Making the Gospel Attractive at Work

The letter that Paul wrote to Titus in the second chapter, I'll read all of it in your hearing.! This is God's Word. You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.

! Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.

Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the Word of God.

Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled in everything. Set them an example by doing what is good. And your teachings show integrity, seriousness, and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and ungodly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope, the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness, and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good.

These, then, are the things you should teach. Encourage and rebuke with all authority. Do not let anyone despise you. Well, ever since the Labor Day weekend, we have been studying the biblical view of work.

Last week, John the Baptist told us that our sins at work are a big deal to God. Indeed, that the wrath of God is coming because of them, and if we would be forgiven, we must repent of them.

We must turn from them. And so we considered some common work sins of stealing, lying, discontent, and laziness.

And none of us escaped unscathed. Because we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, and that includes our work.

We've done our work our way instead of God's way, and so we need to repent and find forgiveness through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there was one man who never sinned in all of his work.

And that was the God-man, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who became a man. Brothers and sisters, the hardest job that was ever done was given to him.

It was to work out our salvation. For the Father said to his Son, Son, you go to earth.

You become a man. And you obey my laws. And then you die the death that they deserve.

That's your work to accomplish. And so Christ came. Willingly. I have come to do your will, O my Father.

Is his response. And he comes and he takes on our flesh. And he's tempted in every way like we are, and yet is without sin.

And so that means that in his carpentry shop, he never once stole from a customer. He never once took advantage of a farmer who brought a plow to be repaired.

He never once lied. He never once cheated. Or complained on the job. Or was lazy in his work. But he did his work 100% God's way.

And whatever his hand found to do, he did it with all of his might. And in doing so, brothers and sisters, he was working out a righteousness to give to us who had none of our own.

And so at every point where we have failed at work, he has succeeded. He has diligence for our laziness.

He has contentment for our discontent. He has honesty for all of our lies and stealing. Obedience for all our disobedience.

And so with every other sin that we commit. And so we've come to him alone to save us. We bring him our sins.

And he gives us his righteousness. And whenever we believe in Jesus, whenever a sinner believes in Christ alone, the perfect obedience of Jesus is put to their account in heaven.

And that's why we are right with God this morning. It is not because of any works of ours. It is because of the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf.

But that's not all. He not only obeyed for us, he also died for us. Because our sins were so offensive to the holy God. He took upon himself our sins.

And bore the wrath, the abandonment of God, all that our sins deserved. And so he suffered and he died and was raised again.

All to accomplish the hard work of our salvation. That we who repent and believe on him might be forgiven and have eternal life.

Now that's the gospel. That's the teaching about God, our Savior. And when we are therefore confronted in the Bible with our work sins and we're convicted about them, we have a Savior to go to.

We have a Savior to confess our sins to. We have a Savior to trust afresh in his obedience to his Father. We have a Savior to trust afresh in his death on our behalf.

And a Savior who is mighty to help us and to change us, to make us more like himself in our workplace. What a gospel. What a Savior. What a Savior. But the gospel is not only the answer for our work sins.

It's also the motivation to put our work sins to death and to do our work for the Lord. I don't need to tell you that doing our work God's way is not easy in this fallen world.

When you look around you and you don't find others very concerned about working with all their might. When you find them taking shortcuts, when you find them stealing and on the sly and working differently when the boss is not there and all the rest.

It's not easy for you to work with all your might and to work as unto the Lord and not unto man. So what is it that will motivate us to work all out, to work God's way?

And the answer is the gospel. It is the teaching about God, our Savior. Open your Bibles to Titus chapter 2 if you don't have them open there, but that's what Paul tells us in verses 9 and 10.

He's giving instructions on how to do our work God's way. And we'll see some more common work sins in these two verses to be avoided and to be repented of.

But more importantly today, what I want you to see is that in these verses we have Paul telling us how the gospel of God's free grace provides the motivation to do our work unto Him.

Now in this whole chapter, Paul is instructing Titus to teach the believers at Crete what conduct is consistent with the gospel.

What behavior is in line with the beliefs of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And here in chapter 2, he spells out this kind of behavior that is in line with right doctrine.

What it looks like. And Paul does something like John the Baptist did last week when John the Baptist applied repentance to the different groups, to the soldiers and to the tax collectors and said, this is what it means for you to repent.

So now the Apostle John is going to describe for us what does it mean to live our lives in a manner that's befitting sound doctrine.

How are we to conduct ourselves in the workplace in such a way that reflects correctly upon the teaching of God our Savior?

And so he's got specific instructions of right conduct in line with the gospel for different groups in the church. He speaks first to older men, then to older women, then to younger women, and to young men, and lastly, to the slaves, instructing each how to behave in line with the gospel.

And it's in his word to these domestic slaves that we find instruction for their work. And by application, we find instruction from God on our work.

For though we are not slaves today, we too have authorities over us at work, even as they did. We have masters, we have bosses, we have employers, and the principles that apply to them apply to us in our workplace.

Notice these two verses, verses 9 and 10. teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.

He tells them how they are to work, both positively and negatively, what they are to do and what they're not to do, but then he tells them why.

Why are you to work this way? And he answers it with a so that. It's a purpose clause. Here's the purpose. Here is why you should work, do your work God's way.

So that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. Now, I want to say first of all what that does not mean and then what it does mean.

What it is not, first of all, making the teaching of God our Savior attractive in the first place is not a makeover of the gospel. Perhaps you've seen complete makeovers on television where a not, a rather plain and ordinary and not so attractive woman is completely made over and she becomes a very attractive woman.

And it takes some work, of course. The body has to be sculptured with diet and exercise and liposuction and tummy tucks and all the rest. And then there's the dental work and the teeth have to be straightened and whitened and capped.

And then there's the cosmetic surgery, the carving of the nose, the removing of a little here, the adding of a little there, and then the paint job, the makeup is applied and then the hair is cut and colored and poofed and new clothes are put on and voila, there you have it.

A very attractive woman from something not so attractive. That is not what the Apostle Paul means. Some churches today are trying to make the gospel attractive, by giving it a complete makeover.

By overhauling the gospel itself, they see that the world doesn't find our gospel attractive. In fact, they think it's ugly. They're quite put off with our gospel.

They don't like its references to sin, to guilt, to God's wrath, to judgment, to hell. They don't like being told that their sins are so offensive that absolutely nothing but the bloody death of Jesus could atone for them.

They don't like being told they must come as a beggar with nothing to contribute to their salvation but to receive it all freely from Jesus Christ. They don't like the call to repent of sin.

And the church can't help but see that. They can't help but see the way the world responds to our gospel. And as we, as the church sees this, they make, they seek to make the gospel more attractive so they start editing it and changing it and they cut out the offensive parts that offend sinners and that is not what Paul has in mind here when he says that we are to make the gospel attractive, the teaching about God our Savior attractive.

The gospel needs no makeovers. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Just as it is with its offense of the cross and everything, it is the power of God unto salvation. The gospel itself is beautiful because it sets forth a beautiful Savior, a beautiful way of salvation that God, the Holy One, would save wicked sinners through the life and death of his own begotten Son.

Beautiful gospel. It cannot be improved. It's perfect wisdom. It's perfect truth. And any changes you make to it will mutilate and mar it, will deface and deform it and disfigure it.

What we have received, we pass on to you just as we have received it, without alteration, without makeover. That's not how we make the teaching of God our Savior attractive.

Well then, how do we make it attractive? What does this mean? How do we adorn the gospel? Now, this word for making attractive or adorning was used of the setting of a jewel.

A diamond itself is beautiful. But if you're buying diamonds, you soon learn that you not only have a diamond, a rock to buy, but then you have to concern yourself about the setting in which that diamond will be placed.

The ring and how it is, its color and its engraving and what all is done with the setting is also an important thing for you to have along with your diamond.

Now, what's the purpose of the setting? Well, the setting is meant to enhance and to show off the beauty of the diamond.

And it's an art to select the proper setting of a diamond so that its full beauty might be seen to the beholder.

So the setting will either add to or subtract from the beauty of the diamond itself. Even so, the gospel of God our Savior is to be set off, is to be shown off in a favorable light by the holy lives of those who profess it.

And it is adorned and made attractive. That is, the gospel is adorned and made attractive by the conduct that is in line with the gospel, with behavior that demonstrates the beauty of our God and Savior.

So don't miss this. The gospel is the beautiful diamond. There is absolutely nothing improvable about that diamond. And your life is the setting in which the diamond is placed.

That means from this passage, verses 9 and 10, that your behavior and attitude at work is to be such that makes the teaching of God our Savior attractive to those who see you.

Now there's the challenge that meets us then when we go to work. And it's also our motivation. Paul could not put before us a higher motivation, could he?

Why should we work this way? Why should we be different from everybody else at work? Why should we work harder when we get paid the same? Those are hard questions, but here's something that will move you. So that the gospel of Jesus will look attractive.

So that glory might come to the Lord Jesus because of you and the way you live at work. You see, the reputation of the gospel is at stake in your work.

You take the reputation of the Lord Jesus and his gospel to work with you every day. Maybe you didn't realize that. You need to start realizing it. Every day you walk in and punch in, you have the reputation of Jesus Christ.

If you profess him openly, you have his reputation in the workplace. And Paul says, so work in such a way that the gospel, the teaching about God our Savior might be attractive.

Now, this is the motivation attached three times to these instructions throughout chapter two. And it's marked each time by the purpose clause, so that.

We find it in verse five, so that. No one will malign the word of God. We find it in verse eight, so that. Those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.

Because if they have a legitimately something bad to say about us, then it will show badly upon the gospel that we profess. And then verse ten, so that.

In every way, they may make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. You see, the concern throughout in the apostles' heart is that the gospel is a beautiful thing and we don't want to live in such a way as to detract from its beauty.

We rather want to live in such a way that its beauty is shown off. The gospel is adorned before the watching world. Well, Paul doesn't leave it with that.

He spells out what your work will look like if it is to adorn and draw attention to and show off the beauty of the Lord Jesus and his gospel.

So work that makes the gospel attractive to others. First of all, he says, be subject to your masters in everything. So the slave must fulfill the wishes of his master and that in everything.

From morning to evening, he's not his own man, he doesn't serve himself, he must be submissive to his master in every kind of work. He must put himself under his master.

That's the basic idea of this word, be subject to. It's the same word addressed to wives many places in the Bible. When it's in Ephesians 5.24, it says, wives should submit themselves to their husbands in everything.

That's the word here. You see, there's a God-given authority structure at work, just as there is in the home. Husbands, you know how you appreciate it when your wife submits sweetly to you in the home.

In the same way, you are to submit to your master, your boss in everything. So, men, what if your wife responded to you the way you respond to your boss at work?

It's the same duty that is put upon you at work as is put upon her at home. The sin of insubordination is a common work sin.

Few things are more distasteful to man's pride than submission to authority. We see it in schools, we see it in the workplace, we see it all over our society.

To place yourself under the will of another, that grates against our flesh. And the flesh hates to submit to God's authority, but especially so when God's authority is vested in another human being.

Have you found that? Our flesh doesn't like to submit to God and his laws, but especially do we not like to submit to God's authority when his authority is vested in a husband who's imperfect, or a boss who's imperfect, or a governor who's imperfect, and so on.

Yet this is the very area where the power of the gospel changes people. Salvation makes independent, self-serving people submissive to the God-given authority figures in their lives, both in the dynamics of family life and at work, and that commends the gospel.

That is attractive. That makes the gospel attractive. That beautifies true religion. That glorifies the Lord Jesus, who himself submitted himself to his father in heaven and to his earthly stepfather and mother on earth.

faith. So, work that makes the gospel attractive is being subject to your masters in everything.

Secondly, it's trying to please them. In other words, there's more than external compliance involved in this business of work.

work. Okay, so I'll do what he says, but I sure don't do it from anything of a heart, attitude, an inner disposition that really wants to be found pleasing to him.

Now, few masters in that day cared about the pleasures of their slaves. That just didn't weigh in. Slaves were not to be served, they were to serve. So, whether the slave has a good time at it or a bad time at it, that doesn't even register with the master.

Generally, slaves were not treated well in society, they were abused and taken advantage of. And it would become a great temptation to that slave, therefore, to retaliate, to seek their own pleasures over that of their masters.

Again, few things are rooted so deeply in our fallen nature than this self-seeking impulse, the desire to please self over others.

And especially if others are mistreating us. And so, if the master's mistreating us at work, we might justify a self-serving response that, well, I'll do it, but I'll do it half-heartedly.

I won't do it the way he wants it done, and I won't do it all. But God calls us to try to please, that is to bring pleasure to our masters.

Not to please ourselves, but them, even when pleasing them means displeasing ourselves. Even when it means doing it all over again, his way.

Try to please them. Not just putting in your time, but obviously wanting to please them well. By cheerfully doing what you're told to do, by faithfully following instructions given, by doing it all, doing it right away, doing it with all your heart.

What in the world can produce such a rare eagerness to please our employer? Well, that would be the gospel again. The teaching about God, our Savior.

So act in line with the gospel and try to please your master. Is that one of your aims as you head on into work each day? As you come through the door, I'm not here to please myself.

I am here to please my employer, my customer, my boss. I'm wanting him to be better off for having me as his employee.

Well, God will have to show up at work for that to happen. You will need supernatural grace for that to happen. And that is precisely what God our Savior does. He saves us from our own self-pleasing ways and teaches us to try to please our masters.

And when it does, it makes the gospel about Jesus attractive. You say, I thought that I was to work for the Lord and not for men.

Didn't we see that earlier in our studies in Colossians? Well, that's right. He is to be our ultimate boss. We work for him. But now he's telling you that the way to do your work unto him is to try to please your earthly boss.

Indeed, in everything that does not violate God's word, we are to seek to be pleasing unto them. Knowing that when we do, we make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.

What follows is two sins that slaves were especially prone to as well. We've had two positive words. Now there's two negative words. Don't talk back to them. The third place.

Don't talk back to them. You see that not much has changed in the work scene. We still find disrespectful replies to the boss's commands and instructions and corrections, complaining and arguing, a rebellious attitude that's shown by being argumentative, unwilling to do things their way.

But no matter what, we are to treat them with respect. We are not to talk back to them. You see, it's the prerogative of the employer to give orders.

And it is the duty of the employee to respectfully follow them without talking back to him. And when you do, that makes the gospel of Jesus Christ attractive.

and it brings glory to him who himself was silent before his accusers and who when they hurled their insults at him did not retaliate.

And when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. And so Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, 1, all who are under the yoke of slavery should consider their masters worthy of full respect.

That would mean not talking back to them so that God's name and our teaching may not be slandered. It's the word for blasphemed, spoken evil of, insulted.

You see, there's a cause to serve at work higher than our own. Higher than our own earthly boss. It's the name and reputation of our Lord. Don't talk back to your boss.

If you would make the gospel attractive. And then lastly, number four, don't steal from them. Verse 10, but show that you can be fully trusted.

I learned something this week that stealing was so common among the slaves of the first century that thief became a synonym for slave. And so you could refer to your slave.

Well, I'm going to bring along my thief. stealing was so common. Many men cannot be trusted any further than you can see them. And so when a master's back was turned, they might be found taking some of their master's property for personal use.

Perhaps reasoning, he doesn't pay me half of what I'm worth, so I'm just evening the score. I should be getting this much anyway. John the Baptist weighed in on that matter.

In Luke chapter three, as we saw, he talked about these common sins of stealing, dishonesty, extortion.

And it's an area where every Christian worker should be refreshingly different than the world around them. An uncompromised honesty, even when it hurts us.

To be so ethically trustworthy that your boss should have no fears about leaving his things in your hands, whether he's around or not. He knows that you can be fully trusted.

Now, you don't get there in a day, do you? A place where the boss just says, I know I can have, I know, I know if it's in Joe's hands that it's going to be taken well care of. No, you get there by a track record, don't you?

Of faithfulness, demonstrating your honesty, your proven character over and over. He's seen by your conduct that you can be trusted, trusted to follow through with his instructions to get the job done right on time, his way, the way he wants it done, trusted to be concerned about his interest yourself, to take his interest on board and to do what is best for him and the company.

Pleasing him. Trusted to not take advantage of him when you have opportunities to do so. All these little things in which you prove yourself faithful such that he's ready to hand over to you bigger things.

And that's the way you make the gospel of God our Savior attractive in the workplace. That's our ultimate motivation for being good workers. It's more than a paycheck for us at the end of the week.

There's the glory of our Savior. There's the making of his gospel an attractive thing to others. Let's come in the third place to some examples of men who made the teaching of God our Savior attractive at work.

And in doing so, they exhibited the same spirit that dwelt so fully in our Lord Jesus Christ. There's Joseph in Egypt. Egypt. You remember how he was sold to some Ishmaelite merchants who took him down to Egypt and there he was sold to the captain of the guard Potiphar.

You know, he became the best slave Potiphar had. And that day he made the teaching about God his Savior attractive. As Potiphar thought, you know, that Hebrew, that worshiper of Yahweh, he's the best slave I've got.

He's the hardest worker. I can trust him. Indeed, he made him his personal attendant and he put him in charge of his whole household. He entrusted to his care everything he owned.

He did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate because it's in good hands with Joseph, the Hebrew. He could forget about all his concerns because Joseph was looking after them.

He didn't get there by dishonesty and hook and by crook, by crawling over others on the way to the top. He did it by being a hard worker, faithful in the little things.

And when he was falsely accused by Potiphar's wife and sent to prison, isn't it something? The Lord was with him there and showed favor to him and kindness in the eyes of the prison warden. And so the prison warden put Joseph in charge of all those who were being held in the prison.

And he was made responsible for all that was done there. That warden had an easy job after Joseph showed up. He just gave it all to Joseph. He did it faithfully.

He paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. You see, Joseph exemplifies the new covenant standard of what it means to be a worker as unto the Lord.

You submit yourself to your employer. You try to please him. You don't talk back, but respect them. And you don't steal, but show yourself to be fully trusted.

And so we're not surprised then, are we, when we find that Joseph is elevated to the number two spot in the whole land of Egypt. And now Pharaoh doesn't concern himself with anything because it's in Joseph's hands.

That's working in such a way as to make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. And then there's Daniel in Babylon. And like Joseph, these men were not working in an environment that was friendly toward the religion of Jehovah.

And some of you work in work environments that are very difficult. It's hard to be a Christian. It's hard to do right when everyone around you has no regard for the things of morality and ethics.

But think of Joseph down in Egypt. Think of Daniel down in Babylon. And in such a dark place, Daniel lets his light shine. The Lord is with him and he there distinguishes himself with such excellence in his work that it brought promotion after promotion under King Darius.

We read in Daniel 6 and verses 1 to 3, it pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel.

The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss. Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.

You can be sure Daniel didn't get to that position by sloppy half-hearted work, by lipping off to the king. It was his commitment to the biblical work ethic under the blessing of God that brought Daniel to such honor and as such he was an honor to the God of Israel and made the teaching of God as Savior attractive.

Well, as so often happens, his pride and jealousy of the others were stirred up by the king's plan to promote Daniel over them. And so we read at this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so.

They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. These aren't friends doing a friendly job assessment of Daniel.

These are enemies and they left no stone unturned, sifted through every nook and cranny of every file of Daniel's work place.

What are they looking for? Well, they're looking for some dirt, some corruption, some place where he might have used his position for selfish gain, where he might have embezzled something for himself, some shady dealing, the sort of thing that they were used to doing.

They're looking for it in him and some negligence, something of the job left undone, some duty that he didn't finish.

And they kept coming up empty. In fact, the deeper they dug, the more they found how sterling his character was. And they bumped into his trustworthiness and faithfulness in those dark, hidden places where no man was thought to see.

And they found him faithful. And finally, they realized the futility of their search and said, we will never find any basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of his God.

So they've got to turn to something in his religion. And they discovered he prayed three times a day, giving thanks and asking God for help. Do you ask God to help you at your job?

Daniel did. God helped him. And he helped him to be so faithful and trustworthy that even his enemies couldn't find something amiss with Daniel's work.

And that makes the gospel of God our Savior attractive. Though it was said of King Hezekiah in his work, it could also be said of Daniel that in everything he undertook, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly.

And so he prospered. You seek the Lord God as you go to work and do you work wholeheartedly? You can expect the Lord to help you.

These are examples of the biblical work ethic men just like you and me struggle with self-pleasing tendency with laziness all the rest.

But there is a grace from God that changes men. And when that's seen in the workplace glory comes to Jesus. There's an interesting piece of church history among the Huguenots of France.

The Protestant Reformation that came into France and with great success some have estimated as many as a third of the population embracing Reformation truth and the Roman Catholic Church responded with the sword.

And on August 24th, 1572 they began the slaughter of up to 100,000 Huguenots, French Calvinistic Protestant Christians. It all began on St.

St. Bartholomew's Day and has been called the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The rivers in France were so full of blood that no one ate the fish for weeks.

Wolves roamed the valleys feeding upon the dead and the Huguenots that were not slaughtered fled to other countries. And one of the unforeseen backlashes of the massacre of these believers was that France impoverished herself economically because the Huguenot Christians were the best workers that France had and they succeeded in slaughtering their workforce.

And even in that bloody scene glory came to Jesus as their work made the doctrine of God our Savior attractive.

It was so in Crete as Paul's writing to Timothy or Titus here on Crete. When a lowly slave living under a harsh master nevertheless works in this way it brings glory to his God and Savior.

When a master says my best slave is a Christian slave and when your boss says my best worker is that Christian over there I can trust anything to him.

He'll get it done right and my best interests will be preserved. Glory comes to Jesus. And so Paul is telling Titus what he told the Philippians whatever happens conduct yourself in a manner worthy of the gospel.

Work in a manner worthy of the gospel. So you're the setting in which the diamond has been set. Every day you take that diamond to work and you either enhance and adorn the beauty of that diamond by the way you work or you detract from it and mar its beauty as you do not show forth the graces of the Lord Jesus in your work.

Here's the call. Are you up for this challenge? It's both the challenge and the motivation to sow work that glory might come to your God and Savior.

You've heard of lifestyle evangelism? I've termed this work style evangelism because as people see you work that gospel is adorned.

You see you've been left in the world to rub shoulders with sinners. And where do you do that? I would posit that most of you rub shoulders with more sinners at work than any other place in your life.

And so that's why at work we need to make the gospel attractive. Now that can happen in many ways. It might happen by your success. And people will watch to see if your success goes to your head and how you start treating them and snubbing.

No, they find you and your kindness and you go on serving them. Or it might happen the other way. It might happen through all the disappointments and frustrations of work and they're watching you.

How does he handle it when he's got a cut in pay announced to him? Believer, they're watching you. They're watching. How does he handle it when he's got problems with his co-workers?

How does he talk to them? How does he talk to his boss? How does he talk about his boss? What's he doing? Everybody else is griping and complaining. There ought to be something refreshingly different as we, in our workplace, make the gospel of God attractive.

You say, oh, my workplace is a terrible, sinful place. Yes, a crooked and perverse world has crooked and perverse ways of working.

And you're to go into that crooked and perverse world and to live a holy life. And so you see, your opportunities are greater. The darker the night, the brighter the light. And so go into that dark place and glorify the Lord Jesus.

Years ago, we had a visitor here at our church services. And I asked him how he heard of us and if he knew anyone here at the church. And he mentioned a member of our church and says, I work with him.

And a while back, he was mistreated and got the short end of the stick at work. And day in and day out, I watched his reactions.

And he wasn't bitter and angry but continued treating others with kindness. And I knew he went to church here and I just had to come and see what it was all about. And he heard the gospel that day and that brother did something that this preacher could never do.

He in his workplace made the teaching of God our Savior attractive. so that when I spoke the gospel from the pulpit, this here had been prepared because this gospel does something to workers.

It makes them better workers. It makes them better neighbors, better work associates. Glory came to Jesus that day because of a biblical work ethic.

May the Lord help us to catch this vision of so working that the gospel not be blasphemed but rather made attractive before men.

If you're here and you're lost, what's all this about? Why all the fuss about the way we work? It's all for your sake so that you might see that the gospel that claims to have transforming power and to change men really does that.

And you need that Savior. You're not right with God without this Savior. Come to Him. Come to Him. Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Let's pray. Our Holy Father, we bring our sins to this Savior. We thank You that our righteousness is in heaven this morning.

He is there at Your right hand. We thank You that He has worked perfectly obediently to Your law in every place where we have failed.

So look on Him and pardon us. Look on Him and pour out upon us Your Holy Spirit. We have tasted of this so great salvation and we want to work in such a way that would not detract from but rather adorn the gospel of God our Savior.

Would You come and help us to that end? Do something for Your own great namesake and in the workplaces of everyone gathered here. There, lift up a light in the midst of darkness.

There, show that Jesus Christ saved sinners from self-pleasing ways, from independence, from insubordination, from backtalk and disrespect, from stealing and being untrustworthy and being shoddy.

We ask, Lord, that in our lives a witness for the Savior would be seen as well as heard. So get glory to Yourself and cause us to rejoice in this Savior.

We ask in His name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.