on something and complain to my earthly boss about it at the same time.
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A fourth thing that Paul urged Titus to stress to believing bondservants was that they were to bear a positive witness to their masters . . .
4. BY NOT PILFERING FROM THEM.
Paul said that they were also to be characterized by “not pilfering” from their boss or from the company. The word 2 that Paul uses in the original language is the same word that was used of Anannias and Sapphira in Acts 5:2; where it was said that they “kept back” part of the proceeds that they said that they had given to the church. It means “to steal” or “to appropriate” something for one’s self.
In Paul’s day, slaves were quite notorious for this. They wouldn’t hesitate to help themselves to a little of this and a little of that. But there’s nothing unique about them. In our day, some corporations estimate that somewhere between 25-40% of their employees steal from them. It can come in the form of the pilfering of cash from the till, or merchandise from the racks, or supplies from the store-room. There’s the problem of the theft of “time”—that is, being on the clock, but deliberately choosing not doing the work; or of using-up the time through non-work discussions, or casual searching on the Internet, or spending time on Facebook. And there’s even the growing problem of the theft of intellectual property, and the stealing of identity information. And what’s surprising is that most people who were caught having engaged in employee theft didn’t really even think of it as theft. They justified it by saying such things as “the company owes this to me”, or “they make too much anyway”, or “no one will miss it”.
And though those who steal from their employer find ways to justify it, it’s no small matter. In 2007, it was estimated that accumulated employee theft accounted for 70% of business losses, and 40% of business failures in the United States. The Department of Commerce has estimated that employee theft costs businesses as much as 50 billion dollars yearly.
Dear brothers and sisters; as faithful slaves of Jesus Christ, do not steal from your earthly master! If you’ve “borrowed” something, you must bring it back immediately. If you’ve taken something, you must pay it back. Be honest with your time card. Don’t copy materials that you don’t have a right to. To do these sorts of things brings a very bad witness to the gospel.
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And finally—and perhaps very much related to the last item—Paul urges Titus to teach bondservants to be a good witnesses their masters . . .
5. BY SHOWING ALL GOOD FIDELITY TOWARD THEM.
He says, “showing all good fidelity . . .”, that is, “faithfulness” or “trustworthiness”. The Christian—because he or she is the bondservant of Jesus Christ—must be characterized by faithfulness and trustworthiness toward their earthly masters.
This means that an employer should have absolute confidence that his or her Christian employees will do what they are expected to do, in the way that they are expected to do it, and when it is expected to be done. No employer should ever have any worries about their Christian employee. He or she should be able to literally trust their Christian employee with their very life—let alone with the tasks they assign to them.
And by the way; note that the Christian is to “show” all good fidelity. The word “show” means “to display” something, or “to give proof” to it. It’s not enough to simply say that you’ll be honest and trustworthy. In fact, you should never even have to say it. We should be a people who have gained a reputation for their “fidelity” consistently, over a long period of time, through real-life evidence.
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Now; in verse 10, Paul gives us the reason why Titus was to urge this on the believing bondservants in the church. It was “that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.” That is, they were to make the gospel message attractive to the watching world by their actions.
And before we depart from this, let me just point one more thing out to you. Do you notice that every other time Paul has mentioned that great purpose in this passage, he puts it in the negative? In verse 5, he says that it is so that “the word of God may not be blasphemed”; and in verse 8, he says that it is so that “an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you”. But in this verse, it’s stated in a wonderfully positive way—that the bondservants in Christ “may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.” In other words, this most positive expression of the adornment of the faith is reserved for the people who are the lowest on the social scale—that is, the lowly slaves.3 Perhaps this was so that unbelieving masters would be able to say, “If the gospel of Jesus Christ can change the hearts of even slaves, then it must truly be a powerful thing! Perhaps it can even change my heart too!”4
Dear brothers and sisters, when the people of this world see how we do our work, may they find the solid evidence that we are an obedient people who are well-pleasing to their employers, who are not argumentative or dishonest, but who prove themselves to be people of good faith. May this give proof to them that we truly are the bondservants of Jesus Christ, who is truly alive, and is truly active, and is truly able to transform anyone who trusts Him.
May they thus see in us such an adornment of the gospel of Jesus Christ that they are drawn to believe it and trust Him too.
1Hupotassō; to place or arrange under; to be subordinate.
Nosphizō; to deprive or rob; in the middle voice, to appropriate.
33Fairbairn, p. 276.
44Hendrickson, p. 369.
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