Well, we are going to talk tonight about leadership at work. This is part of a longer series, as you know. And I thought I would start off tonight with something that was pretty formative in my thinking and in my experience in my career. As a much younger man, much younger man, nearly 40 years ago, I was thrown into an environment of a Fortune 500 company and all the politics and the challenges and the opportunity that that brings.

I loved it. I really enjoyed it. I had been assigned a role in senior management of that division where I served alongside some of the most capable and even brilliant people I've had the privilege to work with. And one of the senior executives in that company was a man, I'll call him Bill, who had achieved a position of significant authority and responsibility over hundreds of employees.

My first and early impressions were that Bill was experienced, he was deeply respected, and that he was very much what I wanted to be, because to top it all off, he was an outspoken Christian. I say outspoken because he led staff meetings on a weekly basis in his department and he started off with prayer and a Bible study.

And if you worked in his department, you were going to hear the gospel. In fact, if you went in his office for very long, you were going to hear the gospel. That's leadership at work, right? There's a guy I could follow, that I could admire, that I could emulate, and I began to think maybe I could ask him to disciple me because he seemed to be everything that I thought I wanted to be.

Nope. It turned out that he had been directed several times to stop those Bible studies on company time and his resistance to submit to his employer was perhaps, in his mind, a strike for religious freedom and the Great Commission. But in reality, he was disobeying the commands in the Bible for employees, and that was a prelude as it usually is to other character issues.

It turned out his weekly Bible study and office demeanor was flagrant hypocrisy. Employees began to confide in me that Bill was well known on business trips to be a philanderer and a hard drinker. And then in short order, similar behaviors came to light that was not limited to business trips.

So in the end, I did learn a lot from Bill, just not the lessons I thought I was going to learn. I learned how not to conduct myself at work, and I learned in sad and stark lessons what leadership at work does not look like. Leadership at work is an area of great interest, particularly among young, ambitious men.

And I don't say that as a negative. As we'll see, the venue of work and the opportunity to achieve leadership roles and added responsibility is not random. But to fully appreciate the task of leadership, we have to know and understand God's view of work and let that inform how we lead and how we define even what leadership is in the workplace.

And we'll begin with the big picture, and I just want you to know tonight, we're doing a survey through Scripture. I pray I don't get in the way, because I want you to see from the Word of God, and it's reflected on your handout, that there's a lot in the Bible about work.

And it starts in Genesis chapter 1. And in Genesis 1 verse 27, that great verse, "God created man in his own image, and the image of God he created, a male and female he created them." And then starting in verse 28 is a description of why he created you, why he created me, what was the task.

And as I read through this, I want you to listen to this or read through this with an eye towards work. Because everything I'm about to read to you describes work. Verse 28, "God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that creeps on the earth.' Then God said, 'Behold, I've given to you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of the earth, and every tree which has the fruit of the tree yielding seed, it shall be food for you, and to every beast of the earth, and every bird of the sky, and to everything that creeps on the earth, which has life, I have given every green plant for food.' And it was so.

And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good, and there was evening and there was morning the sixth day." And you say, "I didn't hear a lot of work there." Well, I want to help you see a lot of work there. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

That speaks to family. And all the men who have had children or have young children probably want to say amen. That's work. And in Genesis 1, before sin enters the world, right after he forms and creates man, he describes the work of man. To be married, to have children, to multiply and to fill the earth.

That is work. He talks about, he goes on to say, "Subdue the earth. Don't just fill the earth with children, with offspring, but subdue it." And that word subdue connotes work. It's far removed from our culture today, but if you've ever been on a farm or you know a farmer, they can describe to you how much work it takes to subdue the earth.

It takes work. And it goes on to say we're to have dominion over the fish and over the creeping and crawling things and over everything that grows that produces food and seeds to plant more. That's all work. Managing and ruling this earth is a laborious task. Converting animals and vegetation to food, clothing, and shelter requires work.

And yes, that is what animals are for. The mandate for God's creation is that you and I work. Genesis 1 is not directed to just men. The work of a woman and a man by God's design is far more than just a job or your employment that dominates our life.

Our employment is one part of the work we're called to do. Work is what every man and woman was created to do. So tonight, stepping down and back from that broad definition of work, I am going to refer from this point forward to your employment, to your leadership in the workplace.

That's the aspect of work that we'll focus on. Leadership at work as God designed it has little to do with your title, with your responsibilities at work, or where you are on the org chart. There is no imperative in the Bible that the Christian must aspire to the office of the chief executive officer or whatever the top of the pyramid is where you work.

The Bible does not say that such a pursuit is virtuous and the Bible doesn't prevent or speak ill of that pursuit. There is no biblical prerogative that you must lead at work in that sense. That even if you're the low man on the totem pole, the lowest of the low on the org chart, you are called to lead at work.

You are to bring spiritual leadership to your job and we understand that every area of life is spiritual. Your work is not a secular area of your life. As we'll see, your work for an employer is a spiritual endeavor. For believers, work is a spiritual effort in a thoroughly, sometimes secular environment.

And that secular environment, just to be clear, does not mean that your work is to be viewed as secular. To understand how we lead at work, we need to understand the nature of that secular environment and we've already covered this in another session. But just as a review, success in your job at its most basic level is results.

You either produce or you won't be successful as they define successful and you may find yourself unemployed. With that reality in mind, let's talk about briefly what spiritual leadership is. And again, this is review from a previous session. But secular leadership in a secular work environment, it's all results, produce.

Spiritual leadership in a secular work environment or whatever the work environment is, results with character. That's it. It's simple. To be very clear, you and I, we are not exempt from the requirement that we fulfill our employer's expectations for whatever it is we're trying to produce. We need to do that.

Your spiritual status does not override that reality or the consequences of failure in that regard. The Bible makes clear, as we'll see tonight, that you and I are to work, we're to be good and even excellent at the work that we do, we are to be submissive to the rules and leadership in our workplace, and we're to do all of that with integrity and grace.

In summary, that's leadership at work, regardless of your title. And there's an immediate problem when we start to talk about work and employment, and that is the natural inclination of sinful man towards laziness, self-interest, and sin. That conflict comes into play pretty quickly. In fact, in Proverbs 6, in the middle of a series of conversations that a father is having with his children, you read that famous passage, "Go to the aunt, oh what?

He called his son a sluggard." Can you believe that? "Go to the aunt, oh sluggard, consider her ways and be wise," and this is a father training his son as quickly and early as possible to develop the disciplines that kill laziness. Unfortunately, our culture and the United States economy is now known for its millions of men who never learn the discipline of killing laziness and the disciplines of working hard.

In 2016, Nicholas Eberstadt wrote a book called "Men Without Work, America's Invisible Crisis," and he described in great detail the state of work for men in modern America from a purely statistical and even secular perspective. It was a stunning book at that time. I actually got to meet him and talk to him about his book, and I don't think he had any idea how biblical his book was.

It wasn't his intent. His study concluded in 2016 that men were not going to work in record numbers. This was not because work was unavailable, it was because men had lost the imperative and the initiative to work. In 2016, in a booming economy, America had sunk to depression era work rates for men of what's called prime age, 25 to 54.

In 2016, at that time, over 6 million healthy and capable prime age men were neither working nor even looking for work in an economy where there were millions of jobs available. And admittedly, the modern workplace since 2016 certainly hasn't made it any easier. If anything, it's gotten more complicated.

Some of you have lived this since 2020. Your job is no longer where you just earn a living. The workplace has become a battleground for politics, wokeism, your worldview, on trial every day. In 2022, you may recall this, the Apple employees famously declared that being required to return to work was actually racist.

While Nicholas Eberstadt updated and re-released his book in 2022, that's the light colored book, to capture the unfolding disaster imposed by the political and economic events of 2020 and 2021. And this is his quote, "The truth is that fewer prime age American men are looking for readily available work than at any previous juncture in our history." This trend is being encouraged by a concept called guaranteed minimum income.

It's a movement by liberals and even Marxists all over the world. And minimum income means that between unemployment benefits and other government handouts, increasing numbers of men cannot afford to work. They don't want to lose their benefits. They can't earn more than the government will give them to not work.

Laziness has been elevated to her virtue and now it's seen by many as a financially wise decision. This is obviously an overwhelming evidence of a post-Christian nation if this ever was a Christian nation. Allowing men and even paying men to not work is a direct attack by Satan on the design of God for his creation and perhaps dramatic evidence of Romans 1 type judgment on this nation.

The wealth of this nation is funding and accelerating men peacefully living the desires of their sinful hearts, leisure and a level of wealth with no expectation of work. Throughout the Bible, we see God's view of work. It is contrary to what I just described. We see why he created us to work and how we should approach work.

It's what I call the theology of work and we're going to do an overview of this topic tonight and cover a lot of Scripture to see that theology of work and I believe the Bible preaches best and we need to see the mind of God on this topic. The Word of God needs to inform my thinking and your thinking and that thinking then drives our decisions and our attitudes toward work.

We might expose tonight, maybe the Word of God might expose how much our thinking about our job and work has been conformed by and conformed to the world. So there's five pillars supporting a biblical worldview when it comes to work and I just want to work through these fairly quickly with you.

The first one is that work is spiritual service of worship and I'm going to start in Romans 12, a passage you're familiar with and I think you'll see why, "Therefore, I exhort you brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to God which is your spiritual service of worship and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may approve what the will of God is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect." And what is God's good, pleasing, and perfect will for your life?

There's no doubt about it, there's no question, no ambiguity. His will is that you and I would work. This includes our job and so much more. Work is a pursuit that is ordained by our Creator before sin entered the world. It is not the curse, it is a blessing.

Unless you're sick or injured, God's will is pretty clear. And when we look beyond Genesis 1 into the creation story, in Genesis 2, starting in verse 5, this is before man's been created, "Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprouted for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth and there was no man to cultivate the ground." That word cultivate, I'm an accountant so remember this if you know Hebrew, but that word in the original language is a bad, okay?

Work. Then the story is that Adam names the animals, or God creates man, later names the animals, and then it says, "The Lord God took the man, put him into the Garden of Eden to abod, cultivate it and keep it." Abod means to labor, to serve, and it's the same word that's used in two passages that you've heard before.

Worship the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Psalm 211, that word worship is the same word, abod. Psalm 100 verse 2, "Serve the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful singing," it's the same word, serve, abod. Work was created by God, it was his idea from the very beginning, he created it, he defines it, he governs it, he establishes the purpose of it, and he is worshipped by it.

Work is worship. And to show you that, there's two passages that are pretty central. If you're going to look for passages in the Bible that deal with the issue of work, you're probably going to go to Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3. And I want to read through these and I want to note something here.

If you have a pen, I want you to mark all the references to God. A passage that on its face is about work, and I want to show you it's maybe not really. Verse 5, "Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in the integrity 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, serving with goodwill 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," capital M, "their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with him." Passage all about work references God seven times by my count. There's a reason for that. There's three imperatives to the employee in that passage.

We are to be obedient, we're to have integrity, and we're to serve with goodwill as to the Lord. Work is worship. Colossians 3, another go-to passage. It's on the screen. "Slaves in all things, obey those who are your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but with integrity of heart, fearing the Lord.

Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance, serve the Lord Christ." By my count, there's four references in that short passage to the Lord, to our God, the one who gave us work, the one who created work.

The same commands are in both passages, obey, serve with integrity, do your work, serve as to the Lord. Work is a spiritual service of worship to Christ. And we're not just to be obedient by working with that in mind, but we should learn the discipline and teach to our children the discipline of loving that work as an offering to Christ as worship and as a gift from God.

And that's the second point I want to cover is that work is a gift from God. The truth and implication of this truth is one area that many of our minds might need to be transformed to consider, because I don't think many of you hear very often like I don't hear very often that work is a gift, do you?

In our popular culture, we hear that it's a drudgery, it's a pain, it's something to be rid of, it's something to minimize, it's something to do as little as possible. I even hear some in the church say that work is the curse, and it's easy to fall into that.

The Bible makes it pretty clear that work is a gift. Psalm 104 verse 13, "He, God, waters the mountains from his upper chambers. The earth is satisfied with the fruits of his work." And then it describes why. Verse 14, "He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the labor of man so that he may bring forth food from the earth." God creates work for us, do you see that?

He is a work-making God because he gave work to us as a gift. Like food is for the cattle, work and labor is for the man. In Psalm 128, too, "When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you." It's the blessing of God.

Ecclesiastes 3, there's a lot of Ecclesiastes in here tonight. This is tying in with our study in Ecclesiastes, but verse 12, "I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime. Moreover that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor, it is the," what?

It's the gift of God. Ecclesiastes 5, 9 repeats that the labor is a gift from God. "Work was in the design of creation before sin entered the world and it is not punishment, it is not the curse. In fact, it is a gift to his entire creation." And there's some who in this room, for various reasons, cannot work, sickness, injury, forced retirement at a certain age, and I would expect that most of you who I just referenced have a different understanding of this aspect of work than you used to.

I've talked to a lot of men who wish they could go back to work. I knew of a strong, healthy young man many years ago. We were both young fathers at the time. He went to work one morning, just like any other day. In mid-morning, he collapsed at work, and he never left his bed on his own even once from that moment until he died 20 years later.

That young man might have gone to work that morning with a less than appreciative heart or perspective like we do. I don't know, but I do know this, he definitely came to appreciate work as a gift of God because he couldn't do it anymore. Our culture advertises and markets retirement as the goal.

The world says that retirement is the finish line, it's the goal, no more work. Some of us here tonight have adopted that perspective for maybe all the wrong reasons. We buy the lie of the world that we can live life free from work. Retirement is so exalted as a goal in our culture that many labor unions and government agencies establish what they call a benefit, a mandatory retirement age.

No more work. So many men buy into this. These are the men that live for Friday or live for the weekend, and the empty promise of retirement, and then they cross that finish line, and within days or weeks realize what a gift that work was. I know you young guys, it's hard for you to believe that.

A biblical man sees retirement not as a finish line, but as a starting line. Time where he gets to do new work, different work, service to the family, service in the church, the neighborhood, whatever it might be, and of course that work might be slower and less productive because of the ravages of the aging process.

That is a fact of life too, as we'll see in Ecclesiastes chapter 12. There's so many men in this room who I am so grateful for, they model what it's like to cross that finish line and not see it as a finish line, but as a starting point. They're among us, devoting themselves to the development of the next generation.

Don't wait to grasp what a gift work is, and let that realization benefit you now while you're working rather than waiting until the point where this truth is when you wished you had understood when it would have benefited you, which is now. A man who leads at work understands that his work is worship, and he has an entirely different attitude than the rest of the employee force because he understands every day he gets to go to work.

It's a gift from God. Work is also a fact of life. It's a fact of life from Genesis 1 and 2, we've seen that work was established way back at the beginning. I don't know how you could come to any other conclusion than that work is a fact of life.

It is our lot on this earth. It's not optional. And one of the common deceptions of Satan and the evidences of the pride of man in many areas, but particularly in the area of work, is when we believe we have a choice where God has said, "You have no choice." Turning biblical imperatives into options demonstrates either ignorance of God's design or a rebellion and an arrogance against God.

This is true individually, and it's true of a country. Our country right now is being intentionally, or the economy of our country is being intentionally dismantled by the notion that you can opt out of work. And the reality today is you can. You can live off the government today.

It's a false option. You can live a life of leisure in this country without the demands of work, and this is a choice that's contrary to the immovable force of truth. God said, "Work." Sinful man says, "Don't work." It's as stark as that, and how do you think that ends?

Job 7, 1 says, "Is not man forced to labor on the earth, and are not his days like the days of a hired man?" Some of you are...that's resonating with you right now. Psalm 104, "The young lions roar after their prey, and they seek their food from God." The lions are fed by God, is what that's saying.

In verse 22, "When the sun rises, they withdraw, and they lie down in their dens." And guess what? It's our turn. Verse 23, "Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until evening. O Lord, how many are your works! In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your possessions." Whatever your work is, you should embrace it as the gift of God and as a fact of life.

That might dramatically change how you feel and what you think tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off and you put your feet on the floor one more time to head off to work. It's a fact of life. You're in God's will when you're doing that. And it's a gift and it's hard.

Work is hard. Work is not optional and that work's going to be hard. And this point is not to wow you with some new information, but to put your difficulties at work into context. Work is hard for a reason and it's hard for everyone, not just you. In Genesis chapter 3 verse 17, again, we keep going back to Genesis because I want you to see that this is the design, the perfect design of our creator God in his creative process when he said, "This is good." And then sin entered the world in Genesis chapter 3 and in verse 17 he's pronounced a curse on Satan, he's pronounced a curse on the woman, and now he comes to the man.

And to Adam he said, "Because you've listened to the voice of your wife and you've eaten from the tree about which I commanded you saying, 'You shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you,' saying, 'You shall not eat from it,' excuse me, 'cursed is the ground because of you, entoil now, you will eat of it all the days of your life.

Both thorns and thistles it will grow for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground." That word toil is izzibon, it means pain, labor, hardship, sorrow, sweat. Here's the curse. Before work was purely a gift and it was a fact of life, but it was not difficult.

The curse is now you aren't going to eat unless you work, and that work is going to be hard. That word toil is the identical word in verse 16 when the curse is pronounced on Eve, the woman. You know this verse. He said to the woman, "I will greatly multiply your pain, izzibon." In childbirth, in pain, izzibon, you will bring forth children.

Now I highly recommend you don't go rushing home. Don't be texting your wife right now saying, "I know what labor is like." That won't go over well. But I do think it's interesting that it's the same word that's used for a woman in labor in childbirth that is used to describe the work that we must do now because in the conditions of work because sin entered the world.

God designed work and now He designed it to be hard. And I understand the confusion sometimes. Understand this. Work is not the curse. Work existed before the curse, but the nature of our work now is the curse. Ecclesiastes 2 talks a lot about the futility, frustration, and the fatigue of labor.

We've covered it. Brad covered it really well, but in verse 22 of Ecclesiastes 2, it says, "For what does a man get in all his labor and striving with which he labors under the sun? Because all his days, his task is painful and grievous. Even at night, his mind does not rest.

This too is vanity." I think we all can identify with the words of that verse. That is life. There's difficult days at work. Depending on what you do, there's sweat, there's toil, there's sleepless nights, all kinds of difficulties. And all of that should be a reminder to us of our fallenness and sin and the holiness of God.

And if you're saved, it should remind you of the amazing grace of God in saving you in spite of your sin. So that what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes on his perspective of the difficulty of work can be your perspective. What a gift. So toils, thorns, thistles, sweat, labor, striving, pain, grief, hardship, have a good day at work tomorrow.

The next point is that work has a purpose, all of that difficulty. Work has a purpose. Work brings undeserved blessing and joy to those who will submit to the reality that our creator made us to labor. And it's encouraging to remember the purpose of work. There is a stark contrast between those who understand the purpose of work and those who do not.

There are those who work hard and diligently through an entire career and they never understand why. And in Ecclesiastes chapter 4, there is a description of such a man. Verse 7, and by the way, I think this describes a growing demographic in this country. Verse 7, I looked again at vanity under the sun.

Verse 8, there was a certain man without any dependence, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all of his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, "For whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?" This too is vanity and a grievous task.

This is a portrait of a man who's a hard worker. He gets his purpose. He works hard. He's also financially astute because it says he's wealthy. He's saving his money. He is taking the results of his work and he is gathering it. He's also single. He has no family.

And for whatever reason, he doesn't have his siblings are gone. He just has no family. That's his life. I can't tell you how many young people I talk to in our culture today say that's the ideal. Wealth, a good job, no children, and yet he never asked, "For whom am I laboring and depriving myself?" And the Bible says that that's grievous.

Work without purpose is sad. It's grievous, it's defeating, and it's vanity. So who are you working for? Well we saw in Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3, you're working for who? Christ. You're also working to fulfill your God-given purpose on this earth. To be in God's will and you're working for family.

You go back to Genesis 1, the work that's described there of multiplying and filling the earth and you're fulfilling God's design and knowing the purpose of work is a grace. It's a mercy to know why you work. And to lead at work, a godly biblical man walks into the workplace knowing why he's there.

Understanding what work is and understanding what his role is in that workplace and letting that drive his day. Let me go through a few reasons why we work, and there could be a lot more. I'm going to go through these really quickly. But one is humility. Why do we work?

What's the purpose of work? Well it keeps us humble. It keeps us humble. There's an interesting passage in Psalm 107. Listen to verse 10 through 12, "There were those who dwelt in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in misery and chains, because they had rebelled against the words of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High." Verse 12, "Therefore, he humbled their heart with labor." I think the interesting point there is that the psalmist didn't say he punished them with work.

If you have teenage sons, this might be a good principle to teach them. He didn't punish them with work. He humbled them with work. We need to be humbled. Work isn't a source of pride for a Christian. It's a daily reminder that we serve a good and a gracious God who gifted us with work.

And without the work he provides, we do not eat. And there is a humility in that. Second, we're commanded to provide for others. We're to provide for others. 1 Timothy 5.8 says, "If anyone," and I'm going through these in a different order than what's on the screen. I'm sorry about that.

"If anyone does not provide for his own and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." You're familiar with that verse. Well the way you provide for yourself and for your family is to what? Work. That was established in Genesis chapter 3.

That's the connection. In Ephesians 4.28 says, "He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor performing with his own hands what is good so that he will have something to share with one who has need. And the ones with need immediately in front of you are yourself and your family and then it goes from there." Another reason to work is to sleep well.

Sleep well. Pretty practical. There's a pretty significant way to know that we're not God. We need sleep. God doesn't ever sleep. It's a reminder every day that God is God and we are not. In Ecclesiastes 5.12 says, "The sleep of a working man is pleasant whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep." It's better to sleep well than to have wealth that prevents or eliminates the incentive or the need for work.

Some of us here yearn for wealth and we're completely missing the contentment that comes from the simple knowledge in life that where there is a clear connection between working and eating. And those of you that are parents need to remember that that connection is important to teach to your children.

We work so that we can be humbled, so that we sleep well, so that we can provide for others and, of course, so that we can eat. You're familiar with that. And then the last one there is so that we can stay out of trouble. And I thought that one might be a hard one to swallow, but someone already talked to me tonight.

They saw the outline and they said, "I get it. That's why I'm working." It's to stay out of trouble. It's biblical. Second Thessalonians 3.10 says, "For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order. If anyone is not willing to work," there's laziness, "then he is not to eat either.

For we hear that some of you are leading an undisciplined life." There's a second sin, an undisciplined life, doing no work at all but acting like busy bodies. That's somebody who has way too much time on their hands. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in a quiet fashion and to eat their own bread.

There is a connection between work and staying out of trouble. The book I told you about, Men Without Work, either version of those books, devotes several chapters detailing data and statistics regarding criminal activity, disability statistics, and mortality bearing out the truth of Second Thessalonians 3 in the United States of America right now.

Laziness and undisciplined life and too much idle time does not end well for a man or for a nation. We need to work. So leadership is not a title. It's defined by character and formed by God's truth and is designed for a man that work is worship. It's a fact of life.

It's a gift from God. It's hard and it's purposeful. And understanding that compels a man to work hard with integrity and grace and to submit to the authorities over him at work. And if that's you, in an honest assessment of your work life, you are leading at work. And to the extent you're showing that at home to your wife and to your children, you are leading your family in the area of work.

So to wrap up, let's just take a minute by looking at what little direct guidance there is for those of you who have achieved the title and the responsibility at work where others work for you or where they report to you. Ephesians 6, 9 comes right at you. It says, "Masters, do the same things to them and give up threatening, knowing that both their master," capital M, who's their master?

It's Christ, whether they love Christ or not. Both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with him. That's some pretty profound words there. If you're in a position where people report to you, there's really three commands there. One is do the same thing to them.

What does that mean? Well, that goes back to verses 5 through 8, those same three commands that we looked at earlier. You are to be obedient, you are to serve with integrity, and you are to serve with goodwill. That didn't change when you were promoted to management. That's what that means.

The command in the first few verses of that passage are that you and I as employees are to be obedient, we are to have integrity, and we are to serve with goodwill. Then the command to those of us, those of you promoted to management is to do the same things to them.

In other words, you lead by example. The second command or imperative there is don't forget where you came from. Don't forget where you came from. Being a good servant wasn't an exercise to achieve a position where you could lord it over other people. That's the third command, stop threatening.

You see that? Give up threatening. There's some direct management consulting. Give up threatening. There's no place for arrogance in leadership. If you find yourself pulling rank or title to motivate people, you have lost the battle. You're to lead by example and by persuasion. Then in 1 Timothy 6, 1 and 2, there's a word about how others view you as a supervisor.

All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters. This is talking about you now, how people are supposed to view you. This is why people like management or they think they do. They are to regard you as worthy of all honor so that the name of God in our doctrine will not be slandered, but those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful to them because they are brothers, but they must serve them all the more because those who partake of the benefits are believers and beloved.

Teach and exhort these things. You look at the commands for those who are under your leadership. Honor, they are to honor you, they are to respect you, and they are to serve you. Who doesn't want to be honored, respected, and served? Therein is the enticement to management, and therein is the danger in management for a proud man.

These are obligations of the employee before the Lord, by the way. You have no right to make that demand of anybody. As a manager, you must earn it, and that is the difficulty of leadership. You're supposed to respect, honor, and serve you, and if you find that nobody does, the problem might be you.

You need to earn it, and here is what engenders trust, respect, and service. Ephesians 6, 5 through 9, serve with integrity, serve with goodwill. In Colossians 3, the same thing, integrity, hard work, that is the role of a leader in the workplace. Lead by example. You work as hard as anyone.

You have an attitude of service and live a life of integrity. That is the biblical supervisor and manager. The result is that your staff might honor, respect, and serve you. And just to conclude, wherever you are on the org chart at work, remember your title doesn't define your leadership.

Wherever you are, lead. Work hard, be excellent with integrity. Work hard with integrity and grace to the glory of God, your master, capital M, and for the benefit of your employer, small m. And always remember who capital M master is. Okay? Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word.

Lord, I pray that your word would do its work in all of our hearts, even now. And Lord, as we go to talk about these truths, I pray that you would give in these men a transparency of vulnerability to talk about an area of life that is sometimes very, very difficult.

I pray that you would encourage the hearts of these men. Lord, may we go from here, hundreds of men, into the workplace in Southern California and be different, increasingly different, just simply by remembering the truths that you've designed work, that it's for our good, that it should be a joy, that it's a gift from you, and that our work truly is worship, and that we work for you.

Lord, may that be impactful in our workplaces for the advancement of your kingdom and for your glory. In Christ's name, amen.