Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
Many of us in here have seen the movie “O Brother Where Art Thou?”
In it there is a song that many will know too.
It is “Big Rock Candy Mountain.”
The lyrics speak of handouts that grow on bushes, trees that sprout cigarettes, and bulldogs that have rubber teeth so their watchdog bites are harmless.
This song has an idyllic landscape that includes streams of alcohol beside a lake of stew, and whiskey too, because the song writers and singers want to escape reality by means of intoxication.
They also want to be fed though they have not worked.
They want mountains made of rock candy.
They want no tools such as shovels, axes, saws, or picks.
They want to sleep all day, and they want to hang the jerk that invented work.
It is a great song and one I sing now and then.
But the lyrics speak of a tendency that many have themselves, they do not want to work.
They will work and say we need to work but they do not want to work.
They think work is a form of punishment.
That it is bad and not good.
They want all the joys and benefits of work without having to work for it.
Many people think like Kevin Fowler and his song J.O.B
In this song he sings:
I don't want no J.O.B.
Bringin' me
Down like a dog to my knees
All work and no play ain't no way for me to live
My day's too short, I ain't got no time
Got one life, it's gonna be mine
Livin' wild and free, don't want no J.O.B.
This is like the other song.
People want to have and do things but they do not want to work for it.
Yet, we are to work.
God has ordained work for us.
We must work because we are not working for the people who are paying us.
No, we are working for God and we need to work in a certain manner for Him.
Let us today look at Eph. 6:5-9.
Respectful and Honest Work (5-6a)
How many of you think that your work is phenomenal?
Do you go to work daily with joy knowing that you get to work?
Work is what has been instituted for all of us.
It is what we are to do and we are to do it with joy, but even more than joy.
We are to do it with respect/reverence, humility/trembling, and with honesty.
This is what Paul is telling us in these first two verses.
Don’t let the bondservant/slave and master concept make you think this is to slaves and slave owners.
In the context this is just as well translated as employer and employee.
When Paul says we are to be obedient he is saying we need to do what we are supposed to do when we are supposed to do it.
I want you to think about this concept for a minute.
Not one of us is in a job that we did not want.
Everyone in here is doing a job they sought out.
You may have had it offered to you, you may have sent your resume in, or you may have been promoted up to what you have.
The key factor in all of these situations is that you had to accept the job when they said they wanted you.
Now, if this section is speaking to slaves who had no choice but to serve in a situation they were in, Paul is telling them to do so with obedience, respect, humility, and honesty.
When we work this way we are serving as we are supposed to.
If you are grouchy and bitter all the time about the work you are doing what good are you doing for the Lord?
None, is the answer.
When we complain and are bitter in what we do, we are acting just like the world.
We are no different than they are.
Let me tell a story about a man who was forced into service he did not want.
He was removed from his family and placed into forced servitude.
His brothers cast him into a well then sold him into slavery because they were bitter towards him.
He was sold into a house in Egypt that was a pagan religion.
He had no choice in the matter.
But God was with Him.
But he was a diligent worker and he did what was to be done when it needed to be and maybe even before.
He found favor in the sight of the one who owned him.
He did so until the owners wife tried to seduce him.
He fled and was then cast into prison.
He served faithfully there and did what he was supposed to.
God was with him and he became the boss of the prisoners.
He worked diligently and was forgotten in there for several years.
But he kept working and doing what was needed even though he was not only sold as a slave but also falsely imprisoned.
God was with him and he was after a few years placed into the second highest position in the kingdom.
He worked diligently there and saved many peoples lives.
He worked everyday for the Lord and gave his all for the Lord, not the people around him but the Lord.
This was Joseph.
He served the Lord not for pleasing of the bosses or to look good as the eyeservice and men-pleasers here speak of.
No he worked for the Lord in circumstances that were not good or happy.
He did his:
Work to Please God (6b-8)
When we serve in this way we are doing the will of God for us in work.
We are doing the work we do for the Lord and not people.
It does not matter what your job is, you are in it for a reason.
God has not placed you in the area of work you are in to make you miserable.
No, you are there as a servant of His for a purpose and reason.
We must serve happily and do the work with joy because we are evangelists at all times.
If you are not working with joy and God honoring actions, we are sending bad symbols to the world.
This is why in Col. 3:23 Paul says, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,”
When you have this attitude in you at your work, you will work for the Lord and strive to please Him.
When you strive to please Him in your work ethic, you will please the bosses and those over you.
You will because you are not working for the glory they will give you, but for the Lord and what He will give you.
You see we were created to work.
Work is not punishment as some see it.
It is what we were created for.
We see in Gen. 2: 7-8 that God created man and placed him in the garden.
Then in Gen. 2:15 we see that, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”
Man was created to work and tend the Garden of Eden before the fall occured.
What happened at the fall is that work became harder not that we were cursed with work.
Too many people have the mentality that work is something we must do because “I owe I owe, its off to work I go.”
Work is a necessary evil to many people and this is a sad misnomer in our culture.
Yes, Paul has said in 2 Thess.
3:10 “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”
Yes, we are to work to buy and pay for things so we can live.
But work is not an evil that we must do until we die.
It is what was planned from the beginning and it will be what is at the end.
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