SPEAKER_00: Would you bow your heads one more time?
SPEAKER_00: I want you to pray now that the Lord would instruct your m instruct your mind as we study God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray that now?
SPEAKER_00: And would you pray for your friends and neighbors that God would instruct their minds?
SPEAKER_00: And would you pray for me that the Holy Spirit would speak through me now as we open God's Word together?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we pray now, Lord, that you would do the mystical work of the Word as you apply it through the power of the Holy Spirit to our minds and our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray this in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I invite you to open your Bibles to Titus chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: Titus chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: We've been in Titus chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: You've noticed for several weeks, and we've been talking about the transformation that takes place in our lives because of Christianity, what Christ has done in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is saying to the Christians in Crete is that they are to be different.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to say, and we're going to look at this when I come back in August, he's going to say that the grace of God trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, that the grace of God has transformed our lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's transformed who we are.
SPEAKER_00: It's caused a transformation to take place.
SPEAKER_00: And we've studied this, and we've studied this in the lives of older men, and the lives of older women and younger women and the lives of young men.
SPEAKER_00: And we've studied it in the life of the pastor, the minister, Titus.
SPEAKER_00: And now we come to verses 9 and 10 to the slaves.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read these verses to you.
SPEAKER_00: The word that's translated bondservant in the ESV is the Greek word doulos and it's slave.
SPEAKER_00: That's the literal meaning and translation of the word.
SPEAKER_00: It's translated bondservant because of all the connotations that we have in our nation from 160 years ago from chattel slavery.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it because the reason why it's translated bondservant is because this institution was slightly different than that, as we will see.
SPEAKER_00: And so they make that interpretive choice.
SPEAKER_00: But I wish that they would have just left it as what the Greek word actually means, and that is slaves.
SPEAKER_00: So notice what Paul says to the slaves.
SPEAKER_00: Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.
SPEAKER_00: They are to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we look at these verses, our natural inclination and tendency is to immediately begin to abstract principles that apply to our own work.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to do that.
SPEAKER_00: But before we can do that, we must first understand what this text is saying and what it means.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in seminary, I read a book by John Stott, the Anglican preacher, called Between Two Worlds.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, in a sense, every time you preach a sermon, you're crossing over between two worlds.
SPEAKER_00: The modern world, which is where we are right now in 21st century America, and the ancient world, the world of 2,000 years ago, in which Paul wrote this text.
SPEAKER_00: And before we can really apply what the Bible says in the ancient, in the modern world, we first have to understand what it meant in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: And so he used the picture of a bridge, that you have to cross over that bridge as best we can to the ancient world and understand what the text meant in its original context.
SPEAKER_00: And then and only then can we begin to apply it first in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Contrast that with the modern Bible study where you're sitting around in a group, you read a passage.
SPEAKER_00: What's the question that is often asked?
SPEAKER_00: What does this verse mean to you?
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: You can't ask that for.
SPEAKER_00: You first have to ask, what did it mean to the original audience when it was given?
SPEAKER_00: So here's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do an exercise.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to imagine.
SPEAKER_00: We have all taken a time machine, and we are now on the island of Crete in the middle of the Mediterranean.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to, it's it's rocky, there's not many tall trees, you can you can feel the breeze coming in off the coastline.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's uh very arid, and we're walking, and we're coming to a Cretan city.
SPEAKER_00: And as we approach that city, as we come towards that city, before we even enter it, we begin to smell something.
SPEAKER_00: You see, in the ancient world, they didn't have indoor plumbing, they didn't have sewage systems.
SPEAKER_00: People would often, if they lived on the second floor when they woke up in the morning, they would just pour out their chamber pot down into the street.
SPEAKER_00: Refuse and waste would be thrown into the streets, and so before you even enter the city, you begin to smell the city, and it's not pretty, it doesn't smell good.
SPEAKER_00: And as you walk into the city, you see people all about, and you you notice certain things about the people that are there.
SPEAKER_00: One of the first things that you notice is by our standard, there's not very many old people.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the oldest people that you see might be in their mid-60s.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because the average lifespan in this day, uh, you would be blessed if you lived to 70 years old.
SPEAKER_00: If you had cancer, if you had a serious health condition, what would happen in the ancient world?
SPEAKER_00: You died.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul, when he's in his 60s, calls himself an old man.
SPEAKER_00: So you don't see very many young people as you're walking through the city.
SPEAKER_00: But you also notice a few Roman soldiers.
SPEAKER_00: And you notice coming into the city a big aqueduct bringing water down from the mountain into the city.
SPEAKER_00: And you notice as you come in, a temple to the imperial cult, to the worship of the Caesars.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because Crete had been taken over by the Roman Empire in 66 BC.
SPEAKER_00: So it had become a colony of Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And from 20 BC about to 180 AD, so a period of about 200 years, historians call the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, that Rome extended its rule throughout the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: And in one sense, they subjugated the people that they conquered, and they were all under the authority and under the iron fist of Rome, which was a negative aspect.
SPEAKER_00: But the positive aspect is the empire observed much peace and tranquility.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until the beginning of the fourth century that the Germanic tribes, many of whom were descendants of, came down and sacked Rome, the Goths, the Vandals, and conquered Rome.
SPEAKER_00: But it's this period of tranquility and peace, and it's this period that allowed the gospel to go forth into the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: That people were not having to fight foreign powers.
SPEAKER_00: There was time of peace and using the Roman roads, using the Roman shipping lanes.
SPEAKER_00: Paul had come to Crete and brought the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So, in a sense, God used the poxromana, the peace of Rome, in order to bring the gospel to this island of Crete.
SPEAKER_00: You also begin to notice that there's all these people running around.
SPEAKER_00: You go to a bakery, and you notice that the person behind the counter, the baker, is a slave.
SPEAKER_00: You walk by a doctor's office, and you notice that the person in the office is a slave.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you notice that almost everybody that you see, that's not a Roman soldier, everybody running about, bustling in the streets, is a slave.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because one out of every two people in the Roman Empire, on average, was a slave.
SPEAKER_00: So in the Roman Empire, you had a class system, with Roman citizens being at the top of that class, and then you had lesser citizens, and then at the very bottom of the social structure, the very bottom of the hierarchy, you had the dulos, the slaves.
SPEAKER_00: A slave is someone who was legally owned by someone else.
SPEAKER_00: And their entire existence was in service to that person.
SPEAKER_00: That's the basic definition.
SPEAKER_00: That's an important definition for us to remember.
SPEAKER_00: That they are owned by someone else, and their entire earthly existence is then in service to that person.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's several differences from modern slavery that we need to understand.
SPEAKER_00: The first is that it was not uncommon for slaves to buy or purchase their freedom.
SPEAKER_00: So many slaves could earn money by doing various tasks, and many slaves would eventually purchase that freedom from their master, and some would even choose to stay subjugated, choose to stay slaves.
SPEAKER_00: So slavery in the ancient world wasn't a perpetual institution that you were necessarily bound to.
SPEAKER_00: It could be, but it might not be.
SPEAKER_00: The other difference is that there were all sorts of ways that people could become slaves.
SPEAKER_00: All sorts of ways.
SPEAKER_00: As the Roman Empire expanded and these armies would conquer different regions, by and large, what they would do with most of the citizens of the regions that they conquered is they would subjugate them and sell them as slaves.
SPEAKER_00: That's why so many of the slaves in the ancient world were educated.
SPEAKER_00: You might be serving in and you might be living in Spain or Egypt or one of these places, and you might be a doctor, you might be a lawyer, you might have status in the social hierarchy, but then when Rome came, it didn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: You found yourself as a slave.
SPEAKER_00: Or it could be that you did something, you were you lived in the Roman Empire, and you committed a crime, and the penalty for your crime is that you were subjugated to slavery.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Maximus from Gladiator goes from being the great general, sold as a slave, becomes a gladiator.
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, this is fiction.
SPEAKER_00: That's not history.
SPEAKER_00: You could be born a slave.
SPEAKER_00: If your parents were slaves and you're born into their family, you would be born into slavery.
SPEAKER_00: If your parents were in debt, and it was really bad debt, they might sell you into slavery.
SPEAKER_00: My point is that there were all sorts of ways that you could end up as a slave, and then there's means by which that you could buy yourself out of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I think what's fascinating is that the New Testament takes this institution that we've just seen, that we've just described, and it uses it as a metaphor for the spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: Let me explain.
SPEAKER_00: First, negatively, the writer of Hebrews says that we are enslaved to the devil as unbelievers in the fear of death.
SPEAKER_00: That's Hebrews 2 15.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Romans 6 6 that the unbeliever is enslaved to sin.
SPEAKER_00: You remember the definition that we use for slavery?
SPEAKER_00: That you are owned by someone, and that all of your life is served in service to that person.
SPEAKER_00: So when Paul says that you are a slave to sin, you're enslaved, does that mean that you just sometimes kind of do good things and sometimes you kind of do bad things?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is you are a do loss to sin.
SPEAKER_00: You are a slave, you serve your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Remember your life as an unbeliever?
SPEAKER_00: Your life was fulfilled in service and bondage to your sin.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Romans 8.12 that the unbeliever is a slave to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh is the part of you as an unbeliever that wars against the law of God.
SPEAKER_00: He says, as an unbeliever, you are enslaved to those passions, those affections.
SPEAKER_00: The reason why you can't stop sinning, that you keep returning to the terrible things that you do, is because you're enslaved to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: You look at these young guys that get addicted to the online gambling.
SPEAKER_00: What's going on there?
SPEAKER_00: They're enslaved to it.
SPEAKER_00: I want to walk away from it, but I keep getting pulled back in.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's deep down what they want to do.
SPEAKER_00: You always do what you want to do.
SPEAKER_00: Deep down.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason is Paul says you're enslaved to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says false teachers are slaves of corruption.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they're about.
SPEAKER_00: They're slaves of corruption.
SPEAKER_00: So there's the negative side of it.
SPEAKER_00: The positive side.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says that his disciples are his slaves.
SPEAKER_00: You say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure I like that.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says that our relationship to him is that of a master and a slave.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
SPEAKER_00: You're owned by someone, and all of your life is given in service to that person.
SPEAKER_00: What does that sound like?
SPEAKER_00: That's slavery.
SPEAKER_00: And yet that is the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said this, jot this down, Matthew 10, 24.
SPEAKER_00: A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave, a doulos above his master.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus says, How are you to think about yourself?
SPEAKER_00: Think about yourself as a mathase, a learner, a disciple.
SPEAKER_00: You're to think about yourself as a slave in service to the master.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul references himself over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: If you look how Paul introduces himself, Romans 1 1, Paul says, Paul, a slave, a doulos of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 1 1, Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Titus 1 1, what we read earlier when we begin this study, Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul took Jesus' word seriously.
SPEAKER_00: Paul understood himself as a doolos.
SPEAKER_00: When I was at Tech St.
SPEAKER_00: M, there was a campus Bible study called doolos.
SPEAKER_00: I thought that was pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: He said, we have doulos groups.
SPEAKER_00: These are slave groups, slave, slave groups to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: There's another word that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: It's fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: So there's the word doulos, which means slave, as we've been looking at.
SPEAKER_00: There's the word diakonos, which means servant.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul says this, verse 1, this is how one should regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
SPEAKER_00: The word he uses for servants is not doolos, it's not diakonos, it's the Greek word hooper rates.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look up that word, there's several lexicon meanings that are fleshed out.
SPEAKER_00: One is simply a slave.
SPEAKER_00: Another is that you're the not even a slave, you're the assistant to the slave.
SPEAKER_00: You're like the shield bearer.
SPEAKER_00: You are so low.
SPEAKER_00: You're not even the main slave, you're the assistant to that guy.
SPEAKER_00: That's one meaning.
SPEAKER_00: Then if you actually look at the word, it's a compound word.
SPEAKER_00: Hooper means under.
SPEAKER_00: Retase means rower.
SPEAKER_00: On the Greek trireme ships, where they have the sails, they would have three rows of rowers, three levels of rowers.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul's saying is that he is a slave on one of those trireme ships, and he is an under rower for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's how far down he is on the totem pole.
SPEAKER_00: Not just that he's a slave, not just that he's a secondhand slave, but that he is a Galley slave, an under rower for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So this is how Paul thought of himself.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the New Testament takes this idea of slavery and uses it to describe fallen man's bondage to sin, the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Galatians 5, bondage to the law.
SPEAKER_00: And then on the positive side, this is our relationship to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He is our master, and we exist to serve Him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the things that's interesting, I want you to turn with me over to Galatians chapter 3, verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: There's one principle that Paul taught in the New Testament regarding status and the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: One principle, and he teaches it several places.
SPEAKER_00: He teaches it here in Galatians 3.
SPEAKER_00: He teaches it also in 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: We'll turn there in a second.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul says this in Galatians 3, 28.
SPEAKER_00: He says, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is in a world where you're entitled Existence in life is determined by your social structure in the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: Are you a Roman citizen?
SPEAKER_00: Are you a wealthy person?
SPEAKER_00: Are you a free man?
SPEAKER_00: Are you a slave?
SPEAKER_00: In that world where that determines your entire existence, he says, none of that matters in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: None of that matters.
SPEAKER_00: You, whether you're Jew, Gentile, slave or free, male or female, all of you have equal status in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And we don't understand that as much because we are the land of the free and the home of the brave.
SPEAKER_00: Where we don't like hierarchy.
SPEAKER_00: It's bad in most people's minds.
SPEAKER_00: But in that world, that was everything.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul's saying this overturns all of that.
SPEAKER_00: When we come into the church, there's no partiality to the wealthy or to the Roman citizens.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, sir.
SPEAKER_00: Your status is you are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are in Christ, you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, and you are on equal footing with anyone else.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that's the type of church we need to be.
SPEAKER_00: That is a countercultural, kingdom-minded church.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says if you turn over to 1 Corinthians 12, same principle, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For in one spirit we were all baptized into one body.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, every Christian, everyone who has repented of their sins, trusted Christ in faith, were all baptized with the same Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have a monopoly on the Spirit because you're rich.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit because you're a Roman citizen or because you're smarter than other people.
SPEAKER_00: We've all been baptized, he says, with the same Holy Spirit into one body.
SPEAKER_00: And just to specify, to make sure we get it, he says, Jews or Greeks, slaves or free.
SPEAKER_00: We're all made to drink of one spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So in the church, these hierarchies that exist out in the world, when you come into the church, to the church's worship, those hierarchies must disappear.
SPEAKER_00: They must.
SPEAKER_00: We're all one in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so what you don't see Paul doing, it's fascinating because people say, why isn't Paul more concerned about cultural transformation?
SPEAKER_00: Why isn't Paul more concerned about overturning slavery?
SPEAKER_00: Why isn't he going to these cities and saying, Jesus, believe in Jesus and overturn slavery?
SPEAKER_00: Why isn't he doing this?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is, it's because he was much more concerned, not with cultural transformation, but with citizenship in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And to make sure that everybody that he preached to was in a citizenship, had citizenship in the kingdom that is to come.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you don't have Paul's kingdom mindset, you're not going to understand the instructions that Paul gives to slaves.
SPEAKER_00: You won't.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're saying, why isn't Paul advocating for social insurrection, for a revolution?
SPEAKER_00: Why isn't Paul doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't slavery wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul is laying out these principles, and you see it in the book of Philemon, where he sends Onesimus back to Philemon.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You're brothers now, yes, there's a master, there's a slave, but in Christ, you're brothers.
SPEAKER_00: And that principle of brotherhood to our fellow man is what grasped William Wilberforce and others and would eventually overturn slavery.
SPEAKER_00: But that was not Paul's main thrust, you see.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's main thrust was about the eternal kingdom of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul says, jot this verse down.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 3 20.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Our citizenship is where?
SPEAKER_00: In heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So that's Paul's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: He has a heavenly perspective, a kingdom-minded perspective.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he's concerned about the here and now, but he's much more concerned about eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And that what we do in life now matters for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: So it's with that mindset, I want you to turn back to Titus.
SPEAKER_00: It's with that mindset and this background that we can now begin to look at Paul's instructions to the slaves at the church at Crete.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, there probably would be many of them.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the worldview that I just articulated to you, do you think that was appealing to slaves in the Roman Empire?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely it was.
SPEAKER_00: So many slaves had been converted to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to show you now three aspects of a slave's service.
SPEAKER_00: Three aspects of a slave's service.
SPEAKER_00: The first is they were to serve with a submissive heart.
SPEAKER_00: They were to serve with a submissive heart.
SPEAKER_00: Notice verse nine.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse nine.
SPEAKER_00: Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.
SPEAKER_00: The verb is hopataso.
SPEAKER_00: It's an important verb.
SPEAKER_00: It means to submit oneself.
SPEAKER_00: And it's used not just for slaves with masters.
SPEAKER_00: It's used for all sorts of people in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: It's used to describe the wife's relationship to her husband, that she is to submit to her husband.
SPEAKER_00: It's used to describe people's relationship to government, that we are to submit to ruling authorities that are over us.
SPEAKER_00: We all have different people in our lives that we are to submit to.
SPEAKER_00: But the important thing to note is that Paul tells Titus to tell the slaves that they are to submit to their own masters.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that the masters are to make the slaves submit.
SPEAKER_00: This is an act of the will on the part of the slaves.
SPEAKER_00: They are to lower themselves underneath their own masters.
SPEAKER_00: And notice the qualifying phrase at the end.
SPEAKER_00: In everything.
SPEAKER_00: Not just some things.
SPEAKER_00: Now obviously, Paul understood that they were not to disobey Christ, who is their first master.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't to that that it's understood that they're not to disobey Christ in order to obey their earthly master.
SPEAKER_00: But what he's saying, as much as you can, slaves, under the lordship of Jesus Christ, you are to submit yourselves to your earthly master.
SPEAKER_00: Now you ask, how can Paul say such a thing?
SPEAKER_00: How can he say such a thing?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he tells us.
SPEAKER_00: Turn over to the left to Colossians 3.
SPEAKER_00: These are the verses we read.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us exactly why they are to submit to their earthly masters.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like the same thing he just said.
SPEAKER_00: Not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart.
SPEAKER_00: And notice this: fearing the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Not fearing your earthly master.
SPEAKER_00: Fearing the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You see, who are you really a slave to?
SPEAKER_00: Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you do, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: So you're a slave to Christ, and you are to understand your station as a slave.
SPEAKER_00: You're serving that master.
SPEAKER_00: But who are you really serving?
SPEAKER_00: You're serving Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You're serving him in your work.
SPEAKER_00: Not men.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just going for the out of voice.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to please Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then look at this, verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: See what I'm talking about with a heavenly mindset?
SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.
SPEAKER_00: You are serving the Lord Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, you have to serve, you have to live in light of your future reward.
SPEAKER_00: That you're serving this master, but you're serving the Lord, and your eye is on eternity, where you will be rewarded for your work that is given to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There's several other texts.
SPEAKER_00: Turn over again to the left to Ephesians chapter six.
SPEAKER_00: Verse five.
SPEAKER_00: Almost exactly the same as Colossians 3, but he says, slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's complete obedience.
SPEAKER_00: With a sincere heart.
SPEAKER_00: Notice it's not just outward action, it's from the heart.
SPEAKER_00: We tell this to our children all the time.
SPEAKER_00: It's obedience is not just you do what we say, it's you do what we say from the heart.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're doing it, but it doesn't really look like they're doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying, you're to obey, and you are to obey from the heart as you would Christ, not by way of I service as people pleasers, but as, here it is, as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to men.
SPEAKER_00: So we are called to do this work as slaves of Christ, rendering our service to Christ and not to men.
SPEAKER_00: That's Paul's instructions to slaves.
SPEAKER_00: And this is replete in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: You can also look at 1 Timothy 6, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Peter says.
SPEAKER_00: This is 1 Peter 2.18.
SPEAKER_00: Jot this down, 1 Peter 2.18.
SPEAKER_00: Peter says, slaves, be subject to your masters with all respect.
SPEAKER_00: And then he qualifies it.
SPEAKER_00: Not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.
SPEAKER_00: So you mean the way that my master treats me doesn't infringe upon how I am to be obedient?
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly what Peter is saying.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying you serve with both the good and the gentle and with the unjust.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in 1 Timothy 6 that you are to serve both the believing master and the unbelieving master.
SPEAKER_00: So it's a posture of a submissive heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first aspect that Paul brings their attention to.
SPEAKER_00: The second aspect is that they are to serve with excellence and faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Excellence and faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: So if you would turn back to Titus.
SPEAKER_00: Titus two verse nine.
SPEAKER_00: He says they are to be well pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you the structure here.
SPEAKER_00: So it's positive, negative, negative, positive.
SPEAKER_00: So he gives a positive trait, two negative traits, and a positive trait.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first two, the first positive and the first negative, deal with the excellence of the work that they are to do.
SPEAKER_00: Notice he says, positively, they are to be well pleasing in everything.
SPEAKER_00: That means that they are to do what their master wants them to do.
SPEAKER_00: They are to accomplish the tasks that they have been given.
SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was beginning in ministry, I listened to a message that Tommy Nelson did.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, What you want to do is you want to be the best number two guy that you can be wherever you go.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a discipleship guy, if you're a children's guy, if you're if you're a youth guy, a college guy, what you want to do is you want to be the best in that.
SPEAKER_00: And you want to make the pastor that's over you, you want to make his ministry flourish as best you can, and God will honor that.
SPEAKER_00: And that was such great advice.
SPEAKER_00: And you look, especially in the Old Testament, you look at figures like Daniel in Nebuchadnezzar's court, he had something special with Daniel, didn't he?
SPEAKER_00: He had this trusted, wise advisor, and because of that, Nebuchadnezzar ended up being blessed simply because this Jewish slave had come over and was in his court.
SPEAKER_00: He was blessed because of Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: You look at Potiphar.
SPEAKER_00: What happened with Potiphar?
SPEAKER_00: Everything he had was blessed because of Joseph, because of Joseph's faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: What does this look like?
SPEAKER_00: Do you think it's just doing the bare minimum?
SPEAKER_00: You think it's just doing, well, my master said for me to do A, B, C, and D?
SPEAKER_00: That's what I did.
SPEAKER_00: I did A, B, C, and D, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: You think that's what it is?
SPEAKER_00: No, it's it's applying wisdom that you do the best job that you possibly can over and above the expectations.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that's what America was built on.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Protestant work ethic, that we work unto the Lord and not unto men.
SPEAKER_00: That we are well pleasing to those to which we serve, but ultimately to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says the negative.
SPEAKER_00: So it's excellence, not argumentative.
SPEAKER_00: And this word means to speak back.
SPEAKER_00: That you're you're you're speaking back to the master.
SPEAKER_00: J.B.
SPEAKER_00: Phillips paraphrases it, they are not to answer back.
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, you never want to be a yes man.
SPEAKER_00: You ever hear that?
SPEAKER_00: That so that an employee is just a yes man.
SPEAKER_00: The boss says this, yes, sir, and and and you say this, this is you jump, this is how high I'm gonna jump.
SPEAKER_00: He's not he's not talking about that.
SPEAKER_00: No, obviously, we don't want to be yes men.
SPEAKER_00: We want to look out for the people that we work for.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, of course, slaves, you look out for the the well-being and the service of your master.
SPEAKER_00: But what you don't want to do is every time your master says something, to be that person that says, I can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: It can't be done.
SPEAKER_00: Let me push back on that a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a different perspective.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a spirit here in this word that the literal meaning is someone who speaks back, but there's a spirit in this word that would be described as rebelliousness undermining the work that's taking place.
SPEAKER_00: You ever be in a in a job place and you go over to the to the coffee machine or the water cooler, and people are talking in hushed tones, and you kind of lean in, and what they're talking about is their boss.
SPEAKER_00: They're saying bad things about them.
SPEAKER_00: They're saying bad things about the business.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this, this, this, this, this, this is the way they're treating, you know, this is this is terrible.
SPEAKER_00: And and what they're doing is they're sowing seeds of discord within that business.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, do you think that can happen in churches?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is how most churches in America split up is people just undermining the leadership of the church.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to get involved with a Cassius or a Brutus, people that are working to undermine the leadership.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea.
SPEAKER_00: So, first is in terms of the excellence of the work, and then second, Paul speaks to the faithfulness in which it is to be done.
SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith.
SPEAKER_00: Not pilfering means skimming.
SPEAKER_00: You're taking money off the top.
SPEAKER_00: Your master gives you some money to go buy bread.
SPEAKER_00: You go down to the bakery to buy bread, he gave you 10 denarii, it costs nine, you pocket the other one, you go back and you said it costs ten.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the bread.
SPEAKER_00: And you're and you're you're skimming a little bit off the top.
SPEAKER_00: There was a church in Houston, it was all over the news.
SPEAKER_00: That's the reason why I even tell you about it.
SPEAKER_00: There was a church in Houston, the missions pastor, big church, was using the church credit cards to purchase all these trips for hundreds of people going on mission trips all over the world in the church.
SPEAKER_00: And what he would do is he would occasionally purchase a little something for himself and budget it into one of these trips.
SPEAKER_00: And he did this for years.
SPEAKER_00: For years.
SPEAKER_00: Hundreds of thousands of dollars he stole from the church.
SPEAKER_00: You think your sin finds you out?
SPEAKER_00: Of course it does.
SPEAKER_00: And he ended up going to prison.
SPEAKER_00: It's all over the news in Houston.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul's saying, you don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: You walk in integrity and you walk in faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the meaning of this next phrase where he says, showing all good faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's he uses that word pistis, which means faith, but sometimes that word should not be translated faith.
SPEAKER_00: It should be translated faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the picture here.
SPEAKER_00: Showing all good faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: He uses that word good, that it's that it's a faithful service that's good.
SPEAKER_00: In the Marine Corps, we had a phrase, the slogan of the Marine Corps is Sper Fidelis, Latin for always faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Always faithful.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the idea that you're always faithful.
SPEAKER_00: You can be trusted when no one's looking, that you're doing the right thing, that you're where you're supposed to be, you're spending the money the way it's supposed to be spent, that you're stewarding the resources that the master has given, that you are a faithful and trustworthy servant.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the overall picture.
SPEAKER_00: So from these first two aspects, it's a slave who willingly.
SPEAKER_00: Submits their life to the master as to Christ, and they do so with excellence, and they do so with faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's the third aspect, and this is the kingdom aspect, and this is why this is so important.
SPEAKER_00: You're saying, Well, why why is Paul saying this?
SPEAKER_00: Because Paul's a kingdom mindset.
SPEAKER_00: Look what he says.
SPEAKER_00: The third aspect is this that the slave's work beautifies the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It beautifies the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We sang earlier about the beauty of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The Roman world was not a beautiful world.
SPEAKER_00: It was not.
SPEAKER_00: It was a dog eat dog world.
SPEAKER_00: Do you think in that world do you think slaves diligently served their masters?
SPEAKER_00: You think that was the case?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_00: You think slaves were skimming off the top?
SPEAKER_00: 100% they were.
SPEAKER_00: It was a world that was violent.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about earlier.
SPEAKER_00: It was a world that stank.
SPEAKER_00: It was not a beautiful world.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the interesting thing.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the purpose clause.
SPEAKER_00: So that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: The word adorn, Greek word cosmeo.
SPEAKER_00: It's where we get our English word cosmetics.
SPEAKER_00: What is a woman who uses, hopefully a woman, right?
SPEAKER_00: For that type of church.
SPEAKER_00: What does a woman do who uses cosmetics in the morning?
SPEAKER_00: What's she doing?
SPEAKER_00: She's beautifying herself.
SPEAKER_00: She's putting on some glitter and some frosting and things to make her look more excellent, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jewelry, adornment.
SPEAKER_00: It's things that you put on that beautify.
SPEAKER_00: And so notice what Paul's saying.
SPEAKER_00: He says, slaves, if you do this, if you have this otherworldly kingdom mindset, where you serve your masters, you submit to them in everything that you serve with excellence and faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: You adorn the gospel of God, our Savior, the doctrine of God.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the doctrine of God is sweet.
SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: But now you're bringing it into living color.
SPEAKER_00: You're making it appealing.
SPEAKER_00: You're making it compelling to people.
SPEAKER_00: You're making it seem wonderful to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what we want to do?
SPEAKER_00: We want people to look at us and say, there is something different about that person.
SPEAKER_00: What is it?
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to a couple who was in the process of joining our church, and I asked them, How did y'all meet?
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, we were we were both working for a tech firm, and the husband, obviously not married at this point, they didn't know each other, was a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: He'd already grown up in a Christian home, he was a believer.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Every day when I came into the office, he was there.
SPEAKER_00: And he was happy.
SPEAKER_00: He was cheerful.
SPEAKER_00: And he was diligent.
SPEAKER_00: And he did his work with excellence.
SPEAKER_00: And she watched him do this day in, day out, day in, day out, day in, day out, until one day she had enough.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, What's your secret?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Stay after work and I'll tell you.
SPEAKER_00: He said, My secret is I'm a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: I love Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: That's who I serve.
SPEAKER_00: And they went to a little church up the road called Grace Community Church by in the 70s.
SPEAKER_00: She was saved.
SPEAKER_00: Converted.
SPEAKER_00: They ended up getting married.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's a life that adorns the doctrine of God, our Savior, that makes it compelling.
SPEAKER_00: So, what are the principles that we can glean from this?
SPEAKER_00: We're now ready.
SPEAKER_00: We've come across this bridge and we're now back to 21st century America.
SPEAKER_00: What are the principles that we can glean from this that we can take home?
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you three.
SPEAKER_00: First, all of our service in this life is first and foremost service to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's service to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you own your own business.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You're not your own boss.
SPEAKER_00: You're a slave of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you work a day job, minimum wage, you have a harsh boss.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You really work for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You serve Him in every capacity.
SPEAKER_00: And it's to Him that you will one day give account.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that you do is ultimately for Him.
SPEAKER_00: So that affects everything you do, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: If it's for Christ, does that mean that we half do it?
SPEAKER_00: It means that we give it our all.
SPEAKER_00: And that means that when we do a good job, it's pleasing to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite movies growing up was Chariots of Fire.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Eric Little?
SPEAKER_00: He says a line in the movie.
SPEAKER_00: He says, God made me to run.
SPEAKER_00: And when I run, I feel this pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: That should be our work.
SPEAKER_00: That whatever you do, even if you're retired, are you still supposed to work?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: We work for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We work to advance the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: There's no like five-hour work week.
SPEAKER_00: All of our lives are to be given for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Second, this means in every sphere we are to serve with excellence and integrity.
SPEAKER_00: Every sphere, everything that you do, you should be the most trusted person, and you should be the most excellent person.
SPEAKER_00: You should rise to the top like Joseph, like Daniel, like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that you do should be done with the intentionality of excellence.
SPEAKER_00: And that you shouldn't be the person in your business or job that's the problem person.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, last slide checked.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody here is a slave, right?
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's making you show up and do that work.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not on board with the mission of your business, you should leave and not be a problem in that business.
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be that pebble in the shoe of the owner of the business that you work for.
SPEAKER_00: If you can't support the mission, go work for a different business or company where you can.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're there, you need to serve with excellence.
SPEAKER_00: And then third and finally, I want you to turn over to Matthew twenty five.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew twenty-five.
SPEAKER_00: And the third principle is this is that remember that you are working for an eternal reward.
SPEAKER_00: You are working for an eternal reward.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at verse 14 of Matthew 25, this is in the Olivet Discourse.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, describing the kingdom, he says, For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his slaves and entrusted to them his property.
SPEAKER_00: Who's that?
SPEAKER_00: That's us, right?
SPEAKER_00: Where is he gone?
SPEAKER_00: He's gone to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He's on a journey.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming back.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We're his slaves, and he's entrusted to us his resources.
SPEAKER_00: To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.
SPEAKER_00: Then he went away.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes on and talks about how they stewarded those resources, and how Jesus rewarded them with more talents in his future kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19 it says, Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them, and he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, Master, you delivered to me five talents, here I have made five talents more.
SPEAKER_00: His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful slave, bond servant, you have been faithful over a little.
SPEAKER_00: I will set you over much.
SPEAKER_00: Enter into the joy of your master.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the idea.
SPEAKER_00: Faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Faithfulness in stewarding the talents, the resources, the time, the work that God has given you now, and based on that faithfulness, and he keeps going with the two talents and one talent so forth, you will be rewarded in Christ's heavenly kingdom and given more responsibilities in the future.
SPEAKER_00: So we live with that mindset that what we do now in life matters for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: There was a saying, I'll close with this, R.
SPEAKER_00: C.
SPEAKER_00: Sproul used to say, right now counts forever.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, Lord, we want to live for your kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: We want our work to matter.
SPEAKER_00: We want to serve you and not mere men.
SPEAKER_00: We want to serve with excellence.
SPEAKER_00: We want to serve with faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we want to adorn the gospel so that others might see the work that we do and ask, what is different?
SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, that the kingdom might advance.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to live in light of the eternal rewards that you promise us based on how we steward our life here.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, give us this eternal perspective.
SPEAKER_00: May we be a church with an eternal perspective of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.