This sermon from Ephesians 6 challenges listeners to embrace the transformative power of the gospel, particularly through the doctrine of vocation. It argues that all work, even seemingly menial tasks, is a calling from God and a means of blessing, urging Christians to live out their faith in every aspect of life.
Transcript
Introduction: Transforming Culture and the Doctrine of Vocation
Please take your Bible and turn with me to Ephesians 6. The passage that I’d like to direct your attention to begins in verse 5. Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 5.
As we approach this passage today, before I read it, the things I want to focus on, first of all, the power of the gospel to change culture. I think that we have evidence to that in this passage especially. It’s relevant to us today because Christianity in the United States and throughout the West has lost a great deal of influence. Society has moved away towards atheistic nihilism, and you see that taking shape in culture all around us. Recovering the strength of the New Testament church and the power that it had to change culture is something that is really important to us today. We need to recognize some of the differences between what characterized the early church and what characterizes us today.
Part of that is the second thing, and that is we need to recover the doctrine of vocation, which we find in this passage. God’s salvation reaches every part of an individual. Christ died for the whole person, and so what’s transformed is the whole person’s life. Yet we have, for generations now, compartmentalized Christianity. That’s the kind of thing I want us to be thinking about as we go through this as well. We need to be focusing as the early church did on every aspect of life. We find that in this passage as we come to it in Ephesians chapter 6, beginning in verse 5. This is God’s holy, inherent word.
Ephesians 6:5-9: Instructions for Slaves and Masters
> Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ. Not by way of eye service, as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill render service, as to the Lord and not to men. Knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same thing to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their master and yours is in heaven and that there’s no partiality with him.
Let’s pray and ask the Lord’s help with this passage. Father, we thank you for your truth and your word. As we come to this passage, complicated in so many ways because of cultural issues, because of our ways of thinking now, we ask Father for your help and blessing. Guide us into right application from your truth. Keep us in your truth, we pray, and guide us, we ask in the name of our Savior. Amen.
The Sinful Institution of Slavery in the Roman World
This passage begins with slaves. The Greek word that’s used here describes a person who is in bondage to another person. And slavery was a sinful institution. It was a sinful institution in the first century. It was a sinful institution through the centuries. It was sinful certainly in the American expression of it, back in the 1800s and the early part of this nation.
This passage can be a little bit startling if you realize that. Paul is addressing slaves. He tells them to be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh. Why is that? Let me underscore this a little bit and describe what slavery was like in the first century Rome. There were differences from what we know of American history. There were significant differences. It wasn’t particularly racially based. Most of Rome’s slaves came from their conquest. They would conquer a nation, and they would capture people, and they would bring them back as slaves, and they used them in all sorts of trades.
But it was sinful because it denied the personhood of an individual. Slavery in the first century, just like in our practice, denied the personhood of the individual, as if the person was not a person at all. Here’s William Barclay, who gives us a great deal of the cultural background. He says, according to Roman law, he was not a person, but was a thing. He paraphrases Aristotle. Aristotle says that there can never be a friendship between a master and a slave, for they have nothing in common. For a slave is a living tool, just as a tool is an inanimate tool.
Another Roman writer, a Latin writer, writing on agriculture, divides agricultural instruments into three classes: tools that converse, which are slaves—they can speak language. Then you have beasts, which can make noises, but they don’t communicate anything. And then you have carts and tools like that, which were mobile but inanimate objects basically. That was the categories that they placed people into: the articulate, the inarticulate, and the mute. That was the idea. They’re not recognizing these people to be people.
One of the Roman lawyers says, we may note that it’s universally accepted over a slave that if a slave ran away, it was usually death. But maybe, if a slave runs away, they would just brand his forehead with the letter F, which stood for fugitivus, which means a runaway. They either killed them or he was branded. It was a terrible situation. The slave, if you can imagine, you’re in the control of another person. The work that you did, you might profit from, but your master profited the most. In the Roman world, you did all kinds of different types of work. It wasn’t just physical labor. Slaves in the Roman world did things like, most accountants and most physicians were slaves in the Roman world. More than half the population in the first century Rome was slaves.
They did all sorts of things. But the terror was that you lived at the caprice of your master. Whatever your master decided, that would be your fate. There’s lots of terrible examples. Augustus crucified a slave because he killed a pet quail. Juvenal tells of a Roman matron who ordered a slave to be killed for no other reason than she lost her temper with him. Her husband protested, and she said, “You call a slave a man, do you? He has done no wrong, you say? Be it so. It is my will and my command. Let my will be the voucher for the deed.”
It was terrible. It was a terrible place to be because no matter what might happen, you had no security, you had no rights, you’re not recognized as a human being. It was an evil institution. People who were slaves had no right as a citizen certainly. They didn’t have rights of being as a human being.
One Roman writer said, whatever a master does to a slave, undeservedly, in anger, unwillingly, in forgetfulness, after careful thought, knowingly, unknowingly, whatever he does is judgment, justice, and law. That’s first century Rome. It was a sinful institution.
Yet, you have this commandment: Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh. Be obedient. Why is that?
Why the Command? The Goodness of Work and the Doctrine of Vocation
There’s something here that we need to focus on that goes beyond the institution of slavery. That’s what God is focusing on in this word. That is the work that the slave is doing. Not the institution of slavery itself, but first of all, the work that the slave is doing is a good work. It’s a good work.
Back in Genesis, work is part of God’s good design. It’s a blessing, and it’s enjoyed by Adam and Eve in the garden. Before sin ever took place, they were told to work and to keep the garden. It’s instituted as a blessing from God, and a means by which we can receive blessings.
And so the work that the slave does, if he did physical labor, if he served as an accountant or a physician, or whatever the work was, there’s a means of grace, there’s a means of blessing that is coming about because of the work done. It’s a calling. It’s a vocation. The work itself is a vocation, and it is good.
So the institution is wrong, but the work they’re doing is good. The work they’re doing is a vocation. It’s God’s work that the slave is doing. What I’ve just described is the doctrine of vocation. It’s the teaching of vocation, and it’s a doctrine that’s been lost. It’s a doctrine that’s been poorly communicated for some time, and certainly not practiced much in many of our churches. I think that one of the reasons we failed to impact our culture in the way that the first century radically impacted the Western world, the Roman world, it certainly is because we’ve lost some of these things, especially the doctrine of vocation.
The Reformation and the Recovery of Vocation
Back during the Middle Ages, the doctrine was lost. It was recovered for a time. It was recovered during the time of the Reformation. During the Middle Ages, the church in the Middle Ages began to, there was a syncretism. There was a mixing of the Christian faith with Greek philosophy. Greek philosophy taught that material things are bad, and that the spirit is good. But physical things like work, for instance, there’s no value in any of the physical things. The church adopted some of that mentality, and people began to think that way. As a result, they had a doctrine of vocation. Part of that was that if you felt like you had a call, then that meant that you were called into the church in some way. That meant that you’re going to be a priest or a nun or work as a cleric in the church. You’re going to maybe be part of a monastery. You’re going to separate yourselves from the rest of the world to do the real, true, holy work.
And the rest of the people, you could be saved, of course, but you’re mired in the work. The work you’re doing is necessary for life, but you’re mired in the world, and that’s sort of a thing that is not, it’s obviously not as good as being able to receive a true call.
When the gospel was recovered, one of the things that people realized as they were studying the scriptures again, opening up the word of God, is that God didn’t view it like that at all. God didn’t have a separation between physical things and saying that that was bad and spiritual things being the true good. Not at all. When God created the world, he created the world and declared it good, so the material thing is good. The Lord Jesus, when he came, he entered into this Earth as a physical human being. The fact that God entered into this world as a human being, the material world, shows that the material things are something that’s valued by God. The fact that he brings about the resurrection shows that he’s valued by God. The Lord Jesus grew up in a family, in a family that had an occupation. His dad was a carpenter, and he grew up working with his hands. And it was a good work.
God’s Provision Through Human Work
Martin Luther had a lot to say about the doctrine of vocation. He said when we pray the Lord’s prayer, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread. He gives us our daily bread. He gives us our daily bread by means of the farmer who planted and harvested the grain, and the baker who made the flour into the bread, and the person who prepared our meal. You can add a lot of other people to that list today. The truck driver who drove those goods to the market, the lady at the checkout counter who helped you with your purchase, or even the advertisers who called your attention to where to go in order to find the thing that you need, the part of the food that you’re looking for.
The Bible says that he provides food for those who fear him. We read that a few moments ago in Psalms 111. But he also provides food for those who do not fear him, to all flesh, it tells us in Psalms 136. And how does he do that? He does it in part by using other human beings. It’s God who’s responsible. It’s God’s goodness that is being used in order to give us these good things. God could give us food by raining manna down as he did to the children in the wilderness, the Israelites in the wilderness. He could give us bread in a direct way. But he uses people. He does it through the work of human beings who in the capacities that he gives them, are able to be used to serve other people. And this is people at large. This is people in general.
It goes along with two things: the idea that God is the source of all goodness, and he’s sovereign over all his creation. He’s sovereign over all people.
And it’s true for all things. Every way that you’re blessed, it comes to us through means usually. That’s the hand of God at work. That’s not something that we should take for granted. It is the work of God. We get beauty and meaning through artists who give us beautiful things. We can travel and see things through the people who make automobiles and airplanes and tend to service stations. We have reasonable health because of people who collect our garbage every week and sanitation workers and all sorts of capacities like that. These are things that we take for granted, but this is the work of God’s blessing in the world. Every good and perfect gift comes from his hand. Every good and perfect gift comes from God’s hand. When we pray, he uses means to satisfy our prayers.
We get to where we’re thinking that God’s work is mysterious and mystical all the time. We’re not grateful for the good things that he gives us in the physical world. We divide it all up into two ways. We say, “Here’s the physical world and here’s all the physical properties that determine how things happen.” No, God is behind it. He’s behind the laws of nature. He’s behind the people. He gives the vocations to the people and the giftedness that enables them to do the things that they do in order that people can be blessed through them.
It’s the idea of vocation. That word vocation has been co-opted. We talk about vocational training or vocational education. But it’s a theological word. The word vocation comes from a Latin word that means calling. This tells us something about what this is and how it differs. If you have a vocation, that means someone’s called you to it, and you’re working not for yourself, but to benefit someone else.
It transforms the way you think. We get caught up—and I have in the past, growing up especially in the church and early on in my Christian experience as an adult—you think, you look at the church and the people there, and who are the spiritual people in your church? You think, “Look at all the things this person does in the church. There’s a spiritual, godly person. What would we do without that person?” But you see, we can compartmentalize our life, and we have. We’re Christian on Sunday mornings, and on the things that we do, and if something counts, it has to be in the church. It has to be structured by the church and part of a church responsibility and job.
But you see, this transforms that. God’s calling reaches every part of your life. Your work that you are called to, your occupation where you spend most of your life, your vocation as a student, or your vocation in the job that you work—that’s where you’re to be a Christian. That’s where you’re to live out your Christian life in obedience to the Lord. That transforms everything. It transforms the way you think. It takes the mundane thing that you’re struggling with at work, and the thing that, I said work is good and it was ordained in the garden, but you remember the sin that came and then there is toil. There are the thorns that came about as a result of the sin. It’s difficult. We live in a sinful world. God’s operative in the world through good things, but Satan’s operative as well. You do a job, and sometimes it feels like it’s pointless. Sometimes it’s painful.
But when we get beyond that, we see that the work that God calls us to is a good work, where we’re able to bless people, be part of the blessing and the answer to prayer for people.
No Menial Work with the Lord
We are, Peter tells us, a holy priesthood. Martin Luther said the word priest should become as common as the word Christian. That’s what we all are. There are not two classes of people. There’s not the person who is the pastor of the church, the clergy, and the laity. No, if you’re in Jesus Christ, you belong to him. We’re all called to his service. It isn’t that the work that the pastor does has great spiritual value and the work that you do has none or little. It’s not that way at all. All are serving the Lord and all will be valued equally.
There is no menial work. The work that you do as a believer, the work that you do in faith, God calls you to a task. Raising a family is a vocation. If you’re a mother in a family and you show care to your children, that’s a vocation. If you clean up your house, that’s one of the things we have to do. It’s a menial task that we don’t think much about. That’s a task that’s very valuable. Over the past few years, we’ve had several experiences where we spent some time in the hospital. Once with Justin with the rhabdomyolysis thing that he did for about a week in Cleveland. And a couple of times for me. One of the things that I paid attention to, I’m not sure exactly why, is the people who came in the rooms to clean. Those are people who are often not respected. Do you think of the person who comes in and mops the floor and cleans the walls in a hospital room the same way you think of the doctor? What if they didn’t? What if they didn’t do their job? Those people save more lives than the doctors do. What if you didn’t clean your house? What if you didn’t hire anyone to do it? What if it was never cleaned? You wouldn’t live very long. It’s a necessary job. And it’s a job through which you are blessed. People are blessed through those menial things. There is no menial work with the Lord. God uses people who are faithful in their work.
Somebody is gifted with a really wonderful gift, a great musician. They go to do the work in the world, and if they are a Christian, you’ll hear somebody say often, in most churches, not so often around here anymore, but you hear, “They should dedicate that to the Lord. Just imagine what they could do.” What they mean by that is, they should do all of their work and music in the church. The idea of vocation is not that. No, they’re to do the work in the world. We’re to be in the world, not of the world, but in the world. We’re to impact the world with Christianity.
The Transforming Power of Vocation: The Example of Onesimus
Here you have slaves. They’re not respected. They have no rights. You have believers coming from the outside, Jewish people like the Apostle Paul. They come in. Do they say, “When you gain your freedom, come and talk to me.”? No, they come and bring the message of the gospel to these people who have some of the lowest positions in society. They take truth to them and they say, “God loves you so much that he sent his son the Lord Jesus to change your life. He took upon himself the sin burden that you owe to God.” And he lived a righteous life which he freely gives to you if you receive it in faith. He says, “You’re not a person, just a thing. You’re not just a thing, but you’re a person that God values. God values you, and you’re precious before God.” “You’re not just a person, but you’re a brother, you’re a sister in Jesus Christ. You belong to us.”
Then they tell them something extraordinary. It’s this passage: “What should you do about your slavery?” “Do a good job in your work.” That’s what he says. Be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh. Show them respect. That’s what that phrase “with fear and trembling” means. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. In the sincerity of your heart, do your work as if you’re serving Christ, not this person. And that’s the point. The work that they are doing is a good work that God is in. People are being blessed by the physician who does his work to heal the sick, by the accountant who keeps track of all the things, by the laborer who tills the earth, who digs the foundation for the new building, the carpenter who does that work. The work that they do brings benefit to mankind, and God is using that to bring blessing to people, and their work has value. It’s purposeful.
This advice is amazing because it changes the relationship of this institution of slavery. It does so for all believers, and ultimately, by the way, it took about 300 years, but it began to wane. Within 100 years, slaves started getting more recognition and rights. They were allowed to start reporting their masters if they were being cruel to them. That’s a radical change. And within 300 years, you began to see some decline in slavery in Rome. But the relationship changed. For those people who were Christians, it changed radically in each relationship.
He addresses both the slave and the master as Christians. He calls attention here to the fact that the master is to give up threatening because he has to answer to his Master. And so the relationship begins to change. It changed culture, changed that culture.
I’ve got a lot to say about this thing of vocation, but I’m not going to try to do it all today. Let me explain how this change worked, at least with one slave in this particular context, right here, in the book of Ephesians. If you look down towards the end of this book, in verse 21:
The Apostle Paul had sent a man, his name was Tychicus. He was the one that carried this letter to the Ephesian church. Paul says, “So that you know what’s going on with me and how I’m doing, Tychicus, my beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord, will make everything known to you.” So Tychicus is carrying this letter that Paul writes to the Ephesians. He’s doing something else too. He’s carrying two more letters. The other letter that he carried was to the church at Colossae. In Colossians chapter 4 and verse 7, it says, “As to all my affairs, Tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bondservant in the Lord, will bring you information. For I’ve sent him to you for this very purpose that you may know about our circumstances that he may encourage your hearts. And with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your number, they will inform you about the whole situation here.”
So, Tychicus is carrying the letter to the Ephesians, he’s carrying the letter to the Colossians. He’s coming all the way from Rome, more than a thousand miles, to carry these letters. And he’s accompanied by Onesimus. He has one more letter, and that was to a man in whose household in Colossae, the church was meeting. His name is Philemon. We have that very small letter that comes just before Hebrews. To Philemon, he writes, “I appeal to you for my child Onesimus.” By the way, the word Onesimus means useful. It was a slave’s name. “I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment.” That means that Onesimus came to him. He witnessed to him and he’s come to faith in Jesus Christ. “Who formerly was useless to you, but now useful both to you and me.” He’s a runaway slave, Onesimus. What happens to runaway slaves? They’re put to death, or if spared, they’re branded. “I’ve sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart. I wish to keep him with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel. But without your consent, I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be in effect by compulsion, but of your own free will. For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me. But how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” That’s Onesimus the slave being restored to the one who was his master, Philemon. What happened to Onesimus? Was he branded? Was he put to death?
The Apostle John had a couple of disciples. One of them’s name was Polycarp. John discipled Polycarp. Polycarp and the Apostle John discipled another man whose name was Ignatius. The two of them. In the first century, you have a disciple in the faith, his name is Ignatius. Ignatius wrote things. Among the things that he wrote, he mentions somewhere right around the late 90s of the first century, there was a man named Onesimus who was the bishop of Ephesus. The church that Paul’s writing to right here. He’s returning a slave to the people of Colossae. He’s writing to this church, and he’s giving instructions to slaves how they can live rightly before the Lord, to serve the Lord even in the worst of work situations. You think you have a bad work situation? Serve the Lord in your work. Not by way of eye service as a man pleaser, but as a slave of Jesus Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. When you do the will of God from the heart, people are blessed through it. You can remember that there’s a reward for it. Knowing that whatever good thing one does, the work that you do in faith, you’ll receive back from the Lord. If you’re a slave, it’s true. If you’re a free man, it’s also true. Let’s pray.
Father, I know this is a complicated passage and the doctrine of vocation is complicated in itself, and we certainly can’t answer questions in one session like this that must be in people’s minds. Yet it is true, and I pray Father that you give us grace as we unfold it in the next couple of weeks. We ask that you help us to stop compartmentalizing our life, to recognize the work that you call us to. If it seems mundane to us or unimportant, it is not that at all. It is precious and valuable. It is a means by which you bring blessing and good to the world. Help us to value, for Christ’s sake, the gifts that you’ve given us. Help us to realize that all of life is where we serve as Christians, and especially in the work that you have called us to. Lord, we pray that you’re faithful and no matter what job is before us at the moment, guide us into your truth. Help us, Father, as we struggle with obedience in these areas. Father, I thank you for the grace of Jesus Christ. Salvation is not based on any works that we do, but on the great work that Christ has already done for us. So it saves us from all sorts of sins that we can find in the workplace. Thank you, Father, for your work, for your grace, and for the good that you do and the good that you work through us. We praise you for it in Christ’s name. Amen.
