A photographer was snapping pictures of first graders at an elementary school, making small talk to put his subjects at ease.
“What are you going to be when you grow up?” he asked one little girl.
“Tired,” she said. (J. R. Love, Rushton, Louisiana; www.PreachingToday.com)
Is that all our work gets us? Tired? For this little girl that seemed to be the only thing the adults in her life got from their work.
Tell me: Do you want to get more out of your work than just “tired?” Do you want a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment from your job? Then I invite you to turn with me to 1 Timothy 6, 1 Timothy 6, where the Bible shows us how our labor can have real significance not only for ourselves, but for the world in which we live, and for eternity.
1 Timothy 6:1 All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect, so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered. (NIV)
Now, you have to understand that this was written in a context where half of the people in the Roman Empire were slaves. In fact, there were 60 million of them! The Bible does not explicitly condemn the institution of slavery, but its teachings, wherever they have gone, have done more to undermine the institution of slavery around the world than anything else. The fact is, although there were 60 million slaves at the time these words were written in the middle of the 1st Century, by the end of the 2nd Century, slavery had widely disappeared.
Do you know why? It was because of the impact of Christian teaching and the influence of Christians throughout the Empire. You see, wherever Christianity has gone, people have learned that there is no such thing as a slave or a free person in God’s eyes. No. In Christ we are ALL one, Galatians 3:28 says. We ALL have equal value before God and should be treated with equal respect no matter what our status in society is.
Even so, the Bible does not call for Christians to demand their rights and revolt against the social order. No. The Bible calls us to a different way to change our world. Do you want to make a real difference in your world? Then start at work by treating your boss with respect.
HONOR YOUR BOSS.
Consider him worthy of full respect, verse 1 says. Value him even if he is a despot. That in fact is the Greek word for “master” in this verse. It’s the word “despot,” and it literally means slave owner or slave master.
Some of you have worked for bosses like that, haven’t you? They have been slave drivers; and because of that, you lost all respect for them.
Just a few years ago (2007), some researchers at Florida State University took a survey through which they discovered that employees who endure abuse from their bosses retaliate with poor performance. Such abuse included the silent treatment, personal put-downs, broken promises, and managers blaming their mistakes on employees to save face.
Employees with difficult bosses responded in the following ways:
• 30 percent slowed production or purposely made errors (compared to 6 percent who reported no abuse)
• 29 percent took sick days off when they were not ill (compared to 4 percent of those not abused)
• 27 percent purposely avoided their boss (compared to 4 percent of those not abused)
• 25 percent took longer breaks (compared with 7 percent of those not abused)
–Jeanna Bryner, Abused Workers Fight Back by Slacking Off, LiveScience.com, 10-8-07, at Yahoo News; www.PreachingToday.com.
Well, the Bible calls us as followers of Christ to respond differently than the rest of the world. God wants us to treat even abusive bosses with respect. Literally, He wants us to consider them worthy of “all value.”
After all, they are people created in the image of God; and when God’s grace touches them,
they are capable of reflecting His glory and His beauty. Besides that, your boss is a person for whom Christ died. God values your boss enough to purchase his or her redemption with His own Son’s shed blood on the cross. Your boss is extremely valuable to God; and if we would value our bosses as God does, then there is no way we would give them anything less than our best.
The story is told of a man who was having dinner with his parents at a stylish London restaurant. The food was superb, and the setting—complete with chandeliers, crystal and silver—was unbelievably elegant. Even so, his mother felt the need for a little salt when the main course arrived. She tried each of the three silver shakers on the table and discovered that each contained pepper. She called the waiter over only to be told that she must be mistaken. Each table always contained two dispensers of pepper and one of salt.
A second attempt, however, showed that their table did, indeed, have three peppershakers. Horrified, the waiter immediately brought her a saltshaker. When it was time for dessert, the maitre d’ appeared, insisting that because of the oversight they choose something “on the house.”
The woman protested, “It’s not that important.”
“But, Madame,” he replied in all seriousness, “what if you had been the Queen?” (Unverified story from www.Sermonnotes.com)
That’s the way God wants us ALL to approach our work. Treat even your cantankerous customers like royalty. Treat your boss like he or she is the most important person in the world.
Value those for whom you work, even if they are despots. Why? Well, verse 1 says, “Do it so you don’t discredit your witness as a Christian. Respect your boss so that God’s name, and (literally) THE teaching may not be slandered, i.e., the teaching of the Gospel.
You see, when we Christians do a poor job, then people don’t want to have anything to do with our Christ. God’s own name as well as the Christian faith itself is on the line. When we disrespect our supervisors, then our supervisors disrespect our Savior, and we become a detriment to people coming to Christ.
Some time ago, Chinese Pastor, Charles Chu, was in China with a tour group. Their tour bus was on the way to a scenic spot following behind another tour bus. It was snowing, and the road was muddy.
Suddenly the first bus skidded off the road and tipped over on its side in a rice field. Pastor Chu quickly jumped off his tour bus, ran to the overturned bus, and jumped on top. Windows were shattered, and people inside were obviously hurt. The emergency door was facing upward, so Pastor Chu grabbed the handle of the emergency door and pulled, but the door did not open. He kept pulling hard, but still it wouldn’t budge.
By this time, others had come and were pulling people out through the windows, so Pastor Chu gave up on the door and joined them. After he moved away from the door, another man went over to the door. He turned the door handle, and the door opened easily.
Pastor Chu said, “I suddenly realized why the door did not open for me: I had been standing on the door as I tried to open it. With good intentions to save lives, I had become the biggest obstacle blocking the door of rescue.” (Charles Chu; www. PreachingToday.com)
In the same way, we who want to see people put their trust in Christ, we ourselves can become the biggest obstacle to their salvation. Please, don’t stand on the Door of Life as you try to open it for others. Please, do your work well; value those for whom you work so that they too might come to know Christ as their Savior.
Russ was a crusty man who prided himself on how far he could push people until they either quit or wanted to strike out against him. As the store manager, he had a pretty good bark and held the power to bite when it served his purpose.
Harold was an easy-going guy who seemed to get along with just about everybody. When he started his job, every employee warned him about Russ. Eager to get to know Russ, Harold decided to let the quality of his work speak for itself. Harold loved Jesus a lot. And he knew the thing that would please Christ the most would be to give his best effort to Russ.
At first, Russ ignored Harold’s work. But that did not bother Harold. For in reality, Harold was not working for Russ but for the Lord.’ Over the course of time, Harold proved to be a very valuable employee. The quality of his work did not taper off. In fact, with added experience, his work actually improved.
Being a man whose chief interest was results, Russ began to notice. One day Russ said to Harold, “Harold, what is it that makes you tick?”
Seeing an open door, Harold responded, “Russ, I’m a Christian.”
Russ just scoffed. “I’ve hired and fired a bunch of Christians and they have not impressed me one little bit. What makes you so different?”
Harold thought about his question for a few moments. Then he replied, “Russ, I guess the difference is that I not only love the Lord and want to please Him, but I also want to love and please you. I figure that if I please Him, He will take care of pleasing you.”
Russ could not say a word. He just shook his head and muttered something under his breath that sounded like this, “I sure don’t understand Harold, but I’m thankful to have him.” (James Drake; www.SermonCentral.com)
Tell me: are people thankful to have you working for them?
You see, Harold honored his boss. Harold considered his boss “worthy of full respect.” Harold valued his boss; and as a result, he gave Christianity a better reputation. My friends, if you want to make a real difference in your world, then honor your boss like Harold did and so honor the Lord.
Now, this is no less important if you have a Christian boss or a Christian client. It is no less important if you work for someone who respects you as a fellow believer in Christ. Why? Because when you honor your Christian boss, you also…
HELP YOUR BROTHER.
You benefit a fellow believer as well as yourself. You take up his cause and your cause as followers of Christ.
Some believers think that if they are working for another Christian, they can be a little more careless in their work. “After all,” they think, “this is a brother in Christ and he won’t be so harsh if I mess up. He’ll forgive me, because we’re all one big happy family.” Instead, God calls us to the opposite attitude. We should work even harder for our Christian brothers and sisters, because of who they are.
1 Timothy 6:2 Those who have believing masters are not to show less respect for them because they are brothers. Instead, they are to serve them even better, because those who benefit from their service are believers, and dear to them. (NIV)
Literally, “Because they (and you) are faithful and beloved beneficiaries of the good work.” The word for “benefit” is in the middle voice, which means that the action goes both ways. In other words, both the employer and the employee receive benefit from the employee’s good work. And if you are both Christians, you both are working towards the same ends – to bring honor and glory to Jesus Christ.
I like the way Ray Stedman put it. He says, “I am always amazed at the attitudes some Christians have when they do business with other Christians. They seem to feel that the fact that they are buying something from a Christian businessman means that he ought to give them a discount or favor, or treat them in a different way than he would any other customer. Some men have told me that they hate to see a Christian come into their stores because they know they are going to be asked for some special favor. I do not know what it is about some Christians that makes them think that way, but it reveals that they are using Christianity to their own advantage.
“Paul turns this idea around. He says, rather than thinking you deserve special favors because of your Christianity, you ought to remember that these men are your brothers. You ought to be trying to find a way to bless them and go beyond what others would do in your courtesy and respect toward them. (Ray Stedman, www.SermonCentral.com)
In your work, help those Christians for whom you work, don’t be a detriment to them.
Honor your boss and help your brother. It’s the way the early Christians changed their world, and it’s the way we can change our world today.
The average American spends nearly 100,000 hours at work in a lifetime (from age 18 to age 65). So it’s the place where we can have the most impact, but only if our work speaks well of our faith in Jesus Christ.
The Texas Army National Guard has a group of special workers called riggers. Their job is to fold and pack the parachutes soldiers use when jumping from an airplane at 5,000 feet. These people are intensely dedicated to their task. The Rigger’s Creed states, “I will be sure – always!” They know jumpers need assurance that everything regarding their chutes is perfect. In the 20 minutes it takes to meticulously pack an MC1-1 military parachute, 30 folds are required. A jumper has nothing to do with the chute until they put it on before a jump. Trust in the error-free performance of the riggers is all a jumper has to rely on.
The Rigger’s Creed further states: “I will never let the idea that a piece of work is ‘good enough’ make me a potential murderer through a careless mistake or oversight, for I know there can be no compromise with perfection.” Riggers know that the parachute business is a life-or-death enterprise. Mistakes cost lives. There is no room for complacency. (Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson, Walking the Small Group Tightrope, Zondervan, 2003 p. 157-158; www.PreachingToday.com)
So it is in all our work as believers in Christ. There is no room for complacency. “Good enough” is not good enough. We need to do our very best every time, not because lives are in danger, but because the eternal souls of people are at risk. Our work can actually point people to Christ, or it can push them away from Him.
Lord, help us in everything we do to point the way to Christ. Might our work throughout the week bring honor to You. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.
