Amen. If you have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to 1 Timothy 6, our last chapter in this great book of the Apostle Paul to Timothy, a leader in a young church of Ephesus and so much rich material about the way that the church is functioned and how we live together in the family of God. Paul lately in the book has been speaking about how do we shepherd Christians in different kinds of circumstances. So you may remember in chapter 5, 1 and 2, he talked about how to treat older men and older women, but also how to treat younger men and younger women at verse 3 of chapter 5, and for quite some time, he talked about how do we handle widows and help them, old widows and young widows in chapter 5, 17, how do we deal with elders and treat them?
Later in chapter 6 verse 17 he'll speak about those who are rich and give counsel to the rich. He speaks of those who are Christians who are slaves, and especially he speaks of the attitude of Christian slaves toward their masters and toward their work. Now I know that doesn't describe us in this room, though sometimes you may feel that way at home or in your place of business, but there is a lot here for us to learn for ourselves about living and working in difficult and painful circumstances. So we want to consider this word of God tonight, 1 Timothy chapter 6 verses 1 and 2, let me invite you to give your attention to it.
Let all who are under a yoke as slaves regard their masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled. 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, amen.
This is God's word. Teach us by it. Let's look to him in prayer, Father in Heaven. We pray that you would honor and glorify yourself and the gospel through your word tonight.
Be our teacher and our God. Help us understand these things, Grant, that we would find application for ourselves. Lift us up even through this word in Jesus name I pray. Amen.
Paul speaks tonight about what we would consider a difficult and controversial issue, a very uncommon in our day and hour experience, but not uncommon across the history of the world or even in our world today. Slavery. I want you to think about it in three parts. I want you to think about who he speaks to.
I want you to think about what he says to them and then I want you to think about why he says it. There's a lot here for us. In the first place, who he speaks to? He speaks to slaves, gods, people, members of God's own household on earth are often.
In this life, in difficult and painful circumstances and conditions. God has a word for them in that. This is not his only word for them in that condition. But here, notice what he says.
Paul tells Timothy what to tell Christian slave. Now remember that in ancient Rome, slavery was extremely common. One writes, all well to do people had slaves, very wealthy people sometimes had several hundred slaves. They were regarded as essential, especially as domestic servants and farm laborers, but also as clerks, craftsmen, and women.
The clerks, craftsmen, teachers, soldiers, and managers. It's believed that there were more than 50 million slaves in the ancient Roman Empire, including one third of the inhabitants of Rome. Paul isn't writing here just as slaves who had it good. Not just slaves who lives in a king's palace.
There were some like that. But he's writing the slaves who are under the yoke of slavery and he uses that expression, I think, to identify with them and how mistreated they were, how difficult their life was. And he says, you know, the language of how oxen are bound together to labor and work in the farm fields. And he says, this is what slavery is like.
These people are oppressed. They're mistreated. Some are overworked and unloved. God's people, God's church in this life and on this earth have always included.
People in the very lowliest of conditions in society. People who might rather be anywhere in life, but where they are. And I remember Joseph in the days following Abraham as a young man, his envious brothers conspired to kill him, but then at the last moment instead they sold him into slavery. He was taken to Egypt to serve in Potiphar's house where he was falsely accused of abusing the wife of the home, taking advantage of the master's wife, which he did not do.
And he was unjustly imprisoned and he languished in prison for years upon years where he had seemingly no human help or hope. But God was with him in that condition of life and God sustained him and God raised him up and exalted him and got put him in charge of the nation and when there was a famine in Israel, his brothers came looking for food in Egypt. And do you remember what he said to them at the end of that whole event? In Genesis 50 verse 20 he said, you meant it for evil.
But God meant it for good for the saving of many lives. When life does not go our way, when our condition is not what we would choose for ourselves, when poverty afflicts us, when illness knocks us flat on our back, when our employer is unreasonable, when we are in the school of hard knocks. Remember Joseph. Others may even have intended it for evil against us.
But he says, God meant it for good, for my good, for the good of many even beyond me. That's the promise of Romans 828 for every believer. God works all things together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. Now why can we believe that promise?
Romans 829. For those whom God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. You know what Paul is saying? Paul is saying, in and through my troubles, God is working to conform me after the image of Christ.
He's working to change me and he's working in all my circumstances for my good. He's working all things together for my good to make me like his son. Remember the Apostle Paul. When he was in chains in a Roman prison under Roman guard for no other cause than the hatred of those who opposed his preaching of the gospel.
Remember he wrote to the Philippians in Philippians chapter 1, it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed. But that with full courage now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether my life or my death. And so at the end of that chapter, he writes to the Philippians who would likewise suffer Philippians 1, 2029, let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake. You know what he's possible saying?
Just as God has given you the gift of belief, God has given you the gift of suffering for his name's sake. That is where we find ourselves sometimes as believers. And none of that is to say that slavery is approved of by God. It's not that all things are good.
There is real evil, but God works in all things, even evil for the good of his people and always. And evil ultimately will never triumph over his good purposes for his people. And so all of us, although we don't have circumstances like the slaves of ancient Rome, all of us live in conditions and circumstances that impact our walk with the Lord and our love for the Lord, our service to the Lord, circumstances that are at times extremely difficult and painful. We should pray for one another in those difficult circumstances.
We should help one another as we are able. We should call one another to be faithful to the Lord in it. And likewise, we ought to be as a people concerned, not just for one another, but we ought to be in our own day concerned for slaves that exist in conditions of slavery across this world. Even today, there are tens of thousands of slaves in Sudan.
There are tens of thousands of people being Christians, being enslaved by ISIS in places like the Middle East, even today. We should plead their cause before God. We should plead with government to aid and help. But like Paul, we should be concerned for their conduct as Christians under slavery while they're in that condition in the midst of that hardship.
We should be concerned for how they live in light of the gospel in that situation. And that's what Paul is doing here. So that's the first thing. He's speaking to people in terrible difficult circumstances.
And he has a word for them. Now, what does he say to them? Notice what he says. He says there to be respectful.
Notice verse 1, let all who are under a yoke as bond servants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor. Notice verse 2, those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers. The contrast, I think, between verses 1 and 2 is that the slaves he refers to in verse 1 have non-Christian owners and get even their pagan masters are to be considered worthy of honor. And the slaves of verse 2 have believing owners and they may be told don't be disrespectful because they're your brother.
What are we to make of this? Honor them, be respectful. Why not slaves cut your chains and get free by whatever means necessary? Kill your oppressor if you have to or whatever.
Why doesn't Paul say that? Is Paul here then by not condemning slavery at this point in these verses, therefore commending it? You'll hear people say that and use that as a reason to reject the Bible. But that's not what Paul is doing.
He's not commending slavery here. And remember that this is just one short text among many in the New Testament that we don't have time to look through. And we have actually been in Ephesians 6 where he speaks to slaves. We've been in 1 Corinthians 7 here in the number where he speaks to slaves.
So there are many other things he says. Remember, it was in 1 Corinthians 7 that he said, look, if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of that opportunity. Yes, that this is not a desirable condition for many. Some will say, well, the New Testament seems a little bit better than the old on slavery, but the old was all in favor.
But it wasn't. Exodus 21, in Exodus 21, it has the subtitle in the ESV, laws about slaves. If you were to look at Exodus 21 sometimes, there are all kinds of instructions in that chapter given to regulate slavery and to bring it some humanity and justice. And of course, regulating an institution and endorsing that institution are not the same thing.
The Bible also gives laws about regulating divorce among people, which as Jesus explained was permitted because of the hardness and sinfulness of the human heart. And so likewise, there are regulations in the Bible about slavery, which could, I think, very readily be classed under the category of divorce where God is not saying that this is the ideal or that this is the way that things ought to be or commending or commanding it. But he is aiming to modify its worst aspects among sinful people living sinful lives in a sinful world. Slavery is an institution of a fallen world, not the world that God made in Genesis 1 and 2, you'll hear no hint of slavery there.
And it is not the world of the New Heavens and the New Earth either. But God constrains its worst aspects and God set in motion the end of slavery over the course of the Bible. When you look at this in chapter 21 at verse 16, it says this, whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death. Man stealing, kidnapping, had death penalty attached to it.
The Old Testament is clearly forbade that kind of slavery. First Timothy here, we already saw in chapter 1 verse 10 that in slavers or slave traders are among those he says who act in a way that is contrary to sound doctrine. They need the law because the law condemns them. The law commands against what they're doing.
The Bible is not in favor of kidnapping. What we have in the Bible is the process set in motion on the one hand of regulating a sinful institution and bringing it some justice and humanity. And on the other hand, processes which over time and by application would work to effectively undermine the institution itself and eradicate it, not necessarily instantaneously. Not in the way that we bring in chaos to a community that has a third of its people living and supported in an institution of slavery.
But that would in fact eventually bring about its end among Christian peoples and those who follow the wisdom of the Bible. Here in 1 Timothy, he's talking to real slaves who are real Christians about what they do while they are enslaved. However much they might want to be free of it. And he says what are they to do?
Well, they are to regard their masters as worthy of all honor. And if their masters are Christian, they are not therefore to do shoddy work because of it. This is in some ways the same mindset of the one hand that Paul calls all of us to when we consider our relationship to those in authority over us in civil government. We may not like those in authority in civil government.
We may not agree with their decisions. But we are called to respect the office and function they perform in the province of God. We are called to render under Caesar what is Caesar's. We are called to pay our taxes.
Even if we don't wish they were going to what they are going to. This is part of what Christian duty is. And we are called to fear God and honor the emperor. Peter said that in the day when Nero was the emperor.
So it's to be an expression of our faith in and trust in God and our love for him that we would live this way. So that if their masters are pagans, we still, he says honor them and if they are Christians, don't be disrespectful just because they are Christians but serve them better he says. And so these are some of the things that he tells them to do and he doesn't just simply say here interestingly that the Christian slave masters ought to immediately free all their slaves. That's not who he's talking to in this passage.
And besides some of them would have suffered worse evil without the security of a place to live steady work where they were however poorly provided for. Don't imagine their world was like ours where they could just get on a plane and go to America where you could be free. Some of these people would have suffered poverty, suffered deprivation, suffered starvation without continuing in their condition at least for a time where they were provided for some slaves in that day actually volunteered to be slaves. This is not American 19th century slavery.
This was in many, for some, an economic system where it was better to agree to be a servant and slave in the household of a wealthy person so that you had a stable and secure life and job. You went about your work as a teacher or a financial manager or serving in government in other places. So all these things to say Paul wants Christians to live respectful lives and be respectful to other people. That's what he says now.
Why does he say that? What are his motivations behind that? What are we embracing? There are two things here I think all of us can embrace for ourselves.
Paul is motivated, wants them to be motivated by the desire to honor God and reach others with the gospel and by the desire that they would love their fellow believers. One of the two motivations. Notice in the first place, verse one, for those who have non-Christian masters, they are to aim to honor those masters in such a way that God's name is not reviled, he says. Do this, he says, so that the name of God and the teaching, the teaching of the gospel are not reviled.
This is an evangelistic motivation here. If you work for non-Christians, he's saying, make it a priority so that to honor them and serve them in such a way that they don't turn around and go, your God is wicked or vile or worthless or useless. I don't want you to treat your masters in such a way that they despise and hate your God and so reject the gospel as meaningless and powerless and hypocritical so that they would say, oh, well, you know, if the gospel produces people like you, lazy, disrespectful, complaining people, well, I don't want none of that kind of gospel. Paul is saying, don't let your lamentable status as a slave blind you to your kingdom responsibility and opportunity, but live in such a way that you bring honor to God.
I was reading this week about, I don't know, Russia and about Sergey Kordikov. He was a former Russian KGB officer and naval officer who defected to Canada in 1971, where he eventually told his story. Two years later, after his defection, some suspect by the Russian secret police. He'd been converted to Christ by then, and during that time, he wrote a book called The Persecutor, also known as Forgive Me Natasha.
And the story he tells is of how he, when he was back in Soviet Russia, he was part of a special police unit assigned to attempt to break up Christian meetings and to discourage Christianity. He raided over 150 meetings during the 1960s, and he tells the story of coming into a church gathering in a home one day and seeing a beautiful young woman named Natasha, one of his colleagues picked her up in his arms and threw her in a slander against a wall so that she was knocked unconscious. Three days later, they went into another Christian setting in a different place, and there was Natasha. She was right back where she was supposed to be worshiping her Lord Jesus, and at that time they stripped her naked, they beat her until the flesh began to come off of her body.
She bit through her lip to contain herself in the midst of the beating. These men went away. Days later, they go into another Christian meeting. And there is Natasha.
And at that time, one of Quartercoat's men stepped towards her with a club to kill her, and another colleague stepped in front of him and said, no, you don't touch this girl. Nobody touches her. She has something we don't have. Nobody touches her.
Nobody. And then, Quartercoat, when he came to Christ later, wrote a letter to Natasha, who he never saw again, and simply said, thank you, Natasha. You showed me what the Gospel does for a human heart. She was faithful to her calling to worship the Lord Jesus and love and bless his people, though she suffered for it in the midst.
She was mistreated for her calling, but it was used by God as a witness for the Gospel, her courage in the midst of that. So now, you can see somebody else, a violent opponent, come to faith in Christ. And if she, in her horrendous circumstances, can do that. How much more could we in our own colonists do likewise?
Our lives, the way that we live, either commend the Gospel to other people or undermines the Gospel to other people. Now, doing this doesn't mean that a Christian is in a place of weakness, or is weak quite the opposite. It means you're strong. It means you know that you're truly free in Christ, and you are so free that should those in authority over you, you misbehave.
You do not have to retaliate. But as Jesus said in the sermon of the Mount, you turn the other cheek. You're so strong in Jesus, so convinced of his everlasting love and salvation, you don't have to repay evil for evil in circumstances like this. You don't take personal revenge, but you know that the Bible says vengeance is mine, declares the Lord.
And you leave yourself in his hands. It was a difficult thing for us. But Jesus, who for our sake and on our behalf did not retaliate, he, that Jesus gives us the freedom to now live and to live. And though a thousand other people in circumstances like ours, difficult circumstances, might vent their anger, might seek revenge, we don't have to do that as Christian people.
This is what I think Paul is saying to these slaves. In reality, you are no man's slave. You belong to Christ. The Christ alone, would you remember that?
Remember who he was in his suffering. And do that so the name of God would be honored so that the teaching of the Gospel would not be slandered. It's that important you do that. And then the second thing, he says, why do you do this, is to those who are Christians, he says, I want you to have and be motivated by brotherly love.
If you are working for Christians, don't disrespect them, but serve them even better because they're fellow Christians and brothers and beloved. Two, those who believe in the pastors must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers. That they must serve all the better. So those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved.
You serve them while he says. So you can see the situation. You're a slave and become a Christian and your masters are Christian and you might be tempted to say, hey, we're family and we're brothers and I'm just going to sit back here and take a break now. You're going to fire me, you're going to punish me.
I mean, we're family. Very tempting to do. To trade on the kindness and goodness of Christian masters here or in our own experience, Christian employers. And therefore do inferior work because of it.
And Paul says, don't do that. Don't take advantage of your situation here, but do the opposite. Serve them all the more precisely because they are your brother, because they are your sister in Christ, he says. Because your work is performed for another member of the body of Christ, he says.
The Christ who died for you. It made you part of his family forever. Therefore, don't make that excuse for sloppy service, he says. Richard Halverson, who was the former chaplain of the United States Senate, spoke once and he tells the story of meeting a man who owned a series of car dealerships in and around the Washington, D.C.
area. The man wanted to witness for Christ. He thought of having his salesman hand out gospel tracks and even new testaments to people who came into his shop, but he was notorious as a bad businessman. He'd stand behind his product.
He came to Halverson one day and he said, wouldn't this be a great idea to give out tracks and new testaments? Halverson said, that's a wonderful idea, but you know what a better idea would be? Treat your customers right, be an upstanding businessman, stand behind your product, honor your warranties and don't sell lemons. I think this is what the Apostle Paul is communicating to all of us.
Dorothy Serris once said that God suffered three humiliations in human history. The first was when he took on human flesh. The second was when he adored the suffering of the cross. And the third was when he entrusted his own reputation to his very ordinary people.
And isn't that true? God's reputation, Paul, says, is on the line every time we come in contact with other people. Therefore, he says, treat your fellow believers, especially your fellow believers, in brotherly love, he says even to these people. And so as we consider our own difficult circumstances, probably not to be compared to theirs.
We are sometimes called by God to live in those difficult circumstances. And as we do so, we consider our own failures in those circumstances, our own cutting of the corner. Because we work, oh, I don't know, as a pastor in the church with nobody looking over our shoulder and only Christians that were serving day in and day out with a group of presitors who were godly fellow ministers. Yeah, who supervises?
But from afar, do we cut every corner? Do we grow lazy on account of that? Or do we serve as though we're serving our word Jesus himself? Because that is who we've been freed to truly serve.
Jesus, we remember, was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Yet, he was crucified and killed at the hands of lawless and wicked men. Peter says in chapter two of Acts, men intended it for evil, God planned it for good for the salvation of all who trust in Jesus, your Savior understands your difficulty. Repent them and believe the good news.
And you will find, as Peter says, forgiveness of sins. And you will find that you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And you will have the hope of everlasting life, a life that you were promised without pain, without crime, in which God wipes every tear from your eyes. God makes all things much better.
Let's pray. Father in Heaven, thank you that you are a good, kind, gracious, generous, open-handed, sharing Lord, King and Master. Thank you that Jesus knows what it's like to be us and far more and yet honored you through it. We pray that you'd help us.
We pray that you'd forgive us. We pray that you'd change us and make us more like him. And his name I pray. Amen.
We invite you to stand and we'll sing together.