Colossians 3:22-25: Why Work?

Why Bother Working? Colossians 3:22-25

Introduction

If I asked you which company had the most offices in the United States, what would you say?  Walgreens has 6,300. McDonalds has about 13,000. Starbucks has about 12,000. But KOG Enterprises has over 320,000 branches in the United States alone, with thousands being opened each year using a proven franchise model. Started by a Father and Son team in Asia, KOG falls squarely in the service sector, focusing on lifestyle modification and community development. Privately held, the finances for the latest calendar year are not available, but anecdotal evidence suggests KOG runs on low margins, high associate satisfaction and excellent long-term benefits. KOG’s mission statement is clear and unequivocal: world domination. What is KOG’s strategy? With intensive training, the local offices send associates to intern in other local businesses, in positions ranging from janitors, secretaries, nurses, students, engineers and CEOs, to infiltrate and eventually get them to sell out to KOG. Their CEO summarized their mission statement as follows: “Go and make associates world-wide, integrate them into the KOG family and train them like I trained you.”

One day, every knee will bow and every tongue agree that Jesus is the hand-picked boss of the Kingdom Of God, to the glory of his Father. Amen.

We don’t normally think of the kingdom of God like this, like a business.  In our minds, they are two separate categories.  We say, “There is my spiritual life stuff, the private stuff, like family and church and Bible studies and quiet times. Then there is my real life stuff, like work and business and commute.” We put them in different groups. But God doesn’t. He wants to take over your business, your office and your campus. But hostile takeovers aren’t his style.

That’s why Jesus talks so much about owners and bosses and managers and workers. In fact, the word “Lord” in the Bible didn’t usually refer to God. In fact, it usually meant something closer “boss” or “master” or, in some cases, “owner”. In the world of the Bible, it was as much a business term as it was a spiritual term.

And, as the kingdom of God (KOG) continued to grow, in different towns and cities, the relationship between a person’s spiritual life—the way they behaved at church--and the way that they behaved at work had to be dealt with. For example, look at this passage from Colossians 3:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism. – Colossians 3:22-25

Before we go any further, we need to talk about that first word: slave. Was Paul a supporter of slavery? No. In fact, Paul’s ideas were the very ideas that broke down the basis for slavery, saying that “In Christ, there is neither slave nor free” (Gal. 3:28). In the book of Philemon (1:1, 7, 16), he calls both the slave owner and the slave “brothers” saying that both owe the same debt to God. And, generally, people who are working today are not slaves. We may feel like wage slaves, but in Paul’s day slaves were equivalent to property. In the Roman Empire, 20% to 30% of the population was slaves. And they could be bought, sold, killed, just like furniture or chickens. Farmers, miners, household workers, tutors, gladiators, professors, accountants—they filled nearly every possible job sector niche. And it is important to understand that in this passage, as in others in the Bible, Paul is not writing to them concerning their attitude about slavery, but concerning their attitude about work. In many cases, their conditions were worse than ours and therefore, any guidance given to them about their work would be the minimum that God would expect from us, whose conditions are comparatively much better.

In fact, many of the complaints about bosses were similar to what we would say today:

1. Their boss would treat them badly.
2. Their bosses didn’t recognize their hard work.
3. Their bosses were stingy toward them, even when they were making big bucks.

And what was the reaction of the workers?

1. Complaining.
2. Kissing-up
3. Stealing.
4. Slacking off.

So, what do you do when your life is beginning to look like source material for Dilbert?

Here are four things to remember:

1. God Is Your Boss.
2. God’s Business Is Life Changing
3. God Does Performance Reviews
4. Your Job Is As Important As Every Other Job

God Is Your Boss

How many of you have seen The Office?

At the fictional company of Dunder-Mifflin, the office is dysfunctional, the employees are demotivated, inter-office squabbling, jockeying for position and titles, awkward moments. Why? The reason, is Michael, the boss. He's awful. He's incompetent. He's indecisive. He makes promises he can't keep. He hides in his office when things are going poorly. He calls women, "sir," he demeans his employees, and he buys himself a mug that says "World's Best Boss." It's hard to watch the show without wanting to strangle him, or to run out of the room screaming! The Office is the way it is because of the boss.[1]

In fact there is a whole movie, Horrible Bosses, talking about how people want to kill their managers.

But God has a different perspective:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men – vs. 23a

God is the one who hires you and fires you and transfers you to another position. Not your boss.

No matter what you do, where you do it, who you do it with or for, ultimately, you work for God. When you understand that, then the things you do everyday become acts of worship. Worship from Monday through Saturday has a name, and it isn’t music or sermons or prayer: it is work. Paul uses the language of worship: with all your heart, with reverence for the Lord, to describe our work.

Your job is one way that God infiltrates the world, transforming it by his presence in his people

Don’t be surprised if God says that your job is to make someone like Michael from the Office--the complete idiot or godless person--look good. The Bible is full of examples of amazingly talented people, strong believers in God, under the authority of someone who couldn’t care about God.

Daniel served the king of Babylon who liked to have people worship a statue of himself.  Joseph served the Pharoah of Egypt. One of Jesus’ supporters was the wife of Herod’s house manager. Esther was wife of the most powerful man in the world, but couldn’t even visit him at work. But, in each case, God uses us in 2^nd place.

…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant – Matthew 20:26

And that includes servant to some pretty undeserving people. As far as career advancement goes, this is not the usual path we see in most businesses today. But God clearly says that if you want to climb his KOG corporate ladder, you have to work at making other people look good, by serving them.

This past week, we had an all-hands meeting at which there were a number of performance awards: Above the Call, Innovation, Teamwork, etc. But the highest level of recognition was the CEO’s award. At the end of time we hope to hear the CEO of the universe say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." What get’s our CEO (God’s) attention is a servant attitude?

God’s Business Is Life Changing

(for you and for your boss)

Who you are is more important than what you do. Why? Because dead fish will eventually stink, no matter the perfume.  If who you are stinks, eventually your life will stink. But if you are a beautiful person inside, it will eventually show on the outside.

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. – Luke 6:45

Every child knows it is better not to judge a Christmas present by the wrapper.  That’s what we like to do, because we assume that it promises what we want.

So God’s plan is centered on changing who we are inside, because God knows that the eventual result will be a changed whole person. This is not just for people out “there” it is also for us right here:

Pastor Kent Crockett tells a story:

When I first enrolled in seminary, I made an appointment to talk to the dean of men to see if I could get a room in the dormitory. When I walked into his office, the first thing he asked was, "Are you applying for the janitor's job?" "No," I said. "I'm here to see if any rooms are available in the dorm."

"I'm sorry, the dormitory is full. We’ll put you on the waiting list. But if you know anyone who wants a job as janitor, please send him to see me."

I told him that I wasn't interested and thanked him for his time. When I left his office and walked outside, I prayed, Lord, please provide a room for me. God stopped me on the sidewalk and spoke to my heart, "Go take the job."

Take the job? I prayed for a room, not a job. But I knew in my heart I needed to obey. Immediately I did an about-face, walked into the dean's office, and said, "I'll take that janitor’s job." He hired me on the spot.

At first, I had to battle my pride. I thought about how over-qualified I was—I had a college degree and was working on my Master's. I was given a seminary janitor's shirt and a little pushcart stocked with soap, gloves, toilet paper, toilet bowl cleaner, and a brush. Every day I pushed that cart down the hallway, cleaned toilets, scrubbed showers, and emptied trashcans.

It wasn’t long before I discovered that cleaning those bathrooms in the men's dorm was part of my spiritual education. I learned to do those jobs that no one else wanted. As I cleaned those toilets every day, I made a surprising discovery. God spoke to my heart more clearly than I had ever heard Him before. I meditated on Scriptures as I worked, and God gave me insights into his Word. I then realized that cleaning toilets was part of my training for ministry. If I wasn't willing to serve God as a custodian, how could He trust me with other responsibilities?

I spent my entire three years in seminary cleaning toilets and attending classes. I'm convinced that half of what I learned in seminary was in the classrooms and the other half was in the bathrooms. I also learned to respect and thank janitors for the work they perform. God used that job to teach me that in whatever tasks He calls me to do in life, I am actually serving Him. (Kent Crockett, Making Today Count for Eternity, Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, 2001, pp. 144-145)

So the first person God changes you in your job is you. 

And then, through you, God changes your co-workers and your boss. Look at what the Bible says:

but to show that they [slaves] can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. – Titus 2:10b

The way you work sets up the word of God to succeed in your office. Your life plows the office harvest so that when God speaks, their heart is ready.

God Does Performance Reviews

(for you and your boss!)

Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism. – vs. 25

…since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. – vs. 23

If you are serving God, you aren't worried about office politics. You aren’t kissing up to your earthly boss, you’re not worried about what other people are saying, you are just doing your job because you want the job to succeed for God's glory.

Recently I met a man, Cid, who works on a cruise ship. In that closed environment, the relationships between the different parts of the crew are very important because of the closed environment. And he told me that there are two things that break up unity faster than anything else: putting down your co-workers and kissing up to the boss. 

Your Job Is As Important As Every Other Job

It is the Lord Christ you are serving. – Colossians 3:24

What do you call someone who serves? A servant. According to this verse, what do you call someone who flips burgers? What do you call the CEO of a company? What do you call a mom at home? What do you call a work-at home engineer? A servant.

Where ever you are, whatever your job, whoever your boss and no matter how much is your salary, you are a servant. And, if you are a servant of Christ Jesus while you are doing that, you are doing what God wants just as much as a pastor or a missionary. And if God doesn’t want you there, he’ll fire you and move you to do something else.  If he keeps you where you are, it means he has ministry for you to do there. Ministry that your pastor cannot do. Ministry that a missionary cannot do. Ministry that only you can do.

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle…  – Romans 1:1

Notice Paul is a servant, just like you and me and then he is called to be an apostle. I am Tim, a servant, and I am called to be a computer programmer, to create beautiful code, like God creates beautiful things, to make him famous in my office, and bring people closer to him. In Exodus, there are two men listed where it says the Spirit of God gave them the talents that they used first, for their job and then, for the building of the tabernacle.

This is an area where I am still growing. But I know what I should be growing towards.

Conclusion

Maybe you have treated your job like a necessary evil.  But it isn’t: it is the place of necessary ministry. Jesus, when asked he why he was with all of the unbelievers, he told them: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” (Matthew 9:12) God has placed you, his servant, right in the middle of the place where he wants to expand the kingdom of God.

Here are 4 things you can do to bring God into your work place.

1. Pray. Not just prayers of salvation. Think about your brother, or your sister, or your nieces and nephews. How would you  pray for them? How would you pray for their job? Their family? Because everyone there is a potential brother and sister to you, through Christ. I remember distinctly when I was working in San Jose that one of my co-workers, Jan, found out she had breast cancer and she was told to round up a group of supporters during her time of need, especially since she was older and lived alone: she asked me to pray for her.
2. Involve. Find a way to be involved. If you care about someone, you are involved in their life, and they are part of theirs. Two of my co-workers, one from Japan and one from Taiwan, needed to work with me, but we don’t have an office here, so they worked with me in my house. It so happened that one of them was here when it was Helen’s birthday and I surprised her with a limousine ride. He came along to dinner with us in the limo. Last time I was at another office, my friend invited me to hear his daughter’s piano recital. I was delighted that he would invite me so close to his family. Sometimes we are so busy that we think: do I have time or energy to do that? Let me challenge you: there is room for at least 1 more.
3. Invite. A natural extension of being involved is to invite them to visit your home, and your church. We hope that FCC is a place where, when a visitor comes in, they feel welcome by the people and challenged by God to take the next step.  Maybe its for a special event, like our Christmas service next week. When people asked you “what did you do this weekend?” do you reply with “Oh, nothing!” Really? Is that what church is to you: nothing.
4. Share. The Bible says to be always ready to give the reason for the hope that is within you. Friends, your schools, your groups of friends, your offices, are full of people who need that hope; who are drowning without that hope of rescue. Jesus died to rescue them, we can share that hope.

 

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[1] Bryan Wilkerson, The Job, Sermon