A message on the relationship between faith and the workplace
“22 Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. 25 Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.
1 Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.
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Bobby is a welder for a trailer company. He likes what he does—on most days. He likes most of the people he works with… on most days. Bobby has worked in a few different shops over the years. This isn’t the best and it isn’t the worst.
What does Jesus have to do with Bobby’s welding? We’ve been in the book of Colossians thinking about how Christ fills us in every part in every way. How does he fill Bobby’s time at work? How does he fill your work?
We spend a lot of time working and a lot of time thinking about fulfillment at work. Fulfillment comes not by finding the perfect job but by working as if Jesus was your boss because, ultimately, he is. Work as if Jesus was your boss because he ultimately is. That’s the claim of this sermon.
We will study this in two points. First: a word to employees. Second: a word to bosses. We will take the word to employees from verses 22-25 of chapter 3 and the word to bosses from verse 1 of chapter 4.
First: a word to employees. This section is about slaves. Paul had domestic slaves in mind—those who lived with the family. We saw his words to husbands and wives as well as to parents and children. These are his words to slaves who lived with the family. This is God’s word about their work.
These words about work are applicable to Bobby even though Bobby isn’t a slave. There are obvious differences between slavery and employment. Bobby can leave that company and weld somewhere else, or he can do something else entirely. Bobby’s relationship with his employer is based on contract. He provides services and that is the limit of the relationship. That’s very different from slavery, but we can take Paul’s words about work and apply them to our work.
This is a word about diligence at work; verse 22, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything.” Very few slaves were diligent. Most worked just hard enough to avoid trouble. That’s how many employees think about work. As Peter Gibbons confessed in the movie Office Space, “It’s a problem of motivation. Now if I work [hard] and [the company] ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime; so where’s the motivation? And here’s something else: I have eight different bosses right now. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That [means] my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know… that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.”
That’s where working just for the master or just for the boss or just the paycheck often leads. It leads to doing just enough. We Christians are to work differently. We work for Jesus. Paul told the slaves not to work only when the master’s eye, “on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord,” as verse 22 put it. Many workers need to be watched constantly or they will slack off. The Christian is watched constantly. He is watched by Christ.
We work as if we were working for Jesus. That helps. That helps if you’ve got a great boss because Jesus is better. That helps if you’ve got a difficult boss because it frees you up to do it for Jesus rather than to trying to keep a boss who’s never happy, happy; you see that you’re working for Jesus in verse 23, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.”
So you don’t want to wait on that customer who is snotty to you every time she comes into the restaurant? Then serve her, her meal as if you were serving it to Jesus. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” So, you don’t want to call that client back because they chewed you out last time? Don’t just do it for the job. Don’t just do it to avoid trouble in the future. Don’t think about what that client has done to you. Think about what Jesus has done for you. “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” Or maybe you love cutting a particular client’s hair. That’s great! Don’t just do your best because you like them. Cut their hair as if you were cutting Jesus’ hair and do that for all your clients.
Your work is all about Jesus. It’s about honoring him in what you are doing right now. That helps if you’re having difficulty at work. You can’t just magically turn affliction at work into smooth waters, but you can quiet your soul at work by making it your business to do it for Jesus. Remembering that Jesus is over your boss helps quiet the soul. Remembering that Jesus is over that customer helps quiet the soul. Doing your job as if you were doing it for him quiets the soul.
Now if all of us Christians did our work as if we were working for Jesus, we would become the most desirable of all employees. We want bosses—even bosses who think Christianity is a bunch of hogwash—to say, “hire more of those Christians. Everyone else seems super busy the minute I walk into the room and then productivity falls off a cliff the second I leave. I’ve got to hire supervisors to supervise most every employee and then I’ve got to hire supervisors to watch those supervisors. I don’t need to worry about those Christians. They are here to work.” That’s what verse 22 is aiming for, “do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.” The logic is that Jesus didn’t phone it in as he worked for us, and were not going to phone it in when we work for him.
Doing your job as if you were doing it for the Jesus has consequences. It calms your spirit when there’s difficulty in your workplace. It helps you be a self-starter because Jesus is always with you even if your supervisor isn’t. It also brings rewards; verse 23, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
This was a big deal to the slaves to whom Paul wrote. They didn’t inherit anything from their mater. Working for Jesus gave them a hope no earthly master would give them. We studied that inheritance back in chapter 1. We saw that in the wilderness Israel lived by hope in their inheritance when got into the promised land. We who live in the wilderness of this life live by hope in our inheritance in the new creation. We who do our work for Jesus will be rewarded by Jesus in that new creation; “know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.”
This is a long-term incentive. We tend to think of retirement as a long-term incentive. Plenty of people know how many years they have left until they retire. They work looking forward to retirement. This is a longer-term incentive. Jesus is far more creative at rewarding your hard work than you will be once you cash in your 401K.
Your work tomorrow goes into eternity. That gives your daily work eternal significance. You might feel as if your work doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. You spray a lawn for weeds and before you know it you are back at the same house spraying the same lawn. You take care of a patient who you know isn’t going to take care of themselves once they get home. Work often feels futile. This passage reminds you that it isn’t. What you do matters forever. That patient might not care that you took care of them. Jesus cares. You might feel as if spraying that yard yet again is pointless in the grand scheme of things. Jesus thinks the point is to please him by doing your job well and pleasing Jesus is what matters in the grand scheme of things.
Now the flip side is true as well; verse 25, “Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.” Jesus is no sucker. The idea that he’s happier with us phoning in our work than any earthly boss would be because, after all, he’s Jesus is found nowhere in Scripture.
This is a warning. You might be able to fool a client or customer or boss into thinking that substandard work is good enough. Maybe you’ve been tricked into thinking that someone else’s substandard work is good enough. Jesus isn’t fooled.
This is a warning. It’s a warning to anyone who assumes that belonging to Jesus somehow us from the obligation to work well; “there is no favoritism,” as verse 25 puts it. We can’t simply say, “I belong to Jesus,” as if grace covers substandard work. “The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes,” as someone put it.
These words about work matter. If Jesus isn’t your Lord at your workplace, is he your Lord in this sanctuary? You can’t read, “It is the Lord Christ you are serving,” without some sense that how you work says something about your allegiance to Jesus. Living faith lives.
Now if you take a look at your Bible, you will see that there are far more words to slaves than to masters. We’ve got 4 verses to slaves and only 1 to masters. Calvin thought that was because the slave’s situation was so much more difficult to endure. Paul might have written more about slaves’ responsibilities because there were so many more slaves than masters in the early church. It’s likely, though, that there were so many more words for slaves than masters because Paul sent another letter to Colossae at the same time as he sent the one, and that letter was all about how to treat slaves. It’s the letter to Philemon. It’s about treating others as fellow human beings and brothers in the Lord.
But Philemon and its implications for slavery and difficult conversation are not our focus this morning. It was going to be for this series. We were initially going to focus on having difficult conversations with Philemon. It seemed to me, however, that finding fullness in Jesus, prioritizing heartfelt obedience over traditionalism, and seeing Jesus as better than anything else was the more needful lesson and so we’re in Colossians. Today, though, we are thinking about obligations at work, and we turn our attention to bosses. That’s our second point: a word to bosses.
We’ve only got one sentence here. Even the presence of this one sentence, though, is remarkable. There were plenty of household codes dealing with husbands and wives, parents and children, and slaves, in that day. This word to masters is the oddity. Paul’s was far more concerned with kindness and selflessness than the other codes. We sometimes miss just how radical Christianity was when it began. We sometimes miss just how radical it is today.
Now, again, we are in a very difficult culture with very different expectations, but from this verse it certainly makes sense to say that Christians should provide their employees with what’s right and fair. It’s hard to read verse 1 in any other way, “Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair.”
Now if you are a boss, you might already be thinking, “okay, but let’s define right and fair.” That’s understandable and if your heart is in the right place with that question, you are to be honored. It’s not easy to be a boss. Some employees think it is. Some of them will learn how hard it is one day when they become a boss. They will learn that life on the other side of the desk is much more difficult than they ever imagined. Others never will get a chance to learn that lesson.
Regardless of what employees think of the boss, though, the boss is to provide what’s right and fair for the employees. If you are a boss, you know the lay of the land in that. Just as your employees will stand before the Lord for how they work for you, so you will stand before the Lord for how you treat them. That’s the second half of this verse, “because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”
The idea here is that you are to treat those under you in the way that you want Jesus to treat you. Treat your employees the way that you want Jesus to treat you. This is Jesus’ words, “with the measure you use, it will be measured to you,” applied to you as a boss.
Every boss will give an account to Jesus for the ways they’ve dealt with their employees. One day Jesus will call the boss into his office and say, “sit down. Let’s talk about your job performance,” just as he will call every employee into his office and say, “sit down. Let’s talk about your job performance.” This is a warning to bosses and employees. This is an incentive to reward for bosses and employees who will do what Jesus says. The final judgment can go very well for you. “Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into your master’s happiness.”
Jesus is in charge of the marketplace. He’s in charge of it even as Elon Musk buys Twitter for about $44 billion. He’s in charge of what happens between the store manager and the produce manager at Walmart on 85th. Paul meant what he said in chapter 2, “all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” That goes for your responsibility toward your boss. That goes for your boss’s responsibility to you.
That simplify things and our marketplace is anything but simple. We live in an economy of transactions, and we’re fond of saying that the customer is always right. Well, in the grand scheme of things we customers stand before Jesus in how we treat waiters, stylists, cashiers, and mechanics. We will give an account for how we treat these employees. We need to remember that others will give an account for how they treat us in the marketplace.
Our workplaces aren’t as simple as bosses or masters. Teachers who deal with supervisors, and parents, and schoolboards. Nurses who deal with patients and doctors and family members and HR. Public servants who balance what’s best with what’s feasible with the will of the voters. It’s anything but simple. There’s plenty of people who supervise others while also being supervised by others. This passage simplifies it for us. Do your work as if you were doing it for Jesus. Treat others in the marketplace as you would Jesus to treat you. That’s just the two greatest commandments taken into the work week—love the lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
So Bobby is a welder for a trailer company. He likes what he does—on most days. He likes most of the people he works with on most days. Bobby has worked in a few different shops over the years. This isn’t the best and it isn’t the worst, but none of that is really the point it? Bobby is to weld as if he were welding for Jesus. Bobby is to do his work as if he were working for Jesus. He is to trust that what he does everyday matters forever because it matters to Jesus. That’s what you are to do tomorrow too because it matters to him. Amen.