Heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you today eager to hear from you. Lord, we come to you today expecting to hear from you. Open our hearts. Help our minds to be ready to receive and comprehend the word that you have for us. And may we conform our will to yours this morning. Lord, you are our God, you are our King. And it is our desire to live our lives in a manner that is pleasing to you. Help us to do that. Speak to our hearts and fill us with your spirit and accomplish your purpose in us and through us by your word this morning, which never returns to you void, but always accomplishes the purpose for which you have sent it. Accomplish that purpose in us today. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Open your Bibles this morning to the book of Ephesians, chapter six. We're going to be studying today, verses five through nine specifically. Now, as you know, as we've gone through our study of Ephesians six, the first three chapters are all about what God has done for us, about what God has given to us. And because God has done so much for us, and because God has given so much to us, we recognize that God has the right to expect certain things from us. Amen. You've heard the old expression, to whom much is given, much is required, right? And God has given us so much. If we were to launch into a study of the last three chapters of Ephesians and to lay out for ourselves all the things that we are to do, how we are to walk worthy of the calling with which we are called, how we are to submit ourselves one unto another in the fear of God, how wives are to respect their husbands, how husbands are to love their wives, how children are to obey their parents, how parents are to not provoke their children to wrath, and so forth and so on. If we just laid out all those expectations but had not acknowledged what God has given to us to equip us to fulfill those expectations, then these last three chapters would be rather overwhelming. Because who is sufficient for such things? We're not. We don't have it in us to walk worthy of God. And yet he calls us to. He calls us to walk worthy of the calling with which we are called, but he can do that because of everything that he has done for us, everything that he has given to us. Because you see, Paul writes in those first three chapters that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. Amen? With every spiritual blessing. That means that the resources that you need to accomplish that which God has called you to do already belong to you. You just need to walk in the reality of those blessings. Amen. And so that's where we pick up our study. And over the last half of chapter five and chapter six, we've been learning about how we are to submit ourselves one unto another. You see, we're all to submit ourselves one unto another. If we look at chapter five, verse 21, and actually we'll just back up a little bit to verse 15. We'll read 15 through 21 just to set the stage. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. In other words, walk in a manner that reveals that you're not being a foolish individual, but that you're using wisdom and you're paying attention to how you conduct your life. Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. That's what we've been doing this morning. Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting to one another in the fear of God. And that's what the last few weeks have been all about. How do we submit to one another in the fear of God? Well, wives, you submit to your husbands in the fear of God by showing them respect. Husbands, you submit to your wives. What? What did you say? Yes, submit to your wives in the fear of God. How? By showing them love. Children, you submit to one another in the fear of God by obeying your parents. And parents, you submit to one another in the fear of God by loving your children and not provoking them to wrath. By putting their needs above your desires. Did you see the difference there? So often we as parents put our desires above our children's needs. I desire to watch the football game, so I'm not going to give my child the help he needs on his homework. See the difference? Does a good parent do that? No, a parent who is submitting unto one another, submitting unto their children, even in the fear of God, is a parent who puts their child's need for help with the homework over their desire to watch the football game. So we come now in verses five through nine to bond servants and masters. Now, here in our culture, in our society, we no longer have bondservants, slaves, and masters or owners, but we do have employees and bosses, don't we? And for practical purposes, that relationship of masters and owners is now reflected in the relationship of employees and employers. So we're going to apply these words to that relationship today. Read with me, if you will, in Ephesians chapter 6, starting in verse 5, in which Paul writes, bondservants, we will read that as employees, or think of it in those terms. Be obedient to those who are your masters according, I'm sorry, according to the flesh, your masters according to the flesh. He's pointing it out right from the beginning that they are your masters according to the flesh. In other words, in the body, in the physical form. Yes, these people are your masters. But he is implying something entirely different with this. Who is really your master employee? The Lord. The Lord is your master. He is your true master, and he is truly the one whom you serve. But in the flesh, you serve these other masters. Now, if you are an entrepreneur and you say, well, I'm self-employed, I don't serve a master, oh no, if you're self-employed, look, I have one boss, right? If you're self-employed, you have many bosses. They're called customers, right? And they all want something different from you, don't they? So, bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart as to Christ. Not with I service as men pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will, doing service as to the Lord and not to men. So, in other words, just to put this very simply, and then we can all go home, it's not quite that easy, but but to put it very simply, whether you have a good boss or a bad boss, recognize that your real boss is the best boss. Right? Can I say that again? I don't know. Let's try. Whether you have a good boss or a bad boss, realize that your real boss is the best boss. Amen. We serve the Lord. And so when I'm looking at my earthly master, my employer, and I see that that employer has an expectation of me that may be difficult, that may even seem unreasonable, I need to remember that that person in front of me is not the one I'm really serving, but the Lord is the one that I'm really serving. When I used to work for ATT, and I've shared this story before, forgive me if you've heard it before. Um, when I used to work for AT ⁇ T, I worked in a call center, and we would regularly have what we would call fruit basket turnovers. Have you ever heard that phrase before? You know what happens if you turn over a fruit basket? All the different pieces of fruit bounce off in different directions, don't they? Because they're all different shapes. Well, a fruit basket turnover is when they would take a particular sales team and they would break it up and they would shift all the people around so that they were in different work groups and they'd put them under new managers. And nothing else would necessarily change. It's not that we got new employees, it's not that we had new managers. They just wanted to shake things up. So teams would change regularly. Regularly, we would end up with new managers. And you know how it is if you're part of a sales team, there's always going to be that meeting when you sit down one-on-one with your new manager and they let you know what their expectations are. How many of you have been in situations like that, right? And invariably, you get to the end of the conversation after hearing about everything that they're expecting of you, and they ask you that all-important question. Do you have any questions for me? Am I wrong? Doesn't the interview always seem to end that way? Do you have any questions for me? And I made it my personal policy to always respond to that question in this way. I would say, you know what? No, I don't have any questions for you, but there is something I would like to share with you. There's something I would like to tell you. And of course, they would kind of sit back and their eyes would open up a little bit because you had their attention, because this was a little different, and they would say, Okay, well, what is it you want to share with me? I'd say, listen, I want you to understand that I see it as my job to help you, as my employer, to be successful in your job. I'm part of your team, and you're the one who gets to set the agenda for this team. So, whatever you want me to do, and however you want me to do it, that's what I'm gonna do. So I'm on board with one caveat. I will do anything you ask me to do, provided it is not illegal, immoral, or unethical. And that was the standard. And for whatever reason, that always seemed to garner their respect or scared them, I don't know which. But I almost always had a good relationship with my employer from the beginning because they understood that I understood who was in charge, but that I did have appropriate boundaries within that relationship. And so when we find ourselves in a situation like this, we need to remember that God may have put you where you are because he wants to do something in the life of that person that he has placed you with, and that you may very well be the catalyst through which he chooses to do that. If nothing else, you should be praying for that person. You should be lifting them up. There were times that there were policies and procedures in the company that I worked for that I found to be immoral, unethical, and technically legal, within the letter, if not the spirit, of the law. I mean, come on, folks, I worked for the phone company, right? You've dealt with them in the past, haven't you? You know what that's like. You know what it's like when a little old lady calls in because she's very upset about this 18 cent charge on her bill and she doesn't understand why it's there. And so you finally, after talking with her for 20 minutes about the legality of this particular charge, even though she has a rotary dial phone, you finally say, you know what, ma'am, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna credit you an entire year's worth of charges on this 18 cent charge on your bill monthly. And oh, thank you. That's okay, great, solved the problem for about a dollar and whatever. So, but the point that I'm trying to make is this you've got to have an understanding as an employee that though you serve an earthly master, that earthly master is not ultimately the person that you answer to for the character of your service or the conduct of your life. You serve a higher judge. And so we are to show respect and fear to our earthly masters and to serve in sincerity of heart, not to simply put on a good show when they're there. But may I suggest that you should be the same employee when your boss takes the day off as you are when your boss is standing behind you. That who we are should be who we are because it's who we are. Amen. Now, this is a two-way street. Not only are employees to submit to their employers, but employers are also to submit to their employees. Now you're thinking, probably, wait a second, how is it that the employer is to submit to the employee? They're not supposed to just do what the employee says to do. There is a structure, there is an order. And yet the word says, submit yourselves to one another. So that means all of these relationships are two-way streets. So let's see what Paul has to say about that. In verse nine, he says, and you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him. Amen. In other words, you may know you're the boss, but God knows that he's ultimately the boss. And though you think that that employee is there to serve you, ultimately you need to recognize that you are both there to serve the Lord. So, in other words, boss, you and your employees answer to the same supervisor. And just as you want them to respect you, in like manner, you need to show respect for them. Now, some people will say, Well, Pastor Ken, you don't understand. My employees are idiots. Well, who hired them? Who trained them? HR. No, you still bear some responsibility for that. Or as an employee, you might say, You don't understand, Pastor Ken, my boss is an ogre. He's a jerk, or she's a jerk. They never do. Listen, the Bible is full of examples of bad bosses. Did you know that? Let's look at a few bad bosses from the Bible. Turn with me, if you will, to Genesis chapter 29. You remember Jacob, Isaac's son? The kid, not the oldest, not Esau, not the one who sold his birthright for a bowl of stew, but but the younger one who lied and schemed to get his father's blessing. Well, he had to get out of Dodge pretty quick. He had to leave town because his brother Esau was gonna kill him. And so he went back to his ancestral home. And when he got there, he saw this well, and there were shepherds coming, and they were gonna water the sheep. And while he was there at the well, he ran into this young woman named Rachel. And man, Rachel was amazing. He fell so hard for her, he didn't know which way was up. And so he ends up going to her place only to discover that they're related, that his uncle Laban is her dad, and that he has found his father's family. And so he indentures himself to Laban, her father, in order to win her hand in marriage. And he and his father-in-law come up with a deal. He says, I'll tell you what, you serve me for seven years, because you see, Jacob didn't have the money to come up with a dowry, and he was broke. He said, You serve me for seven years, and I'll give you my daughter's hand in marriage. So they had a contract. Well, what happened? Jacob served his father-in-law for seven years, and the time of the wedding came, and they had a great celebration, and they woke up the next morning, and all of a sudden, lo and behold, it wasn't Rachel in the tent. It was her older sister who was weak of eye, or maybe she made your eyes weak. I don't know. There's something in the language there that implies that it was not what he had expected for sure. But how would you like that? To think you're marrying some person, to wake up the next morning and find that you're married, not to them, but to their sibling. Now, we of course would say, hey, you got to get down to the court and have an annulment or whatever, but not in this culture, that wasn't gonna happen. He was married, but he was still in love with Rachel. And so his father-in-law says, I'll tell you what, you serve me for another seven years, and uh then you can have Rachel. So he serves and he marries her as well. And now he's got two wives and he's starting a family, but he still doesn't have much in terms of earthly wealth, no way to support them. So he continues to work for his father-in-law, his father-in-law Laban, and Laban continues the same practices. He continues to violate the contract and to change Jacob's wages. Have you ever worked for a boss who kept telling you, hey, you just work a little harder, man, that raise is right around the corner, or man, you're up for a promotion. Maybe you may be the next one in the office up for promotion. And they keep giving you all these promises, and yet those promises never seem to come to fruition. That's a bad boss, isn't it? But you see, Jacob didn't really serve Laban. He was really serving the Lord. As we look here, in Genesis chapter 29, it says that Jacob, verse 18, loved Rachel, so he said, I will serve you seven years for Rachel, your younger daughter, and Laban said, It is better that I give her to you than that I should give her to another man. Stay with me. So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed only a few days to him because of the love that he had for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled that I may go into her. And Laban gathered together all the men of the place and made a feast. Now it came to pass in the evening that he took Leah, his daughter, and brought her to Jacob, and he went in to her, and Laban gave his maid Zilpa to his daughter Leah as a maid. So it came to pass in the morning that, behold, it was Leah. And he said to Laban, What is this that you have done to me? Was it not for Rachel that I served you? Why then have you deceived me? And Laban said, It must not be done so in our country to give the younger before the firstborn. Fulfill her week, or in other words, fulfill you know, do your duty as a husband, and we will give you this one also for the service which you will serve for me still another seven years. So Jacob did so, fulfilled her week, and then he gave him his second daughter Rachel for wife, and Label Laban gave his maid Bilha to his daughter Rachel as a maid. And then Jacob also went into Rachel, and he loved Rachel more than Leah. And he served with Laban still another seven years. And when the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. So Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben, for she said, The Lord has surely looked on my affliction. Now therefore my husband will love me. Then she conceived again and bore a son, and said, Because the Lord has heard that I am unloved, he has therefore given me this son also, and she called his name Simeon. She conceived again and bore a son and said, Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons, therefore his name was called Levi. And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, Now I will praise the Lord. Therefore she called his name Judah, and then she stopped bearing. So God, in control of this situation, is saying, You know what, Jacob, you wanted Rachel, Laban cheated you out of her, but ultimately you don't serve Laban, ultimately you serve me. And God blessed he and his wife with children. In fact, Jacob would go on to have many children who would become the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel. Well, as he continued to serve his father-in-law Laban, he continued to change his wages. First, you can have the spotted goats. And so the Lord blessed Jacob, and all the goats that were born were spotted. He's like, well, then you can have the ones with these other markings. And whatever it was that Laban agreed that Jacob's wages should be, those were the goats and the sheep that bore offspring. And before long, Laban and his sons are looking at the situation and they're saying, everything that we owned now belongs to Jacob. Why? Because even though Laban was a bad boss, Jacob really worked for the Lord, and it was the Lord who blessed him. Another bad boss from the Bible, turn to Genesis chapter 39. One of these sons that Jacob had was a fellow named Joseph, second from the youngest, firstborn of the beloved Rachel. And Joseph was a dreamer. And like many dreamers, he had a propensity to tell his dreams to other people. And that didn't sit particularly well with his brothers, especially since their father saw him as the favorite son. So his brothers took an opportunity one day and sold him into slavery. They sold him to a band of Ishmaelites who were headed in a caravan on down to Egypt. And Joseph ends up in the house of the captain of the guard, a fellow by the name of Potiphar. Now, Potiphar started out to be a pretty good boss. And God blessed Potiphar's house because of Joseph. And Potiphar, recognizing the blessing on his house, recognizing the faithfulness of this particular employee, recognizing that the more things he put Joseph in charge of, the better everything went for him, ended up making Joseph his chief of staff, his chief steward, head of his household. In fact, Potiphar didn't even know what he owned anymore, except for the food that he ate every day, because he had entrusted so many things to Joseph. And some jobs can be like that. If you are serving the Lord faithfully, if you are walking with God and you are doing your best for not just the company you work for, but for the Lord that you ultimately serve, God has a tendency to pour his blessings out upon you and upon the company that you work for for your sake. I'll tell you what, I used to, I used to be a boss. I used to operate a Chick-fil-A, most of you know that. And I would sit down and I would interview my employees, or my applicants, I should say. And I would have a kid sit down who seemed like he or she would be a good employee. And it just so happened that they were also a believer. They were a Christian. I would hire that person. Now I also had some people come in who professed to be Christians, but I could tell from the interview were not going to be good employees. I did not hire them. But those that had promise seemed like they would be good employees and they were believers, I would hire them and put them on my team. And then I would have other people come in who also seemed as though they would be good employees, who also seemed as though they would have a positive impact upon the team, but there was nothing about them that overtly told me that they were believers. In fact, perhaps through something they said or something they were wearing, maybe a t-shirt or a hat or whatever, I could tell that they were not a believer. I would hire them too. And then I would take the believer and I would take the non-believer and I would schedule them on the same shift and put them next to each other. And invariably, what would happen is the unbeliever would eventually become a believer. There was a time when I was attending Calvary Chapel in Las Cruces, and we'd be sitting in the back, and there would be an entire row of my employees sitting in front of us. And it was awesome. So the Lord will bring those blessings about when we honor him and when we walk in obedience to him, and we'll see him move in ways that we perhaps never expected. And that's what was going on here with Joseph and Potiphar. But then one day, Potiphar's wife began to take a liking to Joseph. And the Bible says something about Joseph that it does not actually say about many people. In Genesis chapter 39, we read that now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there. And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man, and he was kept in the house of his master, the Egyptian. And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did prosper in his hand. So Joseph found favor in his sight and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house, and all that he had he put under his authority. So it was from that fr from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake. And the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and in the field. Thus he left all that he had in Joseph's hands, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate. And now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance. That's one of the only times that is ever said in the Bible. There are a few others that it's referenced, but I mean the Bible is telling us that Joseph was a good-looking young man. If the Bible is saying that, then that must be something, right? And it came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast longing eyes on Joseph. And she said, Lie with me. We have here the first recorded incident of workplace sexual harassment. I'm not kidding. I mean, I know you're chuckling, but that's what that is, right? You have a person who is in authority over you. This was his master's wife. She was like second in command in the house, right? And she's like, hey, you're looking pretty good, buddy. Get in here. Here was a hostile working environment. And Potiphar, who is ultimately in authority over this situation, is responsible for it, even though he isn't the one who is doing it. Employers, if you have subordinates, managers who work under you, and they are mistreating your employees, that is your fault. And it is your responsibility, and you need to deal with it accordingly. And if you say, Well, I didn't know about it, well, how about this? The moment you do know about it, you better do something about it. Otherwise, you are just as guilty as they are. Now, look at Joseph's response, but he refused and he said to his master's wife, Look, my master does not know what he's doing. Is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. In other words, he trusts me. There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against Potifar? Is that what he says? No. He says, How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? You see, Joseph understood that he wasn't serving Potiphar. Oh, don't get me wrong, he was serving Potiphar. But Potiphar was not the one to whom he was ultimately responsible. Potiphar was not the one he was trying to impress. Potiphar was not the one that he was ultimately serving. Listen, I'm gonna tell you something right now. As your pastor, I serve you because we are called to be the servant of all. He says, He who would be great among you must be the servant of all. In other words, God has called those of us who lead to serve. And that's what we're to do. So it is my job to serve you, but I want you to understand I'm not really serving you. I'm serving him. And he has told me to serve you, so I serve you so that I may please him. Amen. Now Potiphar's wife, of course, was not satisfied with this answer. So it was, verse 10, as she spoke with Joseph day by day, that he did not heed her to lie with her or to be with her. But it happened about this time when Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house was inside, that she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me, but he left his garment in her hand and fled and ran outside. There's a sermon in there. I'm just not gonna take the time to do it because that's not what we're talking about today. But you know what, guys, I will say this much. When you find yourself in a place of temptation, sometimes you're not called to stand and face it. Sometimes you're called to turn around and run away from it, because there are certain things that we don't need to put ourselves at risk of. And this right here is one of them. And Joseph ran. And so it was when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and fled outside, that she called to the men of her house and spoke to them, saying, See, he has brought into us this Hebrew to mock us, and he came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice. And it happened when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out that he left his garment with me, and fled and went outside. So she kept his garment with her until his master came home. And then she spoke to him with words like these, saying, The Hebrew servant whom you brought to us came in to mock me. So it happened, as I lifted up my voice and cried out, that he left his garment with me and fled outside, so it was when his master heard the words which his wife spoke to him, saying, Your servant did to me after this manner, that his anger was aroused. Have you ever had a boss who, for all intents and purposes, had been a really good boss up to a certain point? But then for whatever reason, that boss lost his temper, became angry, and treated you in a manner that was unworthy of someone in his position. Well, Joseph had the same experience, and what's more, he's been falsely accused, and he's going to suffer consequences for something that he did not do. Then Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. But you know what? Joseph understood. He understood that though he was serving Potiphar, it was the Lord who was his true master, and the Lord came through. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and he gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's hand all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever they did there, it was his doing. So what happened? Joseph was in a situation where he was faithfully serving, he was doing a great job, he was promoted and given raises, and man, he was just, he was being blessed and he was being a blessing. But then he came into a situation where he was being sexually harassed, falsely accused, and wrongfully terminated. Maybe you've been in a situation where you, having been a faithful employee, have become the victim. What do you do in that situation? You know what? You call out to the Lord and you trust in him because if that door has closed, he's gonna open up an even better door for you to walk through. Amen. And that's what happened with Joseph. You be faithful to God and trust him, and he will lead you where he wants you to go. So, turn with me to Exodus chapter 5. We've had employers who changed wages, we've had employers who did nothing about sexual harassment, we've had employers who've lost their temper and wrongfully terminated their employees. Now we're going to find an employer who created what can only be described as the worst of all possible working conditions. A person who actually created hostile working conditions for his employees, and what's more, he did it on purpose. His name was Pharaoh. Now, I'm not gonna read through the whole story because this is a long one. I just want you to have the chapter reference there. But ultimately, what happened? The children of Israel who lived in Egypt began to multiply, and ultimately a Pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph, and they ended up subjugating the children of Israel, and they were slaves in Egypt for 400 years. But the Lord blessed them and they began to multiply, and it got to the point where the Egyptians were scared of them. What if they unionize? What if we're attacked by a foreign power and they flip on us and join with the other side? And so they decided that they needed to create hostile working conditions by which to weaken their workforce. And so they decreed that every male child would have to be thrown into the river and killed. Well, the children of Israel began to cry out about this, and ultimately their plea was heard by God, and he sent Moses and Aaron to deliver the children of Israel from the land of Egypt. And when they went and they made their demands, what was Pharaoh's initial response? He says, Oh, really? You want to take time off to go into the wilderness and worship your God? Sounds like you've got too much free time on your hands. Let's say I'm gonna take away the straw that I was giving you before, but you still have to make the same number of bricks. How many times as employees have you been in a situation where your employer said, you know what? There are certain resources that we don't think you guys need anymore, so we're removing those resources. Maybe we're repositioning some people on the team and moving them to other teams. So now instead of having 10 people on your team, you've got seven people on your team, but you know what? We expect that you still meet the same productivity goals. Doesn't that sound like the American corporation right there? To have unrealistic expectations of your employees in the midst of a hostile workforce. You know what happened? That country went bankrupt. They lost it all. They took a bath, as you might say. Put it together. Never mind. The Red Sea, right? I thought it was funny. All right, 1 Samuel chapter 18. Now, here we have a portrait of human nature. Have you ever been in a situation as an employee where you were doing a great job? I mean, you were knocking it out of the park on every project. Your sales figures were through the roof, and what's more, you were doing it with integrity. You're doing it the right way, and the Lord was just blessing you, and everything was going well, and all of a sudden your boss gets jealous because you've come up with some ideas that have saved the company a lot of money, and his employ his supervisors are now looking at him and saying, hey, that employee on your team is great. Maybe we need to consider that guy for promotion, or maybe we need to give that lady a new position, or whatever the case might be. So you're in a situation where you're doing such a good job that maybe you're doing too good a job, and your boss begins to get nervous about his or her own position. Have you heard of situations like that? Where the employer becomes jealous of the employee's success? Well, that's exactly what we have here in 1 Samuel chapter 18. Now, David has just slain Goliath, and we read now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the son of Jonathan, the soul of Jonathan rather, was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him. So Saul's son is becoming David's best friend, loved him as his own soul, and Saul took him, that is David that day, and he would not let him go home to his father's house anymore. In other words, Saul decided he was going to hire David and that he was going to work there with him. And then Jonathan and David made a covenant because he loved him as his own soul, and Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt. So, in other words, David got a great signing bonus. He loved the people that he was working for and working with. Everything was going great, everything was going in David's favor. Verse 5 says, So David went out wherever Saul sent him and behaved wisely. And Saul sent him, and Saul set him rather over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people, and also in the sight of Saul's servants. So David is a new hire, he's been brought into the company, he's been given a signing bonus, he's off to a great start with his fellow executives, they love him. The employees and the various teams over which he has been given command, they are making great strides, doing exactly what has been asked of them. Whenever his boss gives him an assignment, whenever Saul tells him, Hey, I want you to go over here and do this, he acts with wisdom and is greatly successful. In other words, everything is going David's way. Now it happened, as they were coming home, when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistines, that the women had come out of all the cities of Israel singing and dancing to meet King Saul with tambourines, with joy, and with musical instruments. So the women sang as they danced and said, Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands. Then Saul was very angry, and the saying displeased him, and he said, They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed only thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom? So Saul eyed David from that day forward. He ends up throwing spears at David. He ends up sending people to spy on David. He ends up undermining David and trying to set traps for him so that he'll mess up. He tries to turn the people against him so he doesn't come right out and confront him, but he is passive aggressive toward him. Have you ever dealt with a passive-aggressive boss? A boss who seemed like they liked you and like they were pleased with what you were doing, but they kept putting you in situations where it was almost impossible to succeed, where they undermined you, where they attacked you, where they set traps for you. Have you ever felt that way? Well, that's exactly how David must have felt. But how did David respond? In the cave of Abdalim, when Saul had gone into the cave to relieve his needs, David and his men were hiding in that cave. And he was close enough to Saul that he was able to take out his knife and cut a piece of his garment off just to prove that he had had the opportunity to do him wrong. David was encouraged by his men to slay Saul, to take him out, to take his job. But what was David's response? He says, I will not touch the Lord's anointed. Even though his employer was a passive-aggressive jerk, David still respected his position and his authority because David recognized that he ultimately served the Lord. What happened in David's case? Ultimately, that bad boss was taken out of the way, and David was elevated and became the king over Israel, a man after God's own heart. Amen. Now, before you start feeling too sorry for David, I want you to recognize one more thing. David was a bad boss. Now, he wasn't always a bad boss, just like people aren't always terrible people. Sometimes even good people do bad things, and sometimes even good bosses make stupid and sinful mistakes. And David did. In the case of Uriah the Hittite, when the armies of Israel were at war, David was up on his balcony looking down across the city, and he saw Bathsheba taking a bath. And he asked his servants, he says, Hey, who's that? And his servants are like, Um, uh David, that's that's Bathsheba, you know, the wife of you know Uriah the Hittite. He's one of your mighty men, he's your buddy. You should have known this from the company picnic. That's his wife. David has the opportunity right there to say, Whoa, sorry, dude. Wow, lucky you. Okay. He has that opportunity, but does he do it? No, he says, hey, um, get her number for me, right? Yeah, just pull it from the employee files. That'll work. David abused his authority. He abused his authority, he took what he wanted, and then he set up his employee to take the fall. Even good people can become bad bosses when they put their own desires ahead of the good of those that they lead. And that's what David did. He put his own desires first and the good of everyone else after that. And it turned someone who was a godly man into a bad boss. Now, there are several more, but trust me, this is by no means an exhaustive list. I wanted to talk about Ahab and Obadiah. You ever hear of them? Ahab and Obadiah. You remember Elijah, the prophet? He said, Hey, it's not gonna rain for three years, and it didn't rain for three years. Well, one day, in the book of 1 Kings, I believe it's chapter 18, 1 Kings 18. Yeah, that's it. 1 Kings chapter 18, God says to Elijah, it's time. Show yourself to Ahab. So as he's going along the road, he comes across this guy named Obadiah. Obadiah is Ahab's chief steward, his right-hand man. And when Elijah sees Obadiah, he says to Obadiah, he says, Listen, I want you to go get your boss and tell him I want to talk to him. Let's see how Obadiah responds to the situation. I I want to look at it. 1 Kings chapter 18. Verse 1, it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year, saying, Go, present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the earth. So Elijah went to present himself to Ahab, and there was a severe famine in Samaria. And Ahab had called Obadiah, who was in charge of his house. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. For so it was while Jezebel massacred the prophets of the Lord, that Obadiah had taken a hundred of the prophets and hidden them, fifty to a cave, and had fed them with bread and water. Ahab was one of the most evil kings that had ever ruled in Samaria. Wicked guy. And what's worse, his wife Jezebel, amplified his wickedness, making it even worse. And she worshipped Baal, and her influence had spread throughout Samaria, and things were bad. In fact, she had started having the prophets of God killed off. But isn't it interesting that Ahab, this wicked king, has a chief steward who greatly feared the Lord? How awesome is that! God took this guy and he put him in this place of authority. And can you imagine what Obadiah's friends and family said? Obadiah, what are you thinking? How could you go work for that guy? He's a jerk. I thought you loved the Lord. I thought you feared the Lord. Why are you working for Ahab? Sometimes people will look at a believer and they will question their field of employment. They'll say, You're a believer. How could you possibly go act in Hollywood? How could you be a part of that industry as a believer? But you know what? Here's the thing. If believers say I'm not going to be involved in the film industry, then there won't be any believers in the film industry. Or if a believer says, I'm not going to go into politics, well then guess what? There won't be any believers in politics. Or if if a person says, you know what, I'm not going to go into education because, man, they're just a bunch of liberal people in there, and I don't want to be a part of that, and so I'm not going to go into that field, well, then there won't be any Christians in education. We are called to all different walks of life. God's given us different skills and abilities, and he puts us where he wants us to be so that we can accomplish his purpose in those places. And Obadiah was positioned in just such a manner so that when they began to slaughter the prophets of God, he may not have been able to save all of them, but he was able to save some of them. And so Ahab said to Obadiah, verse 5, Go into the land and look for all the springs of water and to all the brooks. Perhaps we may find grass to keep the horses and mules alive, so that we will not have to kill any livestock. So they divided the land between them to explore it. And Ahab went one way by himself, and Obadiah went the other way by himself. And now as Obadiah was on his way, suddenly Elijah met him, and he recognized him and fell on his face and said, Is that you, my lord Elijah? And he answered him, It is I. Go, tell your master Elijah is here. So he said to him, these are Obadiah's words, How have I sinned that you are delivering your servant into the hand of Ahab to kill me? He's like, What are you talking about? You want me to go tell Ahab you're here? Do you hate me? Why would you do this to me? Did I sin in some way that you're punishing me like this? As the Lord your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my master has not sent someone to hunt for you. And when they said he is not here, he took an oath from the kingdom or nation that they could not find you. And now you say, Go tell your master Elijah is here, and it shall come to pass, as soon as I am gone from you, that the Spirit of the Lord will carry you to a place I do not know. So when I go and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me. But I, your servant, have feared the Lord from my youth. Was it not reported to my Lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord? How I hid one hundred men of the Lord's prophets, fifty to a cave and fed them with bread and water? He's like, Come on, man, I I know I work for Ahab, but trust me, I'm on your side. And Elijah's response, Go, tell your master, Elijah is here. As the Lord of hosts lives, verse 15, before whom I stand, I will surely present myself to him today. In other words, hey man, you don't you don't have to worry about anything. This is legit. Go tell your master, I'm away right here. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him. And Ahab went to meet Elijah. Now, we already know that Ahab is the kind of guy, the kind of boss who if you bring him news he doesn't like, there's a good chance he's gonna kill you. That's the kind of boss who nobody wants to deliver bad news to because he's going to take it out on the messenger, right? He's got that kind of temper. But he's also the kind of boss who never accepts responsibility for anything that goes wrong. How many of you have worked for somebody like that in the past? Someone who just will not accept responsibility. Something goes wrong, it's their fault. The first thing they're doing is looking for someone or something else to blame. That is the kind of boss that Ahab was. Then it happened when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, Is that you, O troubler of Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you and your father's house have, in that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and have followed the bales. Of course, you know the rest of the story that unfolds up there on Mount Carmel. The point that I'm trying to make with this is that there are all kinds of bad bosses. There are bad bosses who change their employees' wages and don't give them their pay when they're due. There are bad bosses who may seem good in the beginning, but when something goes wrong, they blame you and they falsely accuse you and they wrongfully terminate you. There are bad bosses like Potiphar who create hostile working environments for their employees, not because of any intentionality to do so, but because of simple negligence and not being aware of what's going on in their own organization. There are bad bosses like Pharaoh who create hostile working environments and who have unrealistic expectations and place demands upon their employees to meet certain quotas when they haven't given them the resources necessary to do it. There are bad bosses who become jealous of their employees' success and undermine them and attack them passive aggressively. There are bad bosses who will never accept responsibility for anything that goes on in a corporation and continually blame you for it. There are all kinds of bad bosses because they're people, and they're all kinds of people, and people have problems. But as employees, we need to remember that we don't serve those bosses, we serve the Lord. And so, regardless of the kind of boss we have, we are to do our best, to do our best and to serve faithfully in the position in which we have been placed, because we need to recognize that we have not been placed there by man, but ultimately we've been placed there by God, and that God has a purpose for our placement in that place. You want to talk about bad bosses? How about the worst boss who probably ever walked the face of the earth? This guy called Nebuchadnezzar. They had some pretty unusual hiring practices. What they would do is they would go to a city, destroy it by fire, take all of the young men captive, keep the best of them, put them through school. That's what you call aggressive headhunting. And so they had these young men and they would train them up and they would become, they would become, you know, uh leaders in in the culture and in the society and in the company. Turn with me real quickly to Daniel chapter 2. But you want to talk about bosses who have unrealistic expectations? Pharaoh had unrealistic expectations because he was intentionally creating those unrealistic expectations through a hostile work environment for the children of Israel. This was not necessarily the case with Nebuchadnezzar, however. Nebuchadnezzar was not trying to create a hostile work environment, but he had incredibly unrealistic expectations. Now, in the second year, chapter 2, verse 1, of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams, and his spirit was so troubled that his sleep left him. Then the king gave the command to call the magicians and the astrologers, the sorcerers and the Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king. And the king said to them, I have had a dream, and my spirit is anxious to know the dream. Then the Chaldeans spoke to the king in Aramaic, O king, live forever, tell your servants the dream, and we will give the interpretation. That's reasonable, right? But the king answered and said to the Chaldeans, My decision is firm. If you do not make known to me the dream and its interpretation, you shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made an ash heap. So Nebuchadnezzar has brought his team together, and he has said, Listen, I've had a dream. How many times do bosses create initiatives based on a vision that they have had? Oh, I've got this vision. But then they want you, the employees, to create the vision for them. Well, wait a minute. I thought you said you had a vision. Tell us your vision. No, no, no, you've got to come up with it. That was his vision, that they would come up with it. Well, he wanted them to tell them his dream and tell him the interpretation of his dream. And his response was, if you don't do this, I'm going to kill you. Now I don't mean to continually refer back to ATT, but I worked there for nine years and it's full of great examples of this kind of thing. They would continually come to our work group and they would say, Listen, you guys, I just want you to understand something. We're going through a tough time here. You know, we're going through a difficult time. People are cutting their landlines. How many of you, just out of curiosity, have a landline telephone in your home? Yeah, that's like a minuscule number. And some of you, it's only because you're in that little dip where there's no cell reception. Right? Landlines are dinosaurs, aren't they? And so they're coming to us and they're saying, listen, guys, we're losing landlines like crazy. You guys need to up your sales. You need to sell more because here's the thing: if you don't sell more, we're probably gonna have to close this office. Isn't that what they tell you? You, employee, need to take an unwinnable situation and turn it around without more resources, without more technology. You just fix it because if you don't, we're gonna fire you all. Well, that was working for Nebuchadnezzar. I've had a dream, tell me what it was. I've had a dream, tell me what it means. If you don't, you're dead. Well, that's the guy that Daniel worked for. But God was with Daniel, and God enabled Daniel to do the impossible. And Daniel was the kind of man who, in spite of the fact that he worked for a wicked guy, knew that ultimately he answered to the Lord. And Daniel loved Nebuchadnezzar, and he served him faithfully, and he ultimately understood that Nebuchadnezzar was not his to deal with, but the Lord's to deal with. And if you're working for a boss who is doing the wrong thing or even the right thing in the wrong way, sometimes you just need to be faithful to do what you've called to do, follow that agenda, provided they're not asking you to do anything illegal, immoral, or unethical. And ultimately you may just need to get out of the way because God is going to deal with the situation. One more story from my time at ATT. I think I've told this one before. But it's like the time when they were telling us you've got to sell more dial up internet service. And we said, well, that's great. We'd like to sell more dial-up internet service, but so many of our customers don't even have computers yet, and they're telling us they don't have a computer. And my manager told me, she said, she said, Well, look, they don't have to have a computer to have internet service. You can sell them the internet service and just send them the disk. And you can tell them they can take it next door and use it at their neighbor's house, or they can take it down to the library and they can use it there. Now, that seems ridiculous to us today, but you've got to understand back in the late 90s, early 2000s, right, people didn't understand computers. I mean, we had guys who would call in for help and they'd say, listen, I need help getting this computer you sold me or this internet service you sold me to work. It's not working, nothing's happening. And so our first question was always, okay, do me a favor. Go to the back of your desk and check to make sure that the computer is plugged in. Oh, okay. And sometimes that was the problem. Other times, it would be something like this. I literally worked with somebody who got this call. Um, I don't know how to use this dial-up internet service y'all sent me. Well, the first thing, sir, you need to do is you need to load the uh the disk into the disk drive so that you can upload the software. And he says, Disk drive? My computer doesn't have one of those disk drives. And I'm like, Well, sir, how old is your computer? Well, I just bought it last week. Well, did you buy it secondhand? No, it's brand new. Trust me, sir, your computer has a disk drive. They all do. I said, look at the front of your computer. There should be a button right there. If you press that button, the disk drive will open up and you put the disc inside of it. He says, Oh, you mean the cup holder? This is a true story, right? So people would have believed that they could take the disc to their neighbor's house or to the library. And some of the people on our team began to sell it that way. But you see, I knew that was wrong. That was unethical. Sometimes you've got to say, I'm just not gonna do that. And so I didn't. Two weeks later, we get an email from our legal department saying, do not sell internet service to customers without computers. Well, duh, right? Sometimes when you've got a boss who is being ridiculous or is asking you to do unethical things, you gotta do like Daniel did and just step on out of the way. Right? You gotta step out of the way. You gotta duck because the Lord's gonna deal with that situation, and the Lord dealt with Nebuchadnezzar. Years later, Nebuchadnezzar would have another dream about a tree that was gonna get chopped down. And he went to Daniel again for the interpretation because Daniel had come through for him in the past, and Daniel's response was, Oh king, let the interpretation of this dream be for my Lord's enemies and not for him. See, Daniel's heart was broken because he saw what was coming in the life of Nebuchadnezzar. God was going to humble that man. And ultimately, the Lord did humble him. And Nebuchadnezzar, you know what? I am very confident that we are going to see Nebuchadnezzar in heaven one day. There is an entire chapter in the book of Daniel that is written by that man, and it is all about the testimony of how God humbled him and how he came to the realization that the Lord God is the Lord of all the earth. Amen. So don't despair of that bad boss. Trust me, the Lord can work through you and in you to accomplish his purposes in that place and can redeem even the worst of bosses and even the worst of situations. So, going back, if you will, with me to Ephesians chapter six, we're going to be there for just a moment or two. Ephesians six, verse five, bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart as to Christ, because he ultimately is the one that we serve. Not with eye service as men pleasers, in other words, not to impress anybody, but simply to be faithful to what God has called you to do, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. And you masters, do the same thing to them. In other words, serve your employees as though you were serving the Lord. Because what did Jesus say, even as you do unto the least of these, my brethren, you've done it also unto me. So before you treat your employees harshly, would you treat Jesus harshly? Before you place unrealistic expectations upon your employees, would you want God to place unrealistic expectations on you? Before blaming them for things that go wrong, before taking the credit for things that they have accomplished, before treating them in a manner that is disrespectful of who they are as human beings, ask yourself, would I do this to Jesus? Because he considers the things that you do to them as though they were done to him. And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, help us to be godly employees, help us to be good bosses, help us to recognize that we are called by you through your word to submit ourselves one unto another. In other words, to consider others before we consider ourselves. Lord, may we experience joy in our lives by putting Jesus first, by putting others second, and putting ourselves last, Lord, recognizing that ultimately we serve you in all things. And it is you to whom we are to look for our reward. May you be glorified in our lives as we seek to serve you always. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.