SPEAKER_00: Ephesians chapter 6, verses 5 through 9.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we're looking at just verse 9, but I want to read the introduction to this.
SPEAKER_00: Slaves obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart as you would Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with the good will as to the Lord, and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.
SPEAKER_00: And then our passage in particular for this morning, masters, do the same to them.
SPEAKER_00: Stop your threatening, knowing that he was both their master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.
SPEAKER_00: This is part two.
SPEAKER_00: Last Lord's Day we looked at verses five through eight about God's calling for employees.
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about how Paul's instruction to slaves transcends cultures, transcends economic structures in society, and it enters our world today, not through the lens of slavery necessarily, but through the lens of an employer-employee relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And the outline last week was a call for employees to work for the Lord, to recognize that you have a human boss, but that you're judged by your heavenly father who knows all things and knows how you work.
SPEAKER_00: You recognize that your human bosses are fallible, they are sinners, some of them are not Christians, and nevertheless, your work is a stewardship that God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: So you have an opportunity to leverage your skills and your time and your employment opportunities in this life, to provide for your family and to glorify the Lord, recognizing you work for the one who is in heaven, not the one who is on earth.
SPEAKER_00: So that was last Lord's Day.
SPEAKER_00: This is part two of that, where we look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: And then here Paul's instructions shift from addressing employees to addressing employers.
SPEAKER_00: I was in Los Angeles this week for a board meeting at the Masters University, and on the flight back, I sat next to a lady who was preparing a uh TED talk that she's delivering, I think, today actually.
SPEAKER_00: Uh she's delivering it in India, but from Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: She lives in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_00: It was a complicated life.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't keep up.
SPEAKER_00: But the content of her talk is on how capitalism is actually good for the world.
SPEAKER_00: Capitalism gets a bad rep.
SPEAKER_00: She says that certainly there are abuses in capitalism and that there are uh you know injustices in the world.
SPEAKER_00: But capitalism has so raised the standard of living and so raised the moral compass of society that it enables us to even identify injustices that in previous economic systems would have not only been tolerated but approved of.
SPEAKER_00: So she has 11 minutes today to make that case.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I joked with her and said, we have the same job.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you look at this passage, this passage is kind of hinting at that.
SPEAKER_00: Um this passage has a subversive element to it, to the Roman society, and I hope you notice the subversive element to this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is addressing slaves and masters in a local congregation in a society that is marked by slavery, and Paul is addressing it, engaging with it at a level that I think is certainly subversive.
SPEAKER_00: He is esteeming slaves.
SPEAKER_00: He's esteeming them, letting them know that there is an authority higher than their own masters, and that they're working for that authority, and that the Lord approves of their work regardless of what their master thinks about it.
SPEAKER_00: And then he engages masters with this turn of phrase here, uh, likewise, it's the Greek word for likewise, uh, it's rendered in the ESV, do the same to them, but it's it's one word in the Greek, likewise.
SPEAKER_00: And here, Paul's, now, see what he's doing with masters.
SPEAKER_00: See why I say it's subversive.
SPEAKER_00: He's addressing masters in the same sense in which he was addressing slaves, even with the word likewise, he's connecting them to an ethical obligation that they serve someone who is also in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: By putting them on equal footing before the cross, slaves and masters here, Paul is being subversive in society.
SPEAKER_00: He is, I think, planting seeds that are going to work their way through society, ultimately uh producing the undoing of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: Not that uh capitalism is a perfect system either, and I would agree that there are injustices in capitalism, the the chief of which is materialism, how capitalism can fuel materialism and fuel the pursuit of pleasure and um the pursuit of using your own resources for your own selfish interests.
SPEAKER_00: I grant all that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but nevertheless I look at this passage and see how Paul is subverting an economic system based upon slavery with ethical mandates that are going to lead to the corrosion of it, as the book of Philemon, I think, does this even uh lower gear, you know, with more strength and more force.
SPEAKER_00: Philemon accomplishes the same the same thing even more directly there.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but the principle is here as well.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to take that principle and follow along from our outline last week.
SPEAKER_00: Last week it was how to be the employee of the month, how to work as an employee and be recognized before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So this week I have a slightly different outline addressed towards masters.
SPEAKER_00: It's Paul's TED Talk on Managing.
SPEAKER_00: I have more than 11 minutes, so praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's TED Talk on Managing.
SPEAKER_00: And the first place where Paul engages here with managers is by commanding them to serve people by serving Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what's coming from the word.
SPEAKER_00: Likewise, there.
SPEAKER_00: Masters do the same to them.
SPEAKER_00: And so you want to ask, what does it mean when he's telling masters to do the same?
SPEAKER_00: The same as what?
SPEAKER_00: If he's telling masters do the same, well, what is the same?
SPEAKER_00: What's the other side of that uh teeter-totter here?
SPEAKER_00: What's the weight on the counterbalance?
SPEAKER_00: And that's of course what we looked at last week.
SPEAKER_00: The main thrust of his direction as slaves last week was to recognize that you are a slave under the authority of God.
SPEAKER_00: You are serving him.
SPEAKER_00: And so don't serve your own master by eye service in verse 6, but recognize, recognizing that you're doing the will of God from the heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's kind of this uh authority structure from heaven to the heart of the slave.
SPEAKER_00: Notice that it bypasses the master there.
SPEAKER_00: The slave is serving the Lord, pursuing what is excellent in the Lord's eyes, not in man's eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, the corollary of that, which is more obvious with an employer-employee relationship, is that you are a better employee when you are working for the Lord over your boss.
SPEAKER_00: And this same principle is all over the book of Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: You understand this with marriage.
SPEAKER_00: A husband loves his wife more when he loves Jesus more than his wife.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: A wife serves her husband and loves her husband more when she serves the Lord over her husband.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way God designs the marriage relationship to work.
SPEAKER_00: You recognize it with parenting.
SPEAKER_00: The best way for a parent to love his or her child is to love the Lord more than his or her child.
SPEAKER_00: And for the child to see that.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually a way of loving your child more than letting your child know the most important thing in the universe is the child.
SPEAKER_00: When the authority of the Lord is elevated in your own heart, your child sees that, your child grows in his or her own love for the Lord as they follow your example.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just, you know, marriages are strengthened when you love Jesus more than each other.
SPEAKER_00: Parenting is strengthened when you love Jesus more than each other.
SPEAKER_00: And the employee-employer relationship is strengthened when you love Jesus more than your own boss or more than your own employees.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's the likewise, I think, what Paul is getting at there, that employees or slaves work and actually serve their master better by serving their master less than the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what Paul's going for with the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: The principle here is that the manager has to manage, recognizing that he is managing people who are given to him or her by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That the Lord is the one who watches over all of these things.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the word for master here is the word uh curios, the word for Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word that's used all over the New Testament for Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word that's used in the the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, to render Adonai, which is the Hebrew word for Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord is a very good English translation of it.
SPEAKER_00: Master works fine too, but it's, you know, master is where it's in a slave relationship, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's a slave, slaves have masters.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the why it's rendered master here.
SPEAKER_00: But the word curia, uh, curios is not always connected to slaves.
SPEAKER_00: It's often connected to political authority, authority over a region, much like the English word lord, somebody who has substantial authority in society or impact in society can rightly be recognized as the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they get knighted by the queen or whatnot.
SPEAKER_00: Um, that's the concept of a lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's it could be a sign of uh endearment or affection, like we might use sir or your honor in court.
SPEAKER_00: You might address the judge with your honor.
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's this word.
SPEAKER_00: Curiosity carries all of that package with it.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to understand what it means here when uh Paul is addressing masters uh by telling them to remember in the middle of verse 9, the one who is both their master and yours.
SPEAKER_00: So even the master of the slaves has a higher master, a higher lord.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a word play that might not be obvious in in English, but it is certainly obvious in the Greek.
SPEAKER_00: The word curios or lord or master is a word that speaks of inherent authority.
SPEAKER_00: That you have authority over those who are underneath you.
SPEAKER_00: The story we're gonna look at tonight in Luke's gospel of the vineyard, it begins with a master who has a vineyard, and he leases it out to other people, and then he goes to exercise his authority over the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that that word means.
SPEAKER_00: It has wrapped up in it this connotation of authority over the land that you have, the people that you have.
SPEAKER_00: So here in Ephesians 6, verse 9, it's obvious that the Lord is the Lord of the universe, meaning he has an inherent authority over the universe.
SPEAKER_00: When you have a relationship with the Lord, when the Lord recognizes your name, even at a human level, of the human lord of a vineyard or the human lord of a province, if you have a relationship with him, it speaks of your privileged position.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 5 is where the vineyard analogy comes from.
SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah chapter 5, there is a Lord who has the vineyard, and he places Israel in the vineyard.
SPEAKER_00: Israel becomes the vineyard, and Israel is in a privileged position with the Lord by virtue of their relationship.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the concept behind the word Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You have a privileged position.
SPEAKER_00: You recognize that the Lord of the Bible is the Lord of the whole universe, not just Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But that Israel has a privileged position with the Lord by virtue of their being named by Him and owned and managed by Him in a specific way.
SPEAKER_00: It's the idiom of the kid whose dad is mayor, and the kid gets pulled over by the police and says, You need to know who my dad is.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the guy is mayor of everybody in the city, but the kid is pulling rank on the police officer because he feels like he has a privileged position by virtue of his relationship with the mayor.
SPEAKER_00: So that concept of Lord has that in it, that there are people with a privileged position before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't lead to favoritism.
SPEAKER_00: We'll end with that this morning, but first you have to understand why that would function that way.
SPEAKER_00: That if you have a Lord and you have a relationship with him, you you are privileged.
SPEAKER_00: The word kurios, I learned this this week, it's a word that is often used in Aesop's fables for somebody who owns animals or pets.
SPEAKER_00: They're the lord of the animal, which lets you know in the Greek language it's not as specific as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It could even, you know, be even broader.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you have a dog, you're the Lord of the dog.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you have a cat, the cat is your lord.
SPEAKER_00: The cat rules you.
SPEAKER_00: John 13, verse 16, Jesus says, Truly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master.
SPEAKER_00: That's the word for Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's curiosity again.
SPEAKER_00: The first use of this in the Bible, by the way, is of the angels who appear to Abram.
SPEAKER_00: They're on their way to destroy Sodom.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the story?
SPEAKER_00: And Abraham sees the three angels, he addresses them with the word Adonai, the word for Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, My Lord, come in here.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first use of it in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: You kind of wonder what Abram knows about those angels?
SPEAKER_00: Is he identifying them as divine by addressing them as Lord, or did he just recognize them as dignitaries or having authority?
SPEAKER_00: The word is used next in Genesis chapter 24 as Abram is sending his servant out to find a wife for Isaac.
SPEAKER_00: And you remember that Abram has his servant come and uh lay his hands on Abram's own mark of circumcision and make a vow that he will find a wife for his son from the covenant people.
SPEAKER_00: And that word for Lord is used 17 times in that passage, as Abram is the Lord, as identified by him having the mark of circumcision, and his servant gonna go find somebody to marry into the family.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a kind of covenantal implication of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's you've you know, you go from seeing it one time in the Bible with the angel to 17 times in a passage where Abram is the Lord by virtue of being in part of the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, uh Sarah will call Abram Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Peter lets us know that.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a it's indicating there's some kind of authority that comes from a relationship with God with that person.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus uses the word uh in the New Testament in his Sermon on the Mount where he says, nobody can serve two, and here it's translated, masters.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a slave can't serve two masters, and you think uh that's kind of obvious, right?
SPEAKER_00: A slave can't be owned by two people.
SPEAKER_00: And so in our culture that doesn't have slavery, we often hear that rebuke of Jesus that you know, nobody can serve two masters, and you think of the time when you were in high school and you had four part-time jobs.
SPEAKER_00: Like, of course you can have two bosses.
SPEAKER_00: I were, I remember I had three or four bosses, and all of my teachers think they're my boss.
SPEAKER_00: But in a context of slavery, Jesus' admonition makes more sense, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: A slave cannot have two masters.
SPEAKER_00: Because even if he did, if it were possible, which it's not, but if it were, Jesus says he would love one and hate the other.
SPEAKER_00: So in the context of slavery, you're wondering, like, where is Jesus going with that?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus lets you know where he's going, because the next verse says, you cannot serve both God and money.
SPEAKER_00: One of them can be your master, but not both.
SPEAKER_00: And then if you serve both, you're going to end up, Jesus says, loving one and hating the other.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the concept of lordship in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the point that Paul is making here in Ephesians 6 is that a master of slaves is actually under the authority of a greater master who he's going to give a response to.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the master of the universe, and of course, Jesus is that master.
SPEAKER_00: He's addressed as the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Already in Ephesians, repeatedly, he's addressed as Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does it mean that Jesus is the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is uh in that position of authority, the Lord of heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll give you a couple little observations about this.
SPEAKER_00: First, it means that he made us, and we identify Jesus as Lord, it means that Jesus made us.
SPEAKER_00: This is how this word is used in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I the example that always comes to my mind is Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Back in Exodus chapter 2 and 3.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh is talking with Moses and sends Moses to go rebuke Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember Moses' first objection is, Who am I supposed to say, sent me?
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to go back to the Israelites and say, hey, I talked to a burning bush, and they're going to put me away.
SPEAKER_00: Who do I say sent me?
SPEAKER_00: And do you remember what the Lord says is tell them, Yahweh sent you.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: And then Moses says, I can't speak right.
SPEAKER_00: And when Moses starts trying to talk his way out of it, he doesn't address the Lord as Yahweh, he addresses him as Adonai, Lord, the other word for Lord.
SPEAKER_00: After God just said, My name is Yahweh, talk to me as Yahweh, Moses says, Okay, Adonai, I can't speak right.
SPEAKER_00: And do you remember what God says?
SPEAKER_00: God says, if I am Adonai, if I am your Lord, who do you think made your mouth?
SPEAKER_00: See the personal connection there?
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to address me as Lord, then don't complain about how you were made.
SPEAKER_00: Because if I am your Lord, that means I made you.
SPEAKER_00: I made you.
SPEAKER_00: So that's a very basic principle of employers to recognize that you have a master above you who made you.
SPEAKER_00: And not only did he make you, but he owns you.
SPEAKER_00: He owns you again.
SPEAKER_00: This is very socially subversive because Paul is addressing masters with the language in their society that is used for slavery, and he's letting masters know that you, in fact, are owned by somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 10 verse 26 says, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, meaning everything that is made belongs to God.
SPEAKER_00: He owns it.
SPEAKER_00: The earth is the Lord's.
SPEAKER_00: That's language of possession.
SPEAKER_00: The earth belongs to him.
SPEAKER_00: He's not the Lord of a zip code or of a province or of a neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: He is the Lord of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He owns us not only generically, because we're part of the world, but he owns us because we are in his image.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a slave might bear a marking of his master.
SPEAKER_00: It was common in Israel that a slave would get a tag in the ear.
SPEAKER_00: We sometimes render the word earring, but it's more like a tag.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a brand on the flesh, but it could be a brand on a leather tag that would be put in the ear and that would identify him.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a sign in the ancient Near East, in the Israelite culture, it was a sign of elevated status.
SPEAKER_00: Not every slave had a tag.
SPEAKER_00: Only a slave that was loved by his master and that loved his master in return.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, to get the tag, the slave had to go to the doorpost at the city gate, bring out a priest, and the slave had to declare, I love my master, and I love Yahweh, and the priest would oversee the insert of the mark in the ear, and that slave then had a privileged relationship with his master.
SPEAKER_00: Do you recognize that you are in the image of God?
SPEAKER_00: You were made in his image.
SPEAKER_00: You have a privileged relationship with him over the rivers and the trees and the birds.
SPEAKER_00: The earth is the Lord's in the fullness thereof, but you in particular are owned by him.
SPEAKER_00: And this puts our sin in perspective because if he is our Lord, then you recognize that when you're sinning, you're sinning against the one who owns you.
SPEAKER_00: An act of sin is at some level against your neighbors or your family or against yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You can, you know, if you steal from somebody, you're stealing from your neighbor, and that's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: If you sin against your own body, you're sinning against your body, and in a sense, you're sinning against the church.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a greater sense in that every act of sin is against your Lord, the one who made you and the one who owns you.
SPEAKER_00: All sin is against him.
SPEAKER_00: You belong to the Lord, and so sin is an open rebellion against your master.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reality that we live in a fallen world.
SPEAKER_00: Sin has taken us captive, and this is why the New Testament, particularly Paul, uses so much of this kind of slavery language about sin, that we are slaves to sin and death, he says.
SPEAKER_00: That we are ruled by the prince of the power of this air.
SPEAKER_00: He's the devil, in some sense, holds the whole world captive.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says in Hebrews chapter 2, that we are held in slavery to the fear of death.
SPEAKER_00: This language is used all over the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: You are taking your thoughts captive for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There is a war in your mind, a war among the members of your body, Romans 6 says.
SPEAKER_00: This war, they're in rebellion against their Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Your body is rebelling against its Lord, your passions are rebelling against their Lord.
SPEAKER_00: There is the Lord who owns you, and every act of sin is open rebellion against him.
SPEAKER_00: Through sin, you've been taken captive.
SPEAKER_00: Through sin, you've rebelled against God.
SPEAKER_00: You belong to the knight, your servants of the flesh, your servants of sin, your servants of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: This is all part of this metaphor of lordship in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The whole concept of lordship makes sin more extreme because you're rebelling against the one who owns you.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, when you understand that Jesus is your Lord, you understand that he chose you.
SPEAKER_00: He chose you in light of your sin, even.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can flip over just a few pages to the left in Ephesians 1.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: To be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So here's an example of where Jesus is called Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He was called Lord earlier in Ephesians 1, verse 2, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: It's your first introduction to it.
SPEAKER_00: There, he's identified as the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now in verse 3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him.
SPEAKER_00: So your Lord chose you.
SPEAKER_00: As you go through Ephesians and you get to chapter 2, you recognize that he chose you in light of your sin.
SPEAKER_00: You were dead in your sins and trespasses.
SPEAKER_00: He chose you in light of that.
SPEAKER_00: While you were still God's enemy, he set his love and his affection on you.
SPEAKER_00: While we were his enemy, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_00: He chose you.
SPEAKER_00: You've been marked for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that means.
SPEAKER_00: You were marked for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: While you were still in the slave market of sin, Christ set his affection on you.
SPEAKER_00: He did not set his affection on you because of anything good inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't see you in the slave market of sin and identify you based upon your strength or your age.
SPEAKER_00: He saw you in the slave market of sin and set his affection on you because he loved you, because he chose you.
SPEAKER_00: That's all in the concept of lordship.
SPEAKER_00: This metaphor.
SPEAKER_00: And because he chose you, he redeemed you.
SPEAKER_00: It's again the concept of a Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Choosing his slaves, buying his slaves.
SPEAKER_00: It has redemption inherent in it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the cost of your purchase.
SPEAKER_00: You weren't purchased with silver or gold, but you were purchased with the precious blood of Jesus Christ that is of more surpassing value than the silver or gold.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the widow Anna, 84 years old, a widow for decades in the temple ministering to the Lord, when she saw the baby Savior, when she saw Jesus as an infant, she said, I've been sitting in the temple waiting for the redemption of Israel by our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: She gives thanks to the Lord, recognizing this child is the one who will be her redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: This is what you see in Ephesians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: In him we have redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 7 of chapter 1, if we're still there.
SPEAKER_00: In him we have redemption through his blood.
SPEAKER_00: The riches of his grace.
SPEAKER_00: He lavished upon us with wisdom and insight.
SPEAKER_00: This is a master who is profoundly and innumerably rich.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot describe the richness of this master.
SPEAKER_00: And what does this master do with his riches?
SPEAKER_00: He sets his affection on you, even though you're a rebel against him, and then purchases you with his own blood, buys you from the slave market of sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's the word redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Redemption, again, is something that you might own, but you have to pay for a second time.
SPEAKER_00: The analogy that I always uses that helped crystallize it for me is that when my car was stolen and it was towed by the LAPD, it was recovered and towed by the LAPD to their impound lot, I had to buy it out of from the LAPD.
SPEAKER_00: I reported it as stolen, but I had to buy it back from them.
SPEAKER_00: I had to redeem it from car jail.
SPEAKER_00: It was mine, but I had to pay for it a second time.
SPEAKER_00: That's the nature of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Your dog runs away, you have the same principle.
SPEAKER_00: Fairfax County Animal Control will come fetch your dog for you, lock him in dog jail.
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta go buy it out.
SPEAKER_00: Buy that creature a second time.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord does for you.
SPEAKER_00: You belong to him in a personal way.
SPEAKER_00: You've sinned against him, you rebelled against him.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, he has set his heart on you and his affections on you, and he purchases you.
SPEAKER_00: And because he purchases you, you now belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: So you serve him.
SPEAKER_00: The nature of Lordship in the New Testament goes beyond simply being purchased by Christ and into service.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 6, verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God.
SPEAKER_00: The fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: That's Romans 6, 22.
SPEAKER_00: You are a slave to sin, you are purchased by God, and now you're bringing fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You're a productive slave.
SPEAKER_00: You're bringing in spiritual fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And that spiritual fruit produces or ends in your sanctification and finally eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 1, verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore it is written, let one who boasts boast in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see this connection?
SPEAKER_00: The Lord, your master, you're boasting in him because he paid the price to rescue you from your sin.
SPEAKER_00: He redeems you from sin, frees you from the power of sin, and doesn't just turn you homeless.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't rescue you from the slave market of sin and tell you to fend for yourself in the big world.
SPEAKER_00: He rescues you from your sin at the cost of his own blood and then brings you into his own household where he showers you with his wisdom and the riches of his treasury, and then puts you to work, making a harvest of sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul says in Romans 12, present your bodies as a living sacrifice to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's your spiritual act of worship.
SPEAKER_00: You're laying yourself down on the altar repeatedly.
SPEAKER_00: Even that language, living sacrifice, is so confusing.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know much about sacrifices, but they don't live long.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what happens with the sacrifice?
SPEAKER_00: It's killed, and the blood is spread on the altar.
SPEAKER_00: There's no living sacrifice on the altar.
SPEAKER_00: Except you, your master bought you, equips you, and then sends you to be a sacrifice, producing a harvest of sanctification through spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what it means that Jesus is your master.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, the New Testament metaphor doesn't end there, it doesn't terminate with a slave-master relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, Jesus says, I no longer call you only slaves.
SPEAKER_00: You're more than that, because a slave doesn't know what his master is doing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a slave doesn't ask his master questions like, so why are you planting this crop now instead of that crop?
SPEAKER_00: Not a question a slave gets to ask.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, I call you more than slaves.
SPEAKER_00: You're in fact friends because what the Father has revealed to me, I'm revealing to you.
SPEAKER_00: So you're brought into the household.
SPEAKER_00: You have knowledge of how the household is operating because of books like Ephesians here, Ephesians chapter 1 ties this whole metaphor together.
SPEAKER_00: That your Lord purchases you from sin by the cost of his own blood, makes you his own slave, puts you to work in the garden to walk in the garden of this world to walk in the good deeds appointed from before time, producing your own sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: That's your spiritual act of worship for your Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Ephesians 1, verse 15, you're probably still there.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, because I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Notice here the idea of curiosity, Lord, is tied to Paul giving thanks and remembering and praying for you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17 the God of our Lord Jesus Christ can give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see the language from Jesus and John here coming out?
SPEAKER_00: That you're not just a slave, because he's letting you know what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Jesus says, I don't call you slaves only, but you're more than that your friends because what the Father has told me, I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_00: You're seeing this in Ephesians 1, verse 17, that the Lord is giving you knowledge of what his father has told him.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible to think about this, but Ephesians was written after Jesus had that conversation in John, of course, but Ephesians is written before John's gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So as Paul's writing this and recording this, he's not, it's not because he read John's gospel yet.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he's repeating the same things that Jesus told his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul wasn't there when Jesus told his disciples that.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2, verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: Keeps this analogy going.
SPEAKER_00: The whole structure, speaking of the church, being joined together grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So you, as a slave, are now more than a slave, a friend, and now more than a friend, you're part of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a promotion.
SPEAKER_00: From a sacrifice to being the temple itself.
SPEAKER_00: Would you rather be the sacrifice or the temple?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what's happening to you.
SPEAKER_00: You're built together into the temple.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, Jesus himself is the temple.
SPEAKER_00: You're adopted in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You see how much more rich this is than merely slavery?
SPEAKER_00: But it's not less than slavery.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get to being part of the temple until you go through that channel of slavery that your master bought you, cleansed you, gives you the possibility of being productive now with spiritual fruit, so much so that you're this living sacrifice, now you're built into the temple of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're adopted in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 3, verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: This whole thing, all this man, verse 10, this manifold wisdom of God, which the Father has shared with Jesus Christ, verse 11, this is according to the eternal purpose that he realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In him we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.
SPEAKER_00: See you're now, the slavery analogy keeps going here.
SPEAKER_00: You're now a slave with boldness and access to the master's house because of your knowledge of what he's doing, which he has distilled through Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You can approach him because you belong there.
SPEAKER_00: The world is still hostile, of course, to our to our Lord and to our master.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 4, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: I, therefore, Paul says, chapter 4 of Ephesians, verse 1, a prisoner for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So even though he's on the Lord's side, the Lord of the universe, the particular Lord who redeemed him, bought him, and has made him productive, Paul is still being persecuted.
SPEAKER_00: When you recognize that you belong to your master, you get that they're not actually persecuting you, they're persecuting Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They persecute you because they're after Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's a prisoner for the Lord because they can't arrest Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's been crucified and resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: All they can do is get their hands on him.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 4, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
SPEAKER_00: So this whole thing is unified here.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is our Lord, but we only have one Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And he's the God and Father of all.
SPEAKER_00: We only have one baptism.
SPEAKER_00: Not multiple baptisms with multiple Lords, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
SPEAKER_00: And then look at Ephesians 5, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: Dog your eyes down to the end of that little section there.
SPEAKER_00: We're giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So all that we're doing here, we're being thankful to our Master, who is our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So I hope you see this whole thing is coming full circle.
SPEAKER_00: The God of the Old Testament, the God who created the universe, creates you in a unique way.
SPEAKER_00: You've sinned against him, you've rebelled against him, he's marked you out for salvation, he's redeemed you, he's brought you into his own household, he's made you more than a slave.
SPEAKER_00: You're spiritually productive for him, you're persecuted for him, but the whole time you're giving thanks to him and all things because he is your true Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This takes us all the way back to chapter 6, where the word is now rendered masters in verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Masters, you're supposed to do the same to them.
SPEAKER_00: Act towards your employees in that way.
SPEAKER_00: So, wow.
SPEAKER_00: If you're an employee employer, people who work for you, that becomes your pattern for how you care for them.
SPEAKER_00: You have this whole meta-narrative of the Bible here of a Lord who identifies people and gives himself up for them.
SPEAKER_00: Your first obligation of as an employer or as a manager is to manage according to the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: You don't pursue your own interests, as Jesus himself did not pursue his own interests, but laid himself down to pursue the interests of others.
SPEAKER_00: That's the pattern.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be a manager like the Lord is a manager, you want to be a Lord like the Lord, then you sacrifice yourself, even at a cost for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: This is how Jesus' own lordship was identified, identified through self-sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: So my next few points of my TED talk will go faster.
SPEAKER_00: First, you want to be a good manager?
SPEAKER_00: You serve the people by serving Christ, your master in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Second, you don't lead by threatening.
SPEAKER_00: That's where Paul goes to next.
SPEAKER_00: Stop your threatening.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very abrupt Greek phrase here.
SPEAKER_00: Just stop.
SPEAKER_00: You're threatening right now?
SPEAKER_00: Stop it.
SPEAKER_00: A Christian manager, a Christian employer, a Christian master.
SPEAKER_00: Paul rebukes them for threatening their slaves or for threatening their employees.
SPEAKER_00: Treating them in a way that's merely designed to get results.
SPEAKER_00: And you think, what's the big deal about threatening?
SPEAKER_00: You know, every boss needs to get meltdown every now and then.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what the big deal is, is it exposes your agenda.
SPEAKER_00: What are you after in the workplace?
SPEAKER_00: Are you after your own success, in which case you're going to see failure and you're going to express frustration?
SPEAKER_00: Are you recognizing that you're you're steward of what the Lord has given you, who's above you?
SPEAKER_00: This all belongs to him.
SPEAKER_00: So when you're threatening, when you're exploding, when you're having meltdowns, when you're losing your temper on your employees, you're demonstrating that you're working for yourself, not for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit-filled boss doesn't threaten.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Greek word here is kind of a cool Greek word.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word for loosen.
SPEAKER_00: So literally in Greek it says loosen up.
SPEAKER_00: You know, loosen up your threatening.
SPEAKER_00: So in other words, perhaps you've had a boss that's like this.
SPEAKER_00: They're just holding on a little bit too tight.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says to the bosses, go ahead and relax your grip a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Just calm down.
SPEAKER_00: Calm down.
SPEAKER_00: Don't hold on so tight.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit-filled boss understands that the Lord is sovereign.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit-filled boss leads by example.
SPEAKER_00: He does the hard things.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't threaten, because that's the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: If you take off threatening, what do you put on?
SPEAKER_00: So if you're a boss and the Bible says don't threaten your employees.
SPEAKER_00: Like don't, if you don't, if you don't increase your sales 5%, you're all out of here.
SPEAKER_00: Good luck on food stamps.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you don't want to lead like that, what do you put on instead?
SPEAKER_00: How do you lead and motivate without that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you lead and motivate by your own example.
SPEAKER_00: You lead and motivate by doing the work.
SPEAKER_00: You lead and motivate by denying yourself and serving your employees in a way that shows them how to go.
SPEAKER_00: Not in a way that gets trod over.
SPEAKER_00: You know, a very bad boss is one that does all the work so his employees don't have anything to do.
SPEAKER_00: That would be a very poor boss as well.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's not your role in the economy.
SPEAKER_00: Your role in the economy is to supervise and delegate and motivate.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, I'm sure you, if you've ever had a boss, you understand this difference.
SPEAKER_00: One of my first jobs was working on a landscaping crew.
SPEAKER_00: And I recognized there were different foremen for this company, and some of the foremen sat in their truck and drank lemonade.
SPEAKER_00: And I did not like working for those guys.
SPEAKER_00: And others of the bosses, they're the ones that did the hard work.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sprinklerhead broke.
SPEAKER_00: It was that guy who you got in and got all muddy and wasn't afraid to dig up the sprinklerhead.
SPEAKER_00: It was that guy of, you know, New Mexico, there's these swamp coolers, and you had to lift the lawnmowers over the swamp coolers, and some of those uh foremen, those bosses, would be the ones that would lift the lawnmower up, would be get right there with you, help help out all the high school kids getting the lawnmower over.
SPEAKER_00: You just get that at that basic level.
SPEAKER_00: You get that working at a restaurant.
SPEAKER_00: I remember some managers when I was a busser, some managers would be the ones that would hang out in the office.
SPEAKER_00: Again, drinking lemonade.
SPEAKER_00: It was the same guy, I think.
SPEAKER_00: And other managers, you know, if the dishwashing machine is slammed, they'll hop in washing dishes.
SPEAKER_00: If there's a table that hasn't been bust, they'll bust the table.
SPEAKER_00: They don't go yell at another busser, hey, table seven, go get on it.
SPEAKER_00: They do it.
SPEAKER_00: And that motivates everybody else to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure that goes all the way up through every conceivable kind of job, that pattern of management.
SPEAKER_00: You don't threaten, you serve.
SPEAKER_00: Last week I gave an analogy about working for a car dealership, about the uh the lot lizard that just walked around in circles, didn't actually do anything.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that company had a rule if there was any trash anywhere on the property, you had to pick it up, any employee.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, which is kind of a good rule, but that rule only works if the boss does it.
SPEAKER_00: Because the moment you see a boss walk by a piece of trash and he doesn't pick it up, nobody else is ever going to pick it up again, unless the boss is watching.
SPEAKER_00: But the first time you see the guy walking by his Brooks Brothers suit, lean down and pick up a dirty piece of trash and throw it away into the office, you're like, whoa, not everybody's going to do it.
SPEAKER_00: That's his principle.
SPEAKER_00: Don't lead by threatening, but lead by serving.
SPEAKER_00: You get this with the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to over-spiritualize everything, but you get this with the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't simply say, hey, don't sin, and then he goes and lives how he wants to.
SPEAKER_00: He denies himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's the language Paul uses, denies himself to follow the commands of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So, first, you serve others by serving Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Second, you don't lead by threatening.
SPEAKER_00: Third.
SPEAKER_00: You know where you are in the flow chart.
SPEAKER_00: You know where you are in the flowchart.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have an exaggerated view of your own importance.
SPEAKER_00: Your flowchart doesn't go president of the United States, me.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody that works for me.
SPEAKER_00: You recognize there's some layers there that you're a person under authority.
SPEAKER_00: Even the masters are.
SPEAKER_00: That's his point.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing that he was both their master in the middle of verse 9 and yours is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, there's somebody above you both.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll give an account to him, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: He'll call you in for your employee review.
SPEAKER_00: You might be the master, but you are also an employee.
SPEAKER_00: You are his employee.
SPEAKER_00: Or to keep the slavery analogy going, you might be a master in this world, but you are certainly a slave in the cosmic scheme of things.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian, you were purchased by the Lord, you belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I told you this is socially subversive language here.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's addressing slave owners, saying that they themselves have a master in heaven who will give them an account.
SPEAKER_00: That's sobering.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a boss in this world, you might have authority, but your authority is temporary.
SPEAKER_00: You might not be a boss in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, people that work for you might be over you in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So look out.
SPEAKER_00: And I say that jokingly, but isn't that exactly what Jesus says with the story of the rich man and Lazarus?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean he says, there you had everything in this world, and he was eating food with the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: So next life, he's gonna be a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna be begging.
SPEAKER_00: And fourthly, there's much more I could say about all these, but fourthly, you validate the gospel by vanquishing partiality.
SPEAKER_00: That's how this ends.
SPEAKER_00: There is no partiality with him.
SPEAKER_00: Why does Paul care?
SPEAKER_00: Why does Paul care if a Christian master plays favorites with his slaves?
SPEAKER_00: Or why does Paul care if a Christian boss plays favorites with his employees?
SPEAKER_00: Why would Paul care?
SPEAKER_00: What's he after?
SPEAKER_00: Is he really after a more equitable workplace?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: What Paul is after is the gospel being validated.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus does not play favorites with his children.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, just in the great scheme of scripture, Jesus doesn't play favorites with nations.
SPEAKER_00: Israel has a privileged position in the Old Testament, of course.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter learns this the hard way.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 10, he's told to go witness to Cornelius, to Gentiles, and he objects, of course, Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Call fire from heaven, Peter.
SPEAKER_00: God puts the sheet out with all the food on it and tells him to eat.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter's like, I will never eat that food.
SPEAKER_00: That's Gentile food.
SPEAKER_00: I've never touched it in my whole life.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord rebukes Peter and says, again, he's getting used to it by Acts 10.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you dare call unclean what I have called clean.
SPEAKER_00: And the point isn't about bacon, of course.
SPEAKER_00: The point is what Peter takes away from it, Acts 10, verse 34, that God, this is Peter's own deduction.
SPEAKER_00: God shows no partiality.
SPEAKER_00: There's a spiritual principle behind it that God will save Gentiles as well.
SPEAKER_00: James chapter 2, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: If you show partiality, you are committing sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so employers, don't give, don't play favorites.
SPEAKER_00: Don't have your favorite employee that you give the best assignments to.
SPEAKER_00: That you give more access to yourself to.
SPEAKER_00: You serve them all.
SPEAKER_00: You're of course going to have your favorite employees.
SPEAKER_00: But I think a good boss doesn't let them know that.
SPEAKER_00: Keeps them all guessing.
SPEAKER_00: Because that underscores that you're being a boss in a way that validates the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: As I was praying for this, my heart kept going back to Galatians 4, verse 1, because this is where you see all of it come into focus.
SPEAKER_00: It's not normally connected to this, but I think there are so many profound truths here.
SPEAKER_00: An heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, even though he is the owner of everything.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul in Galatians is making a point that's about you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, about the law, about Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But it applies to our Lord Jesus so clearly, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes to this earth as a servant.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to this earth under the authority of his heavenly father.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I can only do what my father wills me to do.
SPEAKER_00: I can only I sh I can only do his will.
SPEAKER_00: In that sense, he's a slave.
SPEAKER_00: But he's also under authority.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's no different in that sense than a child.
SPEAKER_00: This is why he's not ashamed to call us brothers or sisters.
SPEAKER_00: We're in his family, even though he owns everything.
SPEAKER_00: He's the owner of the world.
SPEAKER_00: He's the Lord of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: But in his own humility, in his coming to earth, in his robing himself in human flesh, he becomes just like us.
SPEAKER_00: And he serves God with a clear conscience and a pure heart.
SPEAKER_00: He never sins.
SPEAKER_00: He's the owner of everything, and yet he leads by example.
SPEAKER_00: He serves us even though he's our master and our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So when he dies, he's paid the ransom for sin.
SPEAKER_00: He's resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: He reigns over the world as our as our master, as our heavenly Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So much so that Paul can identify him even at the end of the book of Galatians.
SPEAKER_00: Galatians 6, verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: I mean Ephesians 6, verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible.
SPEAKER_00: Or verse 23, peace be to the brothers and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful that you've shown us a love incorruptible.
SPEAKER_00: You laid your own life down and you've called us to do the same for others.
SPEAKER_00: Greater love has no example than this, other than one would give his life for his friends.
SPEAKER_00: You brought us into your household.
SPEAKER_00: You've called us more than slaves.
SPEAKER_00: You've made us friends.
SPEAKER_00: You've made us more than friends, but your own brothers and sisters, we've been adopted through faith in you.
SPEAKER_00: We're part of your family.
SPEAKER_00: We're in you.
SPEAKER_00: So we have access to God, our Heavenly Father, our eternal Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We kneel before Him.
SPEAKER_00: We bow the knees of our hearts to Him.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful for the redemption we have in Him.
SPEAKER_00: We give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.