You can open your Bibles up to the Book of Colossians. We will be reading from Colossians chapter three. At this point, we are finishing off what is called the household code. These are instructions in Paul's letter for what it looks like as a Christian to live in the household. So we've already looked at the responsibility of Christian husbands and Christian wives and Christian parents and Christian children. And now we turn to a part of the household that maybe isn't part of your household. slaves and masters, but it was a part of many ancient households. And because of that, Paul is writing to address it. So it is the word of God. Let's pay close attention to it. And we will begin in Colossians chapter three, verse 22. Slaves and all things obey those who are your masters on earth. not with external service as those who merely please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord, rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality. Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a master in heaven. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we first of all thank you for your word. And we thank you for how it speaks to us. We pray that this morning your word would would hit us where we need to be hit and that it would encourage us where we need that. This is the word of life, and so we pray, Lord, give us life by your word. Strengthen us, build us up. We pray in Jesus name, amen. Well, as I said, we've already looked at husbands and wives, and we've looked at fathers and children. And now we turn to slaves and masters And as we look at this, I think we need to begin, first of all, by just talking about the Bible and slavery. We need to talk about the Bible and slavery. The reason for that is that we live in a country that was founded on the institution of slavery. The institution of slavery is built into our founding documents. It's built into the Constitution. You can see that reflected in the old three-fifths law that was part of how we distributed the representatives in our Congress and that sort of thing. Which, by the way, tars everybody. The South wanted to have slaves count as full persons, because then they got more representatives. And the North wanted them to not be counted as persons at all, because then they wouldn't be counted. And so we had this compromise in our founding. They count as three-fifths, okay? And so, as an entire nation, This is a part of our history and an ugly part of our history that it still affects us in many ways to this day. And because it's such a big and ugly thing in our history as Americans, we need to be careful when we get to passages in the Bible that talk about slavery. And one reason for that is simply that, well, on the one hand, slavery is slavery, right? But on the other hand, not all slavery is the same. And ancient slavery in the Roman Empire was different from the kind of slavery that we had in this country. American slavery was race-based slavery. Africans were slaves. Now, of course, there were, if you go back far enough, you know, there are a few kind of limited examples of white people being enslaved in this country as well. But that was, on the whole, more of an exception. Slavery in this country, because it was race-based, was also essentially permanent. If you were born into slavery, then that would be your life. And even if you weren't born into slavery, if you were black, then you could end up being enslaved easily. That was part of American slavery. American slavery was also what you call chattel slavery. In other words, slaves were the possessions, the stuff of the people that they belonged to. Ancient Roman slavery is still slavery, but it is different. There are some big differences. It was terrible, but I'm going to say that it was not quite as bad as slavery in America. Where did the slaves come from in the ancient Roman Empire? Well, usually slaves came from warfare. The Romans would expand their territory. They would come in and instead of just killing everybody, which is what they would do in some places, they would sometimes kindly let people live and just enslave you. Sometimes as well, although this is not really very common by the time of the New Testament, but sometimes as well, people were enslaved through piracy. So pirates were very active in the Mediterranean up until about 50 years before Christ. And they would kidnap people and then sell them as slaves. And so that was another source for slavery in the ancient Roman Empire. As well, people would sometimes sell themselves into slavery. If you became indebted or There were a couple other reasons, but a free man, a person, maybe they weren't a Roman citizen, which is sort of a special status in the Roman Empire, but they'd be a free man. A free man could sell himself into slavery to pay debts or to help his family out in some way. And in this case, these slaves would have greater legal protections. So if you're a free man and you sold yourself into slavery, you could sell yourself to someone in town to be their slave. then you would have more legal protection than other slaves. They weren't allowed to physically abuse you. There was to be no sexual exploitation of you, which was very common among most slaves. There also seems to have been a practice whereby you could sell yourself into slavery as a way of gaining Roman citizenship when your term of service was done. And I don't know what else to compare this to except in the United States, there's a way that you can become a citizen by serving in the military. So that might be sort of a comparable thing. So you would sell yourself as a slave for a period of time, and the upshot was at the end of your time, you got Roman citizenship, which was a really big deal. That was a huge deal. You might also think about grad school. Some people compare grad school to slavery, more or less with a straight face. And the upshot of grad school is you get out and you have a PhD. So sometimes people do it because they think it's worth it. Another difference, though, between Roman slavery and American slavery is manumission. Manumission is just a fancy word for being freed. If a slave is freed, then they are manumitted. And this was actually extremely common. Most slaves in the Roman Empire were freed. They served only for a period of time. In fact, Most people were no longer slaves by the time they were 30, so about half of all slaves were freed by the age of 30. You could almost think of it as like most people have paid off their college debt by a certain period of life. And hardly anybody died of old age as a slave, okay? So you can see that there's some pretty big differences. It was still a bad institution, but it's not quite the same thing that we had here in this country. You also had degrees of freedom. Some slaves were allowed to represent themselves legally. Some slaves could choose their own work, could choose their own trade, and then eventually you could be totally freed where you could do all those things and you could decide where to live and that sort of thing. Another difference is social status. Slaves, the kind of social status you had as a slave in the Roman Empire was not based on your being a slave. So in this country, if you were a slave, then you were By virtue of that fact, you were at the bottom of the totem pole. In the Roman Empire, your social status didn't depend on whether or not you were a slave. It depended on who your owner was. So if your owner was a wealthy, prosperous Roman citizen, then as a slave of that prosperous Roman citizen, you could expect to have a higher social status. Whereas if you were the slave of a non-Roman citizen who was poor, then you wouldn't have much, then it was, you know, you were a slave and you had no social status. So there are some differences there. Another big question that I think people want to ask as they turn to the Bible and think about slavery is does the Bible condone slavery? And the reason this is an important question is because there's not really anywhere in the Bible that says slavery is really bad and you should just never do it. You know, I think that If you take the Bible on the whole and you look at everything that it has to say about it, then you would move away from slavery. You would not have slaves. You would get rid of your slaves. You would free them. And in the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, this is a big part of our history. Early in our history, before almost any other denominations in this country, we told everyone in the denomination that they had to free their slaves or be excommunicated. And we did end up excommunicating a lot of people. And in fact, here in New York State, some of you may know the Coldenham Newberg Congregation, which is a couple hours from here. One of the men who was called there as pastor refused to accept the call because there were still slaveholders in that congregation. That would have been in the 1700s. So this is a part of our history, and I think by the grace of God, it's a part of our history that is a denomination. We have understood the Bible's teaching on slavery. We've understood that the Bible is working in history is teaching us to work out in history to remove slavery and to get rid of it, that it is an evil. At the same time, the Bible, a lot of what you find in the Bible seems to just be regulation of slavery, not a ban on slavery, but regulation of it. And that's true. When you go to the Old Testament, you will certainly find a lot of laws that regulate the institution of slavery. And what they're doing is they are acknowledging that slavery is part of the economy, part of the world at that time. And so in that time in history, God is making that institution less brutal and more tolerable and ultimately undermining it because in God's word, slaves, and free people are both treated as real people and as having the full dignity of people. So, whereas in other legal systems in the ancient world, if you were a slave and you were killed, then that was no big deal. That was just sort of property loss. But under biblical law, slaves are humans, and if they are killed, that's murder. Okay? One writer observes that in the Old Testament, the laws about slavery seem to be communicating that the owners of slaves only have a right to the slaves' labor and not to their person. So that's pretty different. As well, you can see things like the Old Testament had a ban on extraditing slaves. So in other words, if you're a slave and you run away and you're a fugitive slave, then the people who find you are legally forbidden from sending you back to your owner that you've run away from. Now, at the same time, we can also turn to the New Testament and see how the New Testament handles slavery, which is one of the main passages in the New Testament is the one that we are looking at in Colossians. You can see other passages and others of Paul's letters. But one thing that comes out very clearly in scripture is not just slavery, that you can be, a person can be enslaved to another person. There's the idea that you can be a slave to sin and a slave to the devil. And this is worse than being a slave to another person. To be trapped in your sin and to become a servant who receives no pay and who has no rights, but who is constantly driven by a cruel master to do his bidding, to do sin. And God's work of salvation is to free people from that slavery, to free people from the slavery of sin. And there's a priority here. As evil as the institution of slavery is, an even more evil institution is slavery to the devil and slavery to sin. And this is why Paul can speak to slaves as though they are real people. living in that institution, living under that oppression, but speak to them as people who have been set free, because they've been set free from the worst kind of slavery, which is to be enslaved to sin. That is God's chief work and his best work, is freeing us from the power of the devil. And at the same time, ultimately, Our freedom in Christ means that we become a different kind of slave. We become a slave to Christ and a slave of God. And in fact, Jude calls himself a slave of God. Paul calls himself a slave of God. And Paul, Jesus talks to his disciples as though they are slaves in a household, in his household. But we can also say that, as Jesus says in Luke chapter four, fulfilling Isaiah chapter 61, that he has come to set the captives free. Then as Christians, we don't stop with slavery to sin. If Christ came to set us free, then it should be our desire that everyone would be able to live freely, free of sin, and as free people. not enslaved to anyone, but free to serve God. That's our desire. That's where we want to go, and that's where the Bible is pointing us. And if we follow the instructions that the Bible gives people, if you were in a slave-holding society and you followed the instructions that the Bible gives, then what you will find is that the institution of slavery is going to change so much. It's going to change the relationship between master and slave so much that eventually it's going to disappear. It's going to become unrecognizable. It's going to stop being a master-slave relationship. And we need to remember, if we get impatient and feel like Paul just should have said, masters, free your slaves, we need to remember, too, that the Bible comes to people where they are. The Bible does give us very clear instructions for how to live as Christians, but it also recognizes that we live in history, we live in a culture, and we can't change it instantly. The Bible is not utopian, and the Bible is not revolutionary. Instead, what we find when we look in scripture is we find a God who is patient, and who is slow to anger, and a kingdom which is like leaven in bread. You mix it into the dough, and you look at it, and you look at it, and it doesn't look like it's changed, but when you come back, it's completely changed, and that is how God works. So that's kind of my long introduction, but let's turn now to the passage and think about two questions. First of all, how to be a Christian slave, and secondly, how to be a Christian master. So how can a Christian be a slave? If you were a slave and you were a Christian, how could you do that? And you should notice, first of all, that Paul begins by saying slaves. He's speaking to the slaves. He's saying, you slaves. And this alone would have been very shocking in the ancient world to turn to the slaves who were like the tools and to speak to them as though they are real human beings, people who have agency, people who are responsible for how they act and for how they behave. He speaks to them as human beings, as people who are made in the image of God. I don't think any of you are slaves. But sometimes we do find ourselves in relationships and in situations over which we have no control. And some would make that an excuse for sin. You might know the phrase, hurt people hurt people. But when the gospel comes to us, The gospel does not come to us as people who have no responsibility, who have no agency. The gospel comes to us and tells us that we are made in the image of God and nothing can take that away from us. And as Christians, we are free. And no situation that we're put in determines how we behave, whether we will follow God in obedience or whether we will sin. Paul says, no temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape so that you will be able to endure it. In other words, You can be a Christian and you can follow God even if you are stuck, even if you are stuck as a slave. And if we deny that, if we deny that people have agency, if we deny that people can make their own decisions, then we are denying that they are human beings. And this is why we need to be very careful about how we talk about Things like poverty, how we talk about things like abuse, and where these lead people. These are great pressures on us. Stress is a great pressure on us. But stress and poverty and bad health and abuse in our past or in our present, these things are not an excuse for our own sins. Instead, the gospel comes to us and speaks to us as people who are called to follow God where we are. Paul tells these people, these human beings who happen to be slaves, he says that they are to obey their masters according to the flesh, or our translation says, those who are your masters on earth, those who are your masters on earth. And when he calls them this, your masters on earth, he's immediately qualifying who they are. Yes, they are your masters, but they are your masters on earth. They are your masters according to the flesh. In other words, they're not ultimate. They're not gonna last forever. They don't define who you are. Your identity doesn't come from these people. Their authority over you is underneath the authority of heaven. It's underneath God's authority. And their authority over you is gonna disappear one day. It's gonna pass away. They are your masters according to the flesh. And you are a slave according to the flesh, but that's not who you are. According to the spirit, you have another master. And according to the spirit, you are not a slave. You are a son. You are a freed man. There's a really striking passage in the book of James. In James chapter one, James says, But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position. The poor man, the slave who is a Christian, he is to boast and to get excited and be proud of this, that God has exalted him. That God has set him on the throne with Jesus Christ and made him a son of the king. You may have people who are your boss. They may get to tell you what to do. They may punish you. They may abuse you. But they don't own you. And they don't make you who you are. And one day, your relationship with them is going to change forever. So we should consider this, how the good news motivates Christian slaves. is saying that there are some things that, as a slave, you need to set your mind on. You need to set your mind on this, that you have a master in heaven. Once you believe in Jesus, you have a new master. You have a new captain. You have a new boss, and it is Jesus Christ. He is the master, and that's why we call him Lord. In fact, those two words in this passage, the word for master and the word for Lord are the same word in Greek. We translate them a little differently to make the point, because we use different words in English. But you have one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is your owner. He is your master. And that will motivate you. Even if you are a slave, knowing that will change how you see yourself and change how you think about your work. Another motivation is that Christian slaves have an inheritance. He says that you will get the reward of the inheritance from your Lord, from your master in heaven. Now, slaves don't inherit. Sometimes slaves are inherited. They're passed down like stuff. But the Bible says that Christian slaves will receive an inheritance, and that means that they are sons, not slaves. This is what is ultimately true about you as a Christian, that you are a son, a child of the king, not his slave. You belong to his household, not as someone who was bought at the slave market, but you belong to the household as someone who was adopted into the family, and you are there permanently. And so all of your frustrating work, all the unfair and unjust treatment that you receive from the people who are over you in this life, everything that you've ever suffered in this life, that's not the end of your life story. That's not the point of your life. With Christ, you have an inheritance. And a third motivation for Christian slaves is that as a Christian slave, you have an impartial judge. In other words, Jesus Christ is watching over you. He's watching over what you do, and he's also watching over what people do to you. He is impartial. He judges without favoritism. It doesn't matter to Jesus that someone is a slave owner or that someone is a slave. He looks at what they have done. He looks at how they have treated other people. He looks at their relationship with God, and that is how he judges them. And nothing will escape his notice. And for a slave, this is both a good thing, there's a promise of justice, and at the same time, as we are sinners, there is a threat here. Jesus sees the wrong that evil masters do to their slaves. And he will do something about it. He doesn't think of slaves as little people. He doesn't think of slaves as tools that can be broken and thrown away. And at the same time, Jesus also sees the wrong that slaves may do to each other or to their masters. He sees, and this will motivate you What will this motivate you to do? Well, Paul says, obey in everything your masters here on earth. Now this sort of obedience doesn't make you a Christian. It's what Christians do. Being a Christian, knowing and believing the good news, knowing and believing that Jesus has died on the cross for your sin, knowing that you are forgiven, This produces a different kind of person, a different kind of life. Having the hope of inheritance, knowing that you have an impartial judge, this will change you. So think about that. Think about that when you are in the middle of your crazy work day. Think about that when you are in the middle of your rush to meet the deadline. Think about that when you're in the middle of getting yelled at by your boss for no good reason. You have an impartial judge. And remember, you think to yourself as your boss is yelling at you, I work for Jesus. That's who I work for. Remember that. When your little kid is yelling at you, I work for Jesus. I'm doing this for him. Remember that when your boss or your governor puts a heavy burden on you, is unfair to you, serve them from the heart, Paul says, serve them heartily. When you are serving them heartily, you are actually serving the Lord heartily. Remember that whatever you are losing now, whatever you are giving up now, you have an inheritance that can't be taken away from you. Remember that whatever you are suffering, however unfair people are being to you, Jesus is keeping you safe and he is keeping your inheritance safe. You will get it in the end. And Paul says that we are to obey in everything. This might sound like I'm repeating myself from last week. Paul's also repeating himself from last week. Obey in everything. This is not just obedience to the reasonable instructions. This is not just obeying when it's fair. Think about what Peter says. He's a little more to the point. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect. not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable. For this finds favor if for the sake of conscience towards God, a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly. But what credit is it to you if when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer, and you suffer patiently and endure it, this finds favor with God. You know what? There are bad masters. Some of you have bad masters. I know that. This is not easy. But God's promise is true. He will keep it. He will give you a way to be faithful to him under the heat, under the pressure, under the false accusations, under the abuse. He will give you a way to be faithful to him. And although we consider ourselves free men and citizens in this country, and that is right, We still have an obligation to obey our masters in this country when they're being unreasonable. And they've been unreasonable. We have many unreasonable laws. But the exception, the only exception is when they tell us to sin. That's our one exception. Our confession, which is talking about talking here about the church as an institution, says, synods and councils are to handle or conclude nothing but that which is ecclesiastical, in other words, church business, and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs which concern the commonwealth unless, here you go, unless by way of humble petition in cases extraordinary. or by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate. In other words, there is a way for us to deal with unfairness, to deal with overburden some government, and that is by way of humble petition. And that's something I think we need to do a little bit more than we have been doing. But the mere fact that our government tells us to do something that is hard or unpleasant or unfair doesn't give us an excuse to disobey. It's when they tell us to sin that we disobey. But even then, how do we do that? You know, we need to be careful of our tone. We need to be careful of how we speak about those who have authority over us. Think about Daniel. thrown into the lion's den because he prayed. And when the king comes to let him out in the morning, how does he speak to the king? Dopey Darius, oh, here you are at last, come to let me out. See, told you. He says, oh king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouths And they have not harmed me, because I was found innocent before him. And also toward you, O King, I have done nothing wrong. So Paul says, we are not to serve our masters with eye service. or externally. The idea here is, well, you know the idea. You know when you're obeying just enough to get by, just enough so that your boss thinks that you're doing a good job. When your work is calculated to look good, but there's no real substance to it. You know, A well-built stone wall can last almost forever. You have a nice, strong, solid masonry wall, right? I mean, how long have the pyramids been around? For a really long time. You can look at Rome, you can look at these big Gothic cathedrals. If you build a nice stone wall, that puppy's gonna last a long time. But in recent years, we've developed new ways of making stone walls, where we build a wall out of wood, and we put sheathing over it, and then we glue rocks onto it. And Erin, it's okay if you do that. I'm not saying you can't do that. But which is gonna last longer? Which one is really a stone wall? And that's how it is with our obedience. We can find ways to build a nice, cheap, two-by-four frame wall and then glue rocks onto it so that it looks like something that's going to last until the apocalypse, like the pyramids. But it's not. In fact, all those rocks glued on are just more weight on that wall. And eventually, the epoxy or whatever you use is going It's going to break and the rocks are going to fall off and it's not going to look very good. It's not going to be eye service then. That's how we often like to obey. You know, you can shut yourself in your room and you can pound away feverishly at your keyboard to make it look like you're making a lot of progress. Making a lot of progress on those papers. Making a lot of progress on those reports. Making a lot of progress when you're actually watching a lot of YouTube videos. Or worse. You can gas up your truck, load up all your equipment, and then find a nice, quiet, dead-end gravel road where you can park the truck and no one will wake you up. You can fill your schedule with meetings where you just yak with people and you don't get anything done. You can do your work so that it looks like you're working and you're not working at all. But if you do it for the Lord and not for men, then you will do real work that will last. So that's what we're called to do. We're called to do our work for the Lord and not for men. You do your work for a master who's not going to be fooled. You're doing work for a master who's fair and who loves you. Judge for yourselves whether we should obey God rather than men, the apostle said. But of course, if you have to choose, you're going to obey God rather than obeying men. But here, we're being told, that obeying our masters is part of how we obey God, and Jesus sees that. He sees our obedience to our master, and he cares about it. This is the teaching of Christ, who said, honor your father and mother, and who also paid taxes, despite the fact that he was the son of God. He made everything, and he submitted to unlawful and an evil trial, even though He was the king. And Jesus is the one who says, if any man come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me. So it shouldn't be a surprise to us that he calls us to this kind of obedience. But remember, there is a good reward. There's a good reward for you. All right, I'm gonna spend a lot less time on being a Christian master, and that's fair because Paul spends a lot less time on it. Now, the gospel motivates Christian masters too, but in a different way. He says, masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you have a master in heaven. You have a Lord in heaven. The Christian master knows that he is God's slave. So if you go back to James chapter one, The brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position, and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation. Because, like flowering grass, he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching wind, and withers the grass, and its flowers fall off, and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed. So, too, the rich man, in the midst of his pursuits, will fade away. And Paul, what James is saying, That as a rich man, that is what you boast in, is that you're passing away. And so too, masters on earth are to remember that they have a master in heaven. So if you have any kind of authority over other people, which a lot of you do, then you need to keep that in mind. You are no longer a slave of sin. You are no longer a slave of the world. You are no longer a slave of money. You are no longer a slave of grades. You are no longer a slave of fashion. You are no longer a slave of driving the newest car or whatever the world loves. You are not a slave of politics. You are a slave. You are a slave of Jesus Christ. And so there's a certain equality here. You are a slave of Christ, and those under your authority are slaves of Christ, and you are equal in Christ's eyes. You are equal in his eyes. Not that Christ hasn't given you authority, he has. But he won't give you a pass because you have authority. Slaves and masters both have dignity, and a sin against a slave, a sin against someone who's under authority, is a sin against God. And so, that being the case, as a master, your job is going to change now. You're going to behave differently from the way that the masters in the world behave. And Paul says, grant to your slaves, and I'll just begin there, grant to your slaves, or offer to your slaves. And in that word, to grant or to offer, is the idea that as someone who's in authority, you need to have an openness to the people who are under your authority. You need to have an attitude of generosity to them. And this doesn't mean that the authority relationship disappears, but it means that you need to have an open life towards them and you need to approach them with an open hand. Because everything that you have was given to you by your master. And it was given to you for their good. This is why authority exists in the world. God gives authority to some so that they may do what is right and just and fair to those who are under their authority. And you can think of towards the end of the Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapter 24, Jesus speaks to his disciples as servants in the house who have authority and responsibility for the other servants. And he says, you wanna be the servant that the master finds doing his master's will when he comes back. And you don't wanna be the servant who is surprised, drunk, beating the other slaves when the master comes back. So he says, grant to your slaves. And he says, grant to them the just thing. Offer them what is just. Now, this is to offer them what is in keeping with God's law. To give them what is right. Now, when I was in seminary, I worked for a guy named Aaron. And he, Aaron's a believer. And one of Aaron's instructions to me as his employee was, don't work on Sundays. That was an instruction he gave to me. He didn't just not tell me that I needed to work on Sundays. He told me that I shouldn't, that he didn't want me working on Sundays. And one day I was in church and one of the other people in the company started calling my phone in the middle of church service. And he kept calling and he kept calling and so finally I went out and I picked up the phone And I got chewed out by this guy, because I wasn't paying attention to my phone, and there was something urgent that was coming up with work, and he was really unhappy about it. And I said, well, Aaron told me not to work on Sunday, so that's why I'm not picking up my phone, because my boss said I shouldn't work. He got really upset about it. But my boss stepped in the next day. He stepped in, and he basically told this other guy, look, step off. Gabriel works for me. And I told him not to work on Sundays. And he took on himself the responsibility for whatever happened. If whatever project we were working on fell through or the company took a financial hit, he took that on himself. This was the just thing. And it was potentially costly for Aaron. But this is the good thing. And so I want to say this, that the Fourth Commandment is especially important here for you guys. Because the Fourth Commandment speaks to people who have authority. It speaks to people who have servants. It speaks to people who have children. And says not just see to it that you don't work on the Lord's Day, it says see to it that those under your authority don't work, that they get rest. And so this starts in the house and it extends to the workplace. And so let me encourage you, if you have that authority, see to it that the people under your authority, the people in your household, rest on the Lord's Day. And that may mean taking on some responsibility for how things go because of it. But see to it. Slaves who don't get rest, well, there's no end to the work if you don't rest. And you are a slave if you don't get rest. As well, I'll say, too, you know, slaves in the ancient world were constantly abused. They were abused physically. They were sexually exploited. And, of course, there should be no hint of that. And as our society becomes more and more ungodly, it's more and more common for low-level employees to be abused in these ways by their employers, for bosses to take advantage of the young interns and that sort of thing. This, there should be no hint of that. There should be no hint of that. You can think about Boaz, who lived in a very ungodly time, where physical and sexual abuse was rampant, and yet you look at the household that he had, you look at how his servants were fed, protected, cared for, spoken to reverently and with respect, how the name of God was treated around them in his fields and in his house, and he made his household like a little taste of heaven when the rest of Israel was like a taste of hell. And this is something that as people with authority, you can do. You can do that in your house. He also says, offer them the equitable thing, that is, what is fair and what is proportional. The laborer deserves his wages. This doesn't mean that everyone should have equal pay because, after all, not all work is the same. But it does mean, as Paul says, that the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thrash in hope of sharing in the harvest. Christian employers don't milk their employees or exploit them for everything that they are worth. Aristotle is the guy who thought that slaves were just a kind of living tool. And I do think that there are some companies in our day and age who treat their employees this way, treat them like tools, tools that maybe need health insurance and a certain amount of PTO to keep them healthy and productive, but not people. not persons. And Jesus Christ teaches us that we are to treat those under our authority differently from the way that the world does. They have families, they have a relationship with God, and that matters, and we should remember that in how we treat them. After all, isn't that how your master treats you? So, slaves, obey your earthly masters and everything, and masters, Offer your slaves what is just and fair because you all have a master in heaven. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you have given us a good master in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light. And for those of us this morning who are weary and exhausted, you say, come to me and take my yoke upon you. And so, Lord, I pray that for each of us here, that we would, in a new way today, come to you, that we would take up your yoke, because it is easier than the world's yoke. It is certainly easier than the devil's yoke, and it is easier than the yoke of our flesh. Lord, we pray that you would lead us unto this, and that you would make it so, in Jesus' name, amen.