Psyched Up!

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends, how in the world are you? Well, this is your friend, Dr. Cook and I’m delighted for the opportunity of investing a few moments with you around the Word of God. What we try to do on these broadcasts is to put a handle on the Word of God so that you can get a hold of it for yourself. And I’ve just been praying that God the Holy Spirit would put into my words, the content of His eternal truth and then that He would saturate it with His love and peace and power, and that someone will find in what is said today, the answer to your own personal need.

Now, we’re looking at Colossians 3, we’ve come to the passage where Paul is dealing with what we call today employees, he says, “Servants.” And that is the Greek word, doulos, which means slaves. Well, we don’t have slavery in our culture, thank God. But we do have employers and employees. In chapter 4, he gets around to the employers. But right now, he’s talking with the employees, and there’s quite a long section dedicated to those of us who are working for an employer. So he says, “Employees.” I’m using that word, paraphrasing it, “Obey in all things, your masters according to the flesh. Do what you’re asked to do and do it cheerfully and thoroughly.” That’s the force of that one, but not with eye-service. Don’t just work when somebody’s looking. Eye-service is a compound word, I told you that the last time we got together, didn’t I? A compound word with the combination of the word for eye, and the word for servants.

So actually what you’re saying is don’t just work when somebody’s looking at you. But he says, “In singleness of heart, fearing God.” Now, why does a person speed up his work when the boss shows up? Because there is an innate fear that if he is found loafing, the boss may fire him. Isn’t that true? There is that innate fear, a combination of respect and apprehensiveness and nervousness or whatever you wanna call it. When the boss shows up, people tend to work harder because they feel that if they are seen to be loafing and goofing off and doing nothing, the boss might say to them, “I don’t know how I’ll get along without you, but I’d rather. Go pick up your pay envelope at the pay office.” They don’t want that to happen, so when somebody’s looking, they work harder. Well, that’s human nature, I guess, isn’t it? Not with eye-service, but he says, “In singleness of heart, fearing God.”

Now, the Bible uses the expression, “the fear of God.” There are a great many different places where that expression is used as you know, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” “Fear not them which kill the body and after that have no more that they can do.” Jesus told us in Luke, chapter 12. “I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear Him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell. Ye, I say unto you fear Him.” Jesus used the same expression, the fear of God. Now, what is the Bible concept of fearing God? Is it that we have… Are cravenly afraid of Him and we shrink back in abject terror at the thought of God’s presence? No, God is our loving heavenly Father. Jesus said, “When you pray, say, our father.” And he said, “Your Father which is in Heaven, knoweth that you have need of all these things, your heavenly Father knoweth.” So that our relationship, because of the Lord Jesus, our redeemer who paid the price for our sin and who died tasting death for every man, rose again, triumphant over the tomb ascended at the right hand of God the Father, and he’s there interceding for us, because of the Lord Jesus Christ, we can come boldly, as the writer to the Hebrews says, “Into the throne of grace, and we can say, Abba Father, Papa, God.”

No, in the New Testament sense, especially the idea of the fear of God is not abject terror where you shrink away in terror from somebody. No, he’s your Father. Rather, it’s a combination of love and respect and awe. Love and respect and awe, singleness of heart, fearing God, who do you love the most? Who do you respect the most? And concerning whom you keep, is it someone in awe who inspires you most thoroughly with a sense of awe? These are the questions that will help you decide whether or not you really fear God in the New Testament sense. Well, it must be admitted that oftentimes, we put other things and other people ahead of our duties to the Lord.

I was talking, many years ago, it would be back in the 1940s, I guess, to some erring church member, and he was… His name was Pop, they called him, that was his nickname all over town, Pop. And I said, “Pop.” I said, “You know, you, you’re not really as faithful to the Lord as I wish you were.” “Oh,” he says, “Preacher, I know it, I know it.” And I said, “It’s been a long time since you gave anything to the Lord, hasn’t it?” “Yes,” he says, “You’re right.” Well, I said, “Why do you do that?” “Well,” he says, “Preacher, you know God isn’t after me quite so much as the rest of my creditors.” [chuckle] And, you see, he had more respect for the human beings to whom he owed money than he had for Almighty God, to whom he owed his very life. And I think you and I are in the same boat many a time, aren’t we? Yes. Be it said to our shame. That’s true.

Now, especially in your relationship with other human beings, what you do and how you do it will be determined not primarily by your attitude toward the job, but by your attitude to Almighty God. Let’s learn that lesson together, shall we? What you do on the job and how you do it will be determined not primarily by your feeling toward the boss and the job, but it will be determined, that is what you do and what you say and your attitude on the job, will be determined by your attitude toward Almighty God. Because if you’re doing what you’re doing for Him that will ensure that you will be giving the boss a good day’s work for what he pays you. Do you follow that logic? Not only that, but you’re gonna enjoy your job more.

There was a young lady in a church that I served as pastor who worked in a local factory. And her job was to operate an automatic machine into one end of which there were fed great quantities of a tiny steel wire. Maybe not more than… Well, less, quite a bit less than a 16th of an inch thick, very small steel wire. Out of the other end of that machine after it had gone through the stamping process came out millions of tiny little cap screws that were used in the manufacture of timepieces, timers and whatnot. And her job all day long was to sit at that machine and make sure there was enough wire feeding in one end and that these millions of tiny little cap screws came out the other end and that there wasn’t any defect or the machine didn’t jam up or whatever.

Now that, to me, would be one of the most boring jobs in the world. I ventured to say so, one day I said, “Mary, you must get very bored working as you do at that automatic machine.” She smiled at me beautifully and she said, “Well, Pastor Bob,” she said, “I just think that I’m doing it for Jesus. Oftentimes, when I’m sitting there, tending the machine, I will say, Dear Lord Jesus, I’m doing this for you.” And she said, “My heart fills with joy and I’m not bored at all.” Isn’t that beautiful? Have you tried that on any boring job in the office or the shop, beloved? The next time you face an unpleasant task or a task that bores you, or let’s say frightens you even, because there’s some kinds of work that we just don’t like to tackle ’cause it frightens us, or at least we don’t like to start it. Next time you face a job that bores you or frightens you, would you just look up and say, “Lord Jesus, I’m gonna do this for you.”

Not with eye-service as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. He’s the one to whom you’re responsible. And so now we come in to the verse 23. What I’ve been saying runs now right into what Paul is continuing to teach. He said, “In whatsoever you do, do it heartily.” Do it heartily as for the Lord and just for people, whatever you do, do it heartily. “Psuches” is the word there in Colossians 3:23 from which we get our word psychology, and from which the young people get their expression “psyched up”. He says, “Whatever you do, do it psyched up, because you’re doing it for the Lord” [chuckle] “Knowing… ” now, why should you have that attitude? “Knowing”, he said, “That of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve… ” you really are employed by, in other words, “the Lord Jesus Christ”.

Whatever you do, do it psyched up because you’re doing it for the Lord. Oh, I want to relearn that lesson every day of my life and I want you, beloved friend, also to share the thrill of doing the ordinary things of life for Jesus. You see, our blessed Savior is interested not only in what you say to him in church, when you are, as we say, “officially religious”, but he’s interested in sharing your whole life. Jesus said, “If a man love me he will keep… ” that means obey, “my words. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him”. Now when somebody makes his abode with you, that means he lives in your house. And so you have contact with him or her not only at stated formal occasions, but you see the person before he has shaved in the morning, let us say. You are together at breakfast and lunch and dinner. You have housework to do and beds to make and homework to do and lawns to mow and ever so many other ordinary things that are not at all religious, and if somebody makes His abode with you, He shares all of those things, doesn’t He?

Jesus said I want to share the way you live. Oh, this will make all of life, beloved, an adventure with your savior. Whatever you do, do it psyched up, because you’re doing it for Jesus. Hallelujah. We’ll get back to that the next time we get together.

Dear Father, today may we do what we do excited about this privilege of serving Jesus. Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!