Christians also know they are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for them to do. They know that the "work" prepared for them to do is important and is be done in His Grace.
The Grace of God "works." It works in all of a Christian's personal relationships, including marriage, family, church, school and the "workplace." I've spent 35 years in various "workplaces." I spent my early years on the job unsaved and oblivious of God's Grace. I've spent more than 25 years working as a saved person. I've talked to hundreds of other Christians who have had similar experiences. The differences are real. They are powerful and important to understand.
Christians who work outside the home spend from 20 to 40 to 60 or more hours a week "on the job." Many of us spend more waking hours at a workplace with co-workers than we do at home with our family. How should we spend that time? What is our responsibility to God? To our boss? To our co-workers? Our employees?
The Apostle Paul does not make unique distinctions about the way Christians should behave in different settings. He doesn't say we should be one way at home, another way at school, another way at church and yet another way at work. The Number One complaint I've heard about Christians, before and since I was saved, is that we are a bunch of hypocrites. Unsaved people love to throw that in the faces of God's People (I did before I was saved). They claim we act one way at church and another at work and play. God won't accept that excuse from unsaved people who try to use it as a reason why they won't believe in Christ, but it does give witnessing Christians a more difficult time sharing the need to receive Christ as Savior.
Paul taught Christians to live a life of grace (GraceLife ) in all situations and settings. Living a GraceLife begins with an understanding of God's Grace and who we are in His Grace.
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight."Ephesians 1:3-4
If you are a Christian, saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing. There are no spiritual blessings we do not not have. Paul enumerates some of those blessings to us.
"In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory."Ephesians 1:5-14
Spiritual blessings are ours for eternity. Physical blessings last only a short time. Anything that has long-term importance is already ours. That fact should swell our hearts with gratitude and awe. We can't hope or wish for any spiritual blessing we don't have because we already have it. That should give every Christian great personal satisfaction and confidence. We don't lack for anything important.
God chose His Children of Grace before the creation of the world. He knew you and chose you before He said His first "Let there be." Before God said, "Let there be light," He had already chosen you. Before God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water," He had already chosen you. Before God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear," He had already chosen you. Before God said, "Let the land produce vegetation," He had already chosen you. "Before God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night," He had already chosen you.. Before God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the sky," He had already chosen you. Before God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds," He had already chosen you. Before God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness," He had already chosen you. Now that's special! We were not a mistake or an afterthought. God chose us in Christ "before the creation of the world."
God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world "to be holy and blameless in his sight." "Holy and blameless" is a fascinating concept. We are "holy and blameless" in Christ because of His Holy Sacrifice. Paul told the Ephesian believers they were fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household; a building joined together that "rises to become a holy temple in the Lord." (2:21) Paul wrote that Jesus Christ "loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." (5:25-27) Paul called the Colossian believers "holy and faithful brothers in Christ." (1:2) He wrote the Colossians that they once were alienated from God and were enemies in their minds because of their evil behavior: "But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation." (1:22) Paul told them they were God's chosen people, "holy and dearly loved." (3:12)
That is our position in Jesus Christ. We are "holy and dearly loved." The combination of being holy and dearly loved means we have everything we need to do the work God has prepared for us. We have no "marks" against us. We have no reason to "feel" guilty about anything since we aren't guilty for anything. Jesus made us "holy" through His death on the Cross. God forgave us all our sins: past, present and future. Paul told the Roman believers they were "dead to sin" and that "anyone who has died has been freed from sin." (6:2,7) That is our position in Christ: "dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus." (6:11) Christians "have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness." (6:18)
Does our position in Christ mean Christians never sin again? Hardly. We are still human. Paul told the Romans he put the issue of dealing with sin in human terms "because you are weak in your natural selves." (6:19) We live with a sin nature in us. Christians have a capacity to sin. In fact, they have a strong physical pull toward sin. Christians are "holy and blameless" in God's sight, but they can and do sin. That's a dilemma all Christians face. We are spiritual and physical at the same time. The spiritual wants what God wants. The physical wants what sinful nature wants.
Paul used his own life as an example of the battle with sin.
"So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."Romans 7:21-25
Every Christian has to deal with sin from a very personal position. Something that causes me to sin won't necessarily cause you to sin. Things you struggle with in your life may not be the same things I struggle with. We have to grow in Christ, depend on His Strength and learn how to control the cravings of our sinful nature. That's what will unleash the Power God has stored in each of us through His Holy Spirit. The Spirit understands our individual battles with sin and is prepared and equipped to help us through each one.
"In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace."Romans 6:11-14
Consider for a moment what happens when Christians offer themselves to God and parts of their bodies to Him as instruments of righteousness? That means God can do whatever He deems best with our brains, our mouths, our eyes, our ears, our hands, our arms, our feet, our legs, and our hearts. Think about how much Power results when God's Grace is our Master. It leads to Holiness in every aspect of a Christian's life.
"Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."Romans 6:19-23
We call Christ our Lord and Savior. The Greek word for Lord is kurios . It signifies someone who exercises power and authority over other people. English translators have chosen the words "Lord, master, and owner" to explain the meaning. Christ is our Master. He Owns us. He bought us with the price of His "blood-death" on the Cross. We belong to Him. His Will is to be our will. His Desire, our desire.
This is where a "workplace ministry" begins. We must understand our spiritual position in Christ and the Power living in each of us. Success in serving the needs of others (ministering) begins with our own spiritual health.
Spiritual health is a matter of considerable growth that begins with the way we think and believe.
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace."Romans 8:1-6
Do you see the key? "...those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires...the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace." Spiritual health that leads to a healthy ministry begins in our "minds."
"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will."Romans 12:2
Growth as a Christian includes "transformation" and "renewal." "Transformed" is metamorphousthe . It means "to change into another form." "Transfigured" is another way of translating the word. It means to change the outward expression to an expression which is representative of the inner being. That's what happened when Christ was "transfigured" in full view of His disciples. Paul is calling on believers to stop "conforming" (sunschematizo ) to the world's pattern, what they followed before salvation, and start "transforming" to what is new inside them. Christians do that by the "renewing" of their minds. "Renewing" is anakainosei . It means to "make new and different." It is a changing for the better. It is an improvement of the mind (nous -- the seat of reflective consciousness, the faculties of perception and understanding).
Christians are always in a state of "renewing" their minds. That's one of the joys of being a Christian. We don't ever have to become stale or cemented in our thinking. Salvation is the beginning of a new way of thinking; a way that grows in the knowledge of Christ forever. It is our new way of "testing and approving" what God's Will is for our lives.
"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."Ephesians 4:22-24
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."Philippians 2:5-11
A major problem with modern "positive thinking" is it depends on the power of the human heart and mind without God. The results are temporal and small at best. God wants His Children to have "Christ's attitude." It is eternal and large in scope. The "attitude of the world" is to succeed in pleasing ourselves. The "attitude of Christ" is to succeed in doing what pleases God. No one has ever been as successful as Christ; not even close. If we choose attitudes on the basis of who's best, richest or most powerful, the attitude of Christ wins every time.
Christ was the most successful "Minister" Who ever served humanity. Why is that? What can we learn from Christ about successful ministry in the workplace? We find some of the answers in Paul's letter to the Philippian Christians.
We are God's Children of Grace. We are chosen, predestined, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, included, marked, sealed, guaranteed, loved. We are "in" Christ and He is "in" us. We are dead to sin but alive to Christ. We are the righteousness of God in Christ. Christ "in" us will live His Life through us. We do not have to "try" to live the Christian life. Jesus will live His life through us from His position "in" us. We simply cooperate with Christ Who is in us. We are secure in Him. We are "in" Christ. There is no safer place to be. No one, no matter how powerful, can hurt us in any eternal way because we are safe "in" Christ. We have our eternal identity in Christ. We have nothing to prove to anyone. We are already the "most" we can be. We are already as "close" to God as we can be. We can't get any closer to God than being in Him and Him being in us. We can't become any more a member of His spiritual family than we are already. We can't become any more "sons" of God than we are already. We are God's Children. We are His heirs.
In fact, God uses us to "prove" His Grace. "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Ephesians 2:6-10)
Jesus obeyed His Father's Will to the extreme. His Father's Will was that Christ die cruelly at the hands of those He created in payment for "their" sins. The Father's Will was that Christ take on Himself, on His physical body, the sins of the world. Nothing God will ask us to do will ever compare with the "lowness" and "humiliation" of that service.
Paul wrote that our "attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus." Our victory, our success, in ministry is tied to that attitude. How do we do something that is so spiritually powerful? How do we have the attitude of a servant? How do we humble ourselves and become obedient to everything God asks of us? How can we be successful in ministry? By understanding that we are "in" Christ and Christ is "in" us; by having the same attitude that Jesus had. That comes from understanding we can't and He can. Christ "in" us will live His Life through us powerfully and successfully.
We are a people of Grace. We are a people of The Spirit. We are a people of Love. We are "in" Christ. Christ is "in" us. Our ministry flows from being united "in" Christ; from intimacy with the Spirit Who is "in" us. Christ ministers to others from within us and through us.
Meditate on the following Scriptures and ask God to show you their meaning in light of your ministry for Him and to others while you're on earth. Think about the Power alive in you for the service God gives you. Ask God to show you what His Truth means to your life and ministry. Praise God for it. Apply it. Do it.
"If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin--because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus."Romans 6:5-11
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."Romans 8:1-2
"But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."Romans 8:10-11
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us."2 Corinthians 5:17-20
"Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you--unless, of course, you fail the test? And I trust that you will discover that we have not failed the test."2 Corinthians 13:5-6
"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"Galatians 2:20-21
"You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."Galatians 3:26-29
"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."Ephesians 2:10
"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."Philippians 1:21
"To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me."Colossians 1:27-29
That brings us full circle to having the Attitude of Christ as we serve Him and minister to the needs of people around us. That is our lesson. That is our power. That is our goal.
"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being likeminded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus."Philippians 2:1-5
This is the end of the first of many studies about "Grace in the Workplace." Please consider these Truths carefully and prayerfully. Pray for us as we study and prepare the next study about our ministry on earth.
"Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © , 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers."
Taking God's Grace to the World!
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Last Updated: 12/20/1999