It's been a little while, but we're coming back this evening to begin the end of finishing up 1 Timothy, or the epistle, the letter of the Apostle Paul to Timothy. 1 Timothy 6, we're up to, and you can find that in your pew Bibles on page 13651365. And of course, this is a letter that Paul writes to his son in the faith, Timothy, a young pastor, probably 35, maybe 40 years old, between 35 and 40 years old or so. And he's at a church that Paul had begun, had founded, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the town of Ephesus, or the city of Ephesus, a very large pagan town and Timothy is there and ministering and he's sending this letter to encourage, to strengthen, and also to help him focus on the things that he needs to do. And so this evening we'll just begin by reading the first 10 verses. 1 Timothy chapter 6, let as many bond servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor. so that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed. And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, He is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men, of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such, withdraw yourself. Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we have brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." Thus ends our reading. Let's ask God's blessing on His Word. Father, again, having read your holy, infallible, inspired Word, the Word literally given from heaven, a Word of power, of truth, a Word that speaks into each one of our lives, Father, we pray that you'd be with me and bring the thoughts of my heart and meditations of my heart and mind together in such a way that is pleasing to you. Father, you know how inadequate I am and what need there truly is. But Father, we pray that you take the little that has been prepared and that you would magnify it and everyone would be fed and strengthened. May it be that everyone here, everyone listening, would be strengthened, would be encouraged, would be lifted up. And for those that do not yet know you as Lord and Savior, have mercy, Father, and open their hearts that they might know you before the night comes. All these things we ask in Jesus' name alone. Amen. So... Just to basically warm us up again, I'm just going to give us a quick, quick overview of this letter, this epistle that the Apostle Paul sent to Timothy. And then, of course, those epistles in the New Covenant Church, they spread them all over, they shared them with everybody, they copied them, and then they sent them to the next church because they were useful for everyone. But in this letter the Apostle Paul is instructing Timothy, a young pastor, in the essential doctrines or teachings of the truth of the gospel and what the church is and what she represents and how we are to conduct ourselves. The church is the pillar and the foundation of the truth in the world And if you accept any position less than that, then it's not the church. That's one of the things that Dr. Beeke says about that, too. One of the things that many of the Protestant churches have gone astray on is they no longer accept the Bible, the word of God, as the authority. But it is the authority. And the church represents that. It represents that good word. The church has been called in Christ to be the light of the world. In this letter, Paul emphasizes the right teaching of the gospel in the church. In chapter 2, he speaks about how the church is to pray for all men and for kings and all those that are in authority. In chapter 3, he describes the qualifications of elders and pastors and deacons. In chapter 4, he speaks of the standards of a good pastor. If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good pastor. So that actually helps the congregation, too, to look at that portion there and say, is our pastor doing that? Is he living up to these standards? Is he doing the things that a good pastor is called to do? And these are necessary things, right? Because a lot of times people in the congregation, it's kind of a mystery. What is a good pastor? Well, he's popular. We like him. He's young. He's good looking. He's old. He's good looking. Whatever, you know? A lot of people have all kinds of different ideas about what a good pastor is all about. But really, are we allowing the Bible to define that standard? And the truth is, all too often, we're just ignorant of that, of the fact that the Word of God actually gives us a standard to look at. And so, brothers and sisters, we need to be looking at those kind of things. In chapter 5, he speaks of how the church is to define and care for widows. And then he also speaks about how elders and pastors, teachers are to be honored, but also to be held to account for their actions, for their words. And now finally in these first 10 verses of chapter 6, in the final chapter, Paul speaks about how we worship the Lord in the context of our jobs. How we worship in the context of our jobs. I think this is very powerful because we've been talking about this word. It's one of the key words in this epistle. In the Greek, it's eusebia, and it literally is translated good worship. And what is good worship? Good worship, brothers and sisters, is living out your life, every aspect of it. It's not just what we do here. What we do here is worship. but your whole life is defined as worship for the child of God. Because Christ, and this is what Jesus is saying in John 15, I think John 15, John 16, he talks about how the Father will come and the Father and the Son are going to dwell in you. So you literally have the Lord in you as you're walking. And that doesn't just happen on Sunday morning or Sunday evening. That's every day, all day. And so, what is right worship, good worship? Worship that is pleasing to God in the way that we conduct ourselves in our jobs. And so, what we see is that the heart or the theme of the text is found in verse 6. And this is what we find in verse 6. Now, godliness with contentment. is great gain. That is the heartbeat of this whole text. Now godliness, which is this word, Eusebia, good worship, right worship, pleasing worship, with contentment is great gain. But what is this word contentment about? It's a very interesting word actually in the Greek. It's only used twice in the New Testament and it's a word that's used somewhat often by the Greek philosophers. The Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle often use it to speak of the perfect life, a perfect condition of life in which no aid or support is needed. I think that if you went to the Stoic philosophers, you would find them using that word also, that if you could set up your mind and your heart in a certain way, you can't be affected by whatever happens in this world. But is that the way that it's being used here? Yes and no, right? Because the problem with the philosophers is they don't understand how man was created, as the song says, as a throne for God. So they see man trying to achieve this state without God, whereas the Apostle Paul would never even dream of talking in such a way. So the only other time that we find this word is in 2 Corinthians 9, verse 8. And I think this text, that one verse actually helps us to understand what Paul is saying about this whole text. In 2 Corinthians 9 verse 8 we read this, and God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always having all sufficiency and that's the word translated a different way but it's the very same word having always having all sufficiency in all things may have an abundance for every good work. So right worship with this idea of having all sufficiency in all things is great gain. And to understand what Paul is saying in the first few verses, we have to understand that this is the heart of it. This is how we do this. And this is how we're going to actually be able to obey these words. And so this evening, we're just gonna begin, and I'm really only just going to look at verse one. because I do not want you to go to sleep. So, in verse 1 we read this, Okay, so in our text the word bondservant is used and it speaks of somebody who's legally a slave. Remember this word was given to us almost 2,000 years ago and and the Empire was but was about 35 to 40 percent slaves and And a good portion a much higher percentage than that probably 80 to 90 percent of the church Began as slaves right because the slaves were very attracted to the gospel because their life Honestly, it stunk. Okay, their life was terrible And so the gospel offered them something that they had never seen before. It offered meaning and significance for a life that was just covered in dirt and in drudge. But as the church begins to grow and to prosper, and how are we to act in Christ? There's so many people in the Roman Empire, all the laws were on the side of the owner. So the owners could literally, they could literally kill a slave if the conditions were right, or they could just say the conditions were right. He ran away for the fourth time, whatever, you know. Pretty much the Roman Empire was gonna uphold the slave owner rather than the slave. And so if you've got a bad boss, right, if you've got a bad owner, here comes the gospel and says you need to honor him. And now when you go to verse 6, now you can understand why that has so much power. Because how do we do this? Right? And so what we're going to do is just use these words to basically talk about a bad employer. or a good employer, honoring your employer, right? Because by God's grace, by the way, it's because of the gospel that much of the earth and much of the world has abolished slavery. That is a fact, that is a reality. However, Even though the essence of the Word of God and the essence of the gospel is fully against slavery, the Word of God does not explicitly speak against slavery. And I want to mention that because one of the things that, if you went online, one of the things that some of these atheists want to grab onto is that, oh, like, oh, yeah, you guys say that God is free and he wants his people to be free, but yet there's never any words against slavery in the Bible. And so they're bringing up a good point. Is that true? Think about why this might be for just a moment. Why would the Bible not speak explicitly against slavery? Here's why. And I can't go into a deep discussion of it, it's worthy of more of a discussion, but I'm just gonna tell you kind of a basic premise. Because human bondage and slavery is an outworking of sin and judgment in this world. Because of sin, we're all selfish. Because of sin, we all desire and want what we want. So what that means is the most gifted, the most talented, the strongest, the hardest driving people end up going to the top of the pyramid and they dominate the people below them. That's the history of the world. Sin in sin what happens is the strong are the cream that rise to the top and everybody else falls down So if you're running around in the Middle East 3,000 years ago and you're trying to make a living and you've got people attacking you etc And you come to a town and there's a nice king there that seems to be pretty decent acting But he says here's our rules. Here's our laws and here's you know, you're basically coming in into bondage to me But I'll take care of you. I'll offer you this, this, and this. But I'll protect you. I'll make sure you're going to work, but you're going to have good food, you're going to have a roof over your head, etc. And people would literally give themselves into that bondage. Why? Because being free just meant that you're going to die faster. That's a fact, and that's a reality. Because in the sinful world, man departs from God, rejects God, rejects His Word, rejects His truth, rejects His boundaries and His borders for respecting and honoring each other, then what happens is what we would call the cream. They're not really the cream, they're just the most gifted people of each generation. They rise to the top, they dominate the rest. So God is free and intends for His people to be free, but in sin, Humans are naturally in bondage either to their own desires and ambitions or to other taskmasters and most often both. It is only through the gospel, it's only through the redemption of our souls by Christ that we truly begin to be free. Freedom is something that begins on the inside. Freedom has to start on the inside, otherwise it will never be manifested on the outside. It's only when a child of God comes to the knowledge of God's love and care for him that freedom can begin to manifest itself outwardly, physically, on the outside. And that is literally the teaching that began changing the world 2,000 years ago. Other commentators have said it this way, now going back to our text. speaking about how we ought to act to our employers. The Christian should be the best employee, and by that we mean not necessarily the most gifted or most talented or even the best worker. but rather that the Christian employee works as hard as he or she can according to the gifts given to them. So you might go to a job and there's 50 people there, and there's 25 above you and 25 below you, but you are doing the best that you can. Every Christian is called to give his best, her best, and to do the best according to our abilities. Well, you know what? Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean that your IQ is going to all of a sudden jump 25 points. It's just not going to happen, right? Just being a Christian doesn't mean you're going to be more healthy than that horse next door, right? You know, just because you're a Christian does not mean you're going to have more gifts and more talents all of a sudden. God has given everybody a certain set of gifts and talents, a certain IQ, a certain ability to do work. The Christian is not called to do more than everybody else around him. He's called to do as much as he or she can. That is what's required for a Christian employee working for any kind of boss. They should be the most honest. They should have the most integrity. They should be the hardest workers according to their gifting or ability. They should be faithful in their words and their actions toward their employee and toward their fellow toward their employer and toward their fellow employees. They must not use excuses of wrongdoing by either their employer or a fellow worker to justify doing anything that is wrong or shameful. And if you think about even this morning, we were looking at Genesis 34 and Dinah's brothers, and it said that they deceived Shechem and Amor and the men of Shechem. They deceived them because they had defiled their sisters. So in other words, they did something bad to us, therefore it justifies us doing evil to them. Right? Well, that's how the human heart and mind work, brothers and sisters, in sin. That's who we are. As a Christian, your work, your labor, the way you conduct yourself towards your employer and your fellow employees are defined by the Word of God as worship. That is a critically important point. One of the things that the Roman Catholics messed up, and it was one of the many things that, because they basically took over and said that we define what the Bible says, and you can't do that. Everybody, all the church, every human being, we all come under the authority of the word of God. The word of God stands above all. The church does not stand above the word of God. But they put themselves above the Word of God, and then they started defining things in different ways, and they said that the only work that was truly holy and was worship, and good worship, was the priesthood, right? The people that went into the priesthood, the people that went into the church, the nuns and the monks, et cetera, that's holy work. But if you're a bricklayer, a farmer, a lumberman, et cetera, whatever you might be, That's secular. But that's part of the beauty of the Reformation. It brought and opened up the Word of God again and said every job that a Christian does has necessity. And you do it as unto God. You do it as worship. Whatever it is. It doesn't matter if you're a janitor at a local company or factory or school. Do it as unto God. It does matter. So, in verse 1, the Lord commands that we are to count our own employers worthy of all honor. Notice how this command does not include or contain any if-then statements, right? Apodasis, I think they call that. So, if he's a good employer, then count him worthy. Or, if he treats you in a certain way, then count him worthy. There's no if-then here. How can a Christian give all honor to an employer or boss who is not upright? Or an employer or a boss that does not take good care of his employees? So remember Paul was writing this when many of these people were literally owned, they were legal slaves owned by a master who had the Roman law on their sides and what this means is that when Paul was writing this many of these men and women did not have the right to change their workplace and their employer. One of the things that we have as Christians in America and as a free people You know, if you have a bad boss, you have a bad employer, and it's not working out there good, one of the things that you can do is you can leave. All right? You can leave. That's not unrighteous. That's not against the Word of God. But sometimes we just don't have that choice, do we? You know, if you've got a family, and it pays X amount, and you're getting taken care of with hospital, etc., with medical insurance, etc. If you're being taken care of and you've got a family, you've got a house and a mortgage and stuff, you can't just all of a sudden jump ship. A lot of times that's not an open possibility for many people. So what do you do? If you stay and work in an environment where the employer is not one who actually cares about you, The Lord commands you to do your best, and even when your boss treats you wrongly or unfairly, to return good for evil. In Luke chapter 7, in fact, all Christ's commands to us when it comes to our enemies apply here. Luke chapter 7 verse 27, but I say to you here, love your enemies. do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you. That last phrase right there is especially applicable to this situation. And pray for those who spitefully use you. If you have a boss that doesn't care about you, doesn't respect you, and doesn't treat you very well, that's spiteful use. And the Word of God tells us Pray for that guy. Pray for that girl. This last line really strikes home when it comes to working for a bad employer. So, brothers and sisters, how can we do this? How can we treat someone honorably and uprightly in the face of their bad or unjust behavior towards us? And this is literally what it means to be a Christian. Think about this with me for a moment. When people treat us badly, when they treat us poorly, when someone looks down on us and despises us, how does that make us feel? How does it make you feel when somebody just like literally just totally disrespect you? How does that make you feel? And it's the same for every one of us. It makes us feel small, insignificant, and unimportant. And this is why it's so important for us as Christians to treat each other with respect, mutual respect, mutual honor. And if they feel like we've despised them or that we have not treated them right, then if you hear that and find that out, then make every effort to go to them and say, I'm sorry. I did not, you know, I wasn't paying attention, I wasn't thinking, and I made you feel bad, I made you feel small, and I'm sorry. Because you are my brother and sister, or sister in Christ, you are the image of God, you have the image of God the same way that I do, and I don't want to demean you, and I don't want to demean the Lord, and I don't want to demean myself. Because that's what we do when we look down on people. We demean ourselves, we demean them, and we demean the Lord who made us. However, going back to feeling small, insignificant, and important, why do we feel that way when someone treats us poorly? And this is very important to think about this, brothers and sisters, and I'll tell you why. I grew up in a Christian home. I grew up with the Word of God. I grew up with Christianity. And even though I would not say I was a full professing member, I thought of myself in Christian terms. But when I got into the work world, I pretty much made every mistake that Paul is looking at when he's giving these directions, when he's giving these commands by the inspiration of the Lord. I was proud, I was arrogant, and if somebody treated me bad, then I'm gonna treat them bad. And so the things that I've got to say here come from that, partly from that experience. Why do we feel small, insignificant, unimportant when someone treats us poorly? because there's something in us, brothers and sisters, every one of us, that believes that we're being treated that way because we are small, insignificant, and unimportant. There's an empty place in our flesh, apart from Christ, there's an emptiness, there's an empty, there's a hole in every one of us. And when people, our fellow human beings, make us disrespect us, dishonor us, all of a sudden we feel that emptiness. Being treated poorly puts us in touch with that emptiness. So our natural reaction as sinners is to react with anger or violence, even if it's hidden anger or violence. Therefore, in a job situation, we find ways to pay back this bad boss, this disrespectful boss. But secretly, because we need our job, we might not work as hard as we used to. We purposely don't do our best, and we don't try to do quality work. We might even use it as an excuse to steal company property. I did that a while back, you know, the numbers on how many people steal from their company. It's like 70 to 80 percent of people steal from their company. It might just be toilet paper, it might just be paper or pencils or whatever, but they steal. 70 to 80 percent, and that includes Christians, or confessing Christians anyway. We speak evil against our employer with other employees who feel the same way. We start telling jokes with our boss as the punchline. If we're really brave or bold, we'll find ways to disrespect our boss right in front of everybody else, in front of his face, while the other employees smile with their mouths covered. All of these and more are a time-honored tradition in the working world among sinners. That is a fact, that is a reality, that is who we are. But Christianity changes all that. But why or how? Because our Lord Jesus Christ has addressed that empty place in every one of us. By faith and repentance in the name of Christ, the Father and the Son come to literally dwell in that empty place because that's why it's there. Just like that ball and socket idea that I was talking about this morning. He designed us for Him to fit in us and with us. And as long as He's not there, there's something missing in us. So to get my sense of human, to get my sense of worth and value, I have to get it from you guys. And you have to get it from us. We get our sense of worth and value from the people around us. If the people and a good enough group of people around me think I'm valuable, well then I feel valuable. But if all the people around me start looking down on me and disrespecting me and thinking I'm nothing, well then I have, then what do I have? I'm empty, I'm broke. If everybody around me is treating me terribly, well what value do I have? And what Jesus does, brothers and sisters, when we come to faith in Christ, he comes into us and convicts us of this knowledge that God, our Father, our Creator, has paid the infinite price for my life, for your life. I don't get, a Christian does not get their depth of value and the value of their life from everybody around them. We get it first and foremost from Christ himself. That's the sufficiency that's actually being spoken of in verse six. Now godliness with contentment, it's that understanding of God's grace and sufficiency that fills us up with this knowledge that I am beloved I am cared for. I am a son or a daughter of the Almighty God. I have value. I don't need my boss to treat me with the greatest respect in the world, though it's nice. Let it not be because you're not doing your best. Let it not be because you're not a good worker. Let it not be because you don't want to do quality work. and then try to fob it off on your boss or someone else. The Christian doesn't do that. They have truth in the inward parts. They have integrity. They look at themselves in the mirror. If your boss dresses you down, then look in the mirror and eat the meat and throw out the bones. Eat the meat. You know what? He's right about that. I haven't been working as hard as I should have been working. I haven't been doing my best. Recommit. Lord, help me. I want to be a better example. I want to be a better light. As a Christian growing in grace and truth, I no longer need my fellow human beings to affirm my value or my significance. Now, don't go too far with this thought, because some people do. I'm a Christian. I don't care what other people think about me. My value has already been established in Christ. I have Christ. I don't need you. Right? Don't go that way. That's really only a highly disagreeable person. That's probably rejecting everybody else's opinion. That is not the Christian heart and mind. The Christian heart and mind desires to get along with his neighbor, his fellow employees, or his employer. He wants to care for. He wants to uphold. He wants to encourage others for Christ's sake. He wants others to see the light of the world in him, in her. He wants the love of God to shine through his words and his actions. But in Christ, he no longer feels empty and significant if someone doesn't respect him or doesn't honor him or doesn't receive that. We can still honor the bad or the evil boss. We could still look to God for our sufficiency, not to Him. Do your best. Know this, we have the best Father, the best boss in the universe. He watches us every moment of every day and He gives us, when we come to Him and say, Lord, help me to do better. You know, because some people, a lot of people get stuck in jobs that they don't really like. But when you become a Christian and you become aware of how much it matters, every word that you say and everything that you do, everybody around you is seeing you, and as a Christian in Christ, you actually are having the ability to change the world around you. Not you, but you with Christ in you. You know, Christ says, without me you can do nothing. But with Christ in you, you can literally begin to change the lives of the people around you. Think about yourself before you were a Christian. You were miserable, you were broken, you were hurting, you had depression, you had this, you had that, et cetera. You become a Christian, you become born again, Christ raises you up, he encourages you, he strengthens you. Now he gives you the power to start doing that for people that you work with. You're in a work environment. You have the power to make people's day happy, not sad. You have the power and the ability to smile at them. And even if somebody, their boss comes and dresses them down, you have the power to say, hey, you know what? You're OK. Encourage them. Maybe they deserved it. Don't tell them the boss is wrong, but just tell them, look, I care about you. You matter. Don't forget it. You change the world in Christ around you, brothers and sisters. In Christ, we no longer feel empty and insignificant because of how others treat us. And that's what godliness with contentment is great gain, that When I go to work and I'm stuck in a job that I'm not in love with and I don't love my boss and they're not very good to me or whatever, I have a God that's watching me every moment of every day. He loves me. He's paid the highest price for me. My life has value. My life has significance. What I do in this place matters and that bad boss might be. It's very possible that this is someone that's called by God before the worlds were even formed as one of his sons or daughters. And you're going to be the one that helps them to see the light. And they're not going to see it with your games. They're not going to see it with your suppressed anger. They're not going to see it with your suppressed laziness and your resistance against the process, against the system. They will see it when you continue to smile, you continue to do your best work, you continue to treat them with respect and honor. And all of a sudden, they're going, whoa. Maybe they go home. Maybe somebody they work with says to them, man, you treat those people like dirt. Are you kidding me? And maybe that boss looks in the mirror one day and says, I didn't even know it, but I have been treating them terribly. But yet I've got these employees who still treat me so good. That's the power of knowing that Christ is in you. And that's the power that changes the world, brothers and sisters. Amen. Father, once again, we come before you and we confess again. Lord, all too often, we don't work as hard as we could. All too often, we don't do our best. All too often we use a multitude of different excuses for why this is, but Father, we know that you're a God of quality. You're a God of excellence. You're a God who created this world in ways that are so far beyond imagination that nobody in this world can even imagine. creating a universe, creating a world, creating an atmosphere, creating the oceans or the earth and all the inhabitants of the oceans and the seas and the land animals and the creatures under the earth and all of them form a part, each one of them is integral to everything else. You're a God of such excellence and of such marvelous work And Father, we pray that in Jesus Christ, we would reflect that and that others would see that in us too, that they would see the light of the living God inside of us in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they would see kindness, compassion, mercy, that they would see forgiveness, that they would see love in the face of anger and hatred. And Father, in our flesh, this is impossible for us to do. That's just a fact. We do not have the sufficiency in ourselves to do this. But in Christ, Father, as you come to dwell in us, you give us a sufficiency of your grace, of your mercy, of your goodness. You enable us to rise above the conditions. And that is what it means to truly be free, is that we could rise above bondage, that we could rise above bad treatment by others, that we could rise above the terrible situation. And we do it, Father, in you, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, be with this congregation, be with all your people, be with our young especially, and may their eyes and hearts be turned to the living God in the name of Jesus Christ also. All these things we ask in his name alone, amen.