You're all very welcome. My name is Podig Murphy. We have the good fortune to have today speaking to us Dr. Rosa Balfour, who is a senior transatlantic fellow of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. Dr. Balfour had the goodness to correct me when I said in my ignorance that Balfour was an English name. Balfour, of course, is a Scottish name. She's going to speak to us on a very important subject. Is Europe facing a democratic recession? A question of some interest to us all. She is going to say that there is a trend in the cycle of crisis in the EU. She does so from her background of research on the relationship between domestic politics and Europe's global role. She's also a senior advisor to the European Policy Centre in Brussels and an associate of the London School of Economics ideas think tank. She holds a degree from Cambridge University and from the London School of Economics. Is Europe facing a democratic recession? We were saying downstairs that it's a striking phrase. One of the things about it is, perhaps, that if you were to use the analogy of an economic recession, it might not entirely work because an economic recession is an event that one can find out of, one way or another, whereas a democratic recession can be very difficult to find one's way out of. So we're looking forward with great interest to your presentation, Dr Balfour, and the floor is yours. You want me to stand here? Whichever you'd like. Well, thank you very much for inviting me. It is wonderful to be in Dublin, although the weather hasn't been very nice to me. Right, I'll just try and summarize a little bit where I'd like to go today because I do want to link the democratic recession argument to prospects on the future of Europe. And I hope that in the Q&A session in the discussion session, we can actually explore some ideas because this is quite an interesting time for the EU. So my argument is that the multiple crises that Europe has been going through are actually the results of a democratic recession. This affects not just the EU, but its member states and the quality of democratic life in Europe. And what I'll put to you is an idea of how this recession takes place, which looks at the vertical dimension, the relationship between the EU national and local democracy, and a horizontal dimension, which looks at how policy has become transnational, which entails a dislocation of decision-making. Then I will try to look at the current political debates about the future of Europe following Brexit, maybe examine a few scenarios briefly, because I hope maybe we can talk about those in the discussion. These scenarios include political fragmentation, differentiation, the notion of bouncing back, which has just come up in one of the European Commission documents, or whether we can imagine some kind of renewal, a different bottom-up form of renewal. And then I'll try to tie together these ideas. One is about democracy, and the other is about the future of Europe. And I will argue that actually the debate on democracy is crucial for determining the future of the EU. And if the EU does actually want to move forward in whatever form and shape, it really needs to address the relationship between democracy and sovereignty. And perhaps it needs to address it differently. So most observers looking at what has been happening in Europe for the past decades, they identify two meta-narratives, which explain the crises. The first is globalization, its impact on inequality. And the second is the rise of identity, politics largely as a consequence of immigration, which of course is also an expression of globalization. I don't want to argue against these interpretations, but I think that going into a little bit of detail, one does not find that these interpretations are unique explanations for what is happening. And I think what really brings them together is that the problem is not just about the impact of the financial crisis on inequality, but it's on the legitimacy of the decisions that were made to address such impact. And similarly, the questions posed by the response to the refugee crisis were as much about the nature of the response and as about its legitimacy. So whether the issue is economic distribution or migration, the thread that runs through the problems is actually who decides and for the benefits of whom. Democracy has been performing badly in the Western world. If we look at it from the big picture point of view, of course, historically, democracy has been advancing with modernization. But from the 1910s onwards, if not even slightly earlier, the world is experiencing the most severe democratic setback, and I'm quoting Ronald Engelhardt here, since fascism. This democratic recession is taking place by deliberate design and through more systemic trends, including perhaps unforeseen consequences. And it has these two dimensions I was mentioning earlier, the vertical and the horizontal. But let's just look at the democratic recession by design very briefly. The ideology of neoliberalism has disempowered states in the management of globalization. The quality of democracy has declined in important states which set influential regional trends through bad governance, corruption, abuse of democratic institutions, this we are seeing in Europe. We're also seeing in Europe a rise of authoritarianism and a rise of majoritarian democracy. And these trends are in turn undermining the space for opposition. We're seeing across the board in many European states, not just those run by authoritarian governments, I might add, a clampdown on civil society and on media freedom. There are some structural challenges to democracy in the 21st century. Technological changes are part of it, and we're probably just at the beginning of that.  We have, of course, globalization. But what I'd like to focus on in the European context is Europeanization. More specifically, Europeanization has entailed a transfer of decision-making powers away from the national level. But democratic life still takes place mostly at the national level. Representative accountable and democratic decision-making at the supranational level is still wanting. There have been attempts to reform this, but the solutions have not been sufficient. They haven't been commensurate to the challenge. So when the European Union discusses the democratic deficit and expands the powers of parliament, but then citizens don't go to vote, it's clearly not an appropriate solution to the nature of the problem. So Europeanization does question the relationship between member states and, of course, the EU. And in addition to this, what we have been seeing at the EU level is that the permissive consensus, which has allowed integration for decades to take place in the continent, whereby national governments could decide together with minimal deliberation with their citizens, well, this permissive consensus has definitely come to an end during the past decade. At the national level, I would actually argue that this is where the most serious problems of democracy are taking place. National institutions have been hollowed out. In many countries, national parliaments are weak in scrutinizing EU legislation. I would add, they've become, in some countries, increasingly weak in scrutinizing national legislation. Rarely are public debates held on pan-European issues. European Parliament election campaigns have been run on domestic matters and not to elect representatives who are actually responsible for co-decision in the EU. Political parties are in steep decline. They are failing because the zone of engagement has been evacuated. I'm quoting Peter Mayer, who was actually an Irish political scientist, who argued that it's not just the citizens that have been withdrawing from politics, but it's also the elites that have been withdrawing. Political parties are no longer playing their vital role as vehicles for debate and representation between society and their institutions. In this context, the erosion of the legitimacy of the establishment has left a void. That's Peter Mayer's book, it's called Filling the Void. And that void is being filled by new actors, mostly outsiders to our traditional spectrum of politics. But many of these actors are actually not committed to democratic practices and procedures. And then there is an important level where also democracy is failing, and that is at the local level. Of course, as in the case of member states, this is not happening evenly across Europe. There are countries where democratic practices and procedures where trust in institutions remains high, and there are countries where it is painfully low. So there's a lot of diversity, and I do want to say that. It's uneven. But there have been attempts to address Europeanization compensate, shall we say, the process of transfer of powers towards a higher level by strengthening local powers through federal initiatives, strengthening decentralization, subsidiarity. That's the word that is used in the European Union jargon. And there are lots of interesting dynamics, especially with respect to the importance of cities and urban areas in managing their affairs, local community initiatives. But at the same time, local authorities have been very badly hit by austerity politics. They have been disempowered in their ability to deliver basic services to citizens, health, education, housing, green spaces. And therefore, at this level, it cannot be said that local democracy compensates, shall we say, for the transfer of power away from citizens. So what is important to understand is that it's not a question of EU member state X, where democratic processes or procedures are declining. The important point to realise that, we need to think about democracy in this vertical way, looking at the EU level, the national level, and the local level. There is, of course, an international level as well. I'm going to leave that out of this analysis. The EU European integration is the most advanced example of integration. And it is where these practices need to be addressed. And looking back to the EU and the current debates now, the risk is that if this question of the relationship between levels of democracy, if it's not addressed, the risk is that the debate on the future of Europe is stuck between nationalism and technocracy. And that's more or less where we are at this moment. There's another dimension I'd like to add, which is the horizontal dimension. The spaces for decision-making have been transformed by globalisation and Europeanisation. The impact of policy choices is not coternimous with the legitimate decision-making. Public goods cannot be confined to national spaces any longer. And decision-making over the use and the distribution of public goods is dislocated across several interconnected spaces. There are plenty of legitimate arguments for joined-up decision-making on transnational issues, which are of interest to us all across Europe. But these arguments and the attempts to address policy questions in more holistic ways are undermined by the inability of political organisations to adapt the democratic discussion to such multi-level governance. The fact that most policies now have a transnational dimension, which actually goes beyond the EU itself, is quite obvious in some policy areas, migration, climate change. And just to give an example, housing policy, which tends to be dealt with at the local level, is importantly affected by immigration and by new people coming in, by urbanisation. But migration policy at the moment is stuck, blocked at the European level. The only area in which migration policy is actually moving is in foreign policy. So we have foreign ministers or even institutions deciding on migration policy, which has consequence on housing policy in a small town in southern France. There's no democratic accountability. There's no procedure and process whereby one can have debates, discussions, input into these policies that are far more transnational. So the question really is, who decides and who is legitimated to decide? Who is accountable? Who can one blame for things going wrong? So decision shaping and implementation is becoming much more complex, but the systems of democratic decision-making have not been updated to reflect such complexity. So we need to really work on both this vertical dimension, bringing together the different levels, but also in this horizontal dimension, which is where policy is much more involved. And I'll come back to this at the end. Because now I'd like to look at the debate on the future of Europe, and I hope that all my arguments will come together in a coherent framework. As I said, there are several scenarios and probably the next few years will be a period in which one scenario might become more real than another. Today it's very difficult to know where things are going to go. Brexit, of course, signals the end of a very important principle concept, constituent concept in the EU, and that is the ever closer union. The whole history and progress of European integration has been premised on the assumption that integration would inevitably move forward. It was progress. We know the bicycle metaphor. You can stop the bicycle by putting your foot down, but you don't have a reverse gear. It's also in the treaties. This notion that progress and further integration is inevitable. It could be that Brexit will happen and that this notion will end. It could also be that it starts disintegration, but it could also not be the case. There's no theory of disintegration. There was quite an interesting article in the Berlin policy journal by Jan Zilanka, which I read this morning, where he's arguing we have no theory of disintegration so we can just be very imaginative because there's no narrative and there's no theory. I personally think we can turn to Edward Gibbon on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but also the look at the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslav Republic, empires dissolve from their center, not from their periphery. And if we consider the UK periphery, if we consider Hungary, and you'll understand why later, periphery then the EU doesn't look like it's about to disintegrate. But, and also following the Brexit vote at least for the moment, many of those political parties advocating to leave the EU have actually changed their minds and they're now arguing that we should stay the EU and change it from within. But it doesn't mean that the EU is not challenged. The EU is challenged in several and very important ways. And I think political fragmentation is a very likely scenario at the moment. So what could happen and I'm thinking of this following Brexit, although of course we still don't know whether and what shape Brexit is going to take place. But let's assume it does. Then we then the EU will have a very important northern member which will be disintegrating, which will be bitterly split between leaders and remainders, the cities and the countryside, and the UK might disintegrate. So there'll be a challenge on the borders very close. And of course let's not forget that around the southern and eastern borders there also is armed conflict. Then we have a union of 27 member states. Where the Franco-German alliance remains in necessary condition, but alone is insufficient to ensure the health of the EU. It no longer has the same traction power that it used to have. And in any case at the moment, the Franco-German alliance is drifting quite importantly. Aside from the Franco-German duo, we have Spain which is consumed by its constitutional crisis. It will continue to be consumed by it. Even if it has, well it hasn't actually prevented the rise of the far right, but there is possibly a majority which will address that. Italy is governed by a coalition of radical populist parties and is moving very quickly away from the old European mainstream. Poland, which is the sixth largest member state. Actually I think that might have been including the UK, I think it will be the fifth largest member state, has become an outlier under the law and justice government. So there is a problem, a lack of large member states leading forward, driving some kind of change and preventing political fragmentation. Indeed, they are moving further away from each other. Then there is the idea that Europe is bouncing back. That's the commission document. They released a document the other day, yes. I think many of us respond to that document in a similar way, smiling shall we say. But tomorrow there is the Sebel Summit. Michel Barnier who's been leading the Brexit negotiations has said that the EU can find a new unity around 27, just as it found unity around the Brexit talks. The idea behind this type of approach is that the unity can be found around policy. So the ambition is to come back from Sebel with 10 policy commitments. Now I have to say that we've seen this before. Two or three years ago there was the Bratislava agenda where there was the idea of building on three policy areas. And indeed in principle some decisions were made although the impact of them is not particularly evident. So I think the problem with this approach of focusing on policy and focusing on delivery which is very much the institutional approach that the EU adopts. The problem is that the what the member states can agree upon is not very clear. The deliverables are not very clear. So you have on the one hand a problem of who moves forward the European engine, the member states. And on the other hand you have the problem of what should we move forward on. On all the policy issues that you look at there are important disagreements among the member states. Hence the differentiation idea. And this is very much coming from France is pushed very much by France, President Macron who argues that differentiations, the vanguards, the heart of Europe should be embraced, should not be feared. He recognizes that the project of European integration has been carried forward shielded so far by the security umbrella offered by the US which is no longer can no longer be counted upon. And also has been shielded from the interference of domestic politics. And this is no longer the case. But what Macron argues and I quote here at every key moment in its history, Europe will move forward first of all through the determination of a few. This ambition is never a source of exclusion. It is the seed of European unity and sovereignty. This is quite a controversial idea. I mean it does go back to who would be in this group and on what. And I was quite struck by the fact this question was posed to the Spitz in Candidatin the other day in Florence and I was there. So and of all the Spitz in Candidatin there were the four main political parties were mentioned. Only the Liberals for Austat are actually in favor of possible differentiation. Again, they argue it shouldn't exclude anyone but that there should be an avant-garde of countries that can move forward. All the others were far more skeptical of that possibility. I would say that this differentiation scenario is a possible scenario but there is one big elephant in the room, Poland. If Poland were to change government in October when there will be national elections then it is possible that the differentiation idea with a large group of member states can be moved forward. But otherwise in order to proceed on further integration you need to make a big bargain over what the EU can decide and what is decided at the member state level. And that is where the democracy question comes in again. But before I get into that, let me just point out it's not very developed but there are alternative views of Europe which are quite different from the traditional ways of thinking about European integration, Euro, intergovernmentalism, federalism, et cetera. And that is the Europe of nations and peoples. So until recently most of these political parties that embrace Europe of nations or embrace nationalism and have been anti-EU until recently they have been wanting to leave the EU and had committed in their manifestos to hold referendums just like UKIP in the UK. Since the British vote, they have changed their position somewhat. I don't know how long that will last. I think most of them have a very deep anti-EU sentiment but they are seeing the opportunity of building relationships with sister parties in the European Parliament, across Europe. The transnationalization of relations between these populist far-right anti-EU parties has increased quite rapidly. And they are just about beginning to elaborate the contours of what that EU might look like. We don't really know the policy detail that's still quite poor on that and really it's only Viktor Orban who has discussed a little bit more in more elaborate terms what he's thinking. But an FT Financial Times journalist, I think used a rather apt description, they are remain Eurosceptics. They like, they love the single market in fact. They like structural funds. And the plan is to stay in the EU and undermine the EU at its core beyond anything beyond a single market and structural funds. So they are ambitious and we need to take them seriously and we need to try and understand what their view of the EU is because there are quite a number of political leaders who are coalescing in this. Le Pen, Salvini, Kaczynski possibly, Strahe, Orban. And of course Orban's view is one that is rooted in his notion of a liberal democracy from 2014. So given that we have European Parliament elections, this is just to quote him, the opportunity is here. Next May we can wave goodbye, not only to liberal democracy and the liberal undemocratic system that has been built on its foundations but also to the entire elite of 1968. So I think there's some idea of where he wants to go. It's where they would like to go. And I think this vision is quite attractive to those who are protesting against technocracy, against the globalized elite, et cetera. So having outlined these visions of Europe, I'd like to go back to my argument about the democratic recession. The recession being the cause of Europe's problems but also of the EU's problems. But if that is the cause of the troubles, it's perhaps also where we need to look at to find solutions. The Eurozone crisis and the political crisis following the refugee influx illustrated quite clearly that the debate was not just about policy solutions, not just about output, which is how the EU institutions like to frame things. But it's about who can legitimately decide on how to solve the problem. The legitimacy of the EU institutions was taken into question, first by national politics in Greece in 2015, continuously in Italy. And of course, the immigration question was contested by the Visigrad four countries, not merely because they didn't want to take in 140 refugees, but because they questioned the authority of the European Commission in telling them that that's what they had to do. Okay, and during these crises, we have seen what Eric Jones has called an evaporation of solidarity. I think it's a nice metaphor among the member states which disables the EU to rethink itself, including on the basis of the policy projects, which is what it is trying to do. Without input legitimacy coming from the people, it is impossible to produce output legitimacy through policy. So we need to look for something else. And looking forward, in my view, the biggest challenge really seems to be in the relationship between the EU and national legitimacy. We need the EU for policy solutions because of the transnationalization of issues, because member states cannot address them alone. But the member states continue to be where that legitimacy takes shape and where democratic practices are supposed to survive through continuous iteration between institutions and society. In my view, the rule of law question with respect to Poland and Hungary is the issue, that is the issue where there is a big battle now, but it's soon going to broaden to far more policy spheres. If you again look at the Pispits and Kandidaten debates, half of them and many of the questions coming from citizens are about rule of law, values and democracy. So the risk is that if we don't address the democratic question, the risk is, and as I mentioned before, that the debate revolves around technocracy and nationalism. So what can be done?  Who are the game changers? The democratic recession has indeed created space for undemocratic or liberal actors to have a lot of space. Very noisy, very loud, but at the same time we have also seen other instances, mobilization of community initiatives, citizens, NGOs, and they too have been very influential. The empirical evidence we can look at, I think there are several pretty good examples, they come from transnational policies and that's another element that is important. The first of course is climate change and what led to the Paris Agreement. One decade of a broad global alliance between NGOs, community initiatives, local governments, national governments, international institutions to change the way in which certain decisions needed to be made. In 2005, the EU went to Copenhagen proposing to be the leader. It didn't work. When you had this global network at multilevel involving broad alliances of citizens and institutions and governments, that worked. So that is one key example and it's transnational policy. Migration policy, the outcomes today may not be to our liking but let's not forget that in order to address the influx of refugees in 2015 and 2016 there was huge mobilization of NGOs, of citizens. They still are working. In fact, in Italy now there is quite a big confrontation between NGOs and the government. But it's not just NGOs, it's also cities and towns. Look at Mediterranean cities, Barcelona and other cities in Europe. They are really changing their policies to address a large, big transnational issue. Outside, because my background is in foreign policy, outside, I've been looking at how the EU supports civil society outside its boundaries. And there's some fascinating examples of great resilience of civil society in the face of huge threats. Think of Eastern Ukraine, which is still holding despite Russian military interference. And maybe the referendum here in Ireland is also an example in which things can be done differently. Debates can be conducted in a different way. From these examples, which admittedly are anecdotal, I think there are a few things that I'd like to highlight. The first, network capacity. It's transnational, it's diversified. The second is alliance capacity. The ability to work not just with peers but also with governments and with institutions to follow a key policy objective. Ideational capacity. The ability to produce ideas that are persuasive and the power of attraction, of course, to multiply those networks. Anne-Marie Slaughter has written about network theory. She calls it the new power. It needs to be open, participatory, peer driven, where leadership is not hierarchical, but it's about relationship and persuasion. So what does this mean for renewing European integration project and European democracy? It means working on transnational networks that perhaps are more focused on policy rather than democratic representation per se, to try and shape different ways of decision shaping, policy influencing and decision making, which are more inclusive, more bottom up. And I would also argue that the EU is particularly well-adapt to welcome this kind of initiative, which is much more bottom up than member states, because in the big picture, the retrograde element in, as far as democratic representation is concerned, is actually the nation state. So I don't have answers to our democratic recession problem, but I do think that by shaking the system, we can perhaps produce something different. And I do think that the crises we are going through is ethical enough to warrant trying to find new processes and methods and not just new policy ideas or a new political party. So these would be my opening remarks. Thank you.


Dried fruit is convenient and packed with nutrition, but which ones are the best? Here's raisins. Now, this is per serving per ounce, not per cup, like with the berries. Here's prunes, dried mangoes, which I love, so I was happy about that, dried apricots, dried cherries through the roof with goji berries at the top. They also analyzed dried apple. Where do you think it fit? I would have guessed towards the bottom, maybe even lower than raisins, but I would have been wrong. Dried apple rings landed way up here, making them one of the healthiest dried fruits on the planet. In fact, a preliminary report was released at a recent nutrition conference suggesting that daily dried apple consumption promotes cardiovascular health in post-menopausal women. Split the women into two groups and those forced to eat 3 ounces of dried apple rings a day for a year saw their bed cholesterol drop 23%. That's huge. LDL dropped 23%. The level of inflammation in their bodies plummeted, and you'd think if you made people add 240 calories worth of snacks to their daily diet, they'd gain weight, but no, they actually lost a couple pounds as a bonus.


What's up everyone? We're back with another video. I'm Takedown. I'm Ashley. And today we are doing the McDonald's Spicy McChicken Challenge. I believe that's what it's called. We have all three of them here. The Habanero, the Sashwan, and the Ghost Pepper McChickens. This is going to be awesome. I think we've tried some of the lower ones before. The last time I did this challenge for a video, I absolutely loved the Jalapeno one, which was the not-so-hot one back then. I absolutely loved it. They didn't bring it back. Instead, they made the Sashwan one for this time. So are you excited? Okay, so we have all three of them in front of us. We're going to start with the lowest heat one, which is Habanero and Workware, way up to the Ghost Pepper one. And share our thoughts and everything along the way of which one we enjoyed the most. The Habanero one here in Canada is actually one after the last challenge. It became a permanent fixture. So if you go to McDonald's any time all year around and get the Habanero McChicken, I wonder if this time whichever one is the best one, if they're going to keep it around and replace the Habanero permanently. I think that'd be interesting, but let's get right into this. So here is the Habanero McChicken. This here, if you lift it up, it has kind of an orange sauce, which is the Habanero, kind of like a spicy mayo sauce, but with Habanero in it. This is going to be really good, but it's not going to be as hot because since this is a permanent fixture here for our local McDonald's and area, this is one that we've had quite a bit. So we know what it's going to taste like. And it's really good. I like the Habanero one. Absolutely love it. Do you want to try it first? Sure. Habanero is good. It's not too hot, but I don't know how high I'm going to rank it. It's good? Mm-hmm. Spicy? Not really, no. Just like a slight heat, but I'll try it. Mm-hmm. I don't find the Habanero one very spicy, but it's really good. Although I'm not getting much of a Habanero. It doesn't know. I don't find it tastes like Habanero. It's not spicy as well.  Mm-hmm. So since this is the lowest heat one, do you want to rank them out of 10? Like the spiciest there? Yeah, like how overall you enjoyed them. I'd say like an eight. Mm-hmm. I'd give it a seven because it's something that's a permanent fixture over here. Not too spicy, a lot of flavor, and that's what I like about the lower end ones for the Spicy McChicken Challenge. It's not about burning. It's about overall flavor, and as they increase, they just get hotter and there's not much flavor in my opinion. Mm-hmm. So now we're going to move on to the Sashwan burger. This one here is one that is new this year. This one I'm excited to try because I heard it's good. I heard it's good now. Not much of a difference for the look. I can't really tell. It just looks a little orange, just like the habanero. Yeah, looks pretty much identical. I'm just going to take a bite here. It smells smokier than the habanero, which just felt spicy. Okay. Is it spicier than the habanero? Surprisingly, yes. Mm-hmm. Like I thought it was just going to be tastier. The burn, there is a burn. It stays there a lot longer, but I enjoy that a lot more than the habanero. At least this one here. I didn't find it was much habanero sauce on this one, and it wasn't hot enough for me. Oh, this one is a burn. This one burns. Yeah, but it's a nice burn I find, at least in my opinion. I think it's a good burn, smoky taste, kind of peppery, amazing flavor, and it works well with the chicken, which I mean, I'm going to rank this one higher than habanero. The sauce, yeah, it's really good. Yeah, I still have the burn there, and I only took one bite. I still have the burn out of the back of my tongue, not really on the throat or anything. I'm going to rank this one, I'm going to rank it out of a 9 out of 10, because I like this one and would prefer to purchase this one, and this one be a permanent fixture than the habanero, just because the habanero is good, but this one has a little bit more heat without overdoing it, at least my opinion. I do like the burn that I'm feeling still, because I do really like spicy stuff, so yeah, I'll have to give it a 9 out of 10. 9 out of 10? Yeah. So right now, we enjoyed this one better than habanero. We have one left though, the last one, which came out March 8th. These are available until the end of March, I believe, around, I don't know, around the 20th, something like that, which is why we wanted to get to it now, but now we have the ghost pepper one, and if I remember correctly, last time I did the video for the spicy challenge, this one was the hottest, and to the point that I didn't enjoy it too much. I'm just going to lift it up here so you guys can see the bright orange sauce. Yeah, this one looks scary. Habanero had kind of like a mayo sauce with an orange hue to it. The other one, slash one, looked the exact same. This one here is dark orange. Do you want to try it first, or do you want me to? Yeah, sure, mine's will go for it. You want to? Yeah, sure. Okay. I know I'm going to regret this. Yeah, it looks, I didn't smell it though. Honestly, I don't smell anything right now. You did for the slash one though. Yeah. I smelled the slash one. It smelled spicier, but smokier, flavorful. You got a lot of salt. They put a lot of ghost pepper sauce on this one. Is it burn? Maybe it's a slow burn. Maybe, because I don't taste anything right now. No. I'll have another bite. Okay, nothing yet? Is it weird that I don't have a burn? I don't know. I don't know. My mouth is still a bit on fire from the slash one, so it's hard to tell, but it's good. Oh, I feel it. It's hot. It's hot. Maybe you got a couple bites that didn't have much hot sauce. Holy crap, that's hot. That's hot. Wow. I see the bright red sauce here for bright orange. I'm going to take another bite. I feel it now. I'm just going to try the sauce. Not to the point that I don't enjoy it. Last time, I don't know if it's the same sauce or not, if they tweaked it. Actually, you know what? I don't know if I enjoy it.  It's more spice than flavor. And I like the seasoning of the chicken on the McChicken. Mm-hmm. I don't get any of the flavor from McChicken. Mm-hmm. Once the sauce hits, there goes your taste buds, and it's just pure burn. Yeah, this one, yeah. I definitely feel it now. That's really hot. That's, wow. It's like burning my throat. Yeah, me too. For a heat level, if I had to rank just the heat, it's obviously a 10 out of 10 because it burns in the last. Mm-hmm. The habanero went away instantly. Yeah, it doesn't stick around at all. It's like a nice flavor. The Sash one, my mouth's in fire just from this one. The Sash one, amazing smoky flavor. The heat was there. It lasted a little long, but nothing like this.   Yeah, I know.  I'm going to start sweating. I still like the taste of it. It's just, it's hard to enjoy it when it's not hot. Since we're ranking it on how we enjoy it though, spice was 10 out of 10, but enjoying it, I'm going to say a 3 out of 10 for me. It's, you don't even taste the McChicken. You don't have any of the signature McDonald's taste in this, which I think is iconic. So the fact that it's no flavor at all, just pure spice and burn, 3 out of 10 for me. I'd say a 5 out of 10. I still really like the spice, even though it's really, really, really hot. Like it's good and I would, I'd put it maybe a little less on it. Yeah. And use that for other dishes because that is a nice hot sauce, but out of these three, which is one that you'd like to see a permanent fixture for the McChickens? Definitely Sash one because that one's really good. The flavor is really nice. That honestly be my pick too, because Habanero we've had for over a year now since the last McDonald's spicy McChicken taste test and it's great. I would have preferred them to keep the first one from the last time, which was jalapeno, which was amazing. Just like a spicy mayo, but I get that they wanted something a little bit more, which was Habanero, but having it this past year, eating it a few times throughout the year, it's great, but I want a little bit more of a kick and the Sash one gives you that kick, but it doesn't burn for too long and it doesn't ruin, like the ghost pepper doesn't ruin any of the flavor of the McChicken. It just adds a little spice and a little kick to it where the ghost pepper destroys all taste of the McChicken. So honestly, I feel like this was an amazing challenge to do. I'm so happy that we got the chance to do it because I think last time, when I did it, I did three separate videos and I tried each one separately. Getting all three done in one video was a lot better because you can honestly rank them as you go and get the overall taste of which one you liked better. So hope you guys enjoyed this video. Expect to see more taste tests from us in the future. My nose is running right now from the ghost pepper.  But yeah, we're going to be doing some blind taste tests. We have a hot sauce challenge that we're going to be doing. We're going to get some McDonald's chicken nuggets and do it. It's hot sauce from around the world. We're going to be doing various things like that. So if you guys want to see anything else from us, food wise, taste test wise, let us know. A whole bunch of new stuff coming up for 2021 and for the future. So hopefully you guys liked this. I absolutely love doing these videos and we'll see you guys in the next one. Please take care. Bye. Bye.


Our sermon title is the character of Christian work character of Christian work And we are continue to work through this passage as we come to 1st Timothy chapter 6 And we're working through verses 1 and 2 where the Bible says let as many bond servants as are under the yoke Count their own masters worthy of all honor so that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed And those who have believing masters let them not despise them because they are brethren But rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved teach and exhort these things And as is our regular custom we go verse by verse by verse through scripture We want to know what God's word says we want to understand what God's word says and we want to obey what God's word says We want to apply God's words to our lives and the Lord in his grace and mercy to us by his spirit Takes those truths plants them in our hearts and by his spirit causes us to walk in understanding of his word Walk in obedience to his word and as we started this text We've come to understand we're coming to understand the relationship between an employee and employer and Scripture is very practical and this passage is just another example of that very Practical instruction that should have an impact on your life the word of God the priest word of God in the Hand so to speak of the spirit of God and the life of a Christian will transform your life will transform your thinking We'll stay transform your understanding is going to transform your conduct. We need to let these truths from this passage Transform our conduct on the job There's many many truths that could be spoken about here The Bible is full of instruction on this very subject as much that needs to be said But we're gonna take a look at some very specific Practical issues from verse one and two here our primary subject that we began introducing last week is the character of the Christian worker character of the Christian work and As it is was much that the Bible teaches the Bible is full of instruction on this issue a Couple of points to make again to sort of set the table to give us my way of reminder that I want to keep Want you to keep in mind as we walk through the text and the first of those is there is no question from Scripture that the Christian Is to work the Christian is to work. So unless you think that somehow we're gonna wait on heaven.  It's not biblical thinking That's thinking thinking the Christian is to go to work Christian is to work first Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 10 says this but we urge you brethren that you increase more and more that you also aspire to lead a quiet life to mind your own business and To work with your own hands as we commanded you that there's a purpose statement here that you may walk Properly towards those who are outside and that you may lack nothing. That's interesting there that purpose phrase in one sense Working provides for you and provides for your household Bible says that if you don't provide for your own household that you're worse than an unbeliever So you're to work to provide for yourself and you're to work to provide for your own household But there's another connection here and this connection is very important And that is the connection between your work and your testimony and those who are on the outside Your testimony as a Christian worker before those in the world who are lost is very important It is a testimony where to walk properly toward those who are outside now that point Directs us to our next point point two is our work Identifies us as Christians and it should identify us as Christians Not so much what we do as long as that doesn't put us or someone else in sin It's not as much what we do as much as it is how we do it or the character with which we work All right, and this is very important to understand How we do it the character that we display reflects on the name of God reflects on Christ reflects on the kingdom So that we were working such a way so that the name of God and his doctrine as it says in verse one May not be blasphemed All of that in that understanding we come to a couple of very important conclusions One is one conclusion is that because of that Our work the work that you do is a sacred trust The work that you do is a divine calling You don't have to go into full-time ministry to have a divine calling if you're working you're working as into the Lord You are working in a divine calling. You're working as a steward in a sacred trust The reason for that is is because your work is One sphere in which you live out your Christian faith and you live out your Christian faith In front of lost people who need the Lord you live out your Christian faith in a way that gives Testimony to Christ and the power of the gospel to change a life. So because you're working Your work in that sphere is a sphere in which you live out the Christian faith It is a sacred trust. It is a divine calling a second conclusion very important conclusion to draw from all this is that we then Must always as Christians claiming the name of Christ must always work under the reality of our Governing consideration as Christians, which is that we're to do all to glorify God Everything you do is to glorify God whether you eat whether you drink whatever you do do all to the glory of God And we need to understand in light of that that our work then in reality It's not necessarily or ultimately serving just that boss serving just that employer But ultimately in your work you are serving the Lord Jesus Christ and our work serves the purpose of being a Testimony of Christ to the lost world around us Colossians chapter 3 beginning in verse 22 says this bond servants obey in all Things your masters according to the flesh not with eye service as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart Fearing God you're not there to serve that man You're not there to just simply serve your boss and or being man pleasers in in some way of only seeking favor of men You are serving the Lord Jesus Christ. It says in verse 23 Whatever you do do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men Knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance for you serve the Lord Christ But he who does wrong verse 25 will be repaid for what he has done And there is no partiality in that sense our work you need to see your labor your job what you do at work as Being governed if you will by the gospel your work life what you do should be governed by the gospel So whether you're a teacher You're an engineer.   You're a homemaker regardless of what your work is you are doing the Lord's work And it is a sacred trust now the the character of the Christian work And that's what we're talking about here in these two verses the character of Christians work should obviously Contrast with the world's work ethic you should see an obvious difference if your work identifies you as a Christian Then it should identify you as a Christian There should be an obvious contrast between your work ethic and the work ethic that you see in the world What does it mean in this case to work? Hardly as unto the Lord it means that you're to do your work with zeal with Fervency with integrity that again you should be the best example on your job the most Hard-working the most joyful the most honest the most patient the most Self-controlled the most self-disciplined the most committed the most loyal the most Contented the most grateful the most faithful Doing your work with the greatest excellence and the greatest diligence because the Christian is going to be thinking about their work In terms of the kingdom in terms of the testimony that they are of Christ on the job This is the character of Christian work now the so-called Christian and you know this to be true So-called Christian can do more damage to the name of Christ can do more damage to the cause of Christ at home And at the workplace and that's true isn't it you can destroy your testimony at home and at the workplace Likewise a genuine Christian and dwelt by the spirit can often have no more impact for Christ No more impact for the kingdom than at home or at work So you need to understand your work for the Lord largely done at home or at work Your work for the Lord your testimony for Christ is going to take place at home before your wife at home before your children Right and at work and your example will cause others to either rejoice and Praise the name of our God or it's going to cause others to blaspheme Cause Gentiles to blaspheme the name of God because of you now. Let me give you a footnote here And concluding point if you will to putting those things together those points together We need to understand this this all means that there is no Distinction there is no distinction in the Christian life between that what you would consider secular and that what you would consider Sacred there is no distinction between secular and sacred when you come to Christ. It is all Sacred every bit of it is sacred when you go home and you spend time with your wife your husband your kids That is a sacred stewardship that you've been given when you go to work And you work on the job under a boss regardless of your circumstances That is a sacred stewardship what you've been given it is a sacred trust a sacred duty All right, well regardless of what you do when you're in traffic That's not a secular thing to do so the Christian how you act in traffic is a sacred thing You're not to respond the way the world responds often in traffic just to give you a multiple different Examples there everything about the Christian life is sacred were to view it that way Charles Spurgeon said this He says assuredly these first believers and he's speaking here of the believers in Ephesus at this time that we're studying here He says assuredly these first believers did not spirit away the present blessing of the covenant or Regarded as an airy mystical matter to believe in God listen It's not simply a mystical or an airy or an sort of an Ungraspable thing to believe in God believing in God is a very practical down-to-earth thing It has very practical implications for your life. You are to serve the Lord in a very practical way He goes on to say this one is struck with the want of any line of demarcation between Secular and sacred in the Christians life these Christians journeyed as pilgrims They fought like crusaders. They ate and drank like saints. They lived as priests. They spake as prophets Their life was their religion and their religion was their life They trusted God not merely about certain things of higher import But about everything and hence even a servant from one of their houses when he was sent on an errand prayed Oh Lord God of my master prosper the way which I go This was genuine faith and it is ours to imitate it Now what about you? Do you pray that way on the job? Do you find in your job in your home in traffic at school? Do you find the opportunity to pray without ceasing because you're dependent on God in all those areas of your life? When you're at work, do you pray God help me to do my work with excellence God help me on this particular project I'm gonna need wisdom here. I'm not sure which direction to go or Lord make this direction clear to me that I can Honor you with a fruit of my work and Lord you can even pray give me favor in the eyes of my boss so that he may Praise you Lord for the quality of my work. Praise you God for my faithfulness on the job, or are you perpetually late? perpetually lazy perpetually apathetic Do you not care at all about your testimony at work or you're more concerned about what you are going to get from it We are not yet physically in the kingdom But we are yet citizens of the kingdom and you are to work as a citizen of the kingdom as a Representative as an ambassador of the kingdom of God your work should reflect that Does that describe you? Can you say? That Christ has as much is as much Lord of your life at work as he is here at church on a Sunday morning Does he has have as much? Influence at your job as he does at your home at church. Does he have any influence in your job at all? Can you say that he is Lord of your work life? Now go beyond that. Can you say that he is Lord of your home life? Can you say that he is a Lord of your thought life? Can you say that he is a Lord of your leisure? Lord of your free time You cannot say that he is Lord at your work Lord at home Lord over your thought life Lord over your leisure time if You have more influence more control so to speak over that time than he does The Lord Jesus Christ should be strongly influencing strongly Directing your work life directing your thought life directing your home life directing your life Directing your leisure time Every aspect of your life belongs to him Because there is no distinction between sacred and secular all of it is the Lord's Every bit of your life should be submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ the Bible says four of him and through him and To him are all things to whom be glory forever. Amen Everything is to be to Christ With that in mind that is what Paul is communicating here in these first two verses of 1st Timothy chapter 6 Your work is of great significance to your testimony as a representative or an ambassador of the kingdom verse 1 first begins with bond servants and Masters in these two verses concerning the character of the Christians work you have three basic points. We see in these verses a Relationship there's a relationship. We've talked about that that relationship Between employee and employer here out of that relationship flows a responsibility there is responsibility that flows from that relationship and as a result of the relationship and Faithful responsible Christians living out that Christian life on the job. There is a result There's a relationship a responsibility and a result first from verse 1 here The primary relationship in view here is the relationship of a bond servant to a master bond servant to master bond servant means do loss It's a slave that is someone who is in subjection to in Subjugation to someone else who does the will of another person, okay? Master is the word despotace. It means Lord or owner. That is the person who is Over in authority over the one who is in subjection the one who has been subjugated to that authority That's what we briefly discussed last week Don't let the slave master relationship here throw you Based on our history, right American history. We have a disgusting and deplorable example to look at we look back at our history and Justifiably, so we look back with shame and disgrace over that wicked system that was in place in our own country But don't let that system and all its abuses Allow you to misunderstand or miss the point in the scripture here of this slave master relationship expressed in scripture Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 24 Condemn the abuses that we saw in our own past They would to be were to be put to death for those abuses the scripture then you can say despite when anyone Anyone else might want to say does not condone or does not allow for slavery Scripture condemns the slavery that we saw in our own history So that's not what we're talking about here, and you can't allow that to color your understanding of the the text The Bible does not a condone what we've seen in our own history. It actually condemns it now In this economic system in the first century there were abuses similar abuses However, the system that was in place at the time was in many cases very helpful It was the wicked man who abused the system that was the problem And so that's why Jesus Christ comes changing hearts not changing the social or economic system that was in place at the time Okay, the system itself was in times Many cases very helpful. Yeah, those that were impoverished that needed help And sometimes they would be taken in as a bond servant into a household It was very loving very compassionate who gave them rights who provided for them in that case very Helpful, but that's why today we would draw parallels between this passage in chapter 6 verses 1 and 2 between master and bond servant we would draw parallel between that and employer and employee in many cases this was described and used as a Contracted employee kind of relationship between employee and employer in many cases like entering into a contract for work Okay, and there's much to be gleaned here for how we're to conduct ourselves in this relationship the relationship now understanding these words between slave and master Should inform and rightly so biblically so should inform your understanding of how these relationships are to work The way that an employee is to work on the job the way that a Christian submits to Christ all described by this relationship of bond servant and Master this term often throughout scripture is used as a metaphor for the Christian life That's how weird of you it. There is a a joyful contented submissive Communication in this word Describing that disciple or apprentice of Christ and in that there's much Honor and dignity. It's it's the Christian like Paul many times throughout scripture Joyfully willingly acknowledges that he is a slave of Christ and it's a dignified thing Isn't it to call yourself a slave of Christ with the joy a Christian says I'm a slave of Christ with boasting in the Lord We can say that we are slaves of Christ and that's a good thing So that characterizes this relationship and we need to understand that now This relationship then in verses one and two is further narrowed or further clarified by verse one Where it says that this relationship is really of the slave To an unbelieving master the Christian employee to a lost or unsaved boss in verse two You have the relationship of the slave To a believing master or that Christian employee to a saved boss We are in this this is communicated. We are to Exemplify Christ obey the scripture honor our Lord in how we serve on the job Regardless of Circumstances whether you have a saved boss or lost boss Whether your boss is kind and gentle and patient and forgiving or your boss is Harsh and mean-spirited and a jerk Regardless of circumstances you are to serve your boss on the job in the way that scripture describes now think about it for a moment We see this principle regardless of circumstances, especially on the job Demonstrated throughout scripture think about the work circumstances if you know this these stories from scripture of Joseph in Potiphar's house Lot of pitfalls there right not the best circumstances to work in But Joseph is to be faithful to the Lord regardless of his circumstances think about Jacob working for Laban and Then getting tricked and working for Laban again Not the best circumstances think about Daniel read the book of Daniel some time and look at Daniel and Daniel's faithfulness under Nebuchadnezzar and Then under Belshazzar and then under Darius Not the best work circumstances, but dairy but Daniel serves the Lord and serves the Lord faithfully regardless of his Circumstances this principle right carries over under many aspects of our lives Think about this principle in terms of 1 Peter chapter 3 With the believing wife who is to submit to her unbelieving husband Regardless of her circumstances she is to obey the Lord in submitting even to her unbelieving husband think about the command in Romans 13 to obey the governing authorities Now that command was given at a time when the worst and probably one of the most abusive Governments in all history was in place Under Nero and yet the scripture says obey the governing authorities. We're to obey we're to honor the Lord in this regardless of our Circumstances circumstances your circumstances you need to understand are never an excuse for sin Your circumstances are never an excuse for sin. You cannot use Circumstances on the job as an excuse for being a poor steward at work Circumstances are no excuse to complain Circumstances are no excuse to be discontented Circumstances are no excuse to be discouraged Circumstances are no excuse to whine or to slander your boss or to dishonor your boss or to slander your coworker Circumstances are no excuse to be ungrateful No excuse to be discouraged No excuse to be disgruntled And that is because, aside from this relationship of slave to master, you as a Christian on the job have a governing consideration, an overriding principle that you are operating under. And that principle is you are a do-loss.   You're on the job regardless of circumstances.  That relationship of slave to Christ then governs how you are to conduct yourself in relationships on the job. That is very often, isn't it? Easier said than done, right? That is sometimes a very difficult thing to do, but that in that we are sanctified, we are grown, we are matured, we are brought to more and more holiness of life. You understand that next to your home life, your workplace will do more than just about any other circumstance to expose sin in you. When you're at home, your ongoing and constant relationship with your spouse is going to expose sin in you, isn't it? Far more than your relationship with others that you don't know as well, or that don't know you as well, or that you don't hang out with as often. But when you're at home with your spouse, at home with the kids, and you're reaching your wit's end, your home life and those relationships at home will do a great work in exposing sin in your life. The next place to home is going to be work. When you have to interact with that boss that maybe doesn't treat you as fairly as you think you should be treated, or maybe doesn't pay you as well as you think you ought to be paid, or maybe isn't giving you the kind of work that you really want to do, or maybe you have to deal with that co-worker who lied about you to get ahead of you, or maybe that cheated you on some deal or is just difficult and belligerent to work with, those relationships, those circumstances at work will do more than just about any other circumstance to reveal and expose sin in your life. In that sense, home and work will do just about more than any other circumstance to expose your hypocrisy, to expose hypocrisy in your life, or it will reveal in your life a means of God's sanctification, and you'll see progress, and you'll see growth, and you'll see maturity, and you'll see more and more over time a Christian response to difficult circumstances or adversity, and so let me ask you, which one is it for you? Think about your work circumstance, think about your home circumstance for that matter. What does it reveal about you? Does it reveal hypocrisy in you?  You may say to yourself, well in some cases yes, maybe in some cases no, but is it revealing hypocrisy in you, and what are you going to do about that? The Christian will repent of that hypocrisy and honor his Lord on the job. Is it revealing in you a work of grace in your heart such that you know the Lord is working in you, both to do and to will according to his good pleasure, and you see progress in the Christian life, you see progress toward holiness? What about you, who are a student? What is your life at school reveal about you? Is it revealing hypocrisy in your life, or is it revealing an intent in your heart to serve the Lord in how you study, serve the Lord in how you learn and take every opportunity in the education that the God has provided for you, or is it revealing hypocrisy? It's revealing hypocrisy, that is where you must repent, and there are reasons that the Lord gives for here, we're going to give for that, we're going to look at that in a moment, you must repent. This relationship set up as bondservant to master, slave to master, further clarified on the job as someone who may work for a lost boss or someone who may work for a believing boss, now further described in verse one as being under the yoke. It says in verse one, let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor. Again, you can't think of under the yoke here as being abusive or oppressive, like our typical understanding of slavery. This wasn't an abusive or an oppressive relationship. Remember, the Christian is said to be under the yoke of Christ, and his yoke is what? Easy, it's light, right? He says in Matthew 11 verse 28, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, but that's laboring and being heavy laden under the weight of your sin. And let me stop here for a moment to add this footnote. In order to be a Christian, you would have at one time or another come under the weight or burden of your sin. If you sort of waltz through the open door on a flowery bed of ease into what you call the Christian life, without ever having come under the weight of your sin, without ever having come to an understanding of your bankrupt heart before Christ, and you're not a Christian, pardon parcel with a salvation that God provides in his grace, you are going to come to realize yourself as a heavy laden, burdened person under the weight of your own sin, and you're going to come to see your desperate need of a savior who will release you from the yoke of that sin, release you from the burden of that sin, who will forgive you and pardon you and cleanse you. You're going to feel the weight of your sin. He says in Matthew 11, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. And he says, I will give you rest. He says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am what? Gentle. I am gentle and I'm lowly in heart and you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. First John chapter five says that his commandments are not burdensome. They're a joy. They're a blessing. They're a privilege. It is a joy to serve the Lord. Under the yoke here in verse one, simply as an expression for being under the authority of someone, being in submission to someone, submitting yourself to someone else. And it further illustrates, it further clarifies this relationship between slave and master. Okay. And notice it goes on to say that you're under the yoke of their own masters. They're to count their own masters worthy of all honor. This points to their own masters, points to a great responsibility. It's not in the sense that you're to be sort of generally or non specifically honoring of all masters. No, you're to count your own master, that one under whom you are submitting that one under whose authority you work, you're to count that master, your own master worthy of all honor. And that points to a great responsibility. So flowing out of this relationship, have the relationship of slave to master, bond servant to master. That relationship applied in our context as employee to employer. That further, that relationship further clarified specifically here for our instruction as one to a believing employer or as our relationship to an unbelieving employer. And regardless of circumstances, we're to count them worthy of honor. Okay. This relationship then out of this relationship flows great responsibility. They are your own master, the one to whom you are submitted. They have authority over you. So by virtue of the relationship, you have great responsibility. It's the same for a Christian. You say, I am submitting myself to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, then you have great responsibility to Christ. It's not that you can just live your life in sin as you've always lived it and called yourself a Christian. If you are coming to Christ and you are submitting yourself to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, then in every aspect of your life, there is great responsibility. Same is true with this relationship. You're saying, I'm an employee. I work for an employer. By virtue of your relationship, bond servant to master, you have great responsibility. So we saw the relationship. Let's take a look at this responsibility. The responsibility is first shown in the commandment that we see in verse one. Paul commands bond servants under the yoke to count their own masters worthy of all honor. Now here specifically, this is speaking of the bond servant of an unbelieving boss, but certainly that would apply to all bosses, right? All bosses are to be counted worthy of all honor. Count there, that word is hege'omai, hege'omai, and it means to consider, to regard. There's an important point to draw from this. That word carries the sense of your intellect, your mind. You are to, in your mind, intellectually, so to speak, reckon or count or consider your employer as worthy of all honor. And what that means is, because that is intellectual, that is a product of your reason, is that that is done despite how you feel about it. You may not feel that they are worthy of all honor. You are not to operate according to your emotions. You're not to operate according to your feelings. It doesn't matter how you feel about it. The Bible commands you here to count them, to consider them, to reckon them worthy of all honor. So again, it goes back to this issue of circumstances, doesn't it?  You're to consider him worthy of all honor, regardless of how you feel about it, regardless of your circumstances. Now, unlike what we saw with widows and elders previously, this word for honor doesn't include financial support. What it includes here is a reverence, a respect, certainly. But what it does include here is a faithful work, a faithful, obedient service. Honor here would be doing your job with excellent work and an excellent attitude, with diligence, with fervency. You're counting them worthy of displaying for them Christian work, displaying for them the character of Christian work on the job. You're counting them worthy of faithful service, faithful work. Again, that is regardless of circumstances, regardless of how you feel about it, regardless of how much you're paid, regardless of what they ask you to do, unless it's sin, you're not to follow them into sin. But regardless of when they ask you to work, regardless of the job, whether you like it or don't like it, regardless of your circumstances, regardless if they are unbelievers, regardless if they're unkind or if they're not gentle or if they're not good. First Peter chapter 2, beginning in verse 18 says this, servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. Do you see that? Regardless of circumstances. Turn there with me. Let's turn to that passage and take a look at it. This is first Peter chapter 2, first Peter chapter 2, Hebrews, James, Peter, and Luke beginning in verse 18, first Peter chapter 2, verse 18, servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, God says here, if because of conscience toward God, one endures grief, suffering wrongly. For what credit is it, if when you were beaten for your faults, you take it patiently, but when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps, who committed no sin or was deceit found in his mouth, who, when he was reviled, did not revile and returned. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but he committed himself to him who judges rightly. Now there are, or judges righteously, there's a lot said here, is power pack passage. In verse 18, you see the responsibility, the responsibility here is to be submissive. That means to line up under your boss, not with resentment, not with bitterness, not grudgingly, but with great respect. And it says here with all fear, which means with a healthy fear of disobeying, with respect, certainly with reverence, certainly with a fear of disobeying. This is to be done regardless of circumstances. It goes on in verse 18 to say, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh, also to the uncaring jerk. Regardless of circumstances, whether they're good and gentle or uncaring, you are to submit. Now that again brings up a point. You're not only to submit to those that are easy to submit to. How many of you in the past have had a boss? It's very easy to submit to. Just easy to submit to, easy to work with, no problems, just easy, right? Then you have a boss that is not easy to submit to. All kinds of problems, all kinds of adversity, all kinds of difficulty, regardless of your circumstances, whether they're good and gentle or whether they are harsh and uncaring jerks, you're to submit. And you're to submit regardless of your circumstances. But it goes on now to say in verse 19, you have a motivation for doing this. And listen, on your job, keep this motivation in mind. When you feel the difficulty, when you feel the pressure, when you feel the temptation to react in sin, react in your flesh, remember your motivation. We are to work for the glory of God. We're to work pleasing our Lord and master. And God says that this is commendable. It is commendable for you if because of conscience toward God, wanting to serve the Lord, wanting to do a good job, excellent work with an excellent attitude, wanting to please the Lord on your job, if you endure grief and suffering wrongly, that's commendable for God. That's pleasing to your Lord. It's pleasing to him.  Do your job with excellence. It's commendable. It says ultimately here, you're working for the Lord. This submissiveness on the job is ultimately submissiveness to the Lord. And regardless of circumstances, it's submissiveness with which God is well pleased. It's something that pleases the Lord, especially commendable when because of conscience, a godly believer endures grief, suffering wrongly. I'm reminded of several examples that are in Scripture, but one in particular where disciples are arrested. They're arrested, dragged into jail, they're beaten, and then released. And it says there that they went away rejoicing because they had been counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. That's commendable in the sight of God. Who counted them worthy? Who was it? It was God.  You're counted worthy by your... Here, this is commendable to God. This is God looking at you, commending your service, commending your work for the Lord because you're suffering wrong, because of conscience, suffering wrong or suffering grief wrongly. This is regardless of circumstances. The Bible says, listen, brothers, count it all joy. Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that, Lord works all things together for good, knowing that it is the testing of your faith that produces perseverance. We're to count it all joy. In verse 20, it goes on to say, don't let it be because of sin that you suffer. If you suffer because of your own faults, because of your own sin, well, you're suffering rightly, and you need to take it patiently. You should take it patiently. It's right that you should suffer for your own sin, all right? But you are to face difficulty here with an adversity, with faith and patience. And watch this in verse 21. For to this you were called. It's amazing thought. For to this you were called. You are called as Christ was to suffer wrongly, even though you're going to do the work of the Lord, even though your circumstances may be awful, you're going to work in that way. You're going to suffer rightly for the Lord. You are called to submit yourself, in this case, to the sovereignty of God in every circumstance, regardless of circumstances. The Lord is sovereign over all of that. So you're to submit yourself to the sovereignty of God over your circumstances.   No. You do what is right, and if you suffer wrongly, it is commendable in the sight of God. You are to face persecution if you live godly in this present age.  And so if you suffer wrongly, and yet you take a stand for Christ, which is a Christian is supposed to do, then that is commendable in the eyes of God. You will suffer. It is our governing consideration, our overriding responsibility, our overriding principle to remain faithful to the Lord during trial, to maintain a faithful Christian testimony of the power of God, the power of the gospel to transform a life. If you didn't bear testimony to that through great difficulty and great adversity, what testimony would it be? What testimony would it be? You know, in that passage, 1 Peter chapter two, what credit is it? If you're beaten for your faults, you take it patiently. But when you do good and suffer and you take it patiently, this it says is commendable before God. And we are to be commendable. We are to be commending with our lives the gospel. We're to be commending with our lives the power of the gospel to transform the human heart. We have to do that with our testimony. Back in 1 Timothy chapter six, here are our next responsibility we see in verse two. And this really is between the slave and the believing master. It says in verse two, in those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren but rather serve them. Just because the master is a believer does not entitle the employee to special treatment. Doesn't entitle them to special treatment. They are to serve them. You'd be surprised at how often this happens. But many will pick up a responsibility they have to a Christian. A Christian employer, maybe. Maybe they pick up a responsibility to the church and they say, you know what, I'm going to do that. And yet, because it is to a Christian or because it is for the church, they do it half heartedly. Or they don't do it all the way. Or they don't do it with excellence. Or they think they can get away with doing less work because it's a Christian that they're working for. It's amazing how often that happens and that definitely happens. The believer, now think of this as an argument from the lesser to the greater. If a believer is to work for an unbelieving employer showing Christian diligence on the job, working and obeying them in all things, how much more then should that Christian work hard for the believing employer? Do good to all men. But especially those of the household of faith, right? It's no excuse to do poor work because that is a Christian employer. Also, just a quick point, Galatians chapter 3 verse 28, many will take this passage to argue against doing this work. Slave to master, employer to employee, remove the distinction. Galatians 3 28 says, there's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. This passage does not remove the distinction between Jew and Greek. This does not remove the distinction between male and female. This passage does not remove the distinction between slave and free. We are all spiritually equal in Christ, but we remain in our distinctive roles and in our distinctive ethnicities, in our distinctive work. It's not an excuse for there to be female pastors, because there's no female, there's neither male nor female. No, the Scripture clearly says, we are not to teach authority over men. So it's not an excuse to eradicate other commands in Scripture. This is not an excuse here to eradicate the command of God to work hardily as unto the Lord, to your master, your employer, where to continue working hard as unto the Lord. And how much more should we work hard for a beloved brother whom will be benefited by this? So whether bad or good, whether lost boss or saved one, you're working to the Lord. So we saw the relationship. See the responsibilities quickly here. Let's examine the results. The first result of working faithfully serving the Lord on your job comes from verse one, and that is, so that the name of God and his doctrine may not be blasphemed.   We've talked about work in many senses, but who are homemakers? Consider your job at home. Homemakers is a job, right? That's employment, that's work. Consider your testimony on your job with household duties, with raising your children, with teaching them the scriptures, with spending time with the family, with preparing meals, with cleaning the house, with being a faithful helpmate to your husband. You have a work and a very valuable, precious work to do. How are you doing on the job? Is your example one that honors the Lord, or one that brings reproach on his name? Are you a help or a hindrance to the gospel? A Paul commands Titus in chapter two, verse nine, exhort bond servants to be obedient to their own masters, to be well-pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things, not cause Gentiles to blaspheme God and his doctrine, but to cause your life, your testimony, to adorn the doctrine of God. So here's two very important quick connections that you must make from this. First, there is a connection then between life and doctrine. Sound doctrine leads to, inexorably, inevitably, to holy living, if you're a Christian. Sound doctrine will change your life. It'll make progress in holiness as you read and study his word. The second connection is the connection here between life, your testimony, and evangelism. You're to live your life in such a way that commends the gospel.  Are you giving them reason to believe? One commentator said this, whenever believers encounter trials on the job, they ought to view them as opportunities for spiritual growth and evangelism. Listen, the chief reason God allows believers to remain in this world is so that he might use them to win the lost and thereby bring glory to his name. The chief reason you are on the job, on your job, you're on the job for the Lord. And there are, sadly, in Scripture, many examples of people who claim to be Christians, who are bringing reproach on his holy name. And we see it frequently today, pastors that fall into sin. That gives Satan a great opportunity to rejoice, right? The name of God is blaspheme because of your hypocrisy.  For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.     Or remember, in college, I was not a Christian, lost as the day is long, but claimed to be a Christian. And I was living in college in my sin, calling myself a Christian. And I remember a buddy coming to me and he wasn't asking an honest question, he was calling me out on my hypocrisy. And he asked, he said, so let me get this thing right. Let me get this Christianity thing right. He didn't know anything about Christianity, profess to be an atheist. And he said, so if you, you can live how you want to live, do whatever you want to do, and then just simply go and ask forgiveness and everything's okay. And I had no defense for that. I like, yeah, that sounds right to me. Here I am living in my sin. I caused that man to blaspheme God in his heart by my hypocrisy greased me to this day, by my own hypocrisy. We had a man here that was disfellowshipped several years back for drug use. And a godly sister in our church was out witnessing. She knocks on a door and she mentions our church. I'm here from Cornerstone Baptist Church. And this person said, does so-and-so go to your church? And she said, yes, do you know him? And she said, if he goes to your church, I'll never go there. Because she knew the sin that he was involved in. She knew the type of person that he was living to be. And because of his hypocrisy, he caused someone else to blaspheme God's name. Can't be hypocrisy. Hypocrisy in your life betrays the gospel, betrays the cross of Christ. Betrays Christ.  It is an effective grace. It is the gospel that teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lust and to live righteously. That's the gospel of grace. That's the gospel that God uses to bring about salvation. It is the power of God unto salvation. Do you see that kind of grace at work in your life? Are you a possessor of that kind of grace? Do you see it spurting you on to more and more holiness, more and more progress in your Christian life?  If you're a hypocrite, the Lord is gracious and merciful and extends the gospel to you now to turn from your sin, to give up living life for yourself, to give up doing things your way and to drop that sin and to turn in faith, in trust, in reliance, in commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved, to be cleansed, to be forgiven, to be given a new heart, to be given a new nature such that the things that you once hated now you desire. You want to live for the Lord. You want to please the Lord. You want to be a good testimony of Him for all that He's done for you, you wicked sinner, right? We are all wicked sinners, undeserving of God's grace. Doesn't His grace in Christ to you compel you to be an excellent employee, an excellent husband, an excellent father, an excellent friend, an excellent student, an excellent family member. Paul ends this exhortation to Timothy by saying, teach and exhort these things. All of that is present tense. It means it's just going to be a way of life. We have to do it consistently, ongoing, over and over again. We need to constantly remind ourselves of these things.  We must remember that we are the glorified God in the workplace and we glorify Him by being living, breathing trophies of His grace. Trophies of the power of the gospel to transform a life. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, I thank you for this instruction and your word. God, please, Lord, may we be doers of your word and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves. May we, by your spirit, God, strengthen us by your spirit to apply these truths to our heart, to live by them. We want your name to be famous among the Gentiles. We want to see people saved because of the glorious grace of your gospel that is effective, God, powerful in transforming heart, transforming heart-hearted, impenitent centers into transformed heart-obeying Christians faithful to our Lord and may we be excellent testimonies of your grace on the job as we serve in that sacred trust to represent you, our Lord. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.