1. "Part of its confusing nature is its definition. What do we mean by slavery? What does it mean for one person to own another person? Answers have differed from ancient Rome to 19th century DC. In the ancient world, there were codes that explained it and defined it in various times and places. But no one seems to imagine a world without it."

2. "Today, these slavery destroying sentiments are covered up by the opponents of Christianity and the Bible's morality who want to present the Bible as inherently menacing and undermining of human good. Like slavery's defenders of old, these modern scholars stifle the Bible's true message, having a self-interest in liberating the world from the moral influence of the Bible."

3. "When you understand this, you realize it's not so much that we have to go to work tomorrow, it's that many of us get to."

4. "We all imagine ourselves to be the ultimate arbiters of our own lives, but in God's kindness, Him putting us in positions where we have to serve others kind of reminds us of the reality that we're in, where we're not in that dream world where we create everything, all reality ourselves."

5. "Me being a pastor is far less important than me being a Christian. The two don't even compare. Me being a Christian is absolutely essential for my well-being eternally. Me being a pastor is just a passing small matter compared to that."

6. "The most important person of all is seeing it. No true work done for Him is ever missed. He understands it all. He's not misestimated it. He's got it."

7. "Friend, God does not favor you because you're in authority or because you're under authority. There are no earthly reasons for God respecting one person over another because all of us have been made in His image and all of us are in moral deficit to Him."

8. "Does teaching this kind of idea here of God's justice in the afterlife encourage moral indifference in this life? That's what the liars in the universities are telling our children. Or does it act as a firmer ground for encouraging moral action in this life? That's the truth."

9. "If you don't believe in an afterlife, you don't believe there's any ultimate basis for morality, then that person will do whatever they can for their own advantage now."

10. "Christ's ransoming us is unique, but His self-giving service is universal as a pattern for how those in authority are to use it for those under them. That's what the Bible really teaches from beginning to end."

Observation Questions

1. According to Ephesians 6:5, how are bondservants instructed to obey their earthly masters, and what attitude should accompany this obedience?

2. In Ephesians 6:6, what kind of service does Paul warn against, and what does he contrast it with in describing how bondservants of Christ should work?

3. What motivation for service does Paul give in Ephesians 6:7, and to whom does he say this service is ultimately rendered?

4. According to Ephesians 6:8, what promise does Paul make regarding the outcome of doing good, and who does this promise apply to?

5. In Ephesians 6:9, what specific behavior does Paul command masters to stop, and what reason does he give for this command?

6. What characteristic of God does Paul emphasize at the end of Ephesians 6:9, and how does this relate to both masters and bondservants?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why does Paul describe Christian workers as "bondservants of Christ" (v. 6) even while they serve earthly masters, and how does this dual identity shape the nature of their work?

2. What is the significance of Paul's phrase "doing the will of God from the heart" (v. 6) as a summary of how Christians should approach their daily work and responsibilities?

3. How does the promise that God will reward "whatever good anyone does" (v. 8) regardless of social status challenge the assumptions of both ancient Roman society and modern workplace culture?

4. Why would Paul's instruction to masters to "stop your threatening" (v. 9) have been considered radical in the Roman world, and what does this reveal about how Christianity transforms the use of authority?

5. How do the three biblical doctrines mentioned in the sermon—creation in God's image, Christian brotherhood, and God's impartial judgment—work together to undermine the institution of slavery even though Paul does not explicitly condemn it in this passage?

Application Questions

1. In what specific situations at your workplace, school, or other authority structure are you most tempted toward "eye service"—appearing diligent when watched but slacking when unseen—and what would it look like to serve "as to the Lord" in those moments this week?

2. How does viewing your daily work as part of your worship change the way you approach mundane or frustrating tasks, and what is one routine responsibility you can consciously offer to God as service this week?

3. If you have authority over others—whether as a supervisor, parent, teacher, or leader—how do you typically respond when those under you make mistakes or fall short? What would it look like to lead in a way that seeks their flourishing rather than using threats or harsh words?

4. The sermon emphasized that being a Christian is more fundamental to our identity than any job or role we hold. How might remembering this truth help you navigate a situation where your employer or authority figure asks you to compromise your integrity or convictions?

5. Knowing that God sees all your work and will reward it impartially, how does this truth encourage you in work that feels unnoticed or unappreciated by others, and how might you encourage a fellow believer who feels the same way?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Colossians 3:22–4:1 — This parallel passage provides similar instructions to bondservants and masters, emphasizing working heartily for the Lord and the promise of inheritance from Christ.

2. 1 Peter 2:18–25 — Peter addresses servants suffering under harsh masters, pointing them to Christ's example of entrusting Himself to the righteous Judge while suffering unjustly.

3. Philemon 1:8–21 — Paul's letter to Philemon demonstrates how the gospel transforms the relationship between a master and his runaway slave Onesimus, now a brother in Christ.

4. Deuteronomy 10:17–19 — This passage, referenced in the sermon, establishes God's impartiality and His concern for the vulnerable, providing the Old Testament foundation for Paul's teaching in Ephesians 6:9.

5. 2 Samuel 23:1–7 — David's last words, mentioned in the sermon, describe what it means to rule justly over others in the fear of God, offering a model for godly leadership and authority.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Confusing Nature and History of Slavery

II. How Paul's Instructions Apply to Modern Authority Structures

III. Servants Should Serve Like This: Nine Truths for Work (Ephesians 6:5-8)

IV. Leaders Should Lead Like This: Treating Others as God Does (Ephesians 6:9)

V. God's Justice as the Foundation for Moral Action

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Detailed Sermon Outline

Slavery is a terrible stain on America's history.

Its practice in various forms stretches well beyond America. Its victims have come from Africa and from every other continent. Slavery has been widespread It is depraved. It is confusing.

Part of its confusing nature is its definition. What do we mean by slavery? What does it mean for one person to own another person? Answers have differed from ancient Rome to 19th century DC. In the ancient world, there were codes that explained it and defined it in various times and places.

But no one seems to imagine a world without it.

The development of the commercial industry of European traders enslaving Africans and settling them in the Caribbean and in North and South America in the 17th and 18th centuries on a vast scale began to make the moral evil of slavery evident, not only to the enslaved, but to many others as well. And as questions were raised, defenses were made, arguments were developed. The passage we come to today In Ephesians chapter 6, verses 5 to 9 was used in this debate. Please go ahead and turn there. Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6, verses 5 to 9.

You'll find it in the Bibles provided on page 979.

If you're not used to looking at Bible, the larger numbers are the chapter numbers, the smaller numbers are the verse numbers.

This was one text that was exploited to defend the kind of chattel slavery that existed in the American South. The defenses of slavery were necessary because Christianity gave rise to a moral attack on slavery that it didn't face in the ancient world of paganism.

There the absence of human equality rooted in a clear doctrine of God's creation or of Christian brotherhood and of a coming universal and impartial final judgment. Not having any of those things in the ancient Roman world, the morality of slavery was left unchallenged.

Even in the passage we turn to today, we find implications that would expose the evil of slavery. I wonder if you've noticed them before.

These slavery destroying sentiments in the past were covered up by the defenders of slavery because they didn't want Christian pieties mobilized against such an important institution.

No doubt many of the defenders were sincere. Though that only makes their delusion worse.

Today, these slavery destroying sentiments are covered up by the opponents of Christianity and the Bible's morality who want to present the Bible as inherently menacing and undermining of human good. Like slavery's defenders of old, these modern scholars stifle the Bible's true message.

Having a self-interest in liberating the world from the moral influence of the Bible.

In our passage, Paul was giving practical instruction for the world the Christians lived in. And from these instructions, we can see direct implications for how we Christians today are to respond to authority in the world beyond the confines of marriage and family that we've been considering. For the last couple of weeks. So with this third pair of persons, those under authority and those in authority, Paul takes us out from the home into the wider world. So for us today, how do we hear this when the institution of slavery no longer exists?

I talk about slavery because some of your translations you're reading will have the word in the first verse addressed to slaves. Others will say servants, others bond servants. Well, in those situations we find ourselves in today, outside of marriage and family, where authority is exercised, these verses apply. This is about our life at work, in school, in the government, in the military. Paul here is basically addressing those under authority and those in authority.

Hear now what the will of the Lord is. Be filled with the Spirit, Paul wrote up in chapter 5, verse 18. And then he gave three results, three evidences of our being filled with the Spirit: addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, giving thanks always, and then that third one submitting, we see up in chapter 5, verse 21, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. And it's that last one, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. That we've been following Paul's examples of in these most recent studies.

Two weeks ago we considered wives and husbands. Last Sunday we thought about children and parents. And today we come to this third pair that Paul gives us of bond servants and masters. Listen now to our passage, beginning in chapter 6 of Ephesians, verse 5.

Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye service as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man. Knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.

Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality. With Him.

As a Christian in this world, two simple questions: How do I serve? How do I lead? How do I serve? How do I lead? That's what we learned from our passage this morning.

First, as a Christian, how do I serve?

So, number one, servants should serve like this. Bond-servants, Paul says there in verse 5. So he's addressing those people in the congregation who were servants or, as I say, some of your translations will read slaves. This wouldn't have been everyone in the congregation, but it wouldn't necessarily have been just a few in number. They too may have been wondering, well, what do I do now?

Now, since I'm a Christian, and I have a non-Christian master, what will happen to this situation where I, now a Christian, am controlled and ruled and directed by a non-Christian?

Now I know it's confusing for us to hear the word slave because we immediately think of slavery in American history. This Roman slavery that was going on in Ephesus when Paul was writing this letter to them was more than employment. So it's not quite right just to say this is employees. But it was different than the Arab and European enslavement of black Africans. I mean, you think of how someone became a slave in Roman slavery.

Slaves could be born as slaves. Or they could become enslaved through being captured in battle. They could be enslaved or sell themselves in order to pay debt that they had. Sometimes orphans were simply taken up by households when the children lost their parents. Sometimes people would get someone to buy them in an attempt to find a better situation in life.

In ancient Rome and Ephesus, the lowest rung on the social scale was not slavery, it was the casual day laborer, the people waiting around in the town market hoping somebody would have a job for them for the day. And the slaves themselves had so many different kinds of tasks, there were so many different kinds of people who were slaves that they didn't really form a distinct class by themselves. Slaves were about 20% of the population, it's estimated, in ancient Roman cities. The economy was built on it, slaves were part of many households, and this slavery was not racially specific. There was no assumption that all slaves would be of a certain race or that most people in a particular race would be enslaved.

Furthermore, Roman slaves could be employed to do everything from manual labor to teaching mathematics and philosophy to being doctors or property managers or high-ranking civil officials. So you know when Philip in Acts 8 meets the Ethiopian? Official from Queen Candace of Ethiopia and says he was in charge of all her treasury, he may well have been a slave. Or in Acts 23 and 24, Governor Felix, before whom Paul appeared in Caesarea, was formerly a slave. He had bought his freedom and raised himself up and become the governor.

Slavery was seen as unfortunate, but not as inherently immoral or problematic.

And you could tell that because when Roman slaves gained their freedom, do you know what they often did? Purchased other slaves. In fact, even slaves while they were still slaves had property rights and could accumulate other slaves while they were themselves slaves. Chrysostom, the great preacher from about 400 A.D. said, It is avarice, greed that brought about slavery. This is not the original human condition.

This horrible thing was begotten by sin.

Early Christian preachers were clear in denouncing even the Roman variety of slavery. It wasn't right to think about one person being owned by another person. That seems to be the very definition of man-stealing. That Scripture condemns. This horrible thing, this terrible situation, was nevertheless a situation that many new Christians in Ephesus would have found themselves in.

And Paul here in Ephesians 6, he's not condemning slavery explicitly, but he's not condoning it either. He is telling these Christians who are in structures of slavery, either as slaves or as masters, how they should relate to that authority. Meanwhile, the Bible, though many times used to support abusive slavery, laid down doctrines that would ultimately undermine slavery. I've mentioned three of them already. Let me just draw your attention to them again.

The Bible's teaching of creation, that every person is made in the image of God. It's not the idea that certain kinds of people are more in God's image than others, are worth more than others.

But every person is made equally in God's image. Second, the teaching of the brotherhood of all Christians, that certainly in the church we see that we are all indwelt by the same Spirit of the one God. So this idea of the brotherhood of Christians, all being indwelt by the same Spirit of the same God, undermines these kinds of distinctions. And then finally, God's impartiality in the coming judgment.

That's talked about in our passage down in verse 9. It certainly shows that this partiality, this favoritism that we experience in this fallen world is not to be seen and known on the last day when we stand before the Judge of all the earth who will do right to everyone. All of these teachings of the Bible worked to begin to undermine slavery. Still, Paul's basic command here is to obey. But I think we'll understand this best if we notice his qualification on the command first.

Look there in verse 6. When he says obey, he says, Not by the way of eye service as people pleasers. And he really is just repeating that same idea there at the end of verse 7 where he says, Not to man. So what Paul is doing here is he's warning Christians not to merely appear to obey. He's not calling them to mere eye service, he calls it, meaning it just looks like service.

It's fake service. You know, it's mere people-pleasing. Cultivating a fear of man more than a fear of God that makes you play a role like some actor, oh, I look like I'm serving you while your eye is on me, but the truth is when your eye is gone, I'm doing whatever. Friends, that's a temptation to us.

How many meetings that you're actually paid to be in and pay attention to really has your eyes taken up with the game on your phone? Or looking like you're doing some other important work, but really you're doing something you want to do. You're not being paid to do it all. Or Hill staffers, how about those times when your boss is on the floor for a vote or maybe just at some committee meeting and, you know, you don't really have much that you're going to be doing right now, but you just stay at your desk just so that when they come back it'll be looking like you've been diligently working all the time. You know, you want to put up this appearance that's a little different than the reality.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be available. I'm just saying, what do we do? What have we inured ourselves to, gotten used to, to give us certain appearances of being servants and serving and doing things when the truth is we're not doing those things. That seems to be the very kind of things that Paul is telling the Christians here don't do. Pray that God will protect us from this kind of deceptive hypocrisy where we present ourselves as being better in our roles than we really are.

Instead of that, Paul says in our passage, we're to work as God-pleasers, not eye-pleasers, not man-pleasers, But God pleasers in all we do. And this is what you see in these verses 5 to 8. And I've broken this out. There are a ton of overlapping phrases here that will be good for you to meditate on through the week. I hope you've been looking at it this week.

If not, use this coming week to do this. But I've broken them down to nine truths to remember when you go to work. Nine truths. And you can get nine more, I promise. But here's just nine that I'll point out briefly from these verses.

When you go to work, remember these things. Obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling. That use of fear and trembling brings us to number one. Our work is part of our worship. Number one, our work is part of our worship.

This is how all of us are to worship the Lord with reverence and awe. And Paul is clear in Romans 12:1-2 that our worship is our reasonable service, our serving. Those things that we're called to do. And our jobs, for most of us, define part of what we're called to do in our weeks. When you understand this, you realize it's not so much that we have to go to work tomorrow, it's that many of us get to.

He says here in verse 5, With a sincere heart, as you would Christ. This brings a second truth for us to remember. We go to work, number two, our work reflects our spiritual life. Our work, our daily work, is to reflect our spiritual life. So if your employer instructs you, obey him, unless he's telling you to sin.

It should bring you some contentment to realize God's providence in your life like this. And if you obey with a sincere heart, It will help you in the decisions you face. It means that you'll know not to lie, even when instructed, because your service of your earthly boss is a subset of your service to God. So as a Christian, everything you do is service to God. There's a subset of that, which is service to your boss, if you're employed.

And you can insert other parallel situations if you're in the military, you know, but it's service to the ones who are above you in authority. And you should assume normally that those things are going to be completely consistent with your following God. But there may be sometimes, and our statement of faith recognizes this specifically, there may be sometimes when an earthly authority tells you to do something that is against what God calls you to do. Well, you're not called to do that. Simple example, I was working at a trucking company a long time ago.

This is before the interworld was begun.

And we communicated by physically mailing things to people. In this case, the truckers. They needed to know the rates that we were charging for various things. And one day, in just a very casual manner, my boss told me to take all this stack of sort of tariffs and to change the postal meter to backdate them a few days because we couldn't legally, for whatever reason, give out these tariffs right now. We had to make it appear that they were older.

And I just looked at him and I said, well, that's not today's date. He said, well, I know, everybody does it. I said, well, then you can get everybody to do it, you know, but I'm not going to do that. And he was really upset because it was apparently a commonly done thing. But at the little bit I understood, and as a very young Christian, it was clear to me that that was asking me to lie.

And while he had authority to ask me to do a lot of things with my 40 hours a week, he didn't have authority to ask me to lie. Because I had a greater master that serving this master was just a subset of. So Paul says our work is to reflect our spiritual lives. And this applies to all extra-familial, legitimate authorities, whether at work or business, in the local or national government, in the military, or in school.

Number three, obeying others is part of our obedience to God.

To obey others is part of our obedience to God. I love the way the Heidelberg Catechism puts it in Lord's Day 39, question 104, when they ask, what honoring your father and mother also implied is our duty? The answer is, that I show honor, love, and faithfulness to my father and mother and to all who are set in authority over me, that I submit myself with respectful obedience to all their careful instruction and discipline, and that I also bear patiently their failures, since it is God's will to govern us by their hand.

So Christ's service involves us in willingly and faithfully serving others, as long as we can do so. With a clear conscience. Verse 6, Not by the way of eye service as people pleasers, as we were thinking about a moment ago, but as bond servants of Christ. This brings a fourth truth. Our having to obey others reminds us to obey God.

Our having to obey others reminds us to obey God. You know, by nature we all imagine ourselves to be our own little gods. We all imagine ourselves to be the ultimate arbiters of our own lives, but in God's kindness, Him putting us in positions where we have to serve others kind of reminds us of the reality that we're in, where we're not in that dream world where we create everything, all reality ourselves, but actually, oh, real world, okay, I've got to serve this person. And that wakes me up to the still greater reality that yes, I've got to serve the Lord. After all, we are bond-servant slaves of Christ, aren't we?

I mean, if you look at your passage there in Ephesians 5 or 6, you just turn over one page in your Bible. There's Philippians 1:1, where Paul says, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. And it's the exact same word. Paul calls himself a doulos, a bond-servant, a slave of Christ. He understood that that is his identity.

That's the identity of all of us who are Christians. The priority in our lives is being a slave of Christ, as we read at the end of verse 6, Doing the will of God from the heart. So a fifth truth to take to work with you: Honest work helps humble us before God. Honest work helps humble us before God. You see how a lot of these truths kind of overlap with each other.

Honest work helps us to be accurately humble. What a wonderful moral summary of the Christian's life is right here in verse 6, doing the will of God from the heart. One fair summary of the Christian ethic is to obey the will of God. Brothers and sisters, why do you go to work?

For money? To provide for your family? That's an honorable reason. For prestige?

What about going to work for God? For Him to be your motivation ultimately?

We honor the Lord through the means of the boss that God has given us, the authority that He has set over us. We respect that office even when we don't sometimes respect the individual holding it because behind that individual is God. He exercises our humility. In all of this. So he calls us here in verse 7 to be rendering service with a good will.

Remember what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount around where we were hearing from earlier. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Number six, obeying earthly authorities is part of our spiritual training from God. Our obedience to earthly authorities is part of our spiritual training from God. You realize that our daily service we're called to provide is part of God's spiritual discipline in our lives.

So can you work hard and with enthusiasm when nobody else is around?

John Gill said that Christians are to be marked by taking delight in their work, reckoning it as a pleasure to serve their Master. Number seven, it is a delight to have God entrust any work to us. It is a delight to have God entrust anything to us. For Timothy, it would be the deposit of the gospel that was entrusted to them. Each one of us has been entrusted with talents and opportunities and responsibilities.

How can you work with your job? How can you complete your assignment? Well, he says here so clearly in verse 7, As to the Lord and not to man. Remember that all we do in these acts of submitting, as Paul said up in chapter 5, verse 21, were to do out of reverence for Christ. And friends, if we're doing this out of reverence to Christ, then even as we sing a hymn of praise when we're gathered at church, So there is a delight in being able to faithfully use the circumstances of our life as being from God to step into those and to act in them as we should in order to be a kind of statement of trust in God, reliance on Him, appreciation of Him.

Number seven. It's a delight to have God entrust any work to us. You look there in verse 8, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bond servant or is free. We see a couple more important truths here in verse 8. Number eight, being a Christian is more basic to us than our job.

Being a Christian is more basic to us than being a bond servant or being free. It's more basic to who we are than being an intern or being a Coast Guard technician. It's more important to us than being a director of our company or even a pastor of our church. You realize me being a pastor is far less important than me being a Christian. Me being a Christian is...

the two don't even compare. Me being a Christian is absolutely essential for my well-being eternally. Me being a pastor is just a passing small matter compared to that. As great a thing as it is, it's just like, it doesn't even bear the comparison. It's important to think of us ourselves as Christians most fundamentally.

So if anyone thinks that you're doing work that no one sees and no one appreciates, just a little encouragement for you here today when you look at this verse 8.

The most important person of all is seeing it. No true work done for Him is ever missed. He understands it all. He's not misestimated it. He's got it.

And one more truth for number nine: We will be rewarded by God. We will be rewarded by God. Here we are promised eternal rewards. He doesn't go into exactly what they are, but we see that God sees and weighs all. No one else does ultimately.

Doesn't matter how good your employment situation is. There's no one who can calibrate their response to your life at work as well as God Himself can as He promises to hear our serving others. Gives us an opportunity to present a picture to the world of what it means that we serve God. And we're reassured by this to know that God cares about how we serve. So many more reflections we could give on this.

I'm thankful for a number of you who have communicated to me ways that you've been helped by God to see your own work as significant and important. I remember one illustration I've heard many times. Imagine a stranger walking into a medieval town.

And he sees a bunch of people, they're all doing the same thing. They're fashioning these stones, then putting them over here, moving them from one place to another. And he asks the first one, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm fashioning a stone. I'm squaring it off and putting it over here.

Then he asks another guy who's doing the exact same thing, and he says, oh, I'm building a wall. And he steps back and he appreciates, oh, okay, you're building a wall. He asks a third man, he's doing exactly the same thing, and the third man says with a smile on his face, I'm building a great cathedral to the glory of God. They're all doing the same thing, but they all have a different perspective on what they're doing. One is just looking at the immediate task they're doing.

You know, I've got to get these things signed. I have to get this email off. But the one at the end, the third one, sees the purpose, the overall end. It's like the kind of things Paul talks about back in chapter 3, verse 10, where he says, this work together in the church here actually displays to the to the heavenlies, the manifold wisdom of God. Brothers and sisters, when we go to work, we are going to the place God has given us to perform for His glory, ultimately.

Well, that's something of understanding what the will of the Lord is for our serving. Now, as a Christian, how do I lead? This is what the last verse, verse 9, is about. Well, number two, then leaders should lead like this. Those in authority, treat those under your authority fairly, as the Lord treats everyone.

Because you are both subject to the same authority, both you and those who are underneath your authority. So again, as I thought about to the servants, let me begin with a negative, as Paul does here in verse 9. We're not as leaders, we're not to act as self-pleasers. We're not just to ask, 'What do I want?' 'What can I get by with?' He says, Masters here in verse 9, do the same to them, meaning that soberly, carefully, before the Lord, treat them as you should, in the same way he's just exhorted the workers to behave. Soberly, carefully before the Lord.

So, masters, you need to do the same and stop your threatening. What did he mean by stop your threatening? Well, threatening was an essential component of Roman mastering. Verbal threats were dished out constantly, apparently. Tacitus, the Roman historian in the first century, said, talking about how Roman masters should treat their slaves in their households, he says, It is only by means of terror that we can hope to coerce such scum.

Masters in Paul's world would threaten to beat their bond-servants, even maim them, would threaten them sexually, would threaten to sell them or members of their family. Now the Old Testament warned about slavery's abuses. And here Paul is bringing those kinds of concerns to bear in the church. His words were a higher standard of morality than Roman law demanded. And in exhorting masters to act with integrity, remembering their own accountability to God, Paul was pushing slavery.

He was pushing it more towards what we know today as employment. Workers were not to be used up like animals or machines for the good of their masters. Their lives mattered too. Their families mattered. Their allegiance to God mattered.

Christian masters, presumably that's who he's addressing, masters, he's talking to the Ephesian church, these are Christian masters. The Christian master is wondering, what if I have non-Christian slaves? Do they matter in the same way? Does it matter what I do with them? Christian masters, he says, were to stop their harsh words and instead act as God-pleasers.

Remember this authority you have is temporary. It derives ultimately from God's authority, and you will be accountable for how you use it. You see that phrase, knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven. Friends, from everything I've looked at, this was presenting a radically different idea of slavery.

And slavery was one of the most basic components of the Roman economy. This verse's implications would have been shocking. Though this verse, these verses here, this passage has been used to support slavery, verse 9's limitations are actually the seeds of undermining slavery and proved to be so through the history of Christianity.

The last phrase there in verse 9, that there is no partiality, that is no favoritism with Him, with God. The Bible is clear in teaching, as we heard earlier when Emily read to us from Deuteronomy 10, that God is not partial. He doesn't show favoritism based on our earthly characteristics. He can't be bribed or influenced by worldly greatness or wealth. As the Lord said to Samuel, the Lord sees not as a man sees.

Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. As King Jehoshaphat said to his judges, There is no injustice with the Lord our God or partiality. That's why Peter could say in the New Testament in Acts 10 to the Gentile centurion, God shows no partiality. Friend, God does not favor you because you're in authority or because you're under authority.

There are no earthly reasons for God respecting one person over another because all of us have been made in His image and all of us are in moral deficit to Him. The Bible teaches that we have all lived in ways that we should not have lived, that we have all obeyed ourselves and our desires as opposed to God. And His will. It's what the Bible calls sin. And because of that, we're all in moral arrears to God.

We are all indebted to Him. I don't know about you, but as I stewed on this truth, I think it's particularly striking in a city so marked by stratas and status and rank in the military. In the level of government pay, in the congressional office. We make allowances for persons of rank and privilege in a way God has never done and never will. Sometimes having authority ourselves, we tend to forget that and think there's something special about us.

Maybe we've earned it. That explains why we have this authority and therefore we don't need to concern ourselves so much about treating those underneath us as well. Brothers and sisters, I just want to say as a pastor here, I am so thankful for how I've had testimonies over the years from people who've worked for members of this church, including some of you I'm looking at right now, who have told me that they have appreciated not being treated like a machine, but they've appreciated how you have cared for them and cultivated them, whether it's in the government, or in military service, under members of our congregation too many times to count, I have had people thank me with appreciation for the way this member or that has conducted themselves when they've been in leadership. Praise God for his work, changing self-centered sinners like us into lovers of God and others. Realize that every position of authority you have is a chance, an opportunity, for you to bless those under you.

Of course, the problem for all of us is that our obligation to serve God outweighs all of our obligations to serve others. And we have not served God as we ought, as we should have, and so we thank God for sending his only son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life, trusting his heavenly Father and dying on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, paying our debt. And calling us to trust in Him. God raised Him from the dead showing He accepted His sacrifice. And we now are called to put our faith in Him and so be forgiven of our sins and come into that relationship with God, that appropriate relationship of loving submission to Him and trust to Him that we're called to.

That's the good news in Jesus Christ. You can actually be forgiven of your sins through him. If you're someone here today who doesn't know what that means in your own life, we would love to talk to you about that. There'll be pastors at every door on the way out. Feel free and talk to one of us about how we could be of help to you and learning what that could look like in your life.

If you are someone today who knows and believes this already, it should shape how you lead, how you treat those who work under you or serve you. Friend, you should never be violent or harsh. You should remember that this very role of authority you have in the lives of others is not a treat for you. It's a trial. It's a test.

Just like the shepherds of Israel in Ezekiel 34 we've thought about the last couple of weeks. We don't want to abuse those whom God has committed to our care. We want to use our position and authority to do them good. We want those under our authority to flourish. If you want to think more about that, go read David's last words in 2 Samuel 23.

You think that those who work for you would be surprised to find out that you're a Christian?

Realize that God's omniscience and His coming judgment means that there is an understanding of what really goes on in the office.

I doubt Connie and I were the only ones here who watched Undercover Boss.

It was a show on a number of years ago, I don't know if it's still on, clever idea. Take a very powerful man, a woman who owns a business, but not every employee, of course, knows what they look like. Disguise them, send them in as an entry-level employee to their own company, and see how things go. Well, it gives many entertaining and heartwarming episodes. But friends, that little sense that people commonly have of justice, oh, that person's being mistreated.

Oh, that person's doing really sweet things out of love and kindness to try to help others. That is just a little tiny taste of what Paul is saying here in verse 9 is really the case with God. God is there present in all of our companies, in all of our offices, in all of our arrangements. And He has a better sense of justice and a better sense of mercy than anyone ever on a TV show. And there is coming a time when there will be accountability for everything that's happened in our workplaces.

How can we do better? Well, perhaps we can pray with those that we have authority over. We can certainly pray for them. So when I've taught classes before, I've taken my students' list of the class and I pray through it while I'm teaching them. As pastors here, we regularly give time in our staff meeting, in our elders meetings, to pray through the church membership directory.

That's why we have this, and we encourage you members to do the same.

You can set a good example for those who are underneath you. You can try to make sure that they get the pay they need, or the time off they need.

You can use your authority to respect their commitment to their own local churches and encourage them in it. You can help them to serve God better. You can make sure they're taken care of when they're sick or injured. You can show them compassion and be humane. You can encourage them to be wise and faithful and careful in their work.

And part of that means if you're going to be a good boss, you've got to be willing to give critical feedback. And you've got to be the kind of boss where people know you're not giving it because you're impatient and put out and irritated, but you're giving it to help them. You want to establish that kind of environment, guide them well, teach them under you to value hard work, and be willing to serve everyone in the office by doing your hard work, of getting rid of those who are making work a trial for everyone else. That is one of the toughest parts of your job, but that's why you have the job.

Be slow to speak, be quick to listen, insert general biblical commands here. And pray for those of us who serve as your elders here, as the pastors here, pray for us to be able to lead this church in a God-glorifying way. And let's keep our hope not in our congregation or our elders and pastors, but in Christ.

We lead you best if we lead you to keep our hope together in Christ. This is something of how leaders should lead, given the fact that we too will be giving an account to an all-knowing, impartial Judge.

Given that we have seven baptismal testimonies, we should conclude. But as long-time students, many of you of my sermons, you know when I say we should conclude, We're only about two-thirds of the way there.

Does teaching this kind of idea here of God's justice in the afterlife encourage moral indifference in this life?

That's what the liars in the universities are telling our children.

Or, Does it act as a firmer ground for encouraging moral action in this life? That's the truth.

What do you think? Let me ask you again. Does teaching this kind of idea here of God's justice in the afterlife encourage moral indifference in this life? That's what Marx said. Or does it act as a firmer ground for encouraging moral action in this life?

That's what the Bible says. That's what pretty much all the founding figures in the American Republic said, whether or not they were Christians. That's what Thomas Moore said in Utopia. The one thing that was not to be tolerated was somebody not believing in an afterlife. Because if you don't believe in an afterlife, you don't believe there's any ultimate basis for morality, then that person will do whatever they can for their own advantage now.

What do you think? How does what Paul says here in verse 9 factor against sin in our world? And against serious structures and systems of sin? Does it allow for them? You don't worry about it because you know everything will be fine ultimately.

Or does it fire you to do what is good and right because you know that's what God approves?

The next time you're driving down 95 south of here, I-95, and you're tired of the holiday traffic, get off in Virginia at Exit 8 down in Emporia just before you come to the North Carolina border. If you drive a little less than half an hour east on US 58, you find yourself in Southampton County. This small Virginia county was the place where an enslaved Baptist minister attempted to begin the Second American Revolution in 1831.

He had meant to start it on July 4th of that year for symbolism's sake, but he was unwell, so he delayed it until later in August. For four days scores of enslaved persons rose up against their enslavers deliberately attempting to draw attention to the horror of slavery as it was practiced then. They hoped to awaken the consciences of many around them who called themselves Christians, but who were at the very least not living up to Paul's instructions we've considered today. The terror and tragedy of the Revolution and its failure is well known today. It's been frequently studied.

What set Nat Turner's revolt apart from the perhaps even more famous ancient slave revolt led by Spartacus in the first century BC? What's the difference between them? Spartacus made no moral argument against slavery.

Turner's understanding had been lit by the Bible. And he hoped that through the wrenching terror of a just rebellion, the Bible-reading people around him would wake up and see the light too.

Strange as it may seem, Turner may have had a better grasp on the doctrine of creation than he did on the doctrine of the fall. He hoped for too much.

Southern Virginia at that time, like so much of the United States, was being a terrible, unsettling demonstration to us of how much self-interest can cause us to suppress the truth that we know.

This congregation, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, before that, Capitol Hill Metropolitan Baptist Church, before that, Metropolitan Baptist Church, was founded 13 years after the Civil War settled the question of slavery here in the district and throughout the United States. But the men who pastored this church for the remainder of the 19th century had firsthand experience with American slavery. Our second pastor, Joseph Parker, came to us as an old man, considerably older than I am now. But when he was a young man in his 20s, he had come down from his native New England to teach in Virginia. What he couldn't have known is that he had come down to do that near the same place and near the same time.

That Nat Turner would attempt his second American Revolution. Caleb Morrell reminded me of the conversation that Joseph Parker had probably right around 1831 with a Mr. Nicholas Edmonds, a white slaveholder that had employed Parker as a teacher. The conversation I'm about to recount comes from Parker's own unpublished memoir. So again, back to I-85. If you get off at exit 8 on I-95, and you go an hour and a half west, so you get halfway to Lynchburg, you find yourself in a county very much like Nat Turner's Southampton County.

This is Charlotte County, Virginia. And it was where Patrick Henry's final home was, and it's where our second pastor, Joseph Parker, as a young man, came in 1828 to teach Mr. Nicholas Edmonds' family and household. He later wrote of this time in Virginia, quote, this was my first acquaintance with slavery.

And almost my first with Negroes. Parker spent his spare time going around from family to family trying to recruit young people for a Sunday school he wanted to start. And after some time it seems that a number of them were converted and eventually a new church grew up. Parker later reflected, Five of the children of Mr. Edmonds were converted and united with the church. The parents were very happy.

One evening the father fell on my neck and embraced me saying, All that makes me happy in my family I owe to you. That was in 1830, late, or maybe early 1831. It was before Nat Turner's revolt. I share that background just so you can appreciate the effect of sin to dull our appreciation of what God's Word teaches about His own impartiality. Parker had been asked by Mr. Edmunds soon after he got there to talk of Jesus Christ and His salvation to the enslaved people on his farm.

And Parker reports that some of them were converted. He continued doing this for a couple of years. Well, in his memoir, Parker mentions Nat Turner's War, as he called it, in August of 1831 and reported that it had caused the Edmunds family to talk at the dinner table and to reconsider the rightness of slavery and the desirableness of emancipation. Not long after this, Mr. Edmonds witnessed a black overseer, John, exhorting fellow slaves at a graveside service. John was urging his fellow slaves to repent and be prepared to die.

Mr. Edmonds, the owner, became unsettled by this, and he asked Parker to stop religiously instructing the slaves.

Parker recounts, I was surprised, as I knew John, the Negro overseer, was a thoroughly reformed man, and said, Don't you think John is a Christian? Is he a hypocrite? Is he a worse slave than before? Mr. Edmunds, an elder in the newly established Presbyterian church there, replied, I believe John is a true Christian. If my hope of heaven were half as bright as my confidence that John is fit for it, I should be a much happier man than I am.

Said I, Is John not as good and faithless servant as he was before his conversion? Edmonds, entirely faithful, and I could trust him with anything. But he feels himself a man and accountable to God. For when Isaac was buried the other day, I saw him standing on the pile of earth they had thrown out and heard him exhorting his fellow servants to prepare to meet their God in the judgment. You see, so he, John, feels that he is a man accountable to God.

And you know, sir, that what God requires of a man and what a master may require of his slave may be very different things and opposite. So you must stop instructing the slaves.

Do you believe, said I, that Jesus Christ has given us a system of religion which He has bidden us to preach to every creature which is dangerous for all to be instructed in? Edmunds replied, We can't philosophize on the subject. I tell you sir, we can do nothing toward giving Christian light and instruction. We are bound to keep them as dark as possible. You must desist from teaching them at all.

My heart was stirred and I said, My dear sir, can you stand the full blaze of the light of salvation through Jesus Christ and rejoice for yourself and your family while you shut it entirely from those absolutely dependent on you?

For while you remember that the soul of master and slave are regarded of equal value by him who died to save them and before whom both are soon to appear in the day of judgment, Mr. Edmonds burst into tears and said, Mr. Parker, for God's sake, don't name the day of judgment in connection with slavery, but you must desist from teaching my slaves.

I don't know what your professor at university told you about the effect of Christianity, but here's 1900 years later, the earthquake of verse 9 reverberating an ocean away in the heart of a man who was torn by what he had done to his fellow human beings. And it bothered him so much that he burst into tears.

Do you see the teaching here in Ephesians 6 and similar teaching in the Bible having its effect?

In Parker's teaching and insistence to go on teaching, he was soon after that thrown out as an abolitionist.

Do you see the effect of this teaching? In verse 9, in Mr. Edmund's fearing.

Brothers and sisters, insofar as we have opportunity to serve our earthly masters, without disobeying our heavenly Master, let's take the service and delight in serving them like we would in serving God Himself, because we are.

And in so far as we have opportunity to exercise authority over others made in God's image, let's do that for their temporal and eternal good, just as the Son of God Himself came as a servant. As Jesus taught, He came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Christ's ransoming us is unique, but His self-giving service is universal as a pattern for how those in authority are to use it for those under them. That's what the Bible really teaches from beginning to end.

Let's pray.

Lord God, we thank youk that when we were lost in the darkness of our own sin and self-concern, trying to serve ourselves chiefly, a way that leads only to death, that yout have revealed the truth about yout. That yout sent yout only Son, that yout've sent yout Spirit, that yout've given us yous Word. Lord, we pray that yout would enlighten our hearts, those things that we're not understanding. We pray that yout would cause to become clear to us. And we pray youy'd give us life spiritually to embrace youe in this life youe call us to.

Make us full of thanksgiving this week. Cause us to be a blessing to those we serve and to those we're in authority over. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.