How to be a Great Worker
Eph.6:5-9 (NIV)
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.
7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men,
8 because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.
9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
A. Recognizing our problems
Life is a struggle, struggle in relationships with each other, wives, husbands, kids, work. The BIble does not treat life as an illusion, it addresses reality.
Is work-life a struggle?
Our current climate: Story of g-man who found genie who granted him 3 wishes and with the last wish being “I wish to be in a job where I don’t have to work anymore.” Poof! he is back at his desk in a government job. Like this story, it seems as I talk with people, we wish we don’t have to go to work. Look around, there seems to be an abundance of that feeling. Almost everywhere there’s labor unrest. Workers of every stripe from people who are at McDonalds to doctors to nurses to assembly line workers … no one is really happy. With so many pressures from public sector cuts, softwood dispute, an economy that’s slow here in comparison with the rest of Canada. How can we be great workers in a climate like this? If Barney the dinosaur lives here, he will have a hard time singing his songs.
There is not much trust in the workplace. This past week: as reported in USA TODAY May 14, 2002, “Bosses crack down on expense reports” - employers are increasingly scrutinizing workers’ phone calls, corporate credit card charges and expense reports. Why? Because of the many abuses by their employees. Is there not quite a bit of tussling between employers and employees? According to the USA Today article, “Workers have used corporate credit cards for online porn visits, home stereo system and a car engine.” A former secretary at New York-based Bear Stearns pleaded guilty this year to using erasable ink to cheat her boss out of about $800,000. Anamarie Giambrone allegedly wrote out personal checks on a managing director’s behalf, then erased the payee’s name with the trick pen. She faces two to six years in prison.
Nearly 45% of employers monitor the time that workers spend on the phone and the numbers that are called, according to an American Management Association study. That’s up from 35% in 1994. Businesses will lose an estimated 6% of revenue — $600 billion this year — due to employee fraud and abuse, according to an April report by the Austin-based Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. "It’s hard to look at the people you work with as thieves, but losses in small businesses can be catastrophic," says Joseph Wells, association chairman. "Some have had to close their doors." The whole Enron fiasco pours more oil into the fire into the issue of “can we trust our bosses”. Bosses workers everyone is feeling big-time pressure.
Then there is work-life balance. In a recent report by Linda Duxbury of Carleton University’s School Of Business. Ottawa, and Chris Higgins of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, London, entitled “Work-Life Balance in the New Millennium: Where are We? Where Do we need to Go?,” the authors claimed that many Canadians are finding it very difficult to balance their roles in life as employer, employee, parent and spouse. This shows up in increased workloads, more stress, declining physical and mental health, increased absenteeism, lower job satisfaction and lower commitment to employers. Duxbury says: “Our data demonstrate that the inability to balance work and family life is everyone’s problem. It hurts the employer, the employee, the employee’s colleagues, the employee’s family and Canadian society as a whole.” Estimated absenteeism from work-life conflict costs Canadian firms almost $3 billion a year, which results in extra visits to the doctor adding $ 425million annually to the cost of health care.
And what about all the office politics, the personality clashes, the dangerous jobs such as police and firemen where your life could be on the line.
Is our work-life a struggle? How can anyone be a great worker in an environment like this? this whole thing of being a great worker is a very live issue in our day and time. If things aren’t working well in the work world it can be damaging to our lives and if we buy into Linda Duxbury’s conclusion, all of Canada, all of life will be affected in one way or another.
Perhaps you have thought about it a lot, or maybe not, just give the paycheck that’s all. But much more than money is lost when we become less than great workers, we lose out on life… We become negative, cynical, there is a loss of passion, it affects our family, relationships, how we view the world, it affects our whole life. Was it any different in the world in which our Bible text was written? Come with me to their world … it was even worst, it was a world driven by slave labor…
Historical Context:
1. Everyday-life: Experts seem to agree that one in three or 1/3 of the population of Rome during the time was a slave - common everyday life occurrence. They do all kinds of labor intensive jobs, working in mines, fields, and some are doctors, teachers… Hence, the economy is dependent on slave labor.
2. Generally, in Bible times, slaves were not treated well by their masters. Once a person was classified as a slave the person’s rights were diminished immensely. The slave was not a person but a property, or a thing of its master, and the slave had no lawful place other than to benefit the master. This is clearly seen in the Roman statesman Cato who said, “Old slaves should be thrown on a dump, and when a slave is ill, do not feed him anything. It is not worth your money. Take sick slaves and throw them away because they are nothing but ineffective tools.” Since the slave was regarded as the property of the master, a master could then inflict upon the slave as much or as little abuse as he or she found necessary. Being property, a master also owned everything the slave acquired while serving this master,
So we gotta remember these are the prevailing attitudes and workplace conditions of the day. They were a lot worse, especially when we know that many slaves are acquired in violence, such being POWs or being sold by your family, or kidnapped… Work it seems have always been a struggle… And it was ever since Adam was removed from the Garden of Eden in Gen.3:17-19
"Cursed is the ground because of you; through PAINFUL TOIL you will eat of it all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the SWEAT OF YOUR BROW you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."
As a result of living in world that is not heaven, we will struggle… Life will not give us break. There will be unrelenting toil until we die. Bad news! Can you sense what Paul writes about in these passages of the Bible is painful, it stings like a scorpion sting, work will be a struggle. But that was not how it has always been. Genesis 1 made it clear that God made peiople in His image, and they were working as Genesis 2 elaborated on the seventh day, after God completed all his work of creation. You see, that was paradise, Eden, a garden pf delight, a place of rest, i.e. work was restful. Work was once enjoyable, creative (what a job naming all the animals)? But sin made work a toil, a struggle. Can we get back to the place where work is great, so we can be great workers? How does God make a difference?
B. OBEY ONE
“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.”
Key thought here: obeying Christ…
Obey One, Cannot-Be, that cannot be connected with obeying earthly masters/bosses. Wait a minute. The master who beat me up, abused me, pays me no overtime. That’s a tall order! That stinks! Have a heart! Gotta remember who Paul wrote to here, slaves! Writing to folks who feel trapped, no rights, perhaps feel little love, respect as humans, he says… submit to their masters – “obey with sincerity of heart” which is in line with the teaching of 5:21 which teaches submission to one another. That is about as hard to do as teaching a one year old to eat his peas. You would more likely have the peas thrown back at you.
Obeying Christ has a lot do with who I understand Christ to be… Is He worth obeying?
Bit of review of Eph.1
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (Christ is more than willing to give us all of heaven)
4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love (He chose us in love as he created this world, he thought about us)
5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- ( he takes pleasure that we are to be included in his beloved family)
6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace (he is wiping the slate clean, forgiven of all sin)
Just this passage alone tells us how much God is for us through Christ, is He worth obeying, the God who loves us, gives us heaven, thinks about us, pleasures in us, forgives our sins, rescues us from a world of toil and struggle to a new world bequeathed to us as sons of God through Jesus?
Wanna have a great work-life? Think about Jesus first, obey Him… Let the message of Christ sink it, let the words of God sink it, let God move your heart…
C. CHANGED HEARTS
Key thought here: obeying Christ then is about inner change brought about by the Good News
Let Jesus be the one who fills your longings for love, respect, acceptance in world of struggle and toil, in world where you fail. Jesus is only person in the world who can take all your personal failings and say to you, it does not count against you. Your record of sins is expunged. There are no reprimands, punishment. For on the cross, Jesus’ blood is the cleaning agent, the Javex, the bleach, that will take your dirty laundry, and make it all clean and germ free. Instead of letting the bottle of alcohol or drugs soothe your feelings after a hard day, let your relationship, your worship life of Jesus be the resource you turn to.
Maybe your boss don’t treat u right, workplace stinks. That’s the real world of the slaves in Ephesians, yet Paul is saying “cling to Jesus, obey Him, get an inner change cos the circumstance may not change but u can change. ” All of us thirst for the acceptance and comfort that God only can give. It squirts out in the way we claw to the top of the corporate ladder, treat our bosses, our colleagues, our subordinates as we long for recognition, inner fulfillment, self-actualization, for a cloud-nine experience, nirvana. We want to know somehow we exist with meaning, that our existence is purposeful. That we are not accidents. That we are not products that are disposable like garbage. If we don’t get the sense of who we are made in God’s image, we look for it like a hungry cat on a street alley, rummaging through the garbage cans of the world, for something to fill the emptiness we sense in the inner self. That’s why illegitimate sex industry that perverts true love, the market for designer drugs that sells chemical induced comfort, the influence of alcohol, the rage for raves that sells social acceptance, the number of dead teens on the road that speaks of the need for “cool” in order to be loved, are growing because there is a hunger for a God that is denied within the human soul. We want something that rocks in a mundane world.
D. FULFILLED LONGINGS
Teachings of the Bible confronts our longings, our human need, our weakness and challenges us to turn to the only legitimate source for our longings to be fulfilled. The Bible says in John 7:37-39 (NIV): “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
38 Whoever believes in me, as [3] the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."
39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
And now due to event of Pentecost, (today’s Pentecost Day) we remember God has poured out His Spirit on anyone who truly believes… Jesus has been glorified but will anyone take up His invitation “come to me and drink”? Will anyone RSVP? Some of us here maybe long time Christians but have not experience this sense of God touching our thirst or longings, it is time to own up to that thirst go to Jesus.
Come with me into West Texas during the Depression. Mr. Ira Yates was like many other ranchers and farmers. He had a lot of land, and a lot of debt. Mr. Yates wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others)had to live on a government subsidy.
Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.
At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.
And Mr. Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief. A multimillionaire living in poverty. The problem? He didn’t know the oil was there even though he owned it.
It is fair to say that you and I are a lot like Mr. Yates at times. We are heirs of a vast treasure and yet we live in spiritual poverty. Because we are unaware of Jesus or unaware of what He wants for us. We are entitled to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and his energizing power, and yet we live unaware of our birthright. We gather today to remember how rich we are, when w e do trust Him and His provisions for us in a broken world. We gather today to be reminded that there is purpose in life, that our thirst is fully satisfied in Jesus.
Paul teaches his readers in Ephesians that the circumstances may not change but their whole inner self can change, their hearts can change.
Today you can start changing your attitudes about work… it is about your inner life… your heart… if you have allowed Jesus in…then you can transform your service into one of worship serving God not men, obeying Christ…
6 Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.
7 Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men,
When there is this heart-change, there will be an attitude adjustment, you are serving the Lord, as you work for your boss, or if you are your own boss… it is not about just making money, wining their favor, it’s about a spiritual breakthrough, it’s about transformation, towards a better and peaceful life in a world of turmoil, abuse and pressure.
Duke University did a study on "peace of mind." Factors found to contribute greatly to emotional and mental stability are:
The absence of suspicion and resentment. Nursing a grudge was a major factor in unhappiness.
Not living in the past. An unwholesome preoccupation with old mistakes and failures leads to depression.
Not wasting time and energy fighting conditions you cannot change. Cooperate with life, instead of trying to run away from it.
Force yourself to stay involved with the living world. Resist the temptation to withdraw and become reclusive during periods of emotional stress.
Refuse to indulge in self-pity when life hands you a raw deal. Accept the fact that nobody gets through life without some sorrow and misfortune.
Cultivate the old-fashioned virtues--love, humor, compassion and loyalty.
Find something bigger than yourself to believe in. Self-centered egotistical people score lowest in any test for measuring happiness.
All of these factors can be increased when you invite God to fill you up. Until you have found purpose in life with God who can fill you, you feel like life is futile. If there is no purpose, then you are no better than a piece of meat waiting to be consumed, or an object that is subject to abuse. Life is nothing but an ugly cycle of unending monotonous misery.
E. THE REWARD
Paul is teaching the slaves to deal with the real world. His real world is this: due to the circumstances of that world economy , slavery won’t be abolished. The economy then is too dependent on slaves, so no overnight changes there. That is what I like about God, He knows our world better than we do. IN A WORLD where slavery existed He chose to change one heart at a time (Ex.21:2-11; Deut.5:12-15l 15:12-18). He chose to free the heart, so that under any circumstance, a person can be free. Like the story of a kid who has been reprimanded by the father “go sit in the corner”. His reply is “I may be sitting in the corner, but inside I am standing.” Do u stand on the inside will the world pushes u to sit down? Are u free on the inside, so that u can submit and help and be useful to your boss? Do you know when u serve well, do a good job, you do it to obey the ONE God?
Doing a good job, will be rewarded, sometimes it happens, get the recognition, the raise, the pat on the back, it feels good, but sometimes it does not happen, don’t worry…
8 because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.
A WORD TO THE BOSSES…
9 And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
Do a good job of being a boss. Show appreciation for work well-done. Hear your workers’ concern. Imagine this, if everyone is doing their best, won’t everyone be more fulfilled?
Here in the new millenium …
The story of Li ChunMei (Washington Post May 13, 2002)… Co-workers said she had been on her feet for nearly 16 hours, running back and forth inside the Bainan Toy Factory, south Guangdong, carrying toy parts from machine to machine. When the quitting bell finally rang shortly after midnight, her young face was covered with sweat. This was the busy season, before Christmas, when orders peaked from Japan and the United States for the factory’s stuffed animals. Long hours were mandatory, and at least two months had passed since Li and the other workers had enjoyed even a Sunday off. Lying on her bed that night, staring at the bunk above her, the slight 19-year-old complained she felt worn out, her roommates recalled. She was massaging her aching legs, and coughing, and she told them she was hungry. The factory food was so bad, she said, she felt as if she had not eaten at all. "I want to quit," one of her roommates, Huang Jiaqun, remembered her saying. "I want to go home."
Finally, the lights went out. Her roommates had already fallen asleep when Li started coughing up blood. They found her in the bathroom a few hours later, curled up on the floor, moaning softly in the dark, bleeding from her nose and mouth. Someone called an ambulance, but she died before it arrived.
The exact cause of Li’s death remains unknown. But what happened to her last November in this industrial town in southeastern Guangdong province is described by family, friends and co-workers as an example of what China’s more daring newspapers call guolaosi. The phrase means "over-work death," and usually applies to young workers who suddenly collapse and die after working exceedingly long hours, day after day. People like ChunMei feel trapped, they cannot move to another job… not educated, the only skills they have.
F. CONCLUSION
Today you may feel like a baby out of the womb… give it time. Allow your longings for recognition, love, acceptance, to draw you closer to the Spirit of the Living God who wants to give a spring of living water for our thirsty souls.
Young Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi are in a Chinese restaurant having a meal.
Skillfully using his chopsticks, Obi-Wan deftly dishes himself a large
portion of noodles into his bowl, then tops it off with some chicken and
cashew nuts.
All this is done with consummate ease you’d expect from a Jedi Master.
But poor Anakin is having a nightmare, using his chopsticks in both hands,
dropping his food all over the table and making a mess of things.
Obi-Wan looks at Anakin disapprovingly and says, "Use the forks, Anakin."
As I read the book of Acts the disciples seem more like Anakin than Obi-Wan.
Young disciples for whom the power of God is available and they are bumbling
along trying to make use of it. But give them time. They will learn. And
they will change history for ever!
You too maybe bumbling around, but take heart. Get to know God better.
It is time to seek God’s filling. To be in touch with how much you long for God…in your inner being. Will u admit your thirst?
Sometimes we feel that we can justify our work habits because of lack of pay, poor conditions, etc. We need to remember that Paul was admonishing people who were slaves. If we dislike our work so much that we are not willing to give our best, at least now we are free to move on to another job. But today, look deeper into your lives, don’t just see the symptoms of your unhappiness, look deeper into the heart, your heart, that’s longing for recognition, for a sense I am a man or a woman, not a machine to produce things, not a dog to be kicked around. Moving to another job may not be a solution, it may be your heart that needs moving.
Jesus died for you, He is for you, no matter what hole or rubbish you find yourself in. Your whole world, work-world included matter to Him. There is purpose for your life beyond making the almighty dollar, or making ends meet.
I struggled with a poor attitude too. I remember a time when I was employed as an administrative trainee. Was it ever boring. Felt there was no purpose, like a cog in a machine. It not until later that I found God’s purpose that my work world makes sense. See that in
Titus 2:9-10 (NIV)
Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.
Is your work-life, work-habits make Jesus attractive? If not time to change those bad attitudes, right? If we are fully trusted IN THE WORKPLACE, we can used by God to teach our work-world that it is Jesus who made life worth-living.
It’s all about attitudes. What are they?
It’s the advance man of our true selves. Its roots are inward but its fruit is outward. It is our best friend or our worst enemy. It is more honest and more consistent than our words. It is an outward look based on past experiences. It is a thing which draws people to us or repels them. It is never content until it is expressed. It is the librarian of our past. It is the speaker of our present. It is the prophet of our future. – John Maxwell, The Winning Attitude (p.24)
To improve work relationships, to get the best out of your work-life, to feel free in the work-world, to be healthy and improve your life in which you feel trapped as a slave, you need an attitude change, an inner change, a heart change… that’s easier said than done.
