11 Why Work Matters More Than You Think

Krisan Marotta: Welcome to Wednesday in the Word. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the 11th episode in the companion series to my new book, Start Strong: A New Believer's Guide to Christianity, which is available wherever you buy your book. Today we'll be studying Colossians chapter 3, verse 18 through chapter 4, verse 1, which is one of the book's See for Yourself passages from chapter 11. If you're reading along, you might want to read chapter 11 before you listen to this episode, but if you don't have the book to read along with, don't worry, just keep listening. Every day you're pulled into power struggles at work, at home, and in any relationship where someone has authority. When someone has power over you, your instinct may be to resist and protect yourself. When you're the one in charge, your instinct may be to assert control and make sure you get your way. But what if those relationships were not meant to be contests to win or lose? In today's passage, we'll discover a biblical framework that transforms authority and submission from problems to manage into opportunities. Thanks for joining me today. We will be looking at a passage in Colossians today. This is in the exhortation section of this letter. Let me set the stage for this passage. The Apostle Paul wrote this letter to a church on the verge of believing a legalistic gospel. This legalistic gospel claims that believing in Jesus is a good start, but in addition to that, you have to keep the Old Testament law to maintain your favor with God. And in this letter, Paul has been encouraging them to flee from this false gospel and to remain true to the gospel taught by Jesus Christ, the one that says, you are saved by grace through faith, and that's enough. In this last section of the letter, Paul begins exhorting them. He's essentially telling them, don't worry about outward rules and practices and rituals, such as when you eat and when you fast, when you rest and when you work. Instead, he wants them to be concerned with their attitudes and values. Like the other New Testament authors, Paul sees this dynamic relationship between what we believe and how we live. When we come to believe the gospel, it changes the way we live daily life. Faith changes our choices, values, and actions. But that change results from the work of the Holy Spirit teaching us the truth. It does not come through practicing external rituals. So in this last section, Paul gives them examples of where belief matters through a series of exhortations. An exhortation is simply a strong appeal to do what is right or maybe to take a specific action. Paul gives examples of situations where the rubber meets the road and you have to choose how to respond. And in these situations, what you believe affects how you act in those areas. So if you believe the gospel, you will act differently. And he's exhorting them to act differently. These exhortations are not intended to be a list of things to do so your life will go better. It's deeper than that. It's this is how you might want to act or how you should act because you believe the gospel is true. And embracing the gospel changes your attitudes and motivations. So in these situations, these are the kinds of changes you will see if you believe the gospel. The section we're looking at is in Colossians 3 and it starts in 18, but I want to back up a minute to verses 16 and 17. Paul writes, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. That's the starting place. That's the thesis of this whole section. Essentially, he's telling them let the importance of the gospel of Jesus and all the things he taught you make a real difference in your life. I think that's what he means by dwell in you richly. You claim to believe the gospel. Now let it matter. Let it make a difference in your life so that whatever you do, you are acting as a representative of Jesus Christ. We are quite capable of distracting ourselves to death. We have so much entertainment, so many responsibilities. Our jobs take our attention, our smartphones take a ton of attention, our houses take attention, our families, health and fitness, recreation. All of that demands our time and energy and efforts. And all of that is well and good, but the gospel is more important. Paul's saying, let the gospel encourage and nurture you. Pursue it. Live like it's true in all aspects of your daily life. Make it a large part of your life because the gospel is food for your souls. There's no point in being physically fit if you're spiritually dead. Now, all of us are susceptible to distractions and to the tyranny of the urgent and the busy life. If I organize my life such that I do my job, I nurture my family, I eat gourmet meals, decorate my house, enjoy fine wines and luxury vacations. And then and only then, if there's any time left over, the icing on the cake is understanding and applying the gospel. That I have missed what's truly important because all that other stuff is going to burn in the end. And what's going to last is the gospel. The gospel is not just one good thing among many good things. It is the thing. It's not the cherry on top of a full and rich life. It is what makes life full and rich. And we ought to want to think about these things and to grow in our understanding of the gospel. Because there will come a day when all that other stuff is going to fall by the wayside, and only one thing will have eternal significance. So that sets us up for our section. 316 and 17 set us up for what Paul's going to say next. He's just said, whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to the Father. Now, how do we do that? How do we do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? How do we speak and act in his name? That's the kind of Christian phrase that we hear, and it just goes in one ear and out the other. So let's break it down. To act in the name of someone, it can have a variety of senses depending on the context, but the general idea is that you are acting in the place of another. It's like having a proxy. If my friend is not here, I can act in his place if I have his proxy. I act in his name because he's not here to speak for himself. So I do what he would do if he were physically present. We used to have a similar expression, though you don't hear it much anymore. But in old TV shows and movies, the police would bang on the door and say, Open up in the name of the law. As a private citizen, I don't have the right to demand that you open your door. But a policeman standing outside your door has the right to demand you open it because he represents the law of the land. He's not speaking as your next door neighbor, he's speaking as an officer of the law, and the law gives him the right to enter. And you are to respond to him as a representative of the law, not your next door neighbor. Well, in the same way, we see the apostles acting in the name of Jesus. They speak and act for Jesus because Jesus is no longer physically present, but they have the authority to speak for him, to do what he would do if he were here. So when Paul acts as an apostle of Jesus Christ, Paul is saying, you should listen to me, not because I have a PhD in religion or something like that, but because I am speaking the ideas and the concepts that Jesus once explained. I am speaking the message he authorized me to speak. And if he were here, this is what he would say. So Paul says, obey me as an apostle because I act in the name of Jesus. And that same idea is true of us as regular believers. Now we don't have the authority of an apostle. We don't act the way Paul acted in the authority of Christ, but we can act as his representative. There is a sense in which we can do what he would do if he were here. And Paul gives us then three pairs of relationships. And he talks about how we should act in each of those relationships. Each person in the pair has a different responsibility and obligation. And whichever role they play, they are to treat the other person as Jesus would treat them in that situation. So whether they're in the position of authority or the position of submission, they are to act as Jesus would act in that situation. Well, of course, the problem is we're all selfish. Our natural tendency is to resist submission and to abuse authority because we're sinful. We don't bring the right attitudes into these relationships and we tend to act toward our advantage. So Paul is encouraging us to think about what the gospel means and think about these situations differently. We are to ask ourselves in these relationships, what's my goal? Am I looking for the best deal that I can get right now for me? Is my goal to make my life the most comfortable and gain the most power and leverage? If so, that usually means I will fight submission so that I can get my way, or I will abuse my authority so it benefits me. But Paul's saying believing the gospel gives us a different frame of mind. We should bring a different kind of attitude and motivation to these relationships because there's something bigger going on in these relationships. I am acting in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately, I ought to be seeking my Lord Jesus' approval and acting as if he were here. And whatever I do, I ought to be seeking to act in his name or as his representative. Now the key to understanding each case is to realize my choice is acting as if the only thing that matters is me and my rights, or acting as if God is in control and I am seeking to do his will. If I think my needs are the only ones that matter, then I'm going to act selfishly. If I think I can trust God and act as if I trust God, and that that's more important than anything else, then I will act differently. I will act to love God and love my neighbor. So Paul describes these three human relationships: wives and husbands, slaves and masters, and children and parents. And in each one, one person in the relationship has a measure of authority over the other person in the relationship. And Paul is challenging them. How should you act in these relationships? Well, you should recognize what you owe the other person, but also recognize what you owe God. Because in some sense, whether you're the person in power or the person without power, you represent Jesus and you ought to respond accordingly. So if you're the person in the position of authority, you are to exercise your authority knowing you're an officer of Jesus in the same way the policeman is an officer of the law. You remember how Jesus spoke of those with authority being servants and acting for the other's good, and you follow his example. If you are the person in the position of submission, you submit, knowing you are acting as a follower of Christ, and you again follow your Lord's example of submitting to God no matter what it costs him, because ultimately God is your master. Now Paul spells out this idea most clearly for slaves. And I just want to pick up one verse he says to them in verse 23, because I think his logic applies to all the pairs, all the relationships. In 323, he says, whatever you do, work heartedly as for the Lord and not for men. And that is the guiding principle. We're not just serving our earthly masters, we're serving God. And the Lord has a claim on us that trumps everything else. If all I see is the imposition of your authority, I might be tempted to ignore you or to rebel against you. But when I realize God is also making a claim to me, that rebellion becomes harder to justify because there's also a sense in which I'm rebelling against the authorities that God has put in my life. And so, in a sense, I'm rebelling against Him. Okay, let's flesh this out. Let's look at each pair. 3, 18, and 19. Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Now I realize there is a ton of confusion today about the relationship between husbands and wives and the kind of authority that the Bible talks about husbands having. Paul is not saying the wife ought to obey the husband as if he were God. Paul is not saying her husband is God to her and she should jump when he says jump. He is not saying that whatever her husband says is God's will because he is her Lord. All those ideas have been suggested, and I think they are a significant distortion of the biblical view. Rather, as I have just said, in each relationship, a certain type of conduct is appropriate. It's appropriate for children to obey their parents. It's appropriate for slaves to obey their masters, or to translate that into modern day for employees to obey their employers. Similarly, there is a time and place where it's appropriate for a wife to submit to her husband. She is doing the right thing in a particular situation, and she is recognizing that God has a right to say, in this relationship, this is how I want you to act. For her to do this right thing is a submission to what God has said is the right thing to do. If it were be generous with your money, she could do that in the name of the Lord. If it were be diligent and responsible rather than lazy and slothful, that's something she could do as fitting to the Lord. When God tells you, in this situation, in this kind of circumstance, this is right, good, and appropriate behavior, and you submit to that, you're submitting to God. So there is a sense in which it's appropriate for a wife to submit and a husband to love. Our response in that relationship is not just a response to our spouse, it's also a response to God. Okay, I'm not going to go into great detail about what is a wife's submission and what is husbandheadship. Paul does not spell that out in this passage. He just says it and moves on. He assumes that we know the basics of a husband-wife relationship, just like we know the basics of a parent and child relationship. He expects his readers to bring some prior knowledge into this. Now, over the years, I have studied the passages on husbands and wives and women in authority in great depth at various times. And I'm basing my comments on those years of study, not on just these two verses alone. And I have other talks on marriage and the roles in marriage, where I go into this and the passages behind them in a lot more detail. I'll put a link to those in the show notes if you want to explore that. But briefly, I think the biblical concept of husbandheadship has been misunderstood and mistaught and abused in many, many ways. I'm not going to go through all those misunderstandings. Instead, I'm just going to tell you what I think the Bible teaches. When you have a partnership of two people and you have to reach an agreement, someone has to be the tiebreaker. If you want that partnership to last, you have to have a way of dealing with an impasse. And in marriage, I think the Bible teaches that God has given that tiebreaker responsibility to the husband. And God will hold him accountable for how he uses that responsibility. If he abandons it or he abuses it, God will hold him accountable for it. So husbandheadship is the biblical concept that God assigned to the husband responsibility for the marriage and the resulting family. If the marriage ultimately falls apart, God is going to come to the husband and hold him accountable in a way that he will not hold the wife accountable. The husband has this extra responsibility to make sure the family thrives. Now the Bible describes the wife's role as being a helper. Being a helper is recognizing who is responsible and granting him the freedom to follow his conscience. So when push comes to shove, if we a husband and wife cannot reach consensus, the wife has the responsibility to say, God's going to hold you accountable for this decision, and we will try it your way. Now, is that unfair? Is God being mean? No, because these are roles that we play. Being a head, being a helper, being a mother, a father, a teacher, an elder, all of those are roles that we have. They are questions of responsibility and authority. They are not questions of worth, value, or identity. We are equally sinful, we are equally saved, and we are equally gifted. But in a marriage, and in fact, in the body of Christ at large, we have different roles to play. Let me give you an example. Suppose I have two children. If I assign one child the task of setting the table and another child the task of washing the dishes, it does not mean that one child has more worth than the other or has more value in the family. It just means they have different roles to play in the family. They have different responsibilities. Similarly, God gives us different roles to play in his kingdom, but we are fellow heirs of the grace of life, as Peter describes it. Now remember, there's a difference between obedience to God and obedience to another human being. I would obey God unquestioningly, where it is clear that God is speaking. The best example of that is Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham may not have known why God was asking him to do this thing, but he was absolutely convinced it was God telling him to do this, and so he did it, or almost did it, until God intervened. A wife is not to treat her husband like that, a child is not to treat a parent like that, nor an employee to treat their boss like that, because in each case, the person on the other end of the relationship is not God. As a wife, it's not that I take my husband's word as infallible and never to be questioned, and he would be the first to tell you that. But I recognize that as my husband, God has given him a particular responsibility in our marriage. It's a different responsibility than the one God has given me, and I ought to be willing to help him meet that. So submission is an act of love. It's if I put him in a situation where he cannot do something he is responsible for doing, that's rebellion, and God will hold me accountable. So if we have to make a decision, and despite our best wisdom and research and prayer and study, and despite having made my case and offered the best, most sound, thoughtful biblical wisdom I can offer, if we still can't agree, which actually in our 44 years of marriage, I don't think has ever happened. We've always reached agreement. But anyway, if we couldn't, I would recognize that he is the one who is ultimately responsible. And I would submit and say, okay, we'll go your way as an act of grace and love. Ultimately, knowing I'm trusting God. Now that is a very different thing than saying whatever he says goes. That is very far from the idea that if he wants to go to Burger King and I want to go to McDonald's, he should get his way in all things as. All times. Being responsible does not mean you can be a tyrant. Paul's whole point here is whatever you do, whether you're the person in authority or the person not in authority, your activity ought to be based on the gospel and acting as Jesus would act in that situation. So notice he says, husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Being harsh with them is abusing your authority. Loving your wives here has nothing to do with romance. It has everything to do with how you act and what you say. Love is not how you feel about your spouse, it's how you treat them. That's why Jesus can say, love your enemy. He doesn't have warm, fuzzy feelings in mind. He has a way of treating them, a way of acting toward them. The husband is being called not to use his family authority to his own benefit, but to use his responsibility to seek what is best for his wife and family before God. Now it's probably always been true that everyone with any measure of authority tends to abuse it in one way or another. And Paul is saying, yep, that's going to be your natural tendency, but you are duty bound before God to seek the best for your wife and family. That doesn't mean getting your way, that means doing what's right. So do not treat her harshly or be harsh with her. The idea is don't use your advantage to benefit yourself. Now in Ephesians, Paul gives a lot more detail about this same concept, and he compares how the husband is supposed to treat his wife to the way how Christ served the church, even to the point of giving up his life for her. Jesus chose to die for his people because that's what was best. So for both of them, the situation is not about who wins, it's about serving and doing all things as to the Lord and acting in his name. It's not that the husband is a wife's spiritual director, like, here's how you ought to think, here's what books you should read, here's who your friend should be. That's not what's in view here. That would be overstepping your authority. Now, as a fellow believer, he might say, Well, I don't think you should have those kinds of friends, or it might be better if you read these kinds of books, or something like that. As a fellow bondservant, he might exhort her, encourage her to make better choices, but he doesn't have the right to make those choices, personal choices for her. And she has the right to exhort and encourage him in the same way. Loving each other is not micromanaging each other's beliefs and actions, no matter how good we think we are at it. So the warning Paul is giving is you're going to come into these situations with a natural tendency to get your own way and to try to win. And your challenge is to approach these situations and act in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to think about what he would call you to do and then strive to do it. Let's move to children and fathers in 320 and 21. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged. Again, there's a question of responsibility here. Children have an obligation to obey, which is related to the responsibility of the parents to seek the child's good. The parents have a responsibility for the family and doing the right thing. Children need to be taken care of, need to be taught, need to be brought up wisely and pointed in the right direction. And parents have an obligation and a responsibility to do that. And children can deal with their parents with the goal of getting away with as much as they possibly can and beating the system. And that's what we all do, left to our own resources. That's our natural tendency. Instead, Paul is saying, children, recognize that God gave your parents responsibility for your welfare and acknowledge it. When they say you need to do this because I'm the mom, they are standing on that responsibility and asking you to recognize it. Now, of course, just like husbands, it's very easy to use your authority to serve yourself and your own needs. And no parent is perfect. The challenge is to learn to discipline in a way that seeks to teach and train and guide the child toward what is right. We all fall short of that. But the idea is that we are to treat them, we are to use our authority as Jesus would use it. Notice he adds this lest they become discouraged. That has the idea of lest they lose heart or lest you break their spirit. You can enforce your will in such a way that you break their spirit, or you can train, guide, and point their will toward God. Now, as parents, we have the upper hand in many ways. We're older, we're wiser, we're bigger, we have more resources and wisdom. And especially as youngsters, our children have few options. So it's easy to abuse that authority. Now, being a parent is difficult and challenging. It's much easier to do in hindsight. But Paul is challenging us. Think about how to love your children as Jesus would love them. Think about using your authority not as a tool to get your own way, but as a tool to train them in the love of Christ. Okay, let's go on to slaves and masters 322-4-1. Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ, for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. Now slavery was an institution in Paul's day. It was just a fact of life in his situation. He does not denounce it, but neither does he condone it. For our purposes, I think we should think of Paul as addressing the workplace. Think of this as employees and your employers, your boss. My understanding is at this point in Roman history, slavery was much more humane than it was at the beginning of Roman rule, and probably more humane than our pre-Civil War American slavery. For Rome, slavery was just a fact of their working lives. Slaves could and did buy their freedom. Now, like all relations with authority, I'm sure the master slave relationship was greatly abused. I think Paul recognized Christians were not going to overthrow the system of slavery in the near future. So the crucial question for now is: how do I live if I'm in that situation? How do I, as a believer, deal with this fact of life? Maybe my parents were conquered in battle, and I have been born and raised and grown up as a slave with no choice in the matter, or maybe I've been born into a family that owns slaves. What do I do? How do I live? I think he gives more space to slaves and masters or in the workplace because it was the most characterized by power and the least characterized by sacrificial love. There is a measure of love between husbands and wives, parents and children that is missing from the master-slave relationship. And according to society and culture, masters did not have the same social obligation to treat their slaves well, the way, say, a parent or a husband had an obligation to treat their spouse or their children well. Peer pressure did not lean on the masters to seek the slave's welfare. And yet Paul says that's what God's calling you to do. So what's Paul's advice? Well, if you find yourself in the position of a slave or for modern day an employee, what are you called to do? You are called to act with genuine obedience, not external service, not the kind of eye service, just barely doing what's right. So it looks like you're obeying, but really you're not. Paul says, don't do that. Consider who is your real master, who ultimately put you in that situation, and who are you really serving? And his answer is the Lord Jesus. He's your master, he's the one you serve, and he's the one whose name you reflect. Your destiny, your welfare is in his hands, not your boss's. Your earthly master or your boss today can give you a lot of trouble if you don't obey, but ultimately the opinion of your heavenly master is much more serious and much more valuable. As Jesus said, fear the one who can cast both your body and soul into hell, not the one who can merely kill your body. He's not saying your master is God to you, and thus you must do all he says. He's saying God has called you to fulfill your responsibility to your earthly master, knowing he is the one you ultimately serve. And notice he says, for the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there's no partiality. I think that no partiality is the key. If you do wrong, you will be paid back. If you do wrong as the master, you will be paid back. If you do wrong as the slave, you will be paid back. Today it may be that I am the slave and you are the master, but the day is coming when we will face our heavenly master standing together side by side. Today, as a slave or an employee, I have a particular obligation to live in a certain way. But there is a judgment coming that will ask a bigger question of me. Am I following God's will? And there's no partiality in that judgment. Today I might be a boss or a master, and I have a different obligation. The roles could be reversed, but the calling to serve our Lord is the same. If I'm the master, I will face judgment too, and I will be judged by how I handled that authority and whether I abused it or not. You're not going to get a pass because you had the authoritative master role, and you're not going to get a pass because you had the submissive slave role. There is no partiality. If you do wrong, whatever role you have, you will be paid back. So each of us has been called by God to live our lives in service to Him in whatever situation we find ourselves in, and we face that music. If I'm the slave and you're the master, we will each individually have to choose how to live a godly life in that situation, and we will each individually be held accountable for those choices. Then he turns to masters. He says, Treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. So now he turns to the one with the power or the authority in the relationship, and he says, You don't have a blank check. You are answerable to God as well. Slaves are not a tool to use for your personal gain. He may be your employee or your servant in this life, but he is a human being created in the image of God, just like you. And masters ought to start asking the question, what is just, what is fair in dealing with my servant? That kind of question could be the first shot that brings down the institution of slavery. And I think historically, more and more Christian masters started thinking about slaves in light of the mastery of God and asking what is fair and just and right, and slavery began to look a whole lot different and eventually came down. So to wrap this up, the idea behind all three situations is to live in all our relationships as if we are living for God. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. Think about it, let it make a difference in your attitudes and actions. We are to think about the choices we face, not just as a problem of the other person in the relationship, or an obstacle in our path, or trying to figure out how to get our own way, but to consider how God would call us to act rightly and wisely in this situation. What would he want me to do? Because God has a higher, prior claim on my life, and he wants me to learn how to live for him no matter what situation I find myself in. Thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word, the podcast that explains not only what a passage means, but also shows you how to figure it out. The blog version of this episode, including links and resources, is at wednesdayintheword.com. You can listen to all the episodes in this series at Wednesdayandtheword.com. There's no chart at spam and no adrect group and help me grow in your understanding. Please consider liking it and subscribing on your favorite podcast platform. Or leaving a positive review. But most importantly, tell a friend what you learned and where you learned it. If you're reading along in the Start Strong book, read chapter 12 before the next episode. And if you are reading the book, I would be very grateful if you would leave me a positive review on Amazon or Goodreads. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coast. You can hear more of Reggie's music on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krisan Marotta, and I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word.