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The Call to Sanctified Labor - Ephesians 4:28

By Rob Griffith | May 14, 2007

As we look at we look at the Word this afternoon, the text we will be focusing on is verse 28 of Chapter 4, “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor…” In this verse we see Paul addressing – if even indirectly – the eighth commandment given to the Israelites. I say indirectly because the scope of the passage is not directly dealing with the Decalogue per se but rather how to live a sanctified life. As we focus on this particular verse, I have titled this message “The Call to Sanctified Labor” for our work truly does matter to God. The industry of our hands, the sweat on our back, the impact of our produce all play a fundamental part in who we are as images of God. As we progress, however we will also see that there is much more to our passage than merely a call for change.

{note: “/”s are my own marks to indicate deliberate pauses in my presentation.}

Our verse opens with a call to repentance, “Let the thief no longer steal.” In fact, if we expand our context a little bit, this particular section in chapter four – from verse 17 to the end of the chapter – is a call to repentance. Verse 17 begins, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.” Verse 19 shows us the outcome of this futile walk, “they have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” Then in verse 25, he begins to point out specific areas where the believers were acting as these Gentiles. Evidently Paul felt compelled to address at least a certain portion of the church at Ephesus who were confessing believers and yet lived no differently than those who lived outside of the church. In verse 21, he even goes so far to question the very veracity of their confession based on how they were living. Leading in to verse 21, Paul says “But this is not the way you learned Christ!– Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him.” // So they are called to repentance.

“Let the thief no longer steal.” Far from the claim that the Law no longer applies to believers, Paul specifically upholds the proscription against stealing. That The Law is still applicable to us today is evident in Scripture. Romans 13:8-10 says to

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. (9) The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (10) Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

1 John 2:3-5 also says:
“…by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. (4) Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, (5) but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.”

We also know that Christ himself called us back to the heart of the law in the Sermon on the Mount. And if we believe that the New Covenant spoken of in Jeremiah 31 has been applied to today, then the law – more than being a mere moral code to live by – that very law is now written on our hearts. In saying this I must hasten to add that though the Law DOES have a place in our lives today, our righteousness does not come through the law. As John Calvin puts it, “righteousness is taught in vain by the commandments / until Christ confers it by free imputation and by the spirit of regeneration.” (2.7.2) To this end, Paul, in his letter to the Romans states that “Christ is the end [or τέλος] of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” (10:4) But more on that in a moment.

In our verse, Paul does not simply stop with repentance however but turns to profitable enterprise. “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands…” The ESV translation of the phrase “labor, doing honest work” is a bit unfortunate because the force of the Greek is actually much stronger. //

Only women who have gone through childbirth understand the true meaning of this word for “labor.” A little over a year ago, my wife and I experienced the birth of our first child. Those of us men who have been through the birth process with our wives probably remember well those first few words that come out of our wives’ mouths when everything is said and done… “NEXT TIME, WE ADOPT!” // More than just simply “work,” the verb κοπιάτω – here translated “labor” – implies “toil” and toil to the end of shear exhaustion. And then on top of this Paul adds the participle of ἐργάζομαι further emphasizing the aspect of “toil.” Paul, here, is calling them not only to turn away from their sinful activity of stealing / but to go to work and to work hard. In emphasizing this, Paul seems to be setting up a contrast so that not only is he condemning the sin of stealing / but also, and probably much deeper, the sin of laziness or sloth.

Slothfulness or laziness is soundly condemned throughout scripture. The book of Proverbs is full of references to the slothful person.

19:15 Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.
21:25 The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor.
26:14 As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed.

And my personal favorite…

26:13 The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!”

Paul also addresses laziness in 2 Thessalonians 3:10 and 11 where he says, “… If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but [as] busybodies.”
The call to industry goes all the way back to Genesis 1 in the Garden. // We know that Adam and Eve were called to “fill the earth and subdue it.” In 2:15, we see that they were put in the Garden “to work it and to keep it.” Creation itself was given to us as an example of work in the fact that the Sabbath was given to us as one day a week to rest from our labors. By implication, over 85% of our lives was to be spent working. Finally, this idea of work was codified in the Law given to Moses on Sinai where the Lord says to Moses in Chapter 34, “Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day, you shall rest.”

Returning to Ephesians 4 – the one who is lazy – who is not willing to toil as he was designed – in the end is forced, if he is to survive, to resort to thievery in order to eat. / However our verse is not simply a call to work hard because that is how we are designed. The thief is called to do “honest work with his own hands.” Here is another unfortunate translation in the ESV. The word translated “honest” here is not an adjective at all in the Greek. In the original language it says simply, “the good.” This person is called to work hard, toiling “for the good.” // In pointing out the need for change and, now, to do something “for the good,” Paul points out and makes evident the evil intent involved in their previous actions. Here, Paul is calling for a fundamental change in the motivation for their actions. Paul exhorts them to turn away from their evil and to seek “the good” in all they do. More on that in a moment.

This brings us to the final phrase in our verse. Not only is the thief called to repentance and hard work; not only is he called to a fundamental change in his motivation; he is called to generosity. The thief is called to work hard, “so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.” In this, Paul makes no indication that somehow this is a recompense for his sin of thievery. He is not called to generosity in order to make up for his past life. He is called to work hard in order to be able to share with others. Instead of being a curse he is to be a blessing.

One of the themes in throughout this epistle is that of unity / and unity is a primary focus here in Chapter 4. Early on in this chapter, he expounds on the Spirit’s work in equipping them for the ‘building up’ of the body of Christ (v.12). He also speaks in terms of the physical body with every part working together properly (v.16). Later in the chapter, he speaks of the need for truthfulness as a guiding principle of communication and that only talk that is “for building up” is profitable. It is interesting that Paul inserts this admonition not to steal in a chapter where unity is the predominant theme. It is quite possible that instead of these actions being perpetrated against simply any individual that among all the other ways described that they were being disunified, they were also stealing from one another. Paul is making clear that these actions were far from the love that ought to be shared among the body of Christ.

But as we come to the end of our verse, what we have here is not simply a call to hard work so we can give. Nor is it some nouthetic counseling advice about how to overcome a propensity to steal. Nor is it a theology of hard work overcoming sin. As we consider this verse in the context of the whole letter, Paul makes abundantly clear that the motive for living a life towards honest gain is inherently founded in the fundamental change that has been wrought in a believer’s heart through Jesus Christ. //

One thing that has intrigued me about Chapter 4 is in verse 17 where Paul calls on them to not “walk as the Gentiles do…” / Maybe this only stands out to me because we live in an age where we are more conscious of racial stereotypes but I find it quite interesting that in verse 17 he assigns sinful living to an entire class of people. By all accounts, Paul’s audience were not converted Jews but rather Gentiles that had come to know Christ. This statement HAD to have taken them by storm! // In this epistle, Paul refers to “Gentiles” 4 other times but never in such a categorically derogative way. Here was the Apostle to the Gentiles. Here was the man whose life’s calling was to go to the Gentiles to preach the good news. And yet, in verse 17, he casts all Gentiles as being alienated from God in the hardness of their hearts.
Maybe what Paul is trying to intimate here is much more than, “Do not act like sinners” but rather that, upon coming to Christ, they have been so radically changed that, in some way, even their core status of being a non-Jew has been changed. Surely this status has been changed as chapter 3, verse 6 says, “This mystery [the mystery of Christ revealed through promises made through Israel] is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Verse 17 is designed to rattle them and to shake them out of there stupor and remind them that they are different to the core.

To understand this Call to Sanctified labor, we need to understand the fundamental Basis of our greater call to sanctification in every aspect of our lives. Not only the thief but we also are called to live sanctified lives / not because of some moral code but because of who we are in Christ and what HE has done for us!

Ephesians 2:1-13 says, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins (2) in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience– (3) among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (4) But God…”

One of the greatest transitions in Scripture… “BUT GOD”… God intervenes and negates every previous statement. BUT GOD came to us when we were dead and walking for our own lusts. BUT GOD comes when we by our very nature are an offense to him…

(4) But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, (5) even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– (6) and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, …

BUT GOD enters the scene and takes those… / takes US… / who by our very natures were children of wrath and changes that nature to be something fundamentally different – and then changes our very status in the Heavenlies….

That we are fundamentally changed is clear but verse 10 tells us to what end…

(10) For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

We live sanctified lives because we now live IN CHRIST and in Christ our very NATURE has been changed. We are no longer what we once were we are now HIS workmanship created to do good works.

The imperative here is not simply to stop stealing and start working hard. Nor is it to be generous with the fruit of your labors. Nor is it to simply acknowledge that we are DIFFERENT from the world. The imperative for us in this text – using thievery as only one of several examples – is to realize that we are entirely new creatures in Christ and it is our responsibility to pursue sanctified living because of this fact.
(flesh out this last statement… make sure that the indicative is not diminished but that they are all fulfilled in Christ)
We ONCE were dead in our sins
We ONCE walked in the course of this world
We ONCE followed the spirit at work in the sons of disobedience.
We ONCE lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and
We ONCE were by nature children of WRATH…

But no longer! We no LONGER live as the world does because we have been made alive together with Christ. We have been RAISED with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly places. We have become His workmanship, created for good works. THIS is why we are called to sanctification. We are not simply called to be different we ARE different at the core. Because we have been bought / we are called to put off the old self and put on the new. That new self has already been created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. What we are called to do is - ACT like it! As he says in Chapter 5, verses 1 and 2:

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
(Ephesians 5:1-2)

Topics: 1 John, Ephesians, Galatians, Proverbs, Romans |

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