A webmaster name Paul Kinsella recently performed a test in the mid-sized town of Belleville, Illinois. He dropped 100 identical wallets which each contained $2.10 in cash, a fake $50 gift certificate, ID containing the name, address and phone number of the owner, and few miscellaneous items in random spots around town. His purpose was to see how many of the people who found the wallets would return them to the rightful owner. So how many of the wallets do you think were returned to the rightful owners? [Wait for answers]. In Paul’s test 74 of the 100 wallets were returned. Commenting on the results, Mr. Kinsella posted this comment on his website:
The good news is that most people were honest - in fact, honest people out numbered dishonest people nearly 3 to 1.
Personally, I have a little different take on the results. My comment would be that the bad news is that 1 out of every 4 people is a thief.
In many ways, the culture of Paul’s day wasn’t much different than our own. I doubt that Paul had to perform a wallet test to determine that stealing was a problem. It was certainly a significant enough problem that he felt like he needed to address it in his letter to the Ephesians. Let’s read our passage out loud together:
He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
Ephesians 4:28 (NIV)
We know that many of the early followers of Jesus Christ came from among the down and out in the culture of that day. Many of these people were day laborers or skilled tradesmen whose work was seasonal. And since there was no welfare system, many of them resorted to stealing in order to provide for themselves and their families. And even though these people had become followers of Jesus Christ, they still found it hard to break away from the ethical norms of their culture.
But as Paul has already made clear in the section beginning in verse 22, when we become followers of Jesus as a result of His work in our lives, we have to take off our old way of life and put on the new so that we dress according to who we already are in Him. He’s already described how we have to put off falsehood and put on truth and how we have to put off the tolerance for sin in the body and put on righteous indignation. Paul now applies that same concept to our work.
THE CHRISTIAN WORK ETHIC:
1. Take off the old:
• Quit stealing
He who has been stealing must steal no longer...
I know that I’m probably about to lose a lot of you right now, because you’re thinking “I would never steal. I’m not going to rob a bank or even shoplift.” But let’s take a few moments to how the Bible defines stealing in a much broader sense. Let me share just a few passages and then we’ll see if we can’t make some practical application:
"If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the LORD by deceiving his neighbor about something entrusted to him or left in his care or stolen, or if he cheats him, or if he finds lost property and lies about it, or if he swears falsely, or if he commits any such sin that people may do - when he thus sins and becomes guilty, he must return what he has stolen or taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to him, or the lost property he found, or whatever it was he swore falsely about. He must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day he presents his guilt offering.
Leviticus 6:2-5 (NIV)
The wicked borrow and do not repay...
Psalm 37:21 (NIV)
"Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, ’How do we rob you?’ "In tithes and offerings.
Malachi 3:8 (NIV)
"Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s."
Matthew 22:21 (NIV)
Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,
Colossians 3:22, 23 (NIV)
That is only a small sampling of what the Bible has to say about stealing, but even from these few passages, we can identify several ways that we can be guilty of stealing. And perhaps, now the command to quit stealing will hit a little closer to home.
o Gain obtained through deception
Have you ever sold a car without disclosing to the buyer something that you knew was wrong with the vehicle?
o Poor stewardship of something entrusted to my care
Have you ever borrowed something from a neighbor and been so careless with it that you damaged it in some way? And then to top it off, you returned it without either fixing the damage or replacing that item?
o Failing to return what belongs to another
Have you ever borrowed something from someone and just failed to return it?
o Borrowing without repaying
Unfortunately, I’ve been on the losing end of this one many times, in both my personal and my business life. I’ve had people borrow money from me and then they never paid the debt in full.
o Cheating on my taxes
Need I say any more?
o Not putting in a full day’s work for a full day’s pay
Do you show up for work late, make personal phone calls and check personal email on company time, take a long lunch or leave work early? That is stealing from your employer.
o Keeping for myself what belongs to God
God makes it really clear that when we keep the tithes and offerings that rightly belong to Him, we are stealing from God Himself.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Frankly we could spend our whole time this morning just making a list of all the ways that we can steal. But given the fact that Paul is writing here in the context of what occurs in the body, there is certainly one more aspect of stealing that we must touch on:
o I steal from the body when I don’t do my part
Remember this verse from earlier in chapter 4:
From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:16 (NIV)
When I don’t do my part in the body, when I don’t fulfill the ministry that God has designed me for, then I am actually stealing from the body of Christ because I am keeping it from operating in the way that God intended. That not only impacts me, but it affects every other member of the body.
But as we’ve already seen in Paul’s letter, it’s not just enough to take off the old. So in addition to taking of the old and quit stealing, I must also...
2. Put on the new:
There is an interesting progression that Paul lays out for us here. He is going to begin with some characteristics of our work ethic that I think even most unbelievers would ascribe to. But he’ll end with a principle that is completely foreign to the thinking of our world.
Before we look at these three specific principles, let me just point out that I’m using the work here in a very broad sense. Although it applies primarily to what we might refer to as our career or our vocation, the same principles could also apply to those of you who are stay-at-home moms and do the essential work of raising your children or even to those of you who are retired and engaged in volunteer work.
• Work with the right rigor
...but must work...
The word that is translated “work” here is a word that means to work to the point that one becomes weary. And this is not an option, it is a command. So Paul is instructing his readers that they are not only to quit sealing and get a job, but that they are to work hard in that job.
Although that is a concept that I think even unbelievers would agree is right, I’m not so sure that it’s practiced all that much in our culture today. In fact, one company had to recently issue this memo to all its employees:
TO ALL EMPLOYEES
Due to increased competition and a keen desire to remain in business, we find it necessary to institute a new policy:
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
We are asking that somewhere between starting and quitting time and without infringing too much on the time usually devoted to lunch period, coffee breaks, rest periods, story telling, ticket selling, vacation planning, and the rehashing of yesterdays TV programs, that each employee endeavor to find some time that can be set aside and known as the WORK BREAK.
To some, this may seem a radical innovation, but we honestly believe the idea has great possibilities. It can conceivably be an aid to steady employment and it might also be a means of assuring regular pay checks.
While the adoption of the Work Break Plan is not compulsory, it is hoped that each employee will find enough time to give the plan a fair trial.
The Management
I think that we all chuckle uneasily at that memo because we recognize just how much the concept of hard work has been diminished in our culture. But the Bible consistently commends the value of hard work and warns against laziness. In particular the Proverbs are filled with such warnings. Let me share just one of them with you this morning:
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest - and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.
Proverbs 24:33, 34 (NIV)
Indira Ghandi once said, “My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there.”
That’s not just her grandfather’s advice. That’s God’s command to us. As followers of Jesus Christ, we need to work hard.
Unfortunately, there are also some who go clear to the other end of the spectrum and become workaholics. We don’t have time to address that issue in detail this morning, but I think these next two principles can help bring some needed balance.
• Work in the right role
...doing something useful with his own hands...
Paul begins to further clarify the kind of work ethic that followers of Jesus Christ are to put on. He writes that we are not only to work hard, but we are also to do the right kind of work. In doing so Paul begins to distinguish the work ethic of the believer from that of the world around us.
The word translated “useful” in the NIV is translated “good” in most other translations, but in this context “useful” gives us a better idea of the principle Paul is communicating here. The word that Paul uses indicates something that is profitable and beneficial to others.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we not only have a responsibility to work hard, but we must also make sure that the work we do serves the needs of others in some way. That obviously eliminates some job possibilities right away. Certainly work that is illegal, like selling drugs or armed robbery would not be appropriate for anyone, but especially a Christian. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some professions that obviously meet this standard. Certainly doctors, and of course pastors, do work that is profitable and beneficial to others.
But it seems that for much of the work that all of us engage in, whether or not it meets the standard that Paul has established for us here depends a lot on why and how we do our work a lot more than our job title or job description.
Consider the story of a doctor and a lawyer who were attending a cocktail party one evening, when the doctor was approached by a man who wanted to know how to deal with his ulcer. The doctor quickly dispensed some advice and then turned to the lawyer. “How do you handle it when you’re asked for professional advice during a social function like this?” he asked. “I just send them a bill” replied the lawyer. So the next morning the doctor went to his office and sent the ulcer-stricken man a bill for $50. Later that afternoon, he received a bill from the lawyer for $100.
I’m not sure that either the doctor or the lawyer were following Paul’s instruction here in this passage. But what I hope that Paul’s words will encourage all of us to do is to think about our work and consider whether it does in fact serve the needs of other people in a way that is profitable and beneficial for them.
• Work for the right reason
...that he may have something to share with those in need.
Up until now, Paul hasn’t really shared any principles that would have been all that radical, even in his culture. But with this last principle, he really separates the followers of Jesus Christ from the rest of the culture when it comes to our work. There are many reasons why people work, several of those are legitimate reasons according to God’s Word:
o Legitimate reasons for work:
To provide for my needs
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.
2 Thessalonians 3:10-12 (NIV)
Paul made it clear that those who were able to work were to do that in order to provide for their legitimate needs.
To provide for the needs of my family
If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
1 Timothy 5:8 (NIV)
Paul makes it clear in this passage that even unbelievers work to provide for the needs of their families, so certainly followers of Jesus Christ should live up to that minimum standard.
To serve the needs of others
We’ve already talked about this in some detail when we discussed working in the right role.
You’ll notice that all these legitimate reasons for work deal with meeting needs and not greed. That becomes even more in focus when Paul describes the ultimate reason for my work – a concept that is clearly not well accepted in our culture, but one that is required of us as followers of Christ if we’re going to put on the clothing of our new life in Christ. I think these words of Paul were just as astonishing to Paul’s readers as they are to us today.
o The ultimate reason for my work:
To have something to share with those in need
This principle runs counter to almost everything in our culture today. Rather than being encouraged to work so that we can have something to share with others, we’re told that that we need to work so that we can get more for ourselves. Jesus told a parable to illustrate the folly of the world’s mindset:
And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, ’What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ’This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." "But God said to him, ’You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
Luke 12:16-21 (NIV)
A stingy old lawyer who had been diagnosed with a terminal illness was determined to prove wrong the saying, "You can’t take it with you."
After much thought and consideration, the old ambulance-chaser finally figured out how to take at least some of his money with him when he died. He instructed his wife to go to the bank and withdraw enough money to fill two pillow cases. He then directed her to take the bags of money to the attic and leave them directly above his bed. His plan: When he passed away, he would reach out and grab the bags on his way to heaven.
Several weeks after the funeral, the deceased lawyer’s wife, up in the attic cleaning, came upon the two forgotten pillow cases stuffed with cash.
"Oh, that darned old fool," she exclaimed. "I knew he should have had me put the money in the basement."
There have been a number of studies done in recent years to track charitable giving here in the United States. Some of those studies are based on information from the IRS and some are based on surveys. But all of them consistently show that Americans give only about 2% of their after-tax income to charity. But what is even more disturbing is that the percentage actually goes down as incomes go up. I know that these statistics don’t reflect the entire story, but they certainly indicate that our nation hasn’t done a very good job of working in order to meet the needs of others.
Author Norman MacEwan certainly captured the essence of Paul’s instruction for us when he wrote these words:
“Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
The story is told that a certain farmer was always winning first prize in the corn harvest. At the beginning of the sowing season, he would always share his best seeds with the other farmers in the valley. One day they asked him: “Why do you share your best seeds? Why don’t you keep them for yourself?” He answered: “I don’t do it only to help my neighbor – I do to help myself, too. My corn will be pollinated by the bees and the wind from other fields. If the other fields have poor quality corn, sooner or later the quality of my own corn will go down.”
It is the same within the body of Christ. We are all interconnected, even though society tries to persuade us the opposite. If we are generous, we will be pollinating the seeds of goodness both within and outside of the body. And that doesn’t just help our neighbors, it helps us, too. And best of all, it also gives glory to God.
