Contentment at Work - 1 Timothy 6 - 11/9/08
Join me in turning to the book of 1 Timothy, chapter 6. Timothy is towards the end of the New Testament, in the second half of the Bible. We have been going through this book together. Today, we move on to chapter 6. We are going to spend the next two weeks looking at the ideas of this chapter, which are summarized in verse 6:
But godliness with contentment is great gain. We want to look these next two weeks at what it means to be both godly and content.
We saw that this is a letter from the Apostle Paul to Timothy, his young protegé. Paul left Timothy at Ephesus to straighten out the problems in the church there. Ephesus was a city filled with idol worship, sexual immorality, and false teachings. Timothy was a young man and Paul gives him this letter to encourage him to keep on going. Paul has given Timothy practical lessons about godliness -- or “god-like-ness” - what it looks like for us to live like God in day to day life; how we live a life that is pleasing to God.
And God tells us here in verse 6 that we need two things in life: godliness -- a life lived according to God’s plan, and also contentment - to be at peace with what God brings into our life. The sad fact is that many Christians try to live a godly life in the flesh -- trusting in their own strength.
Paul writes in Romans 10 about the Jews - they tried to manufacture godliness in their own strength: Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge. Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
There are many Christians today who try to set up a godly life by using all sorts of rules: I don’t drink and I don’t chew, and I don’t date the girls who do. There are many Christians who don’t watch TV, who don’t go to movies, who don’t go dancing, and any of a number of other “self-imposed” rules. And there is nothing wrong with those rules. But please understand that a whole set of legalistic rules will never make you a godly person.
Godliness starts in the heart. We need a passion for God - we need a heart that loves God and wants to follow Him in every way. That’s why when Jesus was asked, What is the greatest commandment? He gave this answer: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. [Matt 22:37]
Godliness comes from a heart that loves God. That should be our desire, our goal. But here in 1 Timothy 6, we are reminded that there is a second part: not just living for God, but contentment - being content with what God chooses to bring about in our lives. And that sometimes is where we struggle the most! And when we have both godliness and contentment - then we have found success in life - Paul says it is a “great gain.” When you have learned to be godly and be content, then you have acquired much: you are truly a rich person.
We are going to look at a couple areas where we need contentment in life. And we find the first of these here in verses 1 & 2. Let’s look at them together: 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. 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. These are the things you are to teach and urge on them.
Paul tells Timothy to pass these instructions to all who are slaves - all who are under the yoke of slavery. In the Roman empire as many as half of the citizens in the empire were slaves - possibly around 60 million slaves. This was a major part of the population. But slavery then was very different than it was in the US. Slavery was not as much a racial issue, as much as it was ethnic - making slaves out of people groups who were defeated in battle -- and financial, many became slaves to pay their debts.
Because of the large number of slaves in the Roman empire, slavery became an immediate problem in the early church, as both slaves and their masters were being converted to Christianity. It could be easy to think that this is not very relevant to us today. We don’t have sidespread open slavery in this country, nor do most of the countries of the world practice slavery. Yet this is a very relevant passage.
The principles stated here apply in employer-employee relationships or in any situation in which one is expected to work under someone else or for someone else. Many of you here this morning are "wage slaves," you work for wages. You have made an agreement to sell a portion of your time and labor to some company or employer, and you receive a certain sum of money in return. You are functioning as a servant or a slave for that period of time. You are a lot better off than the slaves of the New Testament times. You get paid for your work, but they did not get paid anything; they worked only for their room and board and a few pieces of clothing now and then. You are able to take the weekend off. At the end of the week you can say, "Thank God it's Friday," but they could not; they were slaves twenty-four hours a day for their entire lifetime, with very little hope of ever being freed again.
So the question, "What does the Lord say to slaves?" arose in the early church. And it comes home to us yet today, "What is the Lord saying to us in these relationships where we work for someone else?" What does the Bible teach us about the employee/employer relationship?
Paul tells Timothy in verse 2 - These are the things you are to teach and urge on them. He says that in regards to slaves, or today employer/employee relationships -- Timothy needs to both teach and urge, train and exhort. First, he needs to give the people information, instruction, teach them the truth. But then he needs to revisit the truth and remind the people to DO what they already know is the right thing to do. Often we already have the knowledge, but we need to be reminded to do the right thing.
So today, maybe you will learn some things for the first time; or maybe you just are being reminded so you will put these things into practice in your work. But we can all learn and grow from God’s word.
Paul is teaching about godliness and contentment; and we need both in our work. Often as Christians we work in ungodly ways; and often we are discontent. Let’s talk about the second one first.
Probably about 70-80% of workers are discontent in their jobs. They either feel trapped and don’t look for another job; or they are scared of change - they have security doing the same job year after year, even though they don’t like it; or they like the pay - even though they don’t like the work, it pays well; or there are others reasons they stay on and don’t change. But often people just live for the weekend. They punch the timeclock and just put in the time and live for the weekend when they can go to the lake or the cabin in the mountains and get away from it all. Many, many Christians live unfulfilled, discontent lives.
So here is the key to dealing with dissatisfaction with your job.
Contentment is found when you view your work as service to God. The reality is that you do not serve your boss. You don’t work for your company. They give you a paycheck, but in all reality you are serving Christ. Every part you make, every student you teach, every customer you serve, every donut you fill, every order you fill, you do for Christ.
In fact this concept of how we work is so important that Paul mentions it three separate times in his letters: here, in the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, and the book of Colossians, chapter 3. In Eph. 6, he says this: Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men.
How do you see your job? Every Monday millions of followers of Jesus Christ go to work without ever giving the slightest thought to what God thinks about what they do, about how they work. Most of us will spend more time working than doing anything else in our lives. Yet most Christians view their jobs as a necessary evil. They see their job as a kind of toil that they must experience so they can do the things they really want to do. Things like spend time with their family, go to the beach for the weekend, and so forth.
But God created us to work; labor is a part of God’s intention for us. The entrance of sin into our world made work more of a toil for sure, but work in itself is not a result of sin. Work really reflects the character of God. In the book of Genesis, Adam was told to take care of the garden long before sin entered into the equation.
We understand that it is not God’s will to free us from this wage slavery. God is pleased to develop character in us by having us work. And sometimes he allows us to suffer through trying situations, just like slavery. The story of Joseph is a beautiful picture of this for us. God allows Joseph to be a slave, and to be thrown into prison for years, so that God can have him perfectly situated to spare the whole world of Joseph’s day as God brings Joseph out of slavery and into a position of power. But we often don’t like to wait on God.
Are you dissatisfied with your job? Maybe the job isn’t the problem. Maybe you haven’t yet learned to view your job as service to God.
So, if contentment comes from viewing our work as service to God, how should we work? This answers the question of godliness. The first answer Paul gives us in verse 1: All who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect.
• Any Boss Deserves Respect! Paul goes on in verse 2 to talk about having Christian bosses, but he starts out with a general truth for any boss. Show respect! Paul has referred in 1 Timothy to showing respect to God, to showing respect to parents, to showing respect to church leaders, and now to showing respect to bosses. Any boss. The respect is not shown because of the character or actions of the boss, but to the position he or she holds.
And a quick side note on that issue: We need to show respect for the political leaders in our nation as well, and pray for them, regardless of whether we voted for them or not. I have always respected George Bush and prayed for his leadership of our country. And if and when Barack Obama is sworn is as president, I will show respect and pray for his leadership of our country as well. And I trust you will too.
We show respect not because our bosses deserve it, but we show respect because we are serving Christ, and at work the way we serve Christ is offering respect to our boss. Some of you have tyrants for bosses. You want to punch them out every day you go to work. They irritate you, they frustrate you, they curse you out and treat you unfairly; they never give you the credit you deserve; you see them as fools who don’t know what they are doing; how they ever got the job in the first place you can’t understand. Yet God says you are to "consider them worthy of full respect."
Everything is going to rest upon how you feel about them. If you think they are ding-a-lings who are unworthy of your respect, then no matter how polite you may be when they are watching, your attitude toward them will be one of bitterness and resentment; you will be constantly trying to find ways to goof off and justify it, because of their attitude toward you. But Scripture says, "regard them as worthy of respect" -- no matter what they are like, no matter how they treat you.
So, How do we show respect for our bosses? The answer: By being a good worker. Your goal as a Christian should be to be the best worker in the company. Maybe you’re not the strongest, or the smartest, definitely not the best looking, but you CAN be the best worker - the most honest, the most dependable, the most faithful, the one with the highest integrity, the one the boss can trust completely.
Once again, consider the example of Joseph. When Joseph is tempted to have sex with Potiphar’s wife, what does he say? With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No-one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?”
Potiphar is able to have complete trust in Joseph; and Joseph views his faithfulness at work as a way of obeying God, as a means of godliness. And what is the result of being a good worker? First,
Testimony for Christ - look at verse 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. We do our best work so that God’s name does not get slandered or blasphemed. How would that happen?
Easy! When someone claims to be a Christian, but is a bad worker, God gets the blame! If a non-Christian buys a car from a used car salesman, and the salesman claims to be a Christian, and he buy a lemon, he feels like saying “Oh, those Christians, they’re all alike! They’re all lying, worthless bums!”
Have you ever known a Christian who punched in late, who left early, who took extra long breaks, who worked less hard than anyone else, who took home company property, who didn’t pull his share of the work load? That leaves a bad testimony for Christ. But if you a good worker, if you seek to be the best worker in the company, you leave a refreshing attitude in the hearts and minds of the unsaved you work with. And as a result of that, we see the second result:
Opportunity for teaching - 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. If you are a lazy worker, no one wants to hear what your “religion” teaches. No one wants to know about your Jesus if your Jesus doesn’t make you a person of high character. As a result of your poor testimony as a worker, non-Christians will look down on what you try to tell them about the Bible. But if you are a good worker, they will listen to your witness, because they see it has affected your life.
So, we find our contentment in viewing our work as service to God; and we find godliness in how we work: we treat our bosses with respect, regardless of whether they are Christian or not, so we can maintain a good testimony and have a chance to share a gospel witness.
But what about those slaves in Paul’s day who had believing masters? Such a worker might well feel, "Christ has made us one, and, since we're brothers, my master should no longer treat me as a slave but as his brother. That means I have a right to special favors, a special position in the household" Some of these slaves in Ephesus were doing that. But Paul says here in verse 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. So the second thing we see is this:
• Christian Bosses Deserve Extra Respect!
Paul says any boss you have, you are to give respect. But for Christian bosses, show them even MORE respect, shown by working even harder for them than you would for a non-Christian boss. The typical temptation is to think, Oh, they’re a brother in Christ, so they won’t care if I take it a little easier. They would WANT me to take it easy! But that is FAR from the truth. Instead, God says, if you have a Christian boss, you whould work EVEN HARDER for them! I know some Christian employers who are hesitant to hire Christians because often Christians are the poorest workers.
Remember back in Jesus time the Roman soldiers could force anyone to carry their pack for up to a mile. There were limits -- they couldn’t force them to be their slave, but they could force one mile of service. But Jesus said in Matthew - If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. In other words, the first mile is required; go beyond what is required and go the extra mile. That’s where the phrase comes from - to go the extra mile -- it is a phrase that is to be a characteristic of Christians.
And especially in the work environment: if you have a Christian boss, don’t just love them as a brother in Christ, but work for them as a brother in Christ. Paul stresses the idea that we should care about their business and want to do our best so they get the best return from our labor.
The temptation is for us to be detached from our bosses, from our labor, and when quitting time comes just drop whatever we are doing and leave. But as a Christian, we should care about our employers and seek to bless and serve them, because we are working as service to our God. We should want their business to prosper.
I remember one man in my last church -- Ron Smithson -- he ran a roofing business. And during the winter months when jobs were tight, Ron always faced great turmoil because he felt a heavy burden to provide work for his men. They were not just employees, but they were friends whom he cared about.
Have you been just putting in the time at work? Have you been neglectful? Make a commitment to godliness and contentment. View you work as service to God, and do your best to be the best worker your company has. This is how we honor God. This is something we continually need to remind ourselves of.
Next week, we’re going to look at how we can be both godly and content in the area of our finances.
Let’s pray.
