In his sermon 'Submissive and Faithful Workers,' Scott Brown explores the Christian work ethic as drawn from Titus 2:9. He emphasizes the importance of obedience and fidelity in the workplace, urging Christians to view their work as a form of adorning the Gospel. The sermon highlights five key qualities of a Christian worker: obedience to authority, being well-pleasing, not answering back, not pilfering, and showing fidelity. Brown relates these to the broader biblical context, including the dominion mandate from Genesis, and stresses that work is central to life, not separate from spiritual matters. He critiques contemporary cultural attitudes that devalue work and authority, comparing them to the culture of Crete that Paul addressed. Brown concludes by asserting that true Christian work ethic beautifies the Gospel and that every believer, regardless of their work environment, can reflect the grace of God through their labor.

Please open your Bibles to Titus chapter 2 and find verse 9. Titus 2 verse 9. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey, isn't it? Word of God. Verse 9.

Exhort bond-servants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well-pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. The grass withers and the flower fades but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord come and implant the faithful word into our hearts. We are so grateful for the rescue of Jesus Christ and his word.

How kind you are to come and not only to forgive us all of our sins, but to transform our lives in every area of life, to give a complete makeover of our hearts and everything that we do. We're so grateful for your kind care for us. Amen. Please be seated. Amen.

Please be seated. Well today our focus in these verses is really the foundation of a Christian work ethic, which really has to do with lots of things that are identified in this passage. And you know, in many ways, Titus is really, the church gets a full body scan in the book of Titus and this this part this individual part of the body scan we've experienced many scans already is our the work ethic that's the focus of our church of our text and we're really this morning wanting to cast a vision for what is an explicitly Christian worker and the tools that he uses in his work. It all flows from the fifth commandment and the dominion mandate and it's really a teaching about how authority works in your life, what it challenges, what it actually stimulates. It makes you Such a better person.

Even bad authority does that. And so we find that. But you know what's so interesting about this passage? He opens it up with slaves, slavery. Paul uses the lowest, most despised worker in society, the slave, and he's able to display the greatest beauty.

Isn't that amazing? And The way we work is really an adorning of the teaching of God. It displays the goodness of God, even in the midst of difficult authority. So the big question I want us to ask is, how are you operating in your work? What are your driving principles?

What are you trying to accomplish? You know, what makes you the worker you are? How do you think about your work? How do you think about your boss or bosses or bossettes, whatever they are? You know, are you faithful?

Are you ambitious? Are you a happy worker? Do you love your work because it's a gift of God? All these things I think are in play. Now let's remember where we are in Titus.

You know Paul is at the end of his life, this is really a comprehensive survey of the Christian life and what a church looks like and how a church operates and it really begins with the beginning, hold fast to the word of truth that's really the first mark of a true church and it's really what holds the church together and then the Apostle Paul is you know telling Titus to speak the things which accord to sound doctrine healthy doctrine all Everything in here is really about healthy doctrine, healthy life in a local church, healthy life in your home, healthy life now in your work in secular society. And these, what you find are these just singular blessings of the transformed life and the Apostle Paul so far he starts with the Word of God he starts with this sound doctrine this healthy doctrine And then he goes through different ages of people older men older women younger women younger men He goes through the various genders And then he speaks to Titus himself, and he says hold fast to the pattern of sound words We talked about that last week the pattern. What's the pattern of your life?

What are the habits of your life? Because it's your habits who really make you what you really are. It's not your big commitments or emotional gyrations or whatever you might have. It's your habits, it's actually the way that you live. That's what makes people successful.

So we talked about that. But the theme here is how to relate to authority. Now remember, you know, God, through the Apostle Paul, has sent Titus into a really corrupt culture in the midst of this dominant paganism. Can you imagine the workers in Crete if all of them are liars, evil beasts, and lazy, lazy gluttons? That's the culture of the work ethic on this island.

Beautiful island, not so beautiful culture. The gospel comes in to transform that culture and make it beautiful so that that culture becomes an adornment of the doctrine. It starts in the heart of a believer and it extends out into the culture of a local church and then it rolls out right into the workplace. And so the Apostle Paul is setting things in order for this culture beginning with the Church of Jesus Christ and you see we've seen the the interplay between the church and the family the various ages of people in the family and how all of that works. But it's been occurring to me really how striking it is that this letter to Titus is at the same time when we're actually starting the process of figuring out how to expand our facilities because he's really defining what local churches are and you know we've announced you know the elders and the deacons have been meeting with an architect to help us design what we need We obviously need space and it'll it'll cost some money to do it and the question is is it worth it?

Is the preservation and the multiplication of the culture of a Church of Jesus Christ, is it really worth it? What's really at stake? And what Titus is doing, he's describing many of the things that we've actually attempted to accomplish in this church for a long time, for many, many years. And we hope that these things will continue to happen for the next 25, 50, 100 years. And that's why we have to think about all these things.

Titus is describing what a healthy church looks like. What kind of church culture? You know what? What kind of church culture are you going to get married in? We have a lot of young people who are going to get married.

We have a wedding this week. It's fantastic. Well our building isn't big enough to have it and we wish it were. We're gonna try to do something that would allow you know a beautiful building to have weddings for all the kids in this church if they decide to get married here. We want to accommodate for marriages.

We want to accommodate for growing families. Our families are growing. There are kids everywhere. It's crazy. It's amazing.

I love it. It's fantastic. I love the little gurgling sounds of children. It means there's life here. There's a future here.

And you know what what what are we going to do to to to assist this church to capitalize on the biblical focus that Titus speaks about, the intergenerational life that we have pictured right before us in the book of Titus and the joys of salvation and conversion the grace of God fueling it all that's really what we're all about and so you know we want to inspire the next generation of our children, you know, to live happily and productively here in local church life as the center of their life and then fanning out in their work life into the world. So that's what this is all about. Titus is addressing all of it and it just hit me the other day. Wow we're kind of getting a level set, a reset on church life and family life right here in this book which really gives us an argument for why all this stuff is important. So like I said before, the letter, Paul's letter to Titus, it's like a full body scan covering, covering everything.

You know, a full body scan, an MRI is a, if you haven't had one, is a preventive screening tool. And it looks for tumors, it looks for aneurysms, it looks for spine issues you know I'm familiar with those. It looks for organ abnormalities all these kinds of categories of maladies that might be going on in your body and you can't see them but the scan, the full body scan can see them. You know typically it includes you know the head, the neck, the chest, the abdomen, the pelvis sometimes you know even the limbs. And Titus is is like a diagnostic a little bit like a full body scan because it really looks at every area and you know everything in the gospel is loaded up in this book it's really interesting I can't wait till we get to verse 11 when he just blows the roof off with with what's really happening behind the scenes in the life of a believer that the grace of God has actually come to somebody and it's changing everything in their life it's thrilling it's really that this beautiful life that God has called his people to It's a great diagnostic and he starts with the faith of the elect and the acknowledgement of the truth that accords with godliness.

So he focuses here on how slaves and their masters operate and I think it's right and every commentator who deals with this passage deals with it the same way. What the principles here, they apply to every person who's working. And that's how I'm gonna interpret it today. And all of this behavior in work, it either adorns the gospel or it uglifies it. It either beautifies what the Word of God teaches his people or it uglifies what the Word of God teaches people.

It's the way we live. It either brings disgrace upon God or it causes people to marvel at the wisdom of God when they see it at work. When you see this unusual person who reacts in a very different way to tyrants. Well that's the word that he uses we'll get to that in a minute. The engine of it all is for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared.

And you know people typically judge us from our works, and people watch us at our work. And they know whether we're lazy, or whether we're stealing, or what we're doing, or whether we have a crummy attitude. God knows, and often people know as well. So hey, by the way, these people in this church, they grew up in this culture. They came by all these crummy qualities, honestly.

They just grew up that way. And God is here to rescue them, just like he's here to rescue us as well. Because I'm confident that most of the things that are here in this passage we've encountered in our own lives. So here Paul is addressing the behavior of slaves and we're going to transfer these principles to normal work life in the way that a person is serving his boss or his company or even or even the way that children are taught to work in their homes. This is so critical.

You must teach your children to work from the very earliest days in your home and you need to work with them. Now as you can see in the outline there there are five qualities of the Christian worker. First obedient to those over them. Second well-pleasing in all things. Third not answering back.

Fourth not pilfering. Fifth showing all good fidelity. So those are the basic core points in the text and all of it has a purpose. Why? To adorn the doctrine of God our Savior, our Savior in all things.

So the underlying importance of these verses is the public importance of our work. This has everything to do with the dominion mandate. In Genesis chapter 1 the dominion mandate is given to all men. Before the fall, work is not a function of the fall. It's a function of humanity.

And the dominion mandate and Work is simply a call for men and women to manage and organize and improve creation everywhere they are. Whatever ground you've been given, whatever resources you've been given, whatever relationships you've been given, whatever church life you've been given, improve it. That's the dominion mandate. You know, work actually in many ways is falling on hard and harder times. You know, for example, I read a book, I think it was last year, by David Bonson called Full Time.

He makes a really important point about work. He says, his point is that work is the meaning of life. But he goes back to Genesis 1, where actually work is the meaning of life. The dominion mandate is the reason God put us in the world. And your work is central to the meaning of life.

People think, no, work is something that I do out over there. It's separate from spiritual things. Not so at all. Work is a sacred thing, and it is part of your living your life as a living sacrifice to the Lord Let me say it like this your work is not just part of your life it is your life. I think the Word of God would teach us to think rightly about our work because we get confused about it.

The whole matter of being fruitful and multiplying and having children and then working, improving and expanding everything. This is all part of the Protestant work ethic. That's what theologians have called it. And it really is, the Protestant work ethic is a beautiful doctrine that you trace right from the beginning in Genesis and actually work goes on in heaven as well you can trace the doctrine of work from Genesis to Revelation and on up into heaven but in our society we tend to marginalize work we minimize the importance of it Even though in Genesis work is central to life, you know, are you raising your children to work? That's what God created them to do.

Our education system creates years of non-work. I think that's tragic. It actually makes me angry that you strap a boy for the first 18 years of his life to a chair and make him just sit there and listen. He doesn't get to do too much. That's not right.

But that's what we've done. You know, we have declining employment rates in America, really dramatically declining employment rates. We have, of course, we have declining marriage rates. I think both of those are somehow connected. And now you have a new term, UBI.

How many know what UBI is? Well, I will tell you. Universal Basic Income. This is the philosophy that Everyone will receive a paycheck No one will need to work. You can the government will give you an apartment He will give you the government big daddy will give you food and you can just watch TV and surf the internet.

That's called universal basic income. And it really, it's one of the most corrupt philosophies that's at work. It's demonic, it's evil. And you have people like Elon Musk who are running around, you know, getting millions of views, you know, on their little channels, you know, saying that you won't need to work in the future, your robots will do it all. You won't need to learn anything.

AI will do it all for you, okay? Look at, work is taking a big hit in the culture today, but not among you and not among me. We're not doing that. You know, can you imagine how harmful it is for people not to work? It is, You know what, when people don't work they get depressed and they need drugs to try to medicate themselves through it.

That's what happens. They kill people, they commit, I mean look, it's horrible. When people don't work, you know what, Men actually, they need a fire under them to motivate them and to drive them to God. They need all the problems and the thorns and the thistles of work to actually make them dependent on God. Anybody think work is hard?

Every job is hard. Every job has its problems. Every job has its threats. You know, I'm looking at you. I know what a lot of you guys do.

You know, you got fires lit under you to try to keep you moving. You know, that's just the way work is. And God meant it that way for your sanctification. So you even have this whole idea in the church that denigrates teaching about work. We know that there's no distinction between the secular and the spiritual, but in the 20th century, particularly in evangelicalism and the modern missions movement, people embraced the idea that there was this thing, it was called the center of God's will the center of God's will you picture your life like a target and there's like this the center of God's will but if you are in the center of God's will you're going to be a missionary you're going to be a preacher you're going to be a full you're gonna have you're gonna engage in full-time Christian service but if you're not in the center of God's will well you might be in one of the rings a little far, like if you're just a contractor, you're not like in the center of God's will.

And you know, I won't go on about what could be out on the other edges. My wife is nodding at me, please don't go on, Scott. But look at this, this is a deception. It promoted the idea that The closer you get to full-time Christian service, the closer you are to the bullseye of God's perfect plan for your life. But the Bible doesn't talk that way.

And you know what? Just read your Bible. Hey, the greatest heroes in the Bible, they were workers. They were herdsmen. They were carpenters.

They were farmers. They were craftsmen. They worked in wood. They worked in metal. They worked in in gold.

They worked in bronze and iron and cloth. That's what that's that's what you find. You know Amos was a fig picker. I mean look at you have farmers you have all kinds of people and they spent their lives working. And the Bible portrays diligent, focused, effective work, like Job, who was the richest man in his region, who was, from what all we can tell, was transacting international commerce.

He had all these camels, he had stuff to carry goods all over the place. And so, what the Bible really teaches is that your work is your life. It's part, it's a, you spend most of your life working. And why do you work? Well you work to provide.

You work to provide for your family. You work to provide for your church, you work to provide for people who need help. That's what you work so that you have excess to give. So work is really a wonderful thing. So all of this has to do with how to make outward beauty from the inward transformation of your heart.

Outward beauty in your work because your work is a process of beautification. It makes the teaching more attractive and it makes it plain that Jesus Christ, and I'll just take the last phrase in our text, is our Savior in all things. We work because Jesus Christ is our Savior. His ways are pleasant ways all his paths are peace. We want to follow him.

We want to obey him in everything including our work. Now we've already encountered that this living according to God's ways ought to be done so that the word of God might not be blasphemed. That's the negative part. Well here in this text we hit to the positive, that we might adorn the doctrine. That's positive.

So it might not be blasphemed on the one hand, on the other hand, so that we adorn the doctrine, that we decorate the doctrine by the way that we work. And remember this is written to correct cretin culture. Let me make a suggestion. You tell me if you think this is true. Our culture is more cretin in the area of submission and authority than it is Christian.

Our culture is more cretin in the area submission authority that it is Christian well that's why I think the Apostle has written this and so you have there there's the who slaves there's a what, there's the details of submission, and then there's a why, the beauty. So let's talk about the who, slaves, the address of slaves. People say there were about 50 million slaves in the Roman Empire. There were slaves in this church in, well we were just in Romans, there were slaves in the Roman church and there would be slaves in the churches on Crete. Some people say that 33% of the population in the Roman Empire were slaves.

That means if that condition was held true today, we would have dozens of slaves in this congregation. And you know, it's funny, in Romans, Paul, he opens the book saying that he's a slave of Jesus Christ. He belonged to the very best slave owner ever, the Lord Jesus Christ. But here you find how the lowest class can glorify God most beautifully and that can be true of every Christian worker in whatever condition he finds himself in you make the doctrine shine you make You make the doctrine of God shine like a black velvet background on a diamond. It just shows up the beauty of it.

You know, I have read that 90% of the names in the catacombs were the names of slaves. I don't know if that's true, but I've heard that before a long time ago. And You know, the catacombs were people, was where people hid and many were buried in the Roman persecutions in the first three centuries of the church. And many of those martyrs were slaves. And many of those slaves, you know, went into the Colosseum, you know, to fight and to be killed and They were Christian slaves.

Here's what John Chrysostom says about this situation. Freedom is more radiant when it shows through bondage. Freedom is more radiant when it shows through bondage. Freedom is more radiant when it shows through bondage. Now, I don't really have time to elaborate on this, but you cannot compare the slavery that exists in Rome with the chattel slavery that was practiced in America.

In Roman slaves operated businesses. They held political offices. Their slavery was seldom permanent. I've read that half of them were released by age 30. It was just a very different proposition.

And the slavery in the Bible is also very, very different. It was more indentured servitude when somebody fell in hard times or was captured in war. You know the chattel slavery in America and all over the world at that time was the result of a corrupt society. It's the Church of Jesus Christ that overthrew slavery in the world beginning in England and in the United States and so this is what the church does. Now notice he uses the word masters.

Masters. You see that word in the text in verse 9? I don't want us to skip over that word. It means tyrant. It means desperate.

It means somebody who has unlimited authority. You have an absolute ruler. That person is your boss, okay? And he has been given authority, I would say by God. And this word speaks about absolute rule and the exercise of power.

And you know have you ever thought this thought I can't work for that tyrant anymore? Well I think that this passage of scripture would say, yes, you can. Yes, you can. You can make the gospel shine anywhere. You don't need to have a magnanimous boss to make the gospel shine.

You don't hardly need anything. You just need Jesus Christ and his laws, his commands to make the gospel shine. You need the grace of God. This word is used in ancient literature as a master of a house. It's used positively actually for wives, for women who are keepers at home, home despots, home tyrants.

Like women have authority in their home. You know, they're the ones that govern, you know, the raising of children and things like that. It's amazing. God equips men, I mean, he equips women, you know, to be benevolent despots in their homes. It's based on hierarchy, not ethnicity, not inferiority at all.

It's based on hierarchy. First Peter 2 18 speaks of submission to harsh harsh masters. I'll read it. Servants be submissive to your masters with all fear not only to the good and gentle but also to the harsh. For this is commendable if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully.

For what credit is it if when you are beaten for your faults you take it patiently but when you do good and suffer if you take it patiently this is commendable before God. For to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us leaving us an example that you should follow his steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to one who judges righteously, who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we having died to sins might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed." Well this kind of disposition, it makes companies strong, it makes families strong, it makes marriages strong. Businesses are always strengthened by humble and submissive people.

The best people who ever work for you are humble and submissive people. They're always the happiest people as well. Churches are stabilized by humble people. Families are fortified. Families are actually centralized and unified by humble people.

Companies are empowered by the same. So then you get the what of this. These are principles for employees and there are five of them. Let's just run through them here one by one first obedient to those who are over them in other words that's to do what you're told the Christian worker dues does what he's told exhort bond servants to be obedient to their own masters. This actually flows from the regulation of authority that arises out of the Fifth Commandment, which is really sort of the roots to the tree of all other forms of submission.

Question 124 in the Westminster Larger Catechism says this, who are meant by father and mother in the Fifth Commandment? By father and mother in the fifth commandment are meant not only natural parents, but all superiors in age and gifts and especially such as by God's ordinance are over us in place of authority, whether in family, church, or commonwealth. This is the whole idea of submission and authority to the various realms of authority that God has put us under. We're all under a number of different authorities. Nobody is ever out from under authority.

Marxism is based on rebellion against authority. That's what's one thing that's so bad and demonic about it. It's about really disruption of things. My generation, the generation of the 60s, was throw off authority, question all authority. That's what we did, and look what you got now.

Now you have people who can't figure out whether they're male or female. That actually goes right back down to the whole idea of question authority. It's a disaster, But there is a specific master that you have. And what the apostle Paul is saying is that there will be a new culture set loose on the island of Crete and there will be people who will be obedient to those who are over them. And then secondly, well-pleasing in all things.

This is the desire to be a pleaser. Is that you? Do you desire to be a pleaser to your to your boss? Other translations, NIV trying to please them. The NRSV to give satisfaction in every respect.

The net Bible to do what is wanted. And of course as long as it's legally right and morally right then you know then it should be done. Somebody said it could be taken like this. Put a smile on your boss's face to be well pleasing. Colossians 3 22, bond servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh not with eye service as man pleasers but in sincerity of heart for fearing God and whatever you do do it heartily as to the Lord not to men knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance for you serve the Lord Christ you know there's so many examples of this of men who pleased their bosses how about Joseph how about Daniel how about Nehemiah How about Abraham's servant when he was looking for a wife for Isaac?

You know, these were servants who were pleasing their masters. They set themselves to do such things. There's nothing worse than a whining person at work. Now many, many years ago I was a chaplain at a police department in Southern California and in Orange County. And they had an acronym for certain kind of whiny employees.

They called them the WSM's, the whiny, sniveling, malcontents. Okay? Why did they come up with that term? Because they saw it in real life. But a transformed person, his disposition has changed.

He has changed from a beast and a lazy glutton to somebody who actually puts a smile on the face of his of his superiors. If you're saying if you're saying I could be happier if my boss was nicer, Maybe you could say you'd be happier if you accepted God's sovereignty over your life and was a happy person because of it. You know, God does put his people in a pinch from time to time. He puts his people with bad people. Hey, think of, I just mentioned Daniel and Joseph, these people served along some pretty bad people.

You know, Nebuchadnezzar, How'd you like to have Nebuchadnezzar for your boss? You never knew if he was going to grant you the kingdom or take your head off. He was very volatile. Thankfully he got saved later on in the book. He uses this terminology that pleasing in all things, in everything.

It's interesting, this is the same language that the apostle Paul uses in marriage. He said, wives be submissive to your husbands, in your own husbands, in everything. And here, he uses the same words to talk about the employee. Third, not answering back, not being argumentative, not talking back, not mouthing off. You're asked to do something and you ask, why?

That's not a very wise response. It's lack of grace. Another place in Romans 10, 21, this word is translated obstinate, griping, argumentative, talking back. You've known people who, all they can do is complain about a certain person. They complain to you about other people.

The problem is they're probably gonna complain to other people about you. That's just the habit of their life and so that's why you shouldn't listen to people like that because you're probably gonna be next in line. But instead of answering back it may be that God wants to teach you a lesson. It may mean that God is humbling you. I was you know I republished the works of William Gouge on family life many years ago and there's this remarkable section in there where he says if you married a wife that's really hard to live with, You might just think that God might be punishing you for the way that you've been hard on other people.

And maybe he gave you a wife to teach you a lesson and turn you to the Lord. Doesn't that sound terrible? Would God do something like that? Well if he did there's a way through it absolutely there's a way through it and it's through it's through salvation in Jesus Christ and loving the commandments of God and those things can be healed Absolutely they can be healed. God is a healer, he's a restorer.

But God gives you a job so that you would represent the plans of that company. Be a good representative. You know, it's very important that you teach your children not to talk back. If you teach them to be self-willed and talk back, you're setting them up for failure in the working world. It's so critical.

The apostle Paul, to the Philippian church, he said it like this, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation taking the form of a bond servant that's our word in the text and coming in the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death even the death of the cross Therefore God also highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, those in heaven and those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. That's what your humble submission is designed for because it's so rare and boy was it rare on the island of Crete but it was becoming it was going to become less rare as a result of those people in that beautiful church and the island of Crete And then the fourth quality is not pilfering, not stealing.

The idea is not setting things aside for yourself that are not yours. In Acts chapter 5, 2, this idea is used for keeping back part of the money of Ananias and Sapphira, they kept back something for themselves. They lied. Ananias and Sapphira did. But stealing must have been common among the people.

Stealing can be common in societies. There are whole cultures that exalt stealing, that actually praise stealing. They really are all over the world. All cultures are not created equal. Some cultures are really bad, and these are cultures that exalt stealing and deception.

Paul said to another church, in the Ephesian church, he said, let him who steals steal no longer. You know what that means? People in the Ephesian church were stealing. They grew up in a theft-oriented society, just like the people in Crete. And What percentage of American workers do you think steal from their employers?

What percentage? I remember hearing this story a long time ago. These two men standing in front of a skyscraper. And one said to the other, how many people work in this skyscraper? And the other guy said, about half.

You know, there's so many ways to waste your employer's time right now. To spend your working hours on personal items, shopping, surfing the internet, communicating with people outside that have nothing to do with the prosperity of your company. I mean, this is all, I think this gets all rolled up in the whole idea of pilfering Taking using time that's not yours for your own purpose Padding hours things like that It's stealing time really from God's purpose in your life through distractions and foolish activities. Is anybody doing that? Maybe, we are a little bit more like Cretans than we might think we are and I think it's a good time to just take stock about whether we're pilfering, whether it's time or goods or whatever.

And then finally the fifth, showing all good fidelity. I think he's talking about reliability to be acting faithfully in your work. You know, remember, somebody brought this up in Bible study on Tuesday, Joseph with Potiphar. The phrase there in Genesis is that Potiphar didn't concern himself with anything but his food, because he trusted Joseph. And then when Joseph went to prison, the prison guards trusted him and put him in charge of the prison.

And then Pharaoh put him in charge of all of Egypt because he was a faithful man. He was one of the great exemplary workers in the Bible. You know, he was working. And God blessed his work and blessed millions of people there all over the ancient Near East. You know these are workers that you don't have to look over their shoulder.

They do what they're told. They do it happily. They're not naysayers. They do it immediately, they do it cheerfully, and they do it fully. This is the kind of worker that he is speaking about here, showing all good fidelity.

And then why? Why? Why do this? That they may adorn the doctrine of God, our savior in all things. And All of these ways of working have an objective.

They display the beauty of God and his kingdom and his word that describes it all. And he uses a word that every woman should recognize. It's the word we get our word cosmetics Cosmeo it has to do with the beauty of the heavens the stars the heavens declaring the glory of God and We you know in modern times we use that term for a makeup. You know Was it J Vernon McGee who said if the barn needs painting? Paint it and he was referring to makeup Okay, it's the beautification.

You know there's a There's a certain beautification that takes place with the proper use of cosmetics. It's always been used that way. But This word has to do with decorating. You're decorating the doctrine. It's not just living in your head where nobody can see.

You decorate it outwardly by the way that you work. And so your work is gospel work because you're demonstrating the faithfulness and the goodness of God in your work and you're doing it publicly. This is the public value of your work for the integrity of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's how important this is. So your job is not to find the best boss in the entire world.

Your job is to do the will of God in your work, whether you're working for Nebuchadnezzar or whether you're working for Trent Moody. There's a very big difference. And why? Because the grace of God has appeared all for the glory of the gospel. I hope that when you go to work tomorrow that you'll see your work in a whole different light you're doing spiritual work you're not you're you're you are in the center of God's will because the center of God's will is doing the will of God wherever you are It's not a certain kind of a job Praise God for his wisdom Let's pray Lord Again, your your word penetrates into the deepest parts of our hearts.

It exposes us It challenges us Lord it it makes us so long for the goodness of your name in our own hearts and in everything that we do. Lord, I pray that you would make from this congregation the most effective, the happiest, the most prosperous workers in this town because they obey you and they keep your commandments and they are setting themselves out to adorn the gospel. Amen.