Today we’re wrapping up our short
series on work. Obviously, the word “work” literally is a four-letter word, but
I decided to cute it up a bit. For a lot of people, work is a swearword. The
only reason they do it is because it’s either that or starve. It’s not
necessarily that they’re lazy: If someone offered them an opportunity to get
paid for nothing, they’d (hopefully) have too much self-respect to take it. But the work
they do is monotonous and soul-deadening. They work day after day performing
repetitious actions, or with a boss who’s difficult to work with (to put it
mildly), or with coworkers who drive them crazy, or in a really stressful
position. They don’t see any room for advancement in their line of work, and
going back to school is not an appealing or feasible option. I’ve been there.
Now, if I was talking with non-Christians about this, I’d tell them that their attitude is perfectly
reasonable. If this life is all you have, and you spend most of your adult life
in a cruddy job that you hate, that would be soul-crushing. Someone once
told me that when I see a lost person, I need to remember that (barring their
coming to Christ), this'll be the only heaven they’ll ever see. Wow. That’s pretty
depressing, isn’t it?
But for believers, we were made for
something more. Look, I’m going to have to be frank here: You
have no excuse to be joyless in your job, to see it only as a way to
pay the bills. If you go to your job and dread and hate every minute of it,
something is wrong, and—again, I have to be frank here—that something has to do with you.
Before you write me off as being
cold and heartless, please hear me out. I can just hear all the angry
responses: “You have no idea what I have to put up with! My boss is the worst
in the entire world! My job has killed my dreams! That’s easy for you to say!”
Remember what I said when I was telling wives to submit to their husbands, the same thing I’d tell fellow Christians who were being persecuted? Yes, I’ve lived a relatively easy life here in America in the 20th and 21st century. I’ve never been persecuted, and you wouldn’t have to look hard to find folks who’ve had lives much worse than mine. But when I teach the Bible, it’s not an issue of what I’ve experienced. The only thing that matters is what God is saying to you.
Remember what I said when I was telling wives to submit to their husbands, the same thing I’d tell fellow Christians who were being persecuted? Yes, I’ve lived a relatively easy life here in America in the 20th and 21st century. I’ve never been persecuted, and you wouldn’t have to look hard to find folks who’ve had lives much worse than mine. But when I teach the Bible, it’s not an issue of what I’ve experienced. The only thing that matters is what God is saying to you.
That’s why I point
you to today’s passages again. Paul (under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit) is telling slaves to obey their masters. Not with the typical obedience of
a slave, doing just enough to avoid punishment. No, he’s telling them to “Serve
wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people,” and “Whatever you
do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human
masters,” and “to be subject to [your] masters in everything, to try to please
them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that [you]
can be fully trusted.” He’s telling this to slaves.
Not people stuck in a dead-end job with a bad boss and who aren’t getting paid
what they deserve. I promise you, your life working for your boss is not nearly
as bad as a slave in the 1st century, or in any century for that matter.
Now, one of the rules of
hermeneutics is context. Context, context, context. You could make a case that
he’s not addressing employees in a freely contracted job. That’s true: Literally he’s not addressing anyone in that
situation. But I ask you: If he’s telling this to slaves, how much more does this
apply to non-slaves in a freely contracted job? I don’t think I have more of an
excuse than a slave did; I have much less.
So I need to be the most honest, most
diligent, employee my boss has ever seen. If there’s a nonbeliever in my
company who cares more about the company’s interests than I do, something’s wrong with me. I shouldn’t be the type of employee who
constantly needs a supervisor looking over their shoulder; quite the opposite.
Whether my boss is looking over my shoulder or not, my work should be the same.
Why? Because whether he’s looking over my shoulder or not, my
Lord is. He sees all and knows all. When I take an extra-long break
when I should be working, he knows it. When I shade the truth in order to make
myself look good, he’s well aware of it. When I come in late or leave early and
think I’m getting away with it, I’m not. I’m not getting away with anything. He’s
always watching me.
But let’s focus on the positive side
of this for a moment. If I’m the most honest and diligent employee my boss has,
there’s a side-benefit to it besides my Savior’s smile (although that should be
enough). Read the last verse of the Titus passage again. When I’m the employee I
need to be, there’s a huge bonus: I make the teaching about God my Savior more
attractive. That means I’m letting the beauty of the Message about
Jesus shine through me. My non-Christian coworkers and boss will notice. And—unfortunately—if
I’m not the model employee I’m supposed to be, they’ll notice that too. And then instead
of making the teaching about God my Savior more
attractive, well, you get the idea.
But again I want to focus on the
positive. Maybe my job is tedious and repetitive and/or stressful. But if I’m
doing it for my Savior, I have no excuse for it to be dull. I’m doing it for him. When I clean the
toilets, I’m doing it for him. When I
deal in a patient and compassionate way with that customer who’s trying to step
on my last nerve, I’m doing it for him.
And if I’m not getting credit for the hard work I’m doing, if my boss doesn’t
appreciate what I do for him, that’s OK: My
Lord is watching, and “[I] know that the Lord will reward [me] for whatever
good [I] do.”
Do I put this into practice all the time? Am I constantly working in
the light of these truths, that my Lord is watching me? I wish. Way too often I’ve
put forth the least effort I could get away with. I’ve been guilty way too
often of goofing off when I’m supposed to be working. And I’ve let myself get
really upset over not getting the recognition I think I deserve. But by his
grace, I’m trying to be better. Ultimately, no matter what job I’m in, I’m
working for my Savior. And he deserves absolutely nothing but the best from me.
Lord Jesus, help in this area. In my work, I want to make the Good News about you as attractive as I possibly can. And by your grace, I intend to.
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