Well, good morning. So good to see you. I'm glad that we are able to be in the Lord's house and reminded of what it means to be a Christian, that one of the heartbeats of Christianity is this idea of being a servant. We speak sometimes tongue in cheek about having a servant's heart, but as we delve into and continue to work our way through first Timothy, this morning we come into chapter six uh... and this uh... part of chapter six really has a lot to do with the idea of serving and uh... but we're gonna get into that but i just want to let you know that it's good to be here that we could offer service to the lord uh... and that we can offer service and encouragement to one another so if you have your copy of the scriptures uh... first timothy we're in chapter six look at the first two verses of chapter six this week and uh... Before we do that, I would ask that you would join me in prayer. Gracious Father, we do come before you, and by the power of your spirit, we would ask that you would give us the understanding not only to know your word and to know you, but to trust the word that you give to us. Help us to have understanding not in necessarily the categories that we tend to always put things into, but that we would conform our thinking to your way of instruction. Thank you for the blessing that you give us and the power of your spirit who takes us and helps us to understand and who empowers us that we would live out your word. Help us this day to see ourselves as the servants of the one true king, that we have service to those around us and service to you. Thank you for your faithfulness. And this we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, who is the greatest servant that ever lived. Amen. Let's begin in verse 1. We'll look at verses 1 and 2. Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers. Rather, they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these things. Now, after warning Timothy against false teachers back in chapter four, verses one through five, Paul gave Timothy some essential ministerial survival points or notices. He said in verses 11 through 16, there were five things that Timothy needed to be on top of as a minister to this congregation. He needed to pursue godliness, he needed to stay in the word, he needed to remember the giftedness that God the Spirit had given to him to lead, he needed to do so with diligence, and he needed to have a balance, a balance between life and doctrine. And now as we have been through chapter five, Paul shares more specifically some instructions on how Timothy needs to minister to different groups in the church. He reminded Timothy, also reminding the church, of the spiritual sense in which Christians were the body of Christ. They were brothers and sisters in relationship with one another. The key behind Timothy's ability to do well was that he needed to remember that the church is the household of God, and that our relationships to one another are as brothers and sisters, as fathers and mothers. And Timothy's gonna need to know how to relate to people while saying some hard things that he's going to have to say to some of the people in the group. And then also, he's going to have to be able to deal delicately with some issues that lie before him. One of those is the care of widows and that he would honor widows. The other is also that he would honor elders, but at the same time be able to give them instruction and correction as elders. Remember, Timothy is young. We pegged him at maybe 34 or 35 years old. He had just entered into adulthood in the way of thinking for a Jewish person. And the people that he's probably having to instruct or give correction to are anywhere from 10 to 40 years older than himself. So a lot of times these older men would kind of look down on such a youngster coming in, who's the young puff that's giving me instructions. And so Timothy needs to be able to do what he does really well. We looked at the role of honoring widows. We've looked at the role of honoring elders. And now as we move into chapter six in the first two chapters, first two verses, this is the third group of people that Timothy needs to instruct. And this instruction in the first two verses of chapter six are slaves honoring and submitting to their masters. Now that probably rings strange on our ears. Matter of fact, I can probably guess that the majority of the people in the room, as soon as I said slaves, they immediately jumped to this idea of chattel slavery. It's the one model of slavery that everyone in the room knows because it's the one model concerning slavery that Americans seem to believe has only and ever existed in the course of all human history because that's what we've been told by the media. But I want to give us a little instruction this morning on a few things in this text. What is chattel slavery? Since we all tend to kind of know what it is, I want to give it a definition. It is the enslaving and owning of human beings and their offspring as property, able to be bought and sold and forced to work without wages. Now, this particular understanding of slavery has three characteristics. The person, the person is another person's property. That's the first characteristic. The second characteristic is that they may be bought and sold and that their will is subject to another person. And third is that their labor is obtained by another person's coercion. So this is what the definition of from the Webster Dictionary is concerning chattel slavery. And I think that that would, after you hear that definition, you might be asking yourself, because I think it's one of those questions the world throws at us as Christians, well, why then did neither Jesus nor the apostles call for the complete and immediate abolition of this horror? And I'd like to give you three reasons why that is the case. First, this chattel slavery is not the type of slavery being addressed here. And to project this chattel slavery definition upon this word slaves is to commit an interpretive crime in handling God's word. And we know plenty of people are criminals when it comes to this understanding, that they would like to project a modern reality back on an ancient text. And so I want to say one reason, the first reason why Jesus and Paul didn't stand up against it is because it's not chattel slavery that's being addressed. Second, and probably the main reason, is that slavery was deeply embedded in the structures of the Greco-Roman society. And I want us to look at some background to this idea concerning first century Roman slavery. First off, all well-to-do people owned or had slaves. All well-to-do people had slaves. They were regarded as essential, especially as domestic servants, farm laborers, clerks, craftsmen, teachers, and soldiers, and even managers of businesses. It's believed that a third of the inhabitants of Rome were slaves. And over the whole Roman Empire, the number was around 50 million slaves. Slaves under the first century Roman law could generally count on and eventually be set free. Very few ever reached old age as slaves. We've kind of got this idea that someone becomes a slave and they're gonna die in slavery. And again, that's not the case here. Slave owners were releasing slaves so quickly that Augustus Caesar introduced legal restrictions to slow down the trend. Despite this, history reveals that almost 50% of slaves were freed before the age of 30. Now, you may think, oh, well, that's great. That means you only spent 30 years in slavery, right? Think about this, David, what you're saying. Again, remember, this is not chattel slavery. While the slave remained in his master's service, he could own property and he could own other slaves. A slave completely controlled his own property and can invest and save and purchase his own freedom. This is not chattel slavery. This is someone that's freely giving themselves to the service of someone else so that they can receive benefit for what they give. Whether they're a teacher, whether they're a manager, whether they're a craftsman, whatever they're doing, there's a trade-off here. All right, this is not, I'm trying to get you to understand, this is not what we've been raised with here in America. We must also understand that being a slave did not indicate one's social class. I think this is a huge thing that we have a hard time with. We would think, oh, you're a slave, your social class must be low. Slaves were regularly given the status of their masters. From outward appearance, usually you could not tell the difference between a slave and a free person walking down the street. In many cases, slavery was often preferred to freedom because it offered security. A slave could be a custodian, a merchant, even a government official. Many slaves lived apart and even across the city from the person who they were serving. And finally, selling oneself into slavery was commonly a means as to granting or receiving or gaining Roman citizenship. and gaining entrance into society. See, this is far removed from this concept that we have been, had pushed down our throats, believing that there's only one type of the idea of slavery throughout history. Roman slavery in the first century was far more humane and civilized than the American African slavery practiced in our country during the 17th to the 19th centuries. Roman slavery was rarely racist, but reflected the economic and political realities of the ancient culture. Now, I'm not suggesting that ancient slavery was not evil, all right? I think there is, because of man's fallenness, I think there's something about one man owning another man that's not good. God is the one who owns his people, right? He's created people, he owns them. But I'm not saying that ancient slavery was not evil. The buying and selling of people for economic well-being is a sub-Christian understanding. Paul even had addressed this same concept earlier in 1 Timothy 1.10 when he lists enslavers as those who are lawless and ungodly, that is, those who were going and capturing people and then moving them to another area of the world and selling them off as product or as, like you would, cattle. So to be clear, Paul and the Scriptures are not condoning chattel slavery. In fact, it was Christianity that was the primary effect on the universal weakening of the whole institution of slavery. And how might that be the case or why might that be the case? Well, one of the big reasons why that was the case was because of what the apostle Paul wrote and what he taught and what the churches began to practice. Paul taught that the equality of slaves and the slave owners were the same. They had the same heavenly master. There's not a haves and a have nots. If you're a Christian and you're a slave and you're a Christian and you're the owner, both of you are equal in the eyes of God in Christ. See, this is the God who shows no favoritism according to Ephesians 6, 9. Paul told the masters to provide for their slaves with what is right and fair. And Paul wrote on the radical transformation of relationships, which the gospel affects. So that slaves and the slave owner became brothers. Philemon verse 16 and first Timothy six two that we're looking at today. For there is neither slave nor free, all are one in Christ Jesus, Galatians 3.26 and following. You see, all believers are equally God's children and heirs without any distinction between them. All believers are equally God's children and heirs of those things in Christ between them. And yet, all the while, even if one were to be a slave, they were to remain in that idea of bondage, they can enjoy an inner freedom in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, 1 Corinthians 7.22. Now, I've given two reasons why I do not believe that, or given you reasons why Paul and Jesus did not combat that institution of slavery in the first century. Not only was it not chattel slavery, but the reality too is that we needed to see that the equal distinction, I mean, no distinction between the persons in Christ. We have a third reason. And this third reason is we do not see that Jesus and Paul attacking the institution of Roman slavery because Christianity has less to do about social reform and more to do with spiritual reform. Now, I want to tease that out. I'm about to hit a few hot buttons. I'm telling you ahead of time, if you just wanna prepare yourself, free to do that. But we have seen Christianity go in such a wrong way over the past 50 to 100 years that sometimes we don't even see that it's gone the wrong way. And it's this whole idea that the major purpose of Christianity is to change the world. That's what's being told to us today. That's what many churches practice. That's what they build themselves around. But what do we see from the beginning of Christianity? we see from its beginning that Christianity did not entangle itself with secular institutions. We looked at this last week in the Gospel of John. Brian shared this with us, that Jesus is standing before Pilate, right? And Pilate's asking these questions. And Jesus keeps telling him, oh, I'm a king, just like you say I am, but my kingdom's not of this world, right? That should be a hint for us as Christians. Not that we don't care about this world. We do care. We live here. We're stewards of it. What I'm saying is, is the purpose of the church is not to come and build a new kingdom. God's building his kingdom through his people. See? The early Christians, Jesus and Paul and the early church, concentrated on the spread of the gospel. That's the gift that God has given to his church, spreading the gospel. Listen, the world does not have the gospel. We have the gospel. That's why we go out into the world, because they don't have this message. this gospel changes hearts and mind. And these people who are influenced and affected by that gospel would change hearts and minds. They go out and they begin to live life differently in a fallen world. See, biblical Christianity is like leaven and bread. It has a very slow effect which impacts the final outcome. While leavening process is taking place, It seems to be undetected by the human eye. Its effect is unstoppable from the inside out. And that's the claim of Christianity. When God changes someone, he changes them from the inside out. It's not because all the external forces changed and made them something different. It's because they've been brought from death into life by the power of the spirit according to the gospel. See, when the church believes its purpose is to change the world, That's when the church becomes entangled with political parties, special interest groups, secular institutions, and it loses the trust in the power of the gospel to change hearts and lives. It begins to take on the world's message that man's primary need is all external, and if we can just meet the external needs and share that cup of water, then we've shared the gospel. That was the social gospel of a hundred years ago in America, and it's returning today with a vengeance, might I add. This social gospel requires the primary lenses of oppression and power to be used for seeing man's problem and meeting man's need in this world. And to free people from such oppression and social gospel, the solution is diversity, inclusion, and equity. And there's a reason why this acronym spells DIE. But I digress. You see, in a nutshell, Christianity is about the equality of all human sinners standing before God in need of Christ for their salvation. This salvation comes through the gospel, which is found in Christ Jesus' perfectly lived life according to the law, his sin of atoning death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, his reigning at the right hand of the Father, See, here is not the message of D-I-E, but L-I-F-E, life, and life eternal in Christ with God. Okay, now that we have a little background concerning slavery in the first century Roman culture, let's go back to Paul's instructions to Timothy. Now some in the Ephesian church were slave owners. We know that's the case, right? I mean, we're about to read it. We know Philemon over in the Colossian church, he was owned a slave, right? Philemon and Onesimus. Many in the church here at Ephesus were either slaves or ex-slaves. Some of the Ephesian church were slaveless citizens. And if you were a slaveless citizen, you were actually poor. I mean, the fact of the matter is, if you can't put food in your own mouth, you can't put food in the mouth of someone who's giving you service. So we need to understand that the culture of slavery affected virtually every aspect of the Ephesian church. This isn't a sideline group. We tend to think, oh, there's the widows, and here's the elders over here, and now here's the slaves and masters, right? In some ways, he's really getting back to the rest of the body after he's talked about widows and elders. This is the rest of everybody else. In both verses one and two, the slaves to whom Timothy is to instruct are clearly Christians and church members. But there's a difference between the verses. In verse 2, we're told that the slave owner is a believer, and in verse 1, it seems likely that he's not. Christian slaves came from non-Christian masters, and others had Christian masters who would naturally be in the same house church. Now, all of a sudden, we can start seeing that there is this great mix that's going on, this gospel truth that in Christ all became brothers and sisters. There's neither slave nor free, for they are all one in Christ Jesus, Galatians 3.28. And yet now we see the possibility of why there might be tensions growing inside this little church. Misconduct in the church would not only harm the church but would harm its reputation. to those outside and limit the spread of the gospel. A slandered church loses its power to spread the gospel. So Paul, regarding slaves and masters, gives clear instructions as to their conduct for the sake of gospel witness. This is one of the reasons behind Paul writing to Timothy and making sure Timothy can bring this church back into order. He wants the church to be able to go out into the world and share the gospel. And until our own house is in order, we're not really ready to do that. You don't want to be bringing new baby Christians into a dysfunctional church environment. There's plenty of dysfunction out in the world. We don't want to bring them into something that's the case here, so Timothy is getting this church into order. Now, the opening verses provide specific advice to those who have non-Christian masters. Look at verse 1. Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. Now, first, we have slaves regarding their own masters. Now, even though their masters were unbelievers, in this verse, remember, unbelievers, they're worthy of honor. They're worthy of full respect. Remember, the masters are not believers. And Paul's saying they need to honor and respect it. That is why they should treat their masters with respect, because they consider them worthy of respect. Why? Because they're image bearers. They're made in the image of God. I think this is one of the strengths that Christianity brings to the present culture. You can love and respect someone else because they have that image of God in them. Now, it's marred, right? That's why God has to come in and change our life, but yet the image is still there. And this is one of the driving forces I think Christianity can have in this world today. When so many groups are segregated based on other things or categorized on other things, we can walk into any room, regardless of who the person is, because they are human, we can love and respect them based on the image of God. It's this same understanding and this same principle that drives the whole anti, that we are against killing babies, right? Because they're made in the image of God and they need to be protected. And God has a special place for the sojourner and the orphan and those who are unable to protect themselves. So what we see here, is that there can be a respect for another human being, even if that person is not a Christian. And we have full rights as Christians to make sure that we respect other people, especially even if they are not Christian. There's a second reason that Paul gives that these Christian slaves should respect their non-Christian masters, and that is kind of a missionary emphasis. The slaves should respect their masters because the reputation of God's name and teaching are at stake, the text says. If slaves show disrespect for their masters, they will bring discredit on God's name and the apostles' teaching. What's this, the teaching, it says there in the verse? The teaching is the apostolic teaching. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they will bring shame upon the name of God and they will bring shame upon the gospel itself if they do not respect their masters. By respecting their masters, even non-Christian ones, they bring honor on themselves, they bring honor to their masters, and they bring honor to God. Now, if you remember, that's what Paul's been telling Timothy this whole time in dealing with widows, honor your widows, honor your elders, and now honor the masters, right? So honor is this huge theme in this portion of 1 Timothy. Today, the natural correlation of relationship between slave and master is seen in what you and I would call the employee and employer, right? The one who works and the one who pays for that work. The place we work for most of us is our primary contact with the needy world, and most gospel sharing and living out of the ethics of the Christian life happens in our workplace. This is where people see what we're really made of. This is when the stress is hit, right? See, maybe your employer fits this category of number one, that your employer is actually not a Christian. And maybe he's figured out you are a Christian. maybe he's figured out I think I want to press his buttons a little bit, right? See this whole idea of your workplace behavior and the place where we expend the most of our energy is really important. Matter of fact, Paul connects this idea of work and gospel as we see in Titus 2, 9, and 10 when he says this, bond servants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything. They are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of our God and our Savior. Why are they not to be argumentative? Why are they to do a good day's work? Why are they to expend themselves for this boss or this company so that they may adorn the doctrine of God? Isn't that beautiful? Adorn, put on, right? Wear as like a beautiful coat, this doctrine of God in your workplace. you can do and make the teaching about God your savior more attractive by your work. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about you as a child of God who bears the name of God, you're making God more attractive to people around you because you work well? Can I tell you something of all the nasty things that came out of two years of lockdowns? One thing that should come out the other side of that When you've got their signs up all over this city, people hiring, they can't get anybody to come in, right? One of the things that should come out of the Christian community is this, the Christian employees in any present business or any business they go to, they should outshine everybody else that works there in the way that they do their work. They should do their work as unto the Lord. All right? You want the gospel to look good? And I'm not claiming that the gospel rests on your shoulders. And if you get it wrong, somehow the world's going to hell. That's not what I'm claiming. What I'm saying is that Paul even connects work and the gospel. And we need to be reminded of that in a society where the society downplays the role of labor. Because it's true that all the way back in the garden, man was designed to work. Man, it's good for you to work. If you're at home sitting on your rear end, drawing a check from somebody else because you're not working, stop. Stop doing that. It's affecting you in a bad way. Get out there and work. You will see that God will honor your hands and he will honor your labor and he will take care of your family through that kind of dedication. Okay, Paul is equally clear about slaves who have Christian masters or to perform their work. Look at verse two. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers. Rather, they must serve all the better since those who benefit from their good service are believers and beloved. Teach and urge these things. See, those who have believing masters are not to show less respect or to take liberties, with them because they're Christian brothers. Evidently, this is what's going on. Some of the slaves there in the Ephesian church realized, oh, my master's standing across the room from me in this worship service, so this week when I go to work, he's just gonna let me do some extra things because we're brothers, right? I mean, I shouldn't have to do all the things everybody else is doing. Maybe they decided, ah, you know, I'm gonna come into work a little late. I mean, he's my brother in Christ. He'll cover for me, right? You see, the attitude was the idea that because my employer is my brother in Christ, I'm going to be treated a little differently. And the difference for me would be that I should be able to maybe do some things that other people do not do. See, they were taking advantage of their masters and their Christian faith and ethic. Christian employees today, sometimes in businesses, make the same mistake. Instead of taking advantage of their Christian employer, they are to serve them even better because those who benefit from their service are believers and beloved, the text says. You have, regardless of whether you know it or not, you have a vested interest in your business that you work for doing really well. One is it maintains your job. The other is if it can expand, then it typically becomes a lot more solid, right? And you can make the difference as one employee that works really well, because a lot of people wait to watch someone else. And as a Christian, I know you're being watched by the people around you. You can be sure about that. Here are two parallel thoughts that are being expressed here. Because they're masters or brothers, slaves must not show less respect to them. Instead, because they are brothers and believe, they must serve them even better. The faith and the love and the brotherhood which unite the employer and the employee, far from being an excuse for negligent action, should be the impetus for service. This should be what drives you to want to serve your employer and to serve the business that you work for well. That is because you know that that's your brother in Christ. You have an opportunity as an employee to make your employer look good, especially if he has somebody over him. And you can be sure in this life that you and I live, everybody is answering to somebody. Even the big man in the big house over in Washington, D.C. will give an answer to God. All right, what are some of the practical applications of these verses that we're looking at this morning, especially in addressing slave and master, as we would say, employee, employer? So the practical implications of these verses are important for us today because we are all subservient to someone. Everybody answers to somebody else. There's no one in this room that doesn't answer to somebody else. There's nothing demeaning about service when it's given voluntarily. That's key, right? Service needs to be given voluntarily. The slave is not losing his freedom, right? He's doing this voluntarily. The attitudes and the ethics commanded in the passage make it clear that servitude is at the heart of the Christian calling. Marriage is servitude. Being a husband is servanthood. A husband never looks like the man that he's called to be any more than when he's honoring and he's serving his wife. Men, you want to know what it means to be the husband? Serve your wife. Being a wife is servanthood also. By honoring the imperfect man that she married and showing her love in a thousand ways each day, she's serving God. Ladies, you got it tough. I am not gonna, just not gonna sugarcoat it. We can be knuckleheads. Amen, thank you. I'm not here to beat up on you guys. I'm just gonna lay it out there right now. I'm not part of the feminist agenda. I'm not here to beat you up. But I think we all have to say we can muck it up. And yet our wives still love us. That's a show of God's love for us, right? When we mess it up, we're still loved. Life is servitude. Parenting is servitude. It means giving all you have in order to see your children grow into spiritual maturity and even physical maturity in giving and giving. And then you find yourself giving more. It's just like God the Father has done for us in Christ. He continually pours out his grace and his mercy over us like a fountain that runs over our lives every day. Kids growing up is servitude. Obeying one's parents and lovingly trying to please them honors them and it honors God. And it honors God who placed them over you. I know you didn't get to choose your parents. I understand. I understand. But God's put them over you in your life to provide for you and to protect you and to love you. The workplace is servitude. Being an employee is servanthood. You're giving the best hours of your day to a corporate enterprise or a business, and that's honoring to God, and that's honoring to your employer. Being an employer is servitude. Ah, didn't think about that, did we? Rightly exercising leadership is servitude, not lording it over those who work for you, but having their best interest for them. You want their success. That's how you expend yourself as a leader. Listen, true servitude is Christ-centered. It leads us to Christ and it makes us like Christ. Notice Christ is all in that. Servitude and service to others is at the essence of the practice of Christianity. It was Jesus himself who demonstrated to his disciples the dignity of service to them as he washed their feet. Jesus calls himself both a servant in Luke 22 and a slave in Philippians 2. And he added that each of his followers must be the slave of all, Mark 10, 44. See, servitude is not necessarily degrading. That's, I think, what we have in our mind when we think of servant or servitude. We think degrading. We think lack of dignity. What is fundamentally destructive of a person's humanness is when one human being is forcibly owned by another and is thus robbed of freedom, but voluntarily serving others is dignity. It's a good thing. It shows them respect and it shows them honor when you do that. Paul's instructions have concerned the church's social responsibility, particularly in relations to widows and elders and now slaves, and these three groups that he's addressed are really diverse on a number of different levels. They are men and women, they're slaves and free, they're young and old, some work in the home, some work in the church, church leaders are some, some are members, but what unites them? What has Paul been driving at with Timothy over this, all of chapter five and as we work into chapter six? What binds them together is honor. It's honor. The church is to honor real widows and care for them. The elders who lead well are to be counted worthy of double honor. And slaves are to regard their masters as worthy of what? Honor. The duty to honor people is much emphasized in the scriptures. This is not just a theme tucked over in 1 Timothy. The scriptures are replete with the idea of honor. What's the first one that comes to your mind? I'll give you a hint. It's one of 10 things that we're supposed to do. Exodus 20, verse 12, honor your father and your mother that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. Right from the get-go, mom and dad, right? Honor them. Give due honor to everyone, 1 Peter 2, 17. Honor one another above yourselves or outdo one another in showing honor, Romans 10, 12. Every human being is worth honor, even pagan bosses and pagan leaders because they've been made in the image of God. Once we perceive this intrinsic worth of human beings by creation, and we recognize them as worthy of honor, all our relationships are enriched and grow in dignity. If Christ, the eternal Son of God and creator of the universe, washed the feet of his disciples, how much more ought we as adopted sons and daughters do the same for one another? Jesus is that great example for us, is he not? The power to live in exalted servitude comes from the fact that the ultimate servant lives in us and we live in him. We are in Christ. As the New Testament repeatedly affirms, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9.19, for though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them. That's volitional servitude. He's volitionally by his will making a choice to serve all of these people around him. Galatians 5.13, for you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. That's loving servitude. Not only did he choose it, he does it out of love. Ephesians 5.18 and following, be filled with the Spirit, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Not only is he doing it willfully and lovingly, he's doing it worshipfully. You want to know what worship looks like? Well, corporately, it looks like this on Sunday morning. But when you leave here, it looks different. It has dignity, and it has honor, and it has love, and all of this you express to other people and to God. It's the way you live your life. Yes, our lives are a lives of worship. And we offer the sacrifice of changed lives and hearts to God that he may use us in the world. As God's people, we are called to honor God and one another with our lives and service to each other for God's glory. See, that's the key, right? Why were you here? That question is asked every day by people. Why am I here? Well, I'm here because I'm made to worship God. That's why. You're here because you are called to honor and to love other people, even people that are not like you. I'm not saying you gotta condone everything they do. Don't hear me say that. You can love them and you can show them the truth of Christ because in essence, you are a servant of Christ, as Tony shared with us earlier from the reading and our confession and our pardon. See, we have, we are bond servants and Christ is the one that we're serving. He's a gracious and a loving master. He really has our best interests in mind. And when we realize that he loves us the way that he does everlastingly, and that we're secure in him because what he's done on our behalf, we're free to love in a way that we've never been able to love before. And we're free to serve in a way that we've never been able to serve before. So therefore know, dear Christian, this week, as you honor your boss, as you honor your wife or your husband, children, as you honor your parents, that your goal and your impetus for doing this is you want to bring glory to God. Adorn yourself with the doctrine of God so that you may show the glory of who your father is. And in turn, our hope and prayer is that those around us would magnify him. Would you join me in prayer? Father, thank you again for your great mercies to us. Father, help us to see ourselves as servants, not scared and so fearful that we're afraid that we're going to do something wrong, but free in Christ, knowing that our sin has been taken from us, that we've been given his righteousness, and that we've been called to go out into the world and share the good news that you are the God who forgives. You are the God who saves. Lord, would you help us to be your people. We're called to be servants working in your world today. May we be faithful servants, quick to answer your call today and always for your glory. Amen.