Col No.33 Serving the Lord Christ

1 Corinthians chapter 3, give the children time to find it, nice to see them turning it up in their Bibles. 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and commencing to read from verse 1. And I brethren could not speak unto you as unto spiritual but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.

For ye are not, for ye are yet carnal. For whereas there is among you envying and strife and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men? For while one saith, I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos, are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul? Who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.

Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one, and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are laborers together with God, ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. According to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and another buildeth thereon.

But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest.

For the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire. The fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. I'd be glad if you turn in the New Testament to the letter to the Colossians and I read to you just a few verses right at the end of the third chapter from the 18th to the first of the fourth chapter. Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit in the Lord.

Husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them. Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged.

Servants obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleases, but in singleness of heart, fearing God and whatsoever ye do. And do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done, and there is no respect of persons.

Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven. Well, we continue working our way through this remarkable letter full of good doctrine and of choice, practical teaching for the Christian believer. And in these last few verses, as you will remember from our study, those of you who are regularly with us in the tabernacle last week, the Apostle projects a very familiar scene in front of his readers.

They are aware of the ordinary domestic situation in the average Roman household, with mother and father and children and the slaves, the latter category occupying, so we are told, some one-third of the members of the Roman Empire. And Paul is concerned to take the message of Christianity and to apply it within the context of the family circle. Now, as we continue to look into what he is saying, let me remind you that this is, in one sense, very specialized teaching.

I say that because, as I told you, there are those who dip into certain parts of the New Testament, and they extract its ethical comments, and they say, that's very fine, this is how we are to live, let's just go to it, and let's apply these teachings to our own lives, to societies in the 20th century. But I say that nothing is more disastrous than that approach to the Word of God. I say this for this reason, that when, for instance, Jesus was giving the teaching that we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount, He was setting down a code of ethics, practice, a manner of conduct for people who had trusted Him.

This was not for the ordinary unbeliever. These were ethical teachings for those who were members of His kingdom, the kingdom that He had come to found. And a member of Christ's kingdom, what is he? Well, he is the person who has trusted Jesus as Lord and Master.

He has received the implanting of the Holy Spirit, he has confessed his sins, he has offered the stewardship of his life to the control of Jesus, like asking someone to drive your car, and to take command of the steering wheel. So the Christian has asked Jesus Christ to control his life, and it's to that person, who has known the new birth, who has entered into the experience of conversion, that these practical teachings of the New Testament are addressed. So you see the absurdity of looking at the Sermon on the Mount and working out some practice of conduct, shall we say, for the Trade Union Congress, or for Parliament, for that matter.

What is basic to the outworking of New Testament principles is a handing over of one's complete life to the Lord Jesus, and the resurrection of His Spirit, and practicing a close walk with the Lord God, so that day by day you receive sufficient strength and enabling to be able to live up to these precepts. Now, nothing can be more clear in the teaching of the Apostle Paul than what I have just brought before you. To whom is he addressing these remarks? To the whole of the Roman Empire? Not a bit.

Look at the third verse of the third chapter. He is addressing those who are dead. Spiritually, they have renounced the type of life that they used to live, and in a dramatic fashion, this can be illustrated only in the metaphor of death.

You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. The life that you are now living is a life through which, and in which, God is in control. Again, it's made clear in the first verse, and also in the fourth verse of this chapter.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. And the fourth verse, when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. The Christian is the person who has renounced control of his life, who is not living according to the standards of many people in this world, and whose one controlling factor is the thought that Jesus Christ shall return and rejuvenate the heaven and the earth, and bring in the eternal age.

Now, in the interim, in the time in between these two things, the first and the second appearance of Jesus, there is a life to be lived, a testimony to be born. How are Christians to live? How are they to behave in the domestic situation? How is the Christian employer to treat his employee? Well, all these very practical matters the apostle takes up in this chapter and elsewhere in the epistles that he writes, and he spells out so clearly what should be the pattern of Christian behavior. Now, the fact that Jesus is in control in the domestic situation becomes obvious from a cursory glance, for instance, of verse 18, still in the same chapter.

He's speaking to wives, is the apostle, the authority of the Spirit, and he tells them to love their husbands and to submit themselves to their husbands because it is fit in the Lord. Come down to what he has to say to children in the 20th verse. Obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord.

Now, in the 22nd verse, he's addressing slaves, or if you please, employees, and he's telling them to obey those who have authority over them, not with eye service, as men pleases, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. Three particular categories of life's experience, wedlock, childhood, employment, and when the apostle addresses Christian people who are in these categories, he says that they are to rise to their responsibilities, enter into their relationships as men and women who are completely dominated by, controlled by, the living God. And all this can be wrapped up into one injunction.

It all converges into one logical proposition, which is clear in the 23rd verse and is a repetition of what you find in the 17th. Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men, knowing that you, Christian people of the Lord, you shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. I want to break open those two verses, the 23rd and the 24th, for our consideration, with a context that already is in our mind.

And the first thing that it seems to me, as I have reflected upon the teaching of these two verses, is that here is an enlarging of the priesthood. Here is an enlarging of the priesthood. Christian people are being addressed, whatsoever ye do, whatsoever situation you found yourself in, realize this, verse 24, you are serving the Lord Christ.

In the Old Testament, the priesthood was a very specialized group of people. Members of the tribe of Levi were automatically priests unto God. But one of the great distinctions between Old Testament teaching and New Testament teaching is this, that the concept of priesthood is taken up in the second part of the Bible, and it is developed, it is widened, it is broadened, to the extent that the Apostle Peter, when he is writing the letter that bears his name, speaks of Christian people in terms of being a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people who are set apart for the service of the Living God.

1 Peter 2 and verse 9. Revelation 1 verse 6 is exactly the same thing. We are priests unto the Lord. In other words, the New Testament is saying that every man, every woman, who belongs to Jesus Christ is a priest, and offers priestly service, be it in the context of wedlock, of childhood, or of employment.

Now it's here where we would differ very, very much from the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Luther had great problems. One of the reasons why he went into the monastery in Germany, was because the Catholic Church had determined that there were two orders of life.

There was the religious, and there was the ordinary. And for a person to be religious, well it meant, in the case of Luther in particular, that he took up holy orders, that he went into his monastery, that he became a priest. But later on he was to realize the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, that this distinction between the secular and the sacred was an artificial one.

It is not within the heart of Scripture itself. Now as far as the Church is concerned, the RC Church, we heard the Pope, Pope John Paul II saying not so long ago, priesthood is forever. And that caused a shudder to come across certain sections of the Catholic Church, inasmuch as there are those who would like to move away from the priesthood.

There are many thousands of priests who are resigning from the priesthood year by year. And many of the conservative Catholics were glad to hear the Pope saying, priesthood is forever. You cannot discharge yourself of the obligations of being a priest.

Now we would agree, as we come to the Bible, that the true priest of God, the true priest of the Lord Jesus Christ, cannot discharge himself of his obligations. Because priesthood belongs not just to a special elite within one religious body. Priesthood embraces, describes every person who belongs to Jesus Christ.

Some while ago, I conducted a series of Bible studies on the Christian home. And I talked about the priestly responsibilities of a father, and the priestly responsibilities of a mother, and the priestly responsibilities of a boy, and of a girl. And this is what I believe.

That whatever I am engaged in, whatever I am doing, if I am a Christian, then I am offering service to the Lord God Almighty. I am a priest. Priesthood is comprehensive.

It applies to everyone who is a Christian, and who has confessed his need of Jesus, and has had his sins forgiven. And that priesthood is forever. We shall always be serving the Lord our God.

So in this 23rd verse, you see the enlarging of the priesthood. Whatsoever ye do, you Christian people in Colossae, whether you're slaves, whether you're employers, whether you are parents, whether you are children, whatever context you find yourself in in life, know this, you are priests of the living God. And yours is the honor of serving him now, and always.

Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord. Here is the enlarging of the priesthood, referred to in Scripture. But stay with me for a moment or two, longer.

Still in these verses, for we discover something else that is equally of importance, and indeed is latched on to, hinged to, what I've been teaching you a few moments ago. Here is the elevating of the ordinary. The elevating of the ordinary.

Whatsoever ye do, do it unto the Lord, and not unto men. If I am a priest, then all my service counts for God. That means that certain deductions can be drawn from that proposition, from that premise.

If I am a priest, then all false distinctions between what is religious and what is irreligious are broken down. What I'm arguing is this, that the lady who is attending to domestic affairs in her kitchen is serving God. Hear me, I mean this without qualification.

Is serving God as much as I might claim to be serving God, trying to explain the Scriptures this morning. There is no distinction between the spiritual and the secular. Here is the elevating of the ordinary.

All types of service in which we engage is worship to the Lord God. Some people think that worship is just attending services, but that's not so. Attending services is a lovely privilege, but worshipping God is offering service in everything that you engage in in your day-by-day life.

Out on the streets of Calcutta you will find the colleagues of Sister Teresa, and they will be picking up the down-and-outs, literally the dying, of that vast, fascinating, awful city. They will do it in the name of Jesus. Mother Teresa sometimes teaches and perhaps goes too far in her mystical approach, that when she is ministering to someone who's dying, she's ministering to Christ.

When she's helping someone who's in a desperate situation, she's helping the Lord. And the basis for her own thinking, and as I say I think it needs a little bit of qualification, is at the end of the 25th chapter of Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus refers in these words, and I'm not reading them all, you'll have to slot it into context later on as you read the whole passage yourself. Jesus says, I was a stranger and ye took me not in, naked and ye clothed me not, sick and in prison and ye visited me not.

And the idea in what Jesus is here teaching is that the person who is ministering to the sick, who is giving hospitality, is offering worship to the living God. It's the Apostle James, who when he defines what true religion is, has to say this, pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world. There is no mention of attending church, though obviously it doesn't preclude that sort of worship.

Here is dealing with the practicalities of life, of offering hospitality, of ministering to those who are in need. The person who does that is offering worship to the Lord. So we come back to what the Apostle here has to say, here is the elevating of the ordinary, whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord.

Let me make a further deduction. Evangelism can continue from a variety of pulpits. There are those who seem to think that evangelizing is just preaching and teaching and coming to church.

That is one aspect, but it's only one aspect What becomes the greatest evangelical factor for winning men and women for Jesus Christ today? It cannot be the Christian pulpit. One would wish that this was the case, but logically it cannot be. In the United Kingdom for instance, only 10% of the people will be along in a church at any one time.

So how are the other 90% going to hear of the gospel? Not through the likes of me. Evangelism can be the living of the life before the ordinary unbeliever, doing what you have to do, rising to your responsibility on the workshop, in the workshop, in the school, in the home, doing it heartily as to the Lord, so that other people look upon your life and your behavior and your manner of deportment, and they see something that is completely different to what they experience in other situations, and they ask the reason why. You say, well this sounds all so very nice and so very idealistic.

Well that may be so, but it's a practical idealism. Go back to the Old Testament story of Joseph. Here is this man.

He is in the employment of Potiphar. He's really a slave. He's been sold into servitude by his brother, by his brothers.

And after the passing of the months, what happens to Joseph? He's elevated. He's promoted. Potiphar sees something different about this man.

He's never had such a slave like this one, and so he entrusts him with responsibility. You see his life is speaking for him, whilst he's engaged in a domestic situation. Joseph then falls foul of Potiphar, and he's thrown into jail.

And exactly the same principle is seen outworking what he did, even in the prison. He did it heartily, as to the Lord, not unto men. What was the consequence? The jailer comes along, and he promotes Joseph, and he gives him the responsibility of the rest of the prisoners.

I say it's the Joseph principle that is, if not mentioned by that actual phraseology, is prominent in the New Testament as a means of evangelizing. The elevating of the ordinary. It does matter what type of wife I am.

It does matter how I control myself as a mother in front of my children. It does matter how I conduct my family affairs as a husband. All these things are not distinct from what happens here on a Sunday morning.

They're vital to it, for worship is a big word. It's a comprehensive term, and those who will serve Jesus Christ must serve him Monday through to Saturday, and not just on a Sunday. For if the latter is the case, then it's a cosmetic Christianity that does not bear analysis at all.

There have been people who have been won for Christ by those who have been doing the most menial of tasks. How did the slave in Paul's day continue? Here he was, one-third of the Roman Empire, given over to servitude, and he comes to Jesus Christ, but he's still manacled. He's still got his problems.

His life is not his own. How does he manage to continue? How does he cope with his frustration? Well, he does so by realizing this, that it's only at one level that he's serving his earthly master. He's only serving him according to the flesh, verse 22, but he realizes that there's another master.

There's a greater person. There is the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is working for him. You remember that great hymn which says, a servant with this clause makes drudgery divine.

Who sweeps rumors from thy laws makes that and the action fine. Here is not only the enlarging of the priesthood, here is the elevating of the ordinary. Whatever I do, I can offer it to the Lord God as worship, and I do it heartily.

So here I am as a wife, as a husband, as an employer, as an employee, as a child, as a parent, and in those relationships I want success. I want a successful marriage. I want a successful home.

I want to be successful in my employment, but the most important thing in those categories is not the pleasing of my wife, the pleasing of my parents, the pleasing of my employer. The most important thing is the pleasing of the Lord God, who says in those situations, worship me. Offer me the sacrifice of your heart and your life.

The enlarging of the priesthood, the elevating of the ordinary. Finally, our accountability in the future. Our accountability in the future.

Look again at the 24th verse, knowing that of the Lord, ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve the Lord Christ. A Christian does not control his beliefs, he is controlled by them. Let me repeat that.

A Christian does not control his beliefs, he is controlled by them. What is the controlling factor in my life as a Christian? It's the thought that God is sovereign in my experience and Jesus Christ is coming back again. And an even equally wonderful thought is the fact that in the future that Jesus will bring into this scene of time when he rejuvenates the heavens and the earth, I've got a program.

I'm going to be involved in this. This doctrine is hated, it's scorned, it's despised by secularist philosophers. It made Lenin speak of the opium of Christianity.

But despite all the scorn that's heaped upon it, Christian people are told in both the Old and in the New Testament that this life that they now know is not going to last forever. They are but strangers going through. It was Abraham's beliefs that controlled his lifestyle.

He was seeking for a city whose maker and whose builder was God. He wasn't concerned with the here and now in number one position. He was concerned with the ultimate that God had in store for him.

It's the same with our Lord Jesus Christ, who for the joy that was set before him, he assumed the cross. He assumed the the position of one who would offer his body as a substitutionary sacrifice for those who would trust in him. He went through the here and now for the joy that there was in the future.

And the controlling factor of my life is this, in this 24th verse, I am accountable to the Lord from whom I shall receive the reward of the inheritance as I serve the Lord Christ. Ian in the reading earlier on referred to the fact that Christians will one day be brought before the judgment seat of Christ. And the life that we have lived will be assessed.

This has got nothing to do with our salvation at all. We are saved through simple trust in Jesus Christ. But in the interim between our salvation and being called into the presence of the Lord Jesus, we have opportunities for service as husbands and wives, as children, as employers, as employees.

And that service is going to be assessed. It's going to be evaluated. The apostle here makes reference to those who will receive the reward of the inheritance because they serve the Lord Christ.

I want to ask you, do you really appreciate these things? Do you understand that this is the teaching of Scripture? That one day you shall stand before the Lord God and he will ask you how you have lived your life even as a Christian. And the Bible talks about degrees of reward as it talks about degrees of punishment. There will be those as the apostle Paul who shall be saved as by fire.

There will be nothing to show, no gold, no silver, no precious stones of service illustrating what they have done for Jesus. They will be saved but by the skin of their teeth. And the Bible says that we are to realize right now the fact that there are rewards.

There are reasons beyond and above our love for the Lord God that should promote us to live lives that are pleasing to him in the domestic categories in which we find ourselves. Oh to live for Jesus in such a way that brings pleasure to him. Oh to be a priest of the Living God in the way that I control my house, look after my children, look after my husband.

Oh to be a priest of the Living God in the way that I go up to London on a Monday and a Tuesday and so on and attend to my business commitments. Endeavoring by my life to illustrate the very virtues of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh to be a priest unto God who one day when I enter into the eternal age shall receive the award of the inheritance having served the Lord Christ to have his accolade.

Well done you good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord. Here in these two verses is the enlarging of the priesthood.

Here is the elevation of the ordinary. Here is a reminder of our accountability in the future that one day, come next month, come next year, come this decade, we shall be called into the presence of God to give an account for the way that we lived our lives as Christian people. Let's serve the Lord Christ then with all our hearts.

Amen. Father we pray that during this week we shall know the elevating of the ordinary, that in every task in which we're engaged we shall realize that it directly affects our service for you. Help us to do it heartily unto yourself even those boring and dull jobs that otherwise would frustrate us.

At times when we're at wit's end because of our responsibilities within our homes, help us Lord to realize that you're involved in what we're doing. You want us to be successful and you'll grant us your peace and you'll give to us your wisdom. So we pray that as you've enlarged our concept of the priesthood this morning elevate the ordinary as we attend to it during the days that are yet to be for Jesus' sake.

Amen.