David Roper’s 3-year-old grandson, Seth, in Judsonia, Arkansas, received a toy lawnmower for Christmas a few years ago, but he didn’t have the chance to use it until one hot July day when his father went out to mow the lawn and Seth volunteered to “help.” A few minutes later, though, Seth was back in the house, dragging his toy lawnmower behind him. “I'm going to mow in here,” he explained to his grandpa. “It's too hot outside!” (David L. Roper, Judsonia, Arkansas, “Lite Fare,” Christian Reader; www.PreachingToday.com)
It seems that early on, some people gain an aversion to hard work. Others of us don’t mind the work so much as the people we have to work with. Recently (in 2008), USA Today reported that when asked to identify which causes more stress at work, co-workers or workload, 51% of respondents said co-workers, while 49% said workload. When asked if they work with one or more annoying co-workers, 86% of respondents said yes. (USA Today Snapshots, www.PreachingToday.com)
Perhaps that explains an earlier Gallup poll which found that 55% of employees have no enthusiasm for their work. Gallup described them as “not engaged.” That same study found that nearly 1 in 5 (19%) are so uninterested or negative about their jobs that they poison the workplace to the point that their companies would be better off without them. (USA Today, 5-10-2001; www.PreachingToday.com)
Spencer Johnson, author of Who Moved My Cheese? once said that “the only long-lasting motivation [for work] comes from employees who bring it to work” themselves. (USA Today, 5-10-01; www.PreachingToday. com)
The question I want us to explore this morning is: What must we bring to our work to become engaged and enthusiastic about it? What must we bring to our work to stay motivated for the long haul? What must we bring to our work to find fulfillment and joy in our labor even if some of the people we work with are a bit obnoxious?
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 1 Peter 2, 1 Peter 2, where the Bible addresses those who work under “harsh” circumstances.
1 Peter 2:18 Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. (NIV)
Literally, to those who are crooked; i.e., unscrupulous or unjust in the way they treat their workers. God is talking about our attitude even when we work for such bosses or customers. If we want to become engaged and enthusiastic about our work, then we must bring to our work an attitude of submission and respect. If we want to find fulfillment and joy in our labor, then we must…
SUBMIT EVEN TO RUTHLESS AND UNJUST BOSSES.
We must obey with respect even those who are crooked and unjustly harsh. I know it sounds oxymoronic, but it is the only way we can stay motivated for the long haul.
You see, joy in our work does not come from our external circumstances. It comes from the inner attitude of the heart as we do our work “for the Lord’s sake.” That’s the concept that started this whole section in verse 13. There it says, “Submit yourselves FOR THE LORD’S SAKE to every authority…”
In other words, don’t see yourself working for your boss; see yourself working for the Lord. For, as a believer, you are working for a much bigger purpose than to make a miserable boss or customer happy. You are working to bring honor and glory to the Lord, who appreciates even cups of cold water given in His name. See God behind your boss, and it will help you immensely. Submit to the boss even if he is “crooked.” Then we will…
EXPERIENCE GRACE.
Then we will sense the favor of God’s presence. Then we will encounter God’s unconditional blessings even in the midst of our suffering and pain.
1 Peter 2:19-20 For it is commendable [In the original text this literally says, “For this is grace] if a man bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. (NIV)
Again, literally the text says, “This is grace before God.” To suffer unjustly is a way to experience God’s grace. Did you hear me? Let me say it again. To suffer unjustly is a way to experience God’s grace.
In his book, A Place for Skeptics, Scott Larson tells the story of a woman who along with her husband were missionaries in Western Europe. There, she began to have pain in her back, which eventually became so unbearable that she could no longer function, even with muscle relaxants. X-rays revealed a tumor the size of a grapefruit that had attached itself to her spinal cord. Immediate surgery was called for, but the operation was considered somewhat routine and not a particularly high risk procedure.
However, something went wrong. Annette awakened from the surgery paralyzed from the neck down and in constant, excruciating pain. Not long afterward, she, her husband, and their five children returned to the United States where she could get better care.
Several years after that, Annette's husband invited Scott Larson to their home for Sunday dinner. He wasn't sure what to expect from his visit. Would she be bed-bound? Would they only be able to communicate a few minutes before she needed rest?
Instead, Scott encountered a beautifully dressed woman whose outward expression revealed little of her physical pain. During his five-hour visit, Annette served as a gracious hostess who shared her story with honesty. She told how when she first came out of the surgery, she and everyone else focused on praying for God to heal her. When that didn't happen and she was confined to 24-hour care at home, she became very depressed. Most people stopped connecting with her. Their lives moved on while Annette's came to a screeching halt. Bible College and missionary training had not equipped her to deal with a life tied to a wheelchair and filled with constant pain.
“I felt that I was left with three choices,” said Annette. “To kill myself and end the unbearable suffering for all of us; to abandon my faith in God and merely exist on painkillers; or to put my energies to discovering God in the midst of all of this suffering.”
Annette's face beamed. “I chose the third,” she said. “And as I began slowly reading the Bible again through the lens of pain and suffering, what I saw was a God who was familiar with both. I thought my pain and suffering had taken me to a place where God could never be found; instead, it was a place where he became more real to me than I had ever known him to be.” (Scott Larson, A Place for Skeptics, Regal, 2005; www.PreachingToday.com)
Annette chose to be “conscious of God” in her pain; and in that consciousness, she experienced grace. So let’s submit to our employers, even if they do treat us unfairly. For then we too will experience grace. But more than that, we will also…
FULFILL OUR CALLING.
When we endure unjust and unfair treatment on the job, we begin to realize the purpose for which God saved us; and we begin to accomplish God’s perfect plan for our lives.
1 Peter 2:21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. (NIV)
The word for “example” is literally the word “under-writing” and was used by teachers in Jesus’ day to teach children how to write their ABC’s. The teacher would write out the letters and the students would have to copy or trace those letters exactly as written under the teacher’s letters – hence “under-writing.”
In the same way, Christ lived His life before us, and now He calls us to copy His example. He calls us to write the story of our lives exactly as He lived His, to step where He stepped. So then we ask the question: What are those steps? What is the example that Christ left for us to copy?
1 Peter 2:22-23 “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. (NIV)
Instead of retaliating, Jesus cried from the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” Then right before He died, He said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:34,46). Even though Jesus was treated unfairly here on this earth, He didn’t seek revenge. Instead, He committed Himself to God who did treat Him fairly.
Now, that’s the example Jesus wants us to copy even on the job. When we are treated unfairly, don’t seek revenge by disregarding your boss; instead, do what your boss asks you to do anyway, and trust your situation to God who will make things right in the end. Don’t trust people to make things right. Instead, trust God and love the people you work with.
Fleming Rutledge, in His book, The Undoing of Death, talks about a Sally, a friend of his, who was falsely suspected of shoplifting at an upscale department store. Rutledge writes:
The store in question is fashionable and elegant. Sally herself is fashionable and elegant, the epitome of aristocratic dignity. She bought an expensive blouse at the store and took it with her in a shopping bag. Unfortunately, the saleswoman had forgotten to remove the white plastic device that was attached to the blouse. When Sally tried to go through the door, the alarms went off and the security forces pounced upon her. “Oh, my dear, how horrible for you!” cried her friends, listening to the story… “Did you have identification? Did you call your lawyer? Did you ask to see the president of the store?”
Sally answered, “That wasn't a problem. I didn't have any trouble establishing who I was. That wasn't the bad part. The really bad part was the feeling of being treated like a common criminal!”
Well, that’s a little bit like what Jesus went through for us on the cross. He was arrested like a common criminal, exhibited to the public like a common criminal, and executed like a common criminal. (Fleming Rutledge, The Undoing of Death, Eerdmans, 2002, pp. 117-118; www.PreachingToday.com)
But instead of calling his lawyer or fire down from heaven, He endured the cross, despised its shame, and now He sits in the place of all authority at the right hand of God Himself.
This is the life to which we are called – 1st to suffer, THEN to experience the glory which follows; 1st the cross, THEN the crown. God calls us to follow Christ’s example. But more than that…
God calls us to live for righteousness. He calls us to do what’s right even if everybody else is doing what’s wrong.
1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. (NIV)
You see, Jesus is not only our example; He is our Savior from sin. Jesus’ death on the cross not only saved us from the penalty of sin; it saved us from the power of sin in our everyday lives. And since we have died to sin, that is since sin no longer has any power over us, now we can live for righteousness! Now we can do what’s just and right even if our bosses are unjust and wrong.
For her 54th birthday, Shirley Dygert of Teague, Texas, decided she needed some more excitement in her life. So this grandmother of three signed up for her first lesson to leap out of a plane from roughly thirteen-thousand feet.
When the big day arrived, Shirley suited up for her jump and strapped herself to her instructor, Dave Hartsock, in order to do a tandem dive. After jumping from the plane, instructor and student pulled the rip cord. The rip cord worked properly, but the parachute became tangled and only opened partially. Of course skydivers also carry a reserve parachute for such emergencies. Unfortunately, the primary parachute had wrapped itself around the release point for the reserve parachute. As Dave Hartsock tried to untangle the two parachutes, he realized they were running out of time. Later, Shirley Dygert said, “I thought… this is how I'm going to die. I thought, God help us.”
Spiraling toward the ground at a 40 mph, Hartsock gave Shirley a strange command: Lift up your feet. Although she didn't understand the request, she obeyed her instructor. Hartsock then rotated his body under hers in order to bear the impact of their landing. Dave Hartsock was going to be Shirley Dygert's cushion. “I could hardly believe it,” Dygert said. “He broke my fall.”
Shirley Dygert walked away from the impact relatively uninjured. Dave Hartsock survived the fall, but now, except for some movement in his right arm, he's paralyzed from the neck down. In an interview, Hartsock told CBS News, “People keep telling me that it was a heroic thing to do. In my opinion it was just the right thing to do. I mean, I was the one completely responsible for her safety.” (Steve Hartman, “Heroic Skydiving Instructor Saves Life,” CBS News—Assignment America, 5-10-10; www.PreachingToday.com)
Hartsock was willing to die so that Shirley could live. In a sense, that’s what Jesus did for us; only He didn’t survive the fall. Our own sins had gotten our lives all tangled up, and we were spiraling towards hell at 100 miles an hour. Then Jesus came and bore the impact of our fall. He died on the cross because of our sins, so we could live, not just so we could exist, but so we could really live a life like He lived!
1 Peter 2:25 For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (NIV)
Jesus is not only our example. Jesus is not only our Savior. Jesus is also our Shepherd. Jesus died for us! Then three days later, He rose from the dead. And now as our Living Shepherd, He leads us to live no longer tangled up in our sins, but to live righteous lives even in a difficult workplace.
So bring to your work an attitude of submission and respect, and do what’s right even if your boss is doing what’s wrong. Submit even to a ruthless and unjust boss. For this is how we experience grace, and this is how we fulfill our calling.
Just last month (April 25, 2011), Newsweek magazine featured an article about Arnold Schwarzenegger, movie star and former governor of California. This was three weeks before he admitted that his 25-year marriage was breaking up due to his extra-marital affair.
In the article, Schwarzenegger, who is 63 years old, said, “I feel terrific about where I am in my life, when I look back at what I've accomplished, but I feel [horrible] when I look at myself in the mirror. I'm not competing,” he says. “I'm not ripping off my shirt and trying to sell the body, but when I stand in front of a mirror and really look, I wonder: What the [heck] happened here? What a beating!”
Thirteen years ago, when he was 50, Schwarzenegger had surgery to replace a defective aortic valve… At some point in the next several years the valve will wear out, and surgeons will split his chest open to install a new one. “It does quite a number on you for quite some time,” Schwarzenegger confesses, “because even though you're strong willed, you know from now on you're damaged goods.” He adds with a chuckle: “As with most things, I live in denial.” (Lloyd Grove, “Arnold's Wild Road Trip,” Newsweek, 4-25-11; www.PreachingToday.com)
How telling, since three weeks later we all found out about his 10-year-old affair with a household servant. You see, no matter how good we look on the outside, inside we ALL have defective hearts and we're ALL damaged goods in desperate need of a Savior. All we like sheep have gone astray, the Bible says. But Jesus – our example, our Savior and our Shepherd – He wants to give us a new heart and deliver us from an old life which only made us feel horrible.
Please, trust Him with your life today. Give yourself over to the Only One who will treat you right, and let Him save you from your sins. Then live for Him not only on the weekend at church, but also through the week at work. It’s the only way we find fulfillment and joy in our work or in our lives as a whole.
I like the way John Ortberg and Ruth Barton put it in their book, An Ordinary Day with Jesus. They said, “Doing the right work with the right attitude and the right spirit is immensely important. Because the most important thing you bring home from work is not your paycheck. The most important thing you bring home from work is you.” (John Ortberg and Ruth Haley Barton, An Ordinary Day with Jesus, Zondervan, 2001; www.Preaching Today.com)
You have to live with yourself, and the only way you can live with yourself is if you’re living and working for the Lord, even on the job!
