Sometimes It's Hard to Be A Christian

About a year or two into pastoring my first church, a young man came me one Sunday and asked me a question. He was a young man who came from a good Christian family in the area. He genuinely wanted to live in way that pleased the Lord. However, he was facing a problem. He worked for the state prison system as a prison guard. He said, “Bradley, I know that I don’t need to cuss. But, I deal with a lot of hardened inmates all day and that seems to be the only language that they understand.” He wanted to know whether it was OK to speak to them with harsh cursed language, if that is what it took to do his job.”

As a young pastor, that was the first moment that I realized that while pastors live in what is large part a Christian bubble (we minister to people in the church and our lives are lived mostly with believers), most people that listen to us teach every week often live in situations where it is hard to live as a believer.

We all pretty quickly learn the lesson that life doesn’t become easy just because you become a Christian. We also begin to realize how to live by the teaching of Christ. Particularly to show the kind of love that God wants us to show, particularly when we are in situations where it may not feel natural to show love.

In this context of our passage this morning, this applies to situations where we find ourselves under authority of someone that has done you wrong, someone that you do not agree with, and someone you don’t respect because of their behaviors, morals, or lifestyle. It’s hard to be a Christian when you find yourself in this situation.

And, we’ve all found ourselves in situations like this. Maybe it was a boss that you didn’t see eye to eye with, or had cheated you and done you wrong. Teenagers all the time sit under parents that they are sure that they are the dumbest people on the face of the earth. All of us have politicians in Federal, State, and Local levels that we just completely disagree with from a moral position or a civic disagreement. You just disagree with their politics. The natural reaction is to push back, rebel, and dishonor them. To try to undermine them every chance you get. And, do it with a sense of righteous indignation that makes us feel like we are in the right. And, God would be proud of us.

This is where this particular text comes as a gut shot to most of us. It’s a kind of pride swallowing that makes us really understand that the power to live the Christians life is not natural. It doesn’t come from this world or from inside any of us.

When we think that we have been taken advantage of, just think about who Paul is addressing in this text. Slaves. In particularly slaves who have become followers of Jesus Christ. Paul describes them as “those under the yoke as bondservants” (v.1) At the time of Jesus, when Rome ruled the world, this described a lot of people. It’s been estimated that of the 60 million people that made up the population of the Roman Empire, about half of them were slaves.

In some cases, the people may have sold themselves into slavery due to not being able to pay a debt and the enslavement was form of indentured servanthood until the debt could be paid off. Or, it could have been a result of theft that had to be worked off. In reality, by the time you get to the Roman domination of the world, most were slaves due to the fact that the Romans had conquered them in war. Now they were captors integrated into Roman society.

Ironically, some of the slaves were more educated than the captors. They might become the school teacher for a family of rich Romans. Or, or course, they might end up doing more manual labor for the family.

Regardless of what kind of work the slave did, Paul got to the heart of the harsh reality of slavery when he described them as “those under the yoke as a bondservant.” (v.1) The yoke was what you put on oxen to connect them to the ploy or the wagon. It reminded them of the harsh reality that they were owned by anther person.

So, I want to give you 3 truths to remember when you find yourself in a relationship with authority that is making it hard to be a Christian.

I. Sin is sin, and God knows it.

The reason this is important to say is because the way that Paul tells slaves to respond to their masters is not the way that we might expect. We might expect him to say to rebel against your masters. They have no right to own you. No man can own another man. And that is true. No man can own another man. We are in a position in history where we clearly see the scourge of slavery on the world. We clearly see how slavery devalues and abuses people. How it ignores the human value and dignity on every single person on earth because all humanity bears the image of God.

So when Paul says,

1 Timothy 6:1 ESV

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.

You might think that Paul is ignoring the sin that we clearly see. But that is not the case at all. In a day where slavery was a normal and accepted practice, the Apostle Paul openly opposed it. He knew that it was contrary to the gospel. As a matter of fact, in this very letter he made this clear. Go back and look at 1 Tim. 1:9-10.

1 Timothy 1:9–10 ESV

9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine,

Paul condemned slavery along with murder and a host of other sins, some of which our world no longer sees as immoral.

So Paul openly condemns slavery. So Paul is not telling the slave just to ignore the sin done against them.

+As far as I know, there are no slaves in here. Thankfully, America fought a brutal civil war to abolish slavery in our land. But that does not mean that we are not sinned against by others in power.

What it means is that we are to recognize the fact that God sees that sin.

So, if you are in a situation where you are being taken advantage of by a boss, or an employer. That’s the most direct application for most people. You rest assured that God is not ignoring that wrong. God does not ignore that sin, especially when it occurs against his children.

II. The gospel is our treasure, and God gave it.

The key to understanding why Paul says for slaves to honor their masters is found at the end of v.1.

1 Timothy 6:1 ESV

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.

By saying that it is clear to see that there were Christians slaves that were not honoring their master or obeying them. And by doing so it was disparaging the name of God and the teaching. Here is where it is crucial to understand why the gospel is such a treasure, and why God gave it. The gospel is not first and foremost about social reform. God’s plan first and foremost was for people to live in unity and right relation with God and that would produce a life of harmony with each other.

Of course, when sin entered the world it first and foremost produced a separation of God and man. Man who had been given life by the grace of God had now brought spiritual and physical death on themselves.

What God understood is that mankind couldn’t be restored to harmony within itself, until it was first restored to oneness with God. As big as our problems our in this world, and we have some big ones. Man’s biggest problem is not slavery, or bigotry, or murder, and gang violence, divorce, spousal abuse, child neglect, or even your unreasonable boss that is not treating your fairly.

Our greatest problem is sinfulness that is systemic to every aspect of our humanity and our world. A sinfulness that at its core is a heart rebellion against God and a desire to put ourselves above all others especially God.

The first foremost goal of the goal of the gospel was to bring sinful man back in right relationship with holy God. Jesus came as the holy son of God. He lived a perfect holy life that earned heaven. And though he was righteous in every way, he took on our sin and it’s consequence, eternal death. He bore God’s wrath on the cross and he physically died in our place. So that those who repented of sin have Christ as a new Adam. Where Adam failed, Christ succeeded. Where you failed Christ succeeded.

Now, by repentance and faith, our sin is washed away. We are forgiven, cleansed, and made a part of God’s family. Judgement is gone. God’s glory begins to be restored in our lives. Real life can be lived. And eternal glory awaits on the other side of eternity.

1 Peter 3:18 ESV

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

The goal of the gospel is foremost spiritual.

Now, we begin to understand Paul’s concern. Paul’s fear was that we would change the gospel and make it about first and foremost about horizontal redemption with each other and lose the message of vertical redemption with God.

The world will never find peace on earth until it first finds peace with God.

That’s why he is saying, if you don’t honor your masters, you dishonor or revile the name of God and the teaching. The teaching about Christ came to restore sinners to God. That’s the first reason the gospel is our treasure.

+Now I know at this point you are thinking, “OK, Preacher, I hear you. But, what about the fact that slavery is wrong. What about the fact that I’m working for an abusive boss, or I’m being taking advantaged of by a husband that doesn’t care for me like he should. Does the gospel ever get that?”

Of course it does, remember point #1? Sin is sin and God knows it.

III. The world is broken until God restores it.

Once God restores people to God in Christ, he begins to work through those same people to restore people to each other.

For instance, once a slave becomes a believer and a child of God through the amazing work of the gospel. Paul is saying that their priorities should be changed. That your deepest desire is not simply that you be free from your master, but that your master would be free from sin like you are. He’s saying don’t rebel against your master, but live in a way that your Master sees the difference in you. That may lead to his listening to the gospel and being saved.

Paul brings up the situation of the slave working for a believing master. The slave and the master are now brothers in Christ. Should the slave now ignore the fact that he serves his earthly master. No. Look what Paul says,

1 Timothy 6:2 ESV

2 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.

Paul says, he serves all the better because there service ends up by benefiting a brother in Christ. See, there is a complete priority shift.

These new gospel priorities will influence the master. Then the master will influence others with the gospel and others will be saved and changed. Eventually the truth of the gospel and the principles of the gospel will begin to embody society and change the world.

*Remember the story that I began with of the man working at the prison. That’s what I told him. “You look like Jesus and let the gospel that change you begin to change others. You’ll never change them if you look just like them.”

Now, does it happen quickly. No, but is how the Framers of Constitution developed an entire government build on the truth found in the Declaration of Independence.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

You may rightly ask, “Didn’t many of these founders own slaves.” Some of them did in a day that it was the cultural norm. Over time many of them freed their slaves. But more importantly, over time, the principles of the gospel found in the Constitution worked its way out changing our society forever.” God doesn’t forget about the sin among society. But, he always uses the gospel to destroy it.

God wants to use the gospel to change you today. Think about how you can begin to look like Jesus in those situations that right now you find it hard to be a Christian. In his power, he will use you to change the world.