After a year’s worth of good, hard work, some employers like to provide a year-end bonus for their employees. Now, most employees appreciate those bonuses, but there are some who inwardly groan at what their employer gives them.
Just a few years ago (December 6, 2014), a reporter for the BBC, Maria Atanasov, talked about some of the “worst year-end bonuses ever.”
One example is David Hood, a Jewish vegetarian, who received a… ham as his Christmas bonus. Another year, Hood received a handwritten letter of thanks from his boss, but his name was spelled incorrectly—twice!
Jay Bazzinoti, who works in Boston on the east coast, received a sealed envelope full of coupons that were only good on the west coast of the United States.
And the best, or worst bonus, came from Steve Johnson’s boss, who after giving him a turkey for 15 years, gave him a picture of a silhouette of a turkey. Atanasov says, “It wasn't even a copy of a real turkey. It looked like the turkeys your kids make out of their handprints in kindergarten.” (Maria Atanasov, “Could these be the worst year-end bonuses ever?” BBC, 12-6-14; www.PreachingToday.com)
I hope none of you have bosses like that! But even if you do, you can experience God’s grace at work. You can enjoy God’s favor even if your boss disfavors you.
The question is: How? How can you enjoy God’s favor at work? How can you find fulfillment and joy in your labor even if some of the people with whom you work 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 tells us how to find God’s grace at work.
1 Peter 2:18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. (ESV)
Literally, to those who are crooked; i.e., unscrupulous or unjust in the way they treat their workers. God is talking about your attitude even when you work for such bosses or customers. If you want to find God’s grace at work, if you want to find fulfillment and joy in your labor, then...
SUBMIT TO YOUR BOSS.
Defer even to ruthless and unjust bosses. Obey them with respect even if they are crooked and unjustly harsh.
I know it sounds oxymoronic, but it is the only way you find strength and grace to endure and even enjoy your work. For joy in your work does not come from your external circumstances. It comes from the inner attitude of the heart as you do your work “for the Lord’s sake.”
That’s the concept that started this whole section in verse 13. There it says, “Be subject FOR THE LORD’S SAKE to every human institution…” 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 your boss even if he or she is “crooked.” Then…
EXPERIENCE GRACE.
Sense God’s favor in your work. Enjoy God’s unconditional blessings even in the midst of harsh treatment and pain.
1 Peter 2:19 “For this is a gracious thing” – literally says, “For this is grace…
1 Peter 2:19-20 For this is [grace], when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God (ESV) – or better “this is grace before God.”
To suffer unjustly is a way to experience God’s grace. Let me say it again. To suffer unjustly is a way to experience God’s grace.
In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins writes about Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was captured by the enemy during the Vietnam War. He was “the highest-ranking United States military officer in the 'Hanoi Hilton' prisoner-of-war camp.” He was tortured over 20 times during his eight-year imprisonment from 1965 to 1973, and he lived out the war without any prisoner's rights, no set release date, and no certainty as to whether he would even survive to see his family again. He shouldered the burden of command, doing everything he could to create conditions that would increase the number of prisoners who would survive unbroken, while fighting an internal war against his captors and their attempts to use the prisoners for propaganda.
“At one point, he beat himself with a stool and cut himself with a razor, deliberately disfiguring himself, so he could not be put on videotape as an example of a 'well-treated prisoner.' He exchanged secret intelligence information with his wife through their letters, knowing that discovery would mean more torture and perhaps death.”
Collins had the chance to meet Stockdale, who now walks with a limp because “his stiff leg never fully recovered from the repeated torture.” Collins asked Stockdale how he could deal with the uncertainty of his fate and the brutality of his captors when he did not know the end of the story.
“’I never lost faith in the end of the story,’ he said. ‘I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.’” (Jim Collins, Good to Great, HarperCollins, 2001; www.PreachingToday.com)
Admiral Jim Stockdale found grace under the harshest of conditions. He found what he called “the defining event of [his] life.” Now, your work may be bad, but it is not the Hanoi Hilton. So if Admiral Jim Stockdale can find grace in a North Vietnamese POW camp, you certainly can find grace at your work.
The fact is God often uses harsh conditions to do His greatest work in our lives. He uses adversity to impose His richest blessings.
Peter Marshal put it this way: It is a fact of Christian experience that life is a series of troughs and peaks. In his efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, God relies on the troughs more than the peaks. And some of his special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. (Peter Marshall, Leadership, Vol. 5, no. 2; www.PreachingToday.com)
So endure the hardship. Submit to your boss even if he or she treats you unfairly, and experience grace. More than that, submit to your boss and...
FULFILL YOUR CALLING.
Endure hardship and realize the purpose for which God saved you. Suffer unjust and unfair treatment and begin to accomplish God’s perfect plan for your life.
1 Peter 2:21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. (ESV)
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, so copy His example. Write the story of your life exactly as He lived His, and step where He stepped. So what are those steps? What is the example that Christ left for you to copy?
1 Peter 2:22-23 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. (ESV)
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. God raised Jesus from the dead and put Him in the place of all authority.
Now, that’s the example Jesus wants you to copy even on the job. When you 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 all things right in the end. Don’t trust people to make things right. Instead, trust God and love the people you with whom you work.
One of the best for the 2011 Super Bowl was a Cars.com ad titled "Go First." Tale a look. (show 2011 Cars.com Super Bowl Ad “Go First”)
In the first scene, a king wearing a crown sits at a banquet table with others feasting, laughing, and talking around him. As the king lifts a spoonful of soup from his bowl, he suddenly calls out, “Poison checker!” Presently, a man at the king's side takes a spoonful of the king's soup, pauses, gets a sour look on his face, then keels over and falls to the floor.
The ad's narrator says, “Sometimes it's better to let others go first so that we can learn from their experiences.”
In the second scene, two scientists wearing white lab coats and dark goggles sit before a control console in a laboratory. Their attention is focused on two closet-sized glass chambers. A man who is a test subject stands in one of the chambers. With a confident look on his face, he gives a thumbs-up to the two scientists, who proceed to turn a dial on the control console. The test subject disappears from the one chamber and reappears in the other chamber—only with his appendages rearranged. With the arm that is where his right leg should be, he once again signals a thumbs-up.
In the final scene, two cowboys, guns in hand, are hiding behind a rock. The one cowboy tells his partner, “See if it's clear.” The partner stands up from behind the rock and is promptly hit by three arrows in the chest and abdomen. As if nothing had happened, he kneels again and reports, “Nope, ain't clear.” (2011 Super Bowl Ad "Go First," by Cars.com; www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Qy1mE0QZk)
Jesus went first for us and died as a result, but He didn’t stay dead. Three days later, He came out of the grave alive, and now He sits at the right hand of God in the place of all authority. That’s the example Jesus set for you and me: First to suffer, THEN to experience the glory which follows; First the cross, THEN the crown. So submit to your boss and fulfill your calling, first to copy Christ’s example.
Then live to righteousness. 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, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (ESV)
You see, Jesus is not only your example; He is your Savior from sin. Jesus’ death on the cross not only saved you from the penalty of sin; it saved you from the power of sin in your everyday life. So, since you have died to sin, that is since sin no longer has any power over you, you can live for righteousness! You can do what’s just and right even if your boss is 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 you; only He didn’t survive the fall. Your own sins had gotten your life all tangled up, and you were spiraling towards hell at 100 miles an hour. Then Jesus came and bore the impact of your fall. He died on the cross because of your sins, so you could live, not just exist, but really live a life like He lived!
1 Peter 2:25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (ESV)
Jesus is not only your example. Jesus is not only your Savior. Jesus is also your Shepherd. Jesus died for you! Then three days later, He rose from the dead. And now, as your Living Shepherd, He leads you to live no longer tangled up in your sins. No! He leads you to live a righteous life 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 and so experience grace and fulfill your calling.
Kitty Anderson from Lakewood, California, describes what she learned about pregnant sheep. She says:
“Whenever a pregnant ewe goes into labor, she immediately sits down. But if she is facing downhill when she sits, she will stay in that direction, fighting against gravity to push the lamb out of the womb. If no one helps her, she will die in that position rather than simply turn around.
“So every night, the shepherd has to carefully count the pregnant sheep. When even one ewe is missing, his whole family goes out to search for her. They either bring her home or stay with her until her labor is over. If the weather is harsh, they have to build a shelter around her, while using their bodies to keep her warm.”
Anderson says, “I am like that stubborn animal. I face trials with the attitude that I will conquer the obstacle myself. All I have to do is stop for a minute, look to my Shepherd, and I will discover that I can solve my problem by simply turning around. God has a simple solution already prepared for me. I am not the solution maker, my Shepherd is.” (Kitty Anderson, Lakewood, California; www.PreachingToday.com)
Please, don’t try to solve your problems on your own. Just look to the Shepherd of your soul and discover that He already has the solution.
Jesus – your example, your Savior and your Shepherd – wants to give you a new heart and rescue you from an old life, which will only kill you in the end. 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 Sunday at church, but also through the week at work. It’s the only way to find fulfillment and joy in your work or in your life as a whole.
John Ortberg and Ruth Barton put it this way in their book, An Ordinary Day with Jesus: “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!
