Your Job and You #2

There is no such thing as a truly converted person who isn't instantly changed in all of his relationships. The whole perspective changes.

Conversion, salvation, true Christianity changes everything. Whether it's a Wall Street executive or a janitor, God's Word calls Christians to a high standard at work. And on this edition of The Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green looks more closely at your job and you.

Hello, I'm Bill Wright. We're continuing our series, Titus, God's Glorious Plan of Grace. Last time, Don gave us the first two of four main points to keep in mind. God calls you to a life of submission under the authority of the leader in your workplace, and you should seek to please your boss rather than argue with him or her.

Today, we'll turn to the motivations that should guide us and how to handle the challenges that are sure to arise. So turn to Titus chapter 2 as we join Don Green now in The Truth Pulpit. Being a Christian does not exempt you from the obligations that society has in its relationships. The fact that you are a Christian does not somehow exempt you from the responsibilities of being a good employee to your employer. Rather, to the contrary, it calls you to an even higher standard than the world around you.

It calls you to be faithful in that, and not only to be faithful, but to have an attitude that is worthy of the love that you have for Christ. And I realize, having lived through it over the course of 30 years in the workplace, I realize that that means that there's going to be times where you're submitting, where you're obeying, where you're maintaining a good attitude, when you think the dumbest things are going on around you. It is not your place. It is not your place when you are one under authority to substitute your judgment for that of your employer.

The Bible forbids rebellious slaves. Christians should not be a back-talking, sarcastic employer. Employee shouldn't be a back-talking, sarcastic employer either, but that's for another passage.

And let's just be real practical. If you receive a bad review in your employment, bad performance review, if your employer tells you that your relationships are sour and you're hard to work with, that should be a time, that moment of receiving that review and hearing that news, is not another opportunity for you to talk back and defend yourself. It's an opportunity for you to repent. God is speaking to you through your employer saying, your life is not conforming to scripture, you need to change. Even if your job is beyond your skill level, you can still be gracious in the midst of it. You can still be kind and pleasant to work with. You can still do what you're told, even if you sometimes fail at what you're asked to do. Now, with all of that said, let me say this, which applies to family relationships as well as to this work situation. It is proper within that spirit of submission, it is proper within that spirit of obedience for an employee to make an appeal to his boss. It's proper to say, but boss, have you considered this? Have you thought about this? Can I explain something to you that might affect your decision?

That is all perfectly appropriate. Submission does not mean simply blind obedience and an absolutely shut mouth. It does mean that you're always seeking the best interest of your employer. And if you're making an appeal like that, your boss should have a sense that you're seeking his interest, not your own, in what is said. And so you can make an appeal, boss, have you considered this?

Can I tell you this? Could we reconsider this? That's all proper and appropriate within the sphere of employment. And I would go on to say that the longer that you have been in your job, the more responsibility that you have, the more that you're established in the position, the greater the liberty is to make those kinds of appeals. But if you're new, if you're the low man on the totem pole, you need to realize that the chief executive officer probably isn't looking for you to redraft the marketing plan for the $50 million company that you work with.

Understand your position and just deal with your boss in a gracious way that's looking to put his interest first. But if you appeal and he says no, then you need to comply even if you think it is incorrect, because Christ does not call you to substitute your judgment for the one that has authority over you. Otherwise submission would be meaningless. There's no need to submit in one sense with people that you agree with. The call to submit comes when it seems unfair, when it seems like you're being taken advantage of, when you differ in judgment, once the person in authority has declared and made their will known, that's when you as a Christian say, okay, I'm with you.

I'll follow. That's what it means to be well-pleasing and not argumentative. Turn back to Titus chapter 2. We see the specific application that you should please your boss, not argue with him. And remembering the context of what we saw in Ephesians, that this is a sincere pleasing as unto Christ. There's another aspect to it here, one that reminded me of something in my past.

The specific application includes this principle. Don't steal, but serve. Don't steal, but serve. Look at verse 10 with me. Paul said be well-pleasing, not argumentative.

He continues to expand his understanding of the application that he wants Christians to make. And he says, not pilfering, but showing all good faith. Not pilfering, but showing all good faith.

You submit in part by giving your best to your job day by day and consciously not taking what does not belong to you. That word for pilfering has the idea of petty theft. And in the context of first century slavery, this is why that statement was important. Slaves often had supervisory control over their master's possessions. They often had access to his goods or his money.

Not all of them did, of course, but some of the slaves did. And it wasn't uncommon, just as it's not uncommon today, to skim just a little bit off the top and stick it in your pocket on the assumption that your master's not going to miss it anyway. You take something for yourself that's actually been entrusted to your care for someone else's good.

That's just not only thievery, that's a gross violation of trust. And so Paul is saying don't be like that. Don't take things that don't belong to you. This just sounds like so elementary, doesn't it?

But we know that this is a problem. That even the smallest things are not things that we're to appropriate for ourselves when they belong to our masters. And that principle, I don't even know if I had this passage in mind many, many years ago, but this principle affected me as a new Christian. Before I was a Christian, I worked at a drug store for many years, a couple of different locations. And I was a cashier at the drug store. And as a cashier, in front of us were all kinds of things to eat, chips and candy and all that stuff. And I wasn't a Christian at the time, but it wasn't uncommon for me to just go over and say, there's plenty here for everybody else, I think I'll just have one while things are slow.

So you eat some chips, you eat some candy over a while, that starts to accumulate. Well, no one ever challenged me on it. But I was a thief. I had stolen from my employer.

So when I became a Christian, years later, after the fact, after I was out of the employment of that drug store and doing something else, I was under conviction of that. I had pilfered. And so I wrote to my former boss. And I said, the spirit of my letter was, hey, boss, when I used to work for you, I took things.

I ate food off the counter without paying for it. And I've become a Christian now, and I'm sorry. And here's a check in a rough estimate to try to compensate the company for what I took.

I never heard back from him, except that I know he deposited the check because the check came back through. But here's what I want you to see, is that as you're thinking about your own life and you're thinking about things as a Christian, it's not about my story. It's simply this, that if you've been guilty of that, it's more than appropriate for you to make restitution. You shouldn't continue to live with the fruits of what you've taken. It's appropriate for you to make restitution and to return the fruit, the benefit of your wrongdoing.

The issue is your integrity, and you can't put a price on that. So don't steal. Be positive.

Serve. Look at verse 10, where it says, But showing all good faith, being faithful, being trustworthy. Your boss should learn, if you're a Christian, your boss should learn over time that you are one that he can trust. That your faithfulness is good.

That he can rely on you. Yes, you please your boss, but your ultimate goal is that you're pleasing Christ and living according to the way that he's called us to do. Calling you to live after the pattern, after the example that he left us behind. Now, go back to Titus.

Titus 2, for our third point this morning. Why bother with all of this? Why bother? Why bother? It's because you love Christ. It's because you love the truth that saved you, and you want it to look as good as possible in the eyes of those who see.

That's why. That brings us to point number three, the compelling motivation. Why would you do this? Why would you live this way? Why would you not assert your rights every chance that you can? Why not engage arguments with your employer? Why?

Here's why. Verse 10, it's really not about you. We don't use the gospel. We don't use Christ to excuse our bad behavior and demand favors and understanding when we're bad employees.

To the contrary, we say, I can't be like that. I must be good, faithful, trustworthy, dependable, because that's what makes Christ look good. A lazy worker makes Christ look bad. A lazy Christian worker, a lazy professing Christian worker. And so our collective sense here in this room this morning, our collective commitment should be that we're going to be a people that are marked out by faithful excellence in what we do.

And I thank God that so many of you already are like that. All I can do and say to you is excel still more, because that's what God calls us to. Now, let's close with considering a couple of challenging situations. Point number four, the challenging situations.

The challenging situations. Question number one, what if my boss is really unfair? He's just really unkind. He is just a pain in the neck.

I agree with everything you said, but if you knew what I was living with, you might say something different. 1 Peter chapter 2. What if your boss is unfair? Chapter 2 verse 18 of 1 Peter. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. For this finds favor if, for the sake of conscience toward God, a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.

Yeah, you may be being treated unjustly, but that doesn't change the response. If you're suffering unjustly, you look to Christ. Look at verse 19. This finds favor if, for the sake of conscience toward God, a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly.

Verse 20. For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? If you sin and are harshly treated, you're merely receiving the just deserts of your behavior is his point.

But he goes on and says in verse 20, but if when you do what is right and suffer for it, you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God. Look, I understand you have a sense of right and wrong. You have a sense that this really is unfair. This really is unjust.

What's happening here isn't right. You're still called to submit to that as long as you're in that employment, and you trust God to bless you for being submissive and obedient to him in the midst of that injustice, and you trust that in time he'll settle the score and make it right. But you don't raise up in rebellion against your boss. You do what's right, and if you suffer, you trust God for it and know that he'll bless you in the end.

Say, I don't know, I don't know, I don't like that. Well, keep reading in verse 21. You see, when you have a Christological focus in life, it does a lot to silence your objections and quiet your heart. Verse 21, it's a shame in some ways that there's sometimes a paragraph break between verses 20 and 21 because he's continuing to talk about the workplace relationship. Verse 21, for, this builds on what he just said, for you have been called for this purpose since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in his steps, who committed no sin nor was any deceit found in his mouth. And while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously. That's all a statement about illustrating, responding to an unfair boss. And he goes on and talks that Christ bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his wounds you were healed. Yeah, it's unjust.

Okay, you're a Christian. You're following one who was, in a sense, I'm using this word figuratively, obviously, who was baptized into injustice. Christ was completely immersed into injustice. It was totally wrong for him to be spat upon. It was totally wrong for him to be crucified. That was the ultimate act of injustice that will ever be seen in the world. The creatures crucify their Creator.

Their sinless Creator. That's unjust. And you and I need to put our own little injustices that we suffer in that perspective.

Christ, the injustice that you suffered was so far greater than mine. And you're the one who calls me to submit to it, just like you did, without reviling, without threatening, saying, I'm going to do this or that if this continues on. No. No.

No. You cry out to God. You say, God, this is hard. But I submit to you. And therefore, as your word says, I'll submit to my boss. And I'll just trust you to work it out in time. Don't be surprised if he leaves you there for years in that condition. Ten, fifteen, twenty years maybe. That's okay.

Trust him to work it out in the long term. Maybe, maybe it takes you and me that much time to learn the lesson. Maybe we're slower students than we think we are.

Maybe we're not as righteous and godly as we think we are, and we need the pressure of adversity to cause the sinfulness to squirt out so it can be wiped away. Maybe. You think that's possible? You think it's possible that maybe you're more sinful than you realize and that God's using that adversity to shape you into who he wants you to be?

It's possible. Be patient. Remember Christ and submit. You see, your goal and your injustice, I've got to say this, beloved, the goal for you, the goal for your heart, the aim of the desires should be not to get what you want in your situation, rather your goal should be to develop the patient endurance in your character that's described here in this passage. The goal is for you to become a patient, enduring Christian, not to get instant relief from the thing that you want. I know that's hard.

I've been there a long time. But the Lord is faithful, and Christ is worthy of this preeminent act of sacrifice from you. Second challenging situation. It's a different kind of temptation. What if my boss is unfair? We answered that from 1 Peter 2.

Here's a second one. What if my boss is a Christian? That actually brings a different kind of temptation that you need to be aware of and avoid. You're tempted to slack off because you know that your boss is not as likely to crack down on you. He's a Christian.

You've seen him be gracious, and you're tempted to slack off. Scripture says if you have a Christian boss, you should work all the harder and treat him with even greater respect. Look at 1 Timothy 6, and we'll close with this. 1 Timothy 6, verse 1. All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as what? As worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against.

You see it again? Bad Christian employees discredit the gospel. They bring shame on the gospel with the way they conduct themselves. He goes on in verse 2 and addresses this question. What about a Christian boss? He says those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they are brethren, but must serve them all the more because those who partake of the benefit are believers and beloved. Teach and preach these principles. Here's the bottom line, beloved.

I'm closing with this. We believe in the providence of God here. We believe that God orchestrates our circumstances to accomplish his purposes in our lives, just like he orchestrates the entire universe and moves it all to accomplish his end, so he does it in the lives of individual Christians as well.

Beloved, the starting point for your difficult work situation is to realize that God in his providence has orchestrated this for you. This is what God has for you in life right now, and he has given you enough in the Scriptures for what he wants from you in way of response to it. It's a challenge.

It was a challenge for those martyrs to spill their blood over the Bibles that they were trying to protect. There's all kinds of challenges. We're not going to have perfection. We expect difficulties in this life.

Man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward, Job 5 says. When you see this coming into your life, especially in the workplace, don't be bitter about it. Don't rebel against it. Just realize, oh, the providential stage on which I'm to glorify Christ.

Oh, another example that the life to come is going to be better than the life here. Oh, yeah, Christ already did this in a greater sense, and he did it on my behalf. Lord, I humble myself before you and give you my heart in this situation, and I will live as you've told me to do as a grateful recipient of the benefits of your shed blood. We pray in Christ's name.

Amen. Living a life of submission is a humbling experience, but it's a reflection of the great Lord we serve. We pray you'll keep that in mind as you serve God in your work and profession. Pastor Don Green will continue our series, Titus, God's Glorious Plan of Grace, on our next broadcast. So be sure to join us then here on The Truth Pulpit. Meanwhile, we invite you to visit our website, thetruthpulpit.com. There you can download podcasts or find out how to receive CD copies of Don's radio messages for your personal study library. And if you want to go even more in depth, you'll also find the link, Follow Don's Pulpit. That'll take you to Don's full-length weekly sermons, not subject to the time editing needed for radio broadcasts. And if you're in the Cincinnati area, check out the service times for Truth Community Church, also on our website, and plan a visit. We'd love to welcome you. Now for Don Green, I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time for more from The Truth Pulpit.