Responsible to God

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends, how in the world are you? You doing alright today? Well, this is your friend, Dr. Cook, and I certainly trust and pray that God’s touch is upon your life as you go through this particular day. Some of you are clear through it because you don’t hear the broadcast until late in the evening, I know that. But for the great majority of listeners, we are a morning program, and so I have the mental picture of many of you just getting started on the day. Recently, I’ve attended a number of services where I was the speaker, and people would come up and say, “I wake up to the sound of your voice.” Oh, that’s an awful thought, isn’t it? [chuckle] Well, I’m sorry, but then if it blesses you, alright, bless your heart. The buzzsaw voice, huh? Well, I trust things are going well with you, and that throughout the day or the night, you’ll be conscious of the presence of our lovely Lord, Jesus is His name.

You and I have been looking at the third chapter of Colossians, and the whole thrust of the chapter is what ought to be the result of the fact that we are dead with Christ and risen with Him and our life is hid with Christ in God, He is our life? What ought then to be the result of that? One would be counting as dead those things that really are dead in God’s sight, those… All of that old nature that embarrassed and plagued and without the redemptive work of Christ would ruin you forever. Put that off, and with that, all the so-called respectable sins, anger, wrath, malice, and so on, lying. Put on the new nature by faith.

Now, all of this is by faith. All your dealings with God are by faith. By faith, you take your stand with the Lord Jesus and claim all that He is for all that you need. The new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him. Jesus is greater than ethnic differences, Greek or Jew. He’s greater than religious differences, circumcision or uncircumcision. He’s greater than cultural differences, Barbarian or Scythian. He’s greater than societal differences, bond or free. Christ is all and in all. Colossians 3:11 is a great, great watershed verse. We’re all level at the cross, aren’t we? So then by faith you put on something that positively honors your blessed Lord, compassions and mercies, kindness, humbleness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearance and forgiveness. As Christ forgave you, so also do thee ye. And above all these things, put on love, Calvary love, John 3:16 kind of love; all of this as a result of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then we came down to verse 17, and we’ve been working on the outgrowth of that truth, haven’t we? He said, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.” Everything you say or do is to be for the sake of, by the authority of, in the enabling power of, and for the ultimate glory of your Lord Jesus Christ. Now, that truth, zeros in, as I have told you once or twice here, on the sensitive areas of your own life. And so you have in verse 18, “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as it is fit or right or proper in the Lord. Husbands,” he said, “Love your wives. Be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger. And servants,” we’ve changed that from the slave concept because we don’t have slavery any longer. We’ve changed that to the employee concept. “Employees, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God.”

Now, we got about to the middle of the 22nd verse. I have taken four minutes and a half in review here. I trust, however, that gives us a running start, so to speak, into the rest of this passage. “Employees,” he said… Now, you remember, I’ve changed that word servant, which actually means slave; douloi is the Greek word used there, and it means slave. But we don’t have slavery any longer, thank God, so I’ve changed it to employees, which I think is probably the sense of the passage for our day. “Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh.” Now, the key word there, well, there’s two key words, one is obey and the other is the word all.

Do a thorough job. Don’t give your employer the short method, as we call it, and do it cheerfully. There are some rules for success in business. One is what you have to do, do cheerfully. Go cheerfully out of your way to help other people, and what you have to do, do cheerfully. And then always, always keep an in with the outs, because they’re gonna be back in some day. Don’t get entangled with other people’s fights and quarrels. Be friendly with people because you’re gonna meet them when you’re going up or down on the ladder of success. But the thing that we’re talking about right now is follow orders, follow them cheerfully, and do your work thoroughly. That’s what he’s saying here.

Now, we got that far in verse 22. Let’s go on to the second half of the verse. “Not with eye service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God.” Not with eye service. What is eye service? Well, you’re doing something because somebody is looking at you, and you want to please that somebody at the time. That’s the reason people seem to work harder when the boss shows up. Eye service, you see? That’s the the truth of that. And it’s an interesting word in your Greek New Testament. Do you ever go to the ophthalmologist? That’s a physician, an MD who is specialized in diseases of and treatment of the eye, ophthalmologist. Well, we get that from the Greek. So this word, ophthalmologist, you can almost put it right into the word in your Greek New Testament. Eye service, ophthalmodouliais, ophthalmodouliais. It’s a compound word meaning a slave, doulas, and the word eye. A slave only, a servant only when people see what you’re doing, huh? Ooh, [chuckle] that’s pretty direct, isn’t it? You serve only when people see what you’re doing.

Well, of course, every one of us that’s grown up has been in a situation like that somewhere. Either we ourselves have been the victim of it or we’ve watched somebody else, and when supervision was there, we worked or somebody else we were watching worked, but when supervision was not there, then people sort of, as we say, goofed off. Years ago, when I was a student, I had a job with a paint crew painting rooms in the dormitories. Now, one of the crew was particularly resourceful in this matter of getting by with very little work. For instance, when we went to paint a room, obviously you do the ceiling, then the walls, then the trim. And when it came to the trim which is, it can be an arduous task, as you painters know. You have to have a brush that is small enough that you can cut a straight line along the window pane without smearing paint on the glass, and that you can do the same type of cutting in, as we call it, on the edge of the woodwork, so that you don’t get it on the painted wall, and you have to work at it a little more than just putting the flat paint on the wall. It’s a little harder.

So when we came to doing the trim, this particular young fellow would say, “Fellows, you do the windows, I’ll do the baseboard.” And then he would lie down on the floor, [chuckle] and he would prop his head up on one hand and dip the brush in the paint can, and very slowly he would paint the baseboard. It took him as long to paint the baseboard around that room as it took a couple of the rest of us to do two or three windows and the door frame. One day when he was lying down painting the baseboard as slowly as possible, the boss showed up, took one look at him and said, “You better get up,” and that was the end of that. [laughter] Oh, dear. A lot depends on whether somebody is looking, doesn’t it? Oh, yes.

Now, he says, “Listen, you do your work whether or not anybody is looking.” “Not with eye service,” serving only when somebody is looking, “Not with eye service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart.” Singleness of heart means you have one love, not two, one concern, not two. “In singleness of heart.” How well-focused, beloved, is your love for God? Is it Jesus and somebody else? Or to put it even more seriously, is it something or someone, and Jesus? Who’s first? Who do you really fear in the biblical sense of respect and awe? “As singleness of heart,” he said, “Fearing God.”

Franklin Logsdon is a dear friend of many years, a fine Bible expositor. I first met him when he was a pastor up in Canada, in London, Ontario. And he was showing me his sanctuary, which was a refinished huge mansion, as I recall, and he had a spacious office in that building. So he said, “Come on, see my office,” and I went on in with him, and there in the center of the room was his big desk with a glass top, and under the glass top of that desk, I saw a motto. You know what it was? It was a quotation from the Old Testament: “Thou God seest me.” “Oh,” I said, “Frank, that’s interesting.” “Well,” he said, “I want never to forget that the eye of God is upon me wherever I am and whatever I’m doing.” He said, “I’m always responsible to God.” Beloved, that is the point that will make you a better worker, a better employee, a better wife or husband, a better son or daughter, a better person, all through every day remembering that God sees you, and best of all, He cares, “casting all your care upon him for he careth”, the Bible says, “for you.”

Dear Father, today, may we remember that Thou art looking at us, and may we live for Thee, Amen.

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