Serving and Suffering . . . Just Like Jesus - Part A
Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 2:18-21
Visit the series page: Exiles: A study in 1 Peter
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Sermon Series: Spiritual Exiles
Message: Serving and Suffering … Just Like Jesus
Airdate: 10/2 and 10/5/26
Programs: 2370 and 2371
“Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing. When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.”
“For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you may follow in his steps.” May God bless his word to us this morning. Last January, we had here in Northwest Indiana, we had the fifth worst snowstorm in Chicago's history. Do you remember? You may remember.
And part of why we remember here at our church is that that Sunday morning, we did something that we hadn't done since 1999, which was cancel all of our services that morning. So my family, we were stuck at home just like you were stuck at home. And, when you're a pastor planning on preaching, it's not like you have other, you know, calendar items on a Sunday morning. So there we sit, now not having any services, wondering what we're going to do. So we were talking about this, and Jennifer mentioned to me.
She said, you know, I've been wanting to maybe watch that that that show everybody's been talking about, Downton Abbey. And me, with absolutely nothing else to do, thought a little PBS masterpiece theater to make my wife happy, why not? Right? So we we started with the, you know, the first season. We put on the first episode of the first season, and we started watching.
And I think that morning, we watched a couple episodes. And by noon on that Sunday, we were completely hooked. Right? And over the next, I think, probably month and a half, we watched all five seasons of episodes of Downton Abbey. And I'm here to tell you, until they the new ones come out next January, we're a little jittery.
Right? Kind of like, when is it coming? Is it coming? We gotta know what's gonna happen. So Downton Abbey.
Now, I don't know how many of you have used a blizzard to watch this show. Maybe you've watched it because you wanted to. Maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about. But it's been a wildly popular show. And it's very different than kind of normal television because it's kind of masterpiece theater.
It's really well written. And the setting of Downton Abbey is in early part of the last century, so early twentieth century. And it's set in this estate where there is an earl who is the lord of the estate, and you have the family living in this beautiful castle, and then there is the serving staff. And so, the the show's intrigue then is that you have this family that has all of its kind of drama going on, and don't all families have drama going on? And, and they're very prim and proper, and it kind of is odd to us in our day because we see all of the cultural norms for people living in that sort of hoity toity kind of setting where there's lots of, you know, expectations and you do something a certain way and with a very stiff upper lip.
But then you have the serving staff. And these are the people that are, you know, they they kind of live in the quadrants of the house. They're not family. They serve the family. But they have all of their own drama going on.
And the the fun of of the show, I think, is just that it's so easy to relate to these people because they seem like people that you know, right, in the way that they act and and the way that they relate to each other. So this this staff of the house. With the staff of the house, you find all of the backbiting, cheating, lying, and stealing that we generally see in our workplace as well. So let me introduce you to some of the staff, or the cast members. Can I do that a moment?
K. We're getting into Downton Abbey here this morning. Here's some of the, here's some of the staff. K? So upper left, there's the, there's the earl of the place, Lord Grantham.
And you gotta say it like Lord Grantham. You know, it's sort of that way. And and so he's kind of the he's running the show. Carson is the butler. And he's a very likable guy with a really cool voice.
If if I had his voice, our church would have 20,000 people in it. Just people would show up to hear that voice. It's really an amazing voice, unlike my own. O'Brien. She is the the, like, personal assistant to the wife of Lord Grantham.
She is conniving, devious. She's a gossip, very self serving. That's O'Brien. Anna, upper right, nice girl next door, the kind you want your son to marry. You know, she's just so pure hearted with a little bit of a sort of, you know, she's got some spunk in her as well.
So that's that's Anna. Tom Barrow, that's Satan. Okay? Tom Barrow is Satan himself. He is you talk about conniving.
I mean, this guy is constantly working an angle. He is always, you know, very self serving. He will slander. He is devious. He is just in there creating problems all the time.
Everything he shows up in, there's there's gonna be drama around it. Okay? Tom Barrow. Then you have Mrs. Hughes. And missus Hughes is, like the head housekeeper, and she is she's kind of like the mom to the staff.
K? She's the one they go to when they have sorrows, and she's trying to keep everything unified. And she has the hots for Mr. Carson. K?
So there are more staff than this, but that's just a general introduction to the staff there at Downton Abbey. Show is really well written, but I think, again, the intrigue and the popularity of this is that is that as you watch the show, you can almost think of people in your life that are just like O'Brien or just like Barrow or just like Carson. And you see the kind of way that they're, you know, getting along or not getting along in the serving staff. And it just reminds you so much of people that you that you know. The serving staff, they are I mean, they they they're very prim and proper with, you know, Lord Grantham and the family.
But behind the scenes, they some of them, they mock the family and they steal from the family. You know, a little silverware here, a little wine there, whatever it is. They're stealing and conniving. It's just really an interesting it's an interesting show. And here's the question I wanna ask.
K? If you were to watch Downton Abbey and I said to you, one of the serving staff is a Christian, and I want you to see if you can figure out which one it is. How would you go about trying to discern which one of those staff members is a Christian? Like, how would you know to watch them in the way that they work, the way that they respond to Lord Grantham or Carson or O'Brien who are in authority over them? How would you know from the way they conduct themselves there in the workplace whether or not they may be a Christian or not?
What would you look to? The quality of the effort they give, their work ethic, how they treat others, and things like this would probably be the way that the clues that you would look for to discern which one of them actually is a follower of Jesus. And here in this text today, we find Peter continuing this. He's developing and turning this this this reality. These people he's writing to, they're they're exiles.
They're in this place where geographically and spiritually, they do not they do not connect with the values around them. And yet, they're having to do normal life. They're having to live in all the normal social categories. And last week, we saw they were citizens there. How do they how do they live as citizens in a in a in a pagan environment, a hostile environment to their Christianity?
And we see Peter saying, you need to respect even pagan human authority that is placed over you because that authority is put there by God himself. So therefore, honor everyone. Honor even the emperor, the crazy emperor Nero. And so now Peter continues here and he moves to the next category, the next sort of social category that all Christians have to live in. Namely, we all have to work, don't we?
We all have to make a living. And in the making of a living, we are all interacting with people or working for people who don't share the values, the faith of of Christianity, many times are hostile to that. So how does the Christian then work in a world that is set against it? And that's what Peter is addressing here, workplace and workplace relationships. And so complicating this, and maybe you picked this up in in the first verse here, is that we are peering now into a a, a very different world than the one that we than we live in.
Almost like people watch Downton Abbey just because it's so, like, intriguing to see how that world was a little bit different. That's a hundred years ago. How much? Two thousand years ago. All the way back when Rome was the world power and, you know, society and and culture was very, very different.
And you see that in verse right there in verse 18. “Servants, be subject to your masters.” Now how many of us think, that's awesome. Right? No.
We're we're we are automatically appalled by that because we don't live in a world where you have masters and masters that have property, people as property. That kind of that kind of of of slavery, if you will. But in the first century, it was absolutely normal practice. Almost every Roman family in the entire Roman Empire would have had serving staff. K?
They would have called them slaves, serving staff. Get this. One quarter of the entire population of the Roman Empire were slaves. A quarter. One one commentator said it was the most common employer employee relationship in the ancient world, was this relationship between a master and his servants.
We find it all over in the Bible. Paul talks about it often. Philemon is an entire letter that Paul writes to the owner of a slave who Paul has led to the Lord and the slaves going back now to him to serve under Philemon. So there's a whole book of the Bible. It's a very short one, but it's a book of the Bible that is talking about this very, cultural reality.
Now a further wrinkle that we have, and this is part of our struggle, is that whenever we see the word slavery, having grown up the way that we have and, in the world that we've lived in, we automatically think about British slavery or we think about American slavery of of Africans. And indeed, that was slavery, but that was, what, two hundred years ago. We're going back now two thousand years ago where that experience was very different. So we have to read this verse not through the grid of the American slavery, but into what it actually was. And I'm gonna try to describe that here for you a little bit.
These servant slaves were considered the property of the owner, but they served in a variety of roles such as managers of the household, trained professionals like doctors, teachers, even musicians would have been servants. There were extensive Roman laws about how, protecting those that were slaves and keeping, you know, theoretically keeping the owners of the slaves from being too cruel or not caring for them. In fact, Grudem, one of my favorite commentators in first Peter, says, there is no current comparable status in the Western world. In other words, he's saying, we have no frame of reference in our experience for what this actually was. So one of the reasons I I brought up Downton Abbey is that if you can think about more of more Downton Abbey than Roots.
K? More Downton Abbey than the movie Roots, the the miniseries Roots. K? Only where maybe the earl actually is the master and owner of the serving staff, but largely treats them like you see them being treated in the show. K?
That is more of the of the situation. And so that is why as we come to this text, we're not gonna you know, nobody here is probably owned legally by somebody else. But really what this is describing in the fair application for us is any place where I am in a employer employee relationship and I am under the authority of somebody else is essentially the the same as what those servants in the first century were dealing with as Christians now serving under, you know, a pagan master. How should I act? A a quarter of the whole empire was exactly that.
So as Christianity spread across Asia Minor and the Roman Empire, you had owners becoming Christians like Philemon. You had servants or slaves becoming Christians now creating this sort of awkward relationship where they may gather together for prayer. They may gather together for worship. But then when they go home, the one owns the other. That's kinda weird, isn't it?
But that was the reality. And so the New Testament writes into the reality. We can say it shouldn't be that way. Have been different. But that's the way that it was.
And so the the the New Testament strives then to help masters and servants. Paul writes to masters about the way that he they were to treat their servants, to write into that and say, this is how we redeem even this very broken cultural system. So we're gonna look at this from the perspective that we all can relate to, and that is, what does it mean to be a Christian in the workplace? If we could watch Downton Abbey and say, okay, which one of those is a Christian? We know one is, if we happen to know that.
How would what would you expect to see from an employee working at Downton Abbey? What would it look like? How would it be maybe be different than what the other staff is, the way they operate and what they care about? That's where we're going. So notice that Peter begins, you know, not with time cards and work reports, but he begins with attitude.
Look what he says. “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect.” New revised standard translates it, “slaves accept the authority of your masters with all deference.” Now I think it's pretty plain. Most of us here probably instinctively know what he is getting at here, do we not?
This is about our attitude towards authority. That doesn't mean when I'm in the workplace that I'm a floor mat and, you know, I just am, you know, blindly obedient. But what it does mean is that I am showing respect for the authority that the employer that I am working for has over me. And notice it says, with all respect. K?
So that kind of throws out the window. Maybe you're thinking, well, maybe I can improve, I don't have to be, like, super respectful. No. It says, all respect there. Do you see the word?
This includes our words, our responses to our company, our bosses, and our general demeanor. To ask this question, does your boss get the idea from you that you give deference and respect to him or her in their place over you? Like, wouldn't it be interview interesting to interview all the bosses of everybody in our church and say, how is how is that Bethelonians? What kind of employee are they? What do you get from him or her?
Do you get attitude, or do you get respect? And Peter here is saying, point number one, Christians will respect authority. Why? Because we see all authority as being established by God. Right?
That's why we look at the government. And we may not agree with the government. We may not like the politicians of the government, but we are called to respect that authority because all authority comes from from God himself. That's true in the home, parents and children. That's true in government, with citizens.
That's true in the workplace, with employers and employees. Parents, you notice how I work that in. Amen? Parents here? Okay.
Children need to listen to that. Pastor Steve's on to something. Well, they might be getting clues as to your respect for authority in the way that you talk about your boss in the home. And that wasn't in the notes. I just threw it in.
So the opposite of what he's talking about here is belligerence, defiance, rudeness, resistance. We've probably all been in workplace environments where we have observed people whose attitude is very different than respect towards the boss. We hear that in the words that are said. We see behind the scenes when the boss isn't there what that looks like. Maybe you live maybe you work in a place where it's actually culturally acceptable to have tension with the management, to speak bad of your boss.
And here's where I think what Peter is writing about here is so challenging because he's writing to slaves. If anybody had the right to sort of say, you know what? I'm getting the short end of the stick here. It would be a slave, don't you think? Because why?
They have no possibility of freedom. They can't get out of their job. They're not there voluntarily. They're not getting paid. They're probably getting provided for, but they're probably not making much money, if at all.
The hours were long. The conditions were not what you wanted. If there was anybody that maybe had a right to not always show respect, it would be a slave more than an employee in the modern American labor force. And yet, Peter says, slaves, even you, need to show all respect to that authority that has been put over you. So do you see the point there?
We have it so much easier than a slave. The modern American employee in the in the contemporary American labor situation has far more freedom and far more opportunity than any Roman slave could have dreamed of. And yet, the Roman slave needed to show deference to their owner. So let me ask you have you ask yourself this question. Does my boss sense from me my respect for his or her position over me?
And if I say over you, are you resenting just the fact that I say it that way? Like, do you have an authority problem? Christians shouldn't have an authority problem. Why? Because we've surrendered to the ultimate authority, which is God himself.
We're good at surrendering to authority. Jesus is our Lord. Right? I didn't expect a lot of amens in this sermon, but you could throw a few in here. Alright?
I'm on a good point here now. K? You're like, I don't know about the authority over Okay. Jesus' authority. Amen.
Boss' authority. I don't know about that. And maybe I hear a little murmuring right now because you're saying to yourself, but you don't know the boss that I have. He's a megalomaniac. I mean, it's all about him.
She's a slave driver. I'll show respect when he gets respectable. But until then, forget about it. Right? “Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect.”
Notice what he adds. Not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust. And the Greek word there for unjust, we get the word scoliosis from it. K? So to have scoliosis, you know, is to have a back that is what?
Crooked. And that's the sense of it. Morally crooked. Morally unjust. Even the boss whose fundamental character is flawed and broken and crooked.
Even that boss, I gotta show respect to. Is that what you're saying to me? If I work for Tom Barrow instead of Carson, I gotta respect Tom Barrow? That's what he's saying. K?
That's what he's saying. Why? Because all authority is established by God. You know, it's easy to work for Carson. I think Lord Grantham's a pretty good guy.
I wouldn't mind working for him. Flawed, but okay. The real test is not when you work for somebody who's kind and gentle and kinda lets you do whatever you wanna do. Almost anybody can, you know, to to do that. The real test is when I am working for somebody who is not that way, who I struggle to respect their character, their lifestyle, and yet I gotta respect him.
That's what Peter is saying. So we saw it in government in the verses before. Here we see it in the workplace. You might say, this is terrible. I can't believe how hard this is.
There's God would never call me to do that. Actually, what you're doing, even in the worst situation we have here, is nothing compared to what's coming in chapter three. Why? Because you don't have to sleep with your boss. But he's gonna talk about in the next section the wife who's married to the unbelieving husband, who may be gentle and kind, but who may be also unjust.
And he is going to say essentially the same thing to her, that the manner in which she treats him, respects him, is a silent witness to the reality of the gospel in her heart, and she's a kind of missionary in the home. To me, that's the hardest one. K? So don't get any idea that you're suffering incredibly with this. We have wives in our church that suffer more than that because of the reality of where they live and what's going on there.
But that's a future message. I just throw that out as a commercial. Maybe you'll come back. I hope that you do. K?
So he's writing again to Christians who find themselves in a hostile environment. They're trying to make their Christianity work in a place where people are not super happy about their values, and they are at odds with the culture around them. The friction points are wherever Christianity and and and and people who are against Christianity have to make life work. And so you see that again, government, employment, home, family, marriage. Attitude is the first thing.
Notice though, it's not just attitude. K? You can say, I'm gonna have a good attitude, but then I'm gonna not do what he wants me to I'm gonna have a great attitude but then I'm gonna quietly be subversive to her. Notice that it is also a respectful action. K?
And if I had more time, could go over to Ephesians chapter six where Paul writes very eloquently both to those that are in authority over people and those that are under authority and talks about what that ought to look like. And he talks to he says to the employer or I'm sorry, the employee that you need to work in a manner that is actually under the Lord. You are working for the Lord actually is what Paul says. On earth, maybe I've got this employer, but my actual boss is is Jesus himself, which means that his eye is always upon me, and I'm to serve in a way that would please him. Here's how Peter says basically the same thing.
“For this is a gracious thing. When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.” K? So get this. God is pleased when we do what is right and is pleasing to him even when it costs us.
Even when me doing this means that I'm going to suffer from this. Now notice the context here. What is the right thing? K? This gracious thing when mindful of God, one endures suffering while suffering unjustly sorrows while suffering unjustly.
What is that right thing that he is getting at here? Well, respecting our employer's wishes, serving faithfully in a difficult employment situation. You may think that's hard to do in a job. Again, it's harder in a marriage, but the burden for the Christian worker is to serve joyfully and respectfully when the workplace is hard and when the boss is hard and when being a Christian is hard. So what is the key here?
And notice the key phrase. I think this is the most important thing in the whole text. When mindful of God, one suffers unjustly. In other words, when I am enduring something, and this is true in all contexts, but in the employment context, when I am enduring something and I am suffering because I am not compromising my integrity, or I am refusing to give in to the, maybe, the the the culture of the office to be against, and so I'm ostracized, Or I'm refusing to misreport or cheat or do something that the company wants me to do that goes against my values when my being faithful to the Lord causes me to suffer unjustly. My career gets torpedoed.
My I'm not advanced. My salary gets takes a hit. Maybe I lose my job. All the things that may come from being faithful as a Christian in the employment situation because I am mindful of God, because I am aware of who I am really serving in the workplace. Christian, who's your real boss?
K. It's God himself, isn't it? Now it might be, you know, John or Fran or some there's a name there that is the human per but my real boss is the Lord Jesus. And I am mindful of the fact that he is with me in the in the office place. You know, some places have this take your child to work day.
Right? You can bring your your your kid with you and help them see what you do during the day and all that. What what Peter is basically saying is take God to work with you. Maybe that'll help you tomorrow morning. When you go to the office, when you go to the mill, when you go to work with school if you're a student, whatever it is, consciously be aware that God is with you.
And then the things that you suffer lost because of what you've done, you know that the God of heaven sees it and promises to honor it. Take God to work with you. You know, even Jesus practiced this. John 19 tells a story that the the the day that the night that Jesus was betrayed, that next morning, he was taken to Pilate. Right?
And he he goes before Pilate, and Pilate's interviewing him, trying to figure out who he is. And and Pilate said and Jesus didn't answer. And Pilate said, don't you know that I have authority to let you go? And Jesus says, you would have no authority unless my heavenly Father gave it to you. And what did Jesus do in that moment?
He came under the authority of Pilate. Get that. The Son of God. The Son of God came under the human authority of the man he knew was going to kill him. Now you may have a bad boss, but I don't know how many of them are plotting your murder.
But if you knew they were, would you come under that authority? Which is exactly what Jesus did. And I just wanna tell you briefly, God used that verse in my life. I think a key kind of maturity moment in my life years ago, I had a man that I was working for, and I I was working for him. He had it out for me.
K? And it wasn't overt, but it was plain and obvious. He didn't like me. He didn't want me in that position. And so we had this kind of quiet sort of war that that that went on.
And, I mean, it's not like I was, you know but it was it was subtle, and I knew my own heart. And I remember over the holidays, I was reading through John, and I read this passage. And that struck that thought struck me. Jesus came under Pilate's authority. If Jesus came under Pilate's authority, why can't I come under this guy's authority?
And the Lord just broke my heart with it. And when I got home from the holidays, I met with him, tears on my face. I apologized for any sense of insubordination. And I said to him, from this day forward, I'm gonna be the best employee you've ever had. And I endeavored to do that.
But it was that truth right there that broke my heart. And maybe God could use that right here in this room to do the same. You having a little war with your boss? You think you have the moral high ground? Take a look at Jesus and Pilate, and maybe that'll cause you to rethink.
Hey. How am I supposed to live out my faith even for a boss that is scoliosis and might may be against me. Notice next, verse 19, that serving and suffering in the workplace is honorable to God. “For this is a gracious thing. When mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.”
“For what credit is it if when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.” Notice that not all suffering in the in the workplace is honorable to God. If you are lazy and lose your job, don't roll out this verse and say, I'm suffering. It's honorable in the eyes of God.
No. You're lazy. K? If you don't show up to work on time and that costs you in your career, don't get all high and mighty and think that you're suffering and this is honorable to God. No.
You're lazy. So don't use this as an excuse to be anything but the best employee that that boss has ever had, which all of us should strive to do. It's not when we suffer in the workplace that it's honorable to God. It is when we suffer unjustly in the workplace that it is honorable to God. So if you work for a boss and you don't cut corners and you maintain your integrity and and you are doing your very best to be respectful to him and you are striving for the good of the company, and in spite of all of these things, there is somebody that has it out for you, doesn't like your Christian faith, wants to take you down, doesn't want you as a part of the team, you lose your you lose your position, you lose career advancement, you lose money.
Whatever loss comes from that, that is honorable in the eyes of God. That is suffering unjustly. And the God who sees it will make it up to you. Did you hear what I said? We never compromise in the workplace.
This is not a blind obedience to the boss. My boss told me to do it, you know, sort of like the Nazis argued at the Nuremberg trial. Right? We were just doing what we were told as a kind of excuse. We are never called to compromise our convictions, our beliefs, our faith.
K? The Puritans used to say it this way, if you have to choose between sin and suffering, always choose suffering. If you have to choose between sin and suffering, always choose suffering. If you're dealing with something at work where you know you're having to compromise, but you're on the other side, you're like, but I I really need this boss to write a reference. I need some kinda I'm looking for a gain.
Don't do it. Always choose suffering over sin. Why? Because our allegiance is to God himself. I don't know if I have time for this, but the thought just comes to me that, you know, my brother-in-law, Jeff, Jennifer's brother, as an example of this, minor league baseball player, I think hit the game winning home run.
One game, the manager called him in. At the end of the game, he says, we're done with you. Why? He was leading a Bible study on the team. The manager didn't like it and wanted him off the team.
And that was why, in spite of having a really great season, he lost his role. And that kind of thing happens all the time. We probably have stories like this right here. If we allowed people to share of things that you have gone through because of your Christian faith, I want you to realize God sees that. You're mindful of God.
God sees it. He honors that. It is honorable in his sight. So to the extent that we can show all respect, we do it. We do not compromise.
And if we suffer for it, God makes it up to us. Now, finally, we see who our example is. Look at verse 21. “For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you may follow in his steps.” Who is our ultimate example of the very thing that we're talking about of doing good and suffering unjustly?
It it is, of course, Jesus himself. Notice that Peter says here, it's not just a possibility. It is a calling. We are called to this. Get ready for it, Christian.
You're gonna suffer for being a Christian in some way. Unless you're like a dead fish going down the stream, you're going to suffer in some way. People aren't gonna like you. Teenagers, listen to me. At school, college, you're gonna have people that are not going to think fondly of your faith in the Lord Jesus.
We just gotta acknowledge that, know that, prepare ourselves for it. Don't be surprised when it happens. Why? Because that's exactly what happened to Jesus, and we're following him. Right?
We're following in his steps. So get this. Who is the bully boss in Jesus' life? Who is the unjust boss in Jesus' life? Who's the tyrant in Jesus' life?
Who mistreated Jesus when he wouldn't compromise his integrity? Wouldn't turn the stones into bread. Wouldn't throw himself down from the corner temple. We look at being a Christian at US Steel or Purdue Cal or some other place like it's the ultimate example of the hard place and all of the suffering. It's so hard to be a Christian there.
It pales in comparison to what Jesus went through and what he did. Why? Because he came here. He did far better good than any of us have done, and yet he suffered, didn't he? He is the ultimate exile.
Talk about being out of your element. Listen to this. He wasn't a fish out of water. He was a king without his glory. The Lord without his observable majesty.
Yet he came here and he worked for who? The company of man. Did he see things around the place that were wrong that should have been done differently? Did he have any helpful suggestions to improve the systems of the company of man? Did they did those go unheeded?
What was his salary, by the way? What was Jesus' salary while he was here doing all of these things? Why did the company of man hate him so much? Was it his job performance? Was he lazy?
Did he lack the skills necessary? Did he need some training? What cause did Jesus give company of man to mistreat him unjustly, to hate him, to beat him, to flog him, to despise him, and to kill him? Upper management wanted him gone, but you don't fire God when he comes to earth. You don't put him on administrative leave.
The only thing you can do when God is working for you and you don't want him anymore is to kill him. And that is what the management did. This in spite of all of the wonderful things that Jesus did for the company of man. Now that doesn't seem very fair, does it? Because he created the company of man in the first place.
He's the founder of the company. He worked for free, fed the company, healed the hurts of the company, supplied the company with everything it needed for life every single day. So for the company that you created, loved, served, taught, fed, and healed, for that company to turn on you and kill you. That must be wrong even in the eyes of God. But if management fires you, but God hires you back by raising you from the dead and then puts you on the highest throne of management and gives you a title that is above every name.
It would mean that in the eyes of God, willing and respectful service to even bad authority over you when done for God's sake is glorious in the eyes of God. Jesus is our example. K? So friends, listen. When your boss demeans you, mistreats you, overlooks you, disrespects you, but you go on and do good for the company and that boss anyway, all you are doing is following in the steps of Jesus, the steps of the life of the example of Jesus, the most glorious and wonderful life that has ever been lived.
And so my dear church, make sure you take God to work with you. Heavenly Father, I pray over our church. I pray, Lord, that we would be discernibly Christians should somebody be watching the show of our life. If people were to watch the way that we interact with the other staff, watch the way that we interact with those that are in authority over us. Lord, I pray that the Bethelonians would, in Northwest Indiana, be known as being the best employees you can have.
And, Lord, no doubt as I say that, there is a whole lot of repenting that needs to take place right here in this room for failures in this regard, failures of attitude, failures of action. Maybe you're calling somebody here to go to their boss tomorrow, to apologize, to make it right, and to promise from this day forward, I'll be the best employee you've ever had. What a witness we could be to the reality of a risen savior by the way that we work and the attitude we have. God, I pray that we would honor you. And when we suffer unjustly, Lord, I pray for patience and endurance, a kind of seeing of life in the big picture where you make all things right, either in this life or the next.
So, God, I pray that in this category of life, it's a huge part of life. Lord, may we honor you and glorify you. To you be all praise. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
* This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.
