Taskmasters

The title of my sermon is Taskmasters. Have you ever had a taskmaster? You ever had a real hard-driving boss? Oh, Phil's going, yes. I thought you were the boss. Are you talking about your wife sitting beside you? No. And just semi-smiles. Looks at him. But we all have probably had bosses that didn't necessarily treat us the way we were hoping to be treated. I recall I was 15 years old. I took a job for a man that was known to be very tough, hauling hay since that's the only thing we had to earn money with in the country back then. And he got two or three guys, and we worked all day long in July and August, Tennessee heat, with the humidities in their 90s. And at the end, he didn't pay us what he said he was going to pay us at the first. And he said, no, I didn't say that. And the other guys, it was about five miles from my house at that time from our farm. And I remember looking at him, and he said, well, that's just the way it's going to beat you up. I said, okay, then keep your money. And I'll just walk home. And he said, you worked all day. I said, yeah, 11 hours. And you're wanting to pay me this. You need that money worse than I did. And the other guys, well, I'm going to take them home. You're not taking me home. I had a stubborn streak.

But I just knew it wasn't right. And the worst thing he could do being, we lived in a small community of 100 people, 100 farms. The worst thing you can do is get a bad reputation if you're a farmer about how you treat your workers. And he knew that's all I did was haul hay. That's all I could do at the time. So guess what? He paid me my money. And I should have just stayed quiet. I couldn't. I said, if you're going to pay me, you're going to pay them. And I said, I recruited one of them to come over here and do that. And so he said, well, get in. I'll pay him. So he did. Paid him. Took me home. As I got out of his truck, he said, you'll never work for me again. And I said, well, thank you for that. But I knew what a taskmaster was because he was very hard. If you've ever hauled hay, we used to haul hay. You wanted the bales to be 40, 50 pounds. You had to throw them up on a wagon. Then from a wagon, you would throw them up into the barn. His were 80, 90 pounds. Bailed too green. Just wasn't a smart man. Well, I want to talk about taskmasters because the actual word we find in the Bible, the very first time it's used, if you'll join me there in Exodus 3, you probably know where I'm going. Exodus 3, verse 7. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cries because of their taskmasters, because of their taskmasters. For I know their sorrows. Taskmaster, as it's translated here, it's coming from a French word, task, meaning tax or duty. You can kind of see how that would tie in. And then master being someone over someone with power. So that's where the word taskmaster is brought through. In Hebrew, the word is nagas. N-a-g-a-s. And it means to press hard. A driver, a ruler. Maybe you might even think we've had people here in the military. How about a drill sergeant? Because they were usually pretty tough taskmasters, as we have seen in the past. And the term implies a sense of urgency in driving someone to perform a task. We also find that given the same word 25 times in the scriptures, but four or five times just in Exodus. And not only Exodus 3, but Exodus 5 and verse 6, Exodus 5 and verse 10, Exodus 5, 13, and 14. Talking about these taskmasters in Egypt as the children of Israel were brought to slavery. In Egypt, God freed them from their taskmasters. We know the story. That's the story of the Exodus. We will look at that more and more as we enter the spring holy days. I think Bill has something he's going to give. Is that here or there? Here. So I'm going to walk all over your sermon today. He had mentioned something, and then I was working on something. So hopefully, ours will mesh as he talks about this, because I think it's a very important part. I think him talking about it influenced me to have these thoughts. And most of my sermons, almost every morning I get up and pray. I have to get up in the middle of it and write down something for a sermon. So almost every sermon I do is because of that. And when I wrote this one. But in Deuteronomy 15 verse 15, it says, God redeemed them. Talking about the slaves, he redeemed them, and he bought them back, because they were under someone else's ownership, as slaves tend to be. Well, the whole thing is about us, because God is now and has redeemed us from our taskmaster sin. We have a taskmaster, and it is sin. I want to hope to prove that point to you today, because we all suffer from it. We all feel the burden. So I'd like to look at that, if you will. Go with me to Romans 6.

Romans 6. I love this part of Romans, because Paul is explaining, for those who've never really understood why it seems like he's for the law, and not with the law and grace and law. And he seems to switch back and forth. It's intentional. He's writing one chapter to part of the church, who were Gentiles, and writing the other chapter to those who were Jews in the church.

And that's what they were struggling with, this conflict between them. I'm under grace. You need to be under law. Well, that means I can do away with law. No. So here he actually explains, and Dave doesn't have this, because I didn't expect him. I just came across this this morning, because that battle between the two elements in the church were present. And as Paul said, well, hey, because sin abounds, grace abounds even more. So because there's so much sin, grace, you need more grace. So does that mean you need to, oh, we want more grace in the world, so why don't we sin more?

That's the actual explanation. And when it comes to chapter 6, verse 1, he says, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And what did he say? God forbid. Absolutely not, as he said. So let's go. Let's go to chapter 6, where I was originally intending on going, because I want you to see there's a thread that goes through here.

And chapter 6, verse 15, he said, what then shall we sin because we are not under law? How many people have learned, have taught that? Okay, so we're not under the law. No, we're not under the penalty of the law. Okay, shall we sin because we're not under the penalty of the law, but under grace? Certainly not. Certainly not. I remember Dave probably remembers Fred Keller's explaining that so well, talking about a door, like the door that's here, the door that's there, and he talked about two doors being here, and standing under one door. And on the top of it, it says grace. On the other door, it says law.

And he said, which one do you want to be under? Do you want to be under the penalty of the law, or do you want to be under grace? That's what Paul was trying to teach here, because you had some Jews that said, oh, no, we have to keep the law to be perfect. We have to keep the law to be righteous. Well, we should want to keep it, but we can't keep it perfectly unless we have somebody in here who wants to raise their hand and say they do, to which you just showed me you're not. But he's trying to teach about grace and law.

We don't give up law, but we're under the, we're not under the penalty of sin, which is death anymore, because Jesus Christ took that for us. He took our place, and that's what Paul's trying to teach here. So let me finish this verse here. Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey? Whether of sin leading to death, what I just explained, you want to be under that door? You want to be under law? Then Christ is not your Savior, and you're going to have to die because of what you did.

Or, as he was offering grace to the entire world, I come under grace where it is forgiven. My sins are forgiven. Or obedience leading to righteousness, because once we come under grace, we just have to repent when we do make a mistake, when we do sin. Verse 17, but God be thanked that though you were slaves in sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form a doctrine of which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. Because now, we try to be righteous, because we can start every day purified, cleansed, by all it takes is repentance, so we can start every day perfect again. That was God's intention.

So, I want to look at sin as our taskmaster. You may say sin as taskmaster. Yes, because it, what do we deal with, most of us? I want to say all of us, most of us deal fighting the same sins we fought for years. And we may conquer it for a year, but then we start working on that, and then something else pops up. And then we start working on that, something else pops up, and then we go, okay, I got that one. But then, go back to the first one that I'm working with. That is like whack-a-mole that we can't win.

So, our human nature is a sinning nature. God made it since the garden, since original sin. And as the Pharaoh was directing the taskmasters on what to do, what to say, how to guide them over the slaves, so Satan does with sin. Satan loves that our taskmaster is sin, because he can make something look so good, can't he? Oh, he can make it sound good. He can make it look good.

And then the penalty comes later, the regret, the remorse, the guilt that we have to deal with. This is what we have in front of us. And as we do preparation for the spring holy days, now comes a month before this, when I usually start, I had a flashback, flashback to when I was in high school. Many of you find this hard to believe that 50 years ago, I was in the middle of high school. I find that hard to believe as I even wrote that down. 50 years. What's happened? Where's it gone?

But in high school, I had just started attending church with my parents, because we never went much. We went to every church for a year, and then we didn't go to any church for years. But when God called my parents, I came into the church of God. It was all new. I didn't really... I was just getting it. Hearing it, let me put it that way. I sure didn't get it. All this stuff was new. There was a Sabbath day. That's Saturday. That's ballgame day. So I had to learn. And as I learned, and I look back now, I see that I was so influenced in high school by my peers, by my classmates. How you dressed, you wanted to dress. There was a certain way 50 years ago that young men dressed in high school. One of them, you had to wear jeans, and they had to be Levi's. They couldn't be. If you wore something other than Levi's, they thought you were gay, because real guys wore Levi jeans with a little red tag. You'd have your size on it. Now the girls wore those. I was influenced by that. Not that everything was bad, but you begin to be influenced by the world. I realized I was driving a car. I had the worst-looking car in the parking lot, but I had a car, but there was something more important than that car. It was the sound system you had in the car. The antenna didn't work since it was broken, but for all you young people out here, and I look at you and try and find somebody younger than me, or than my wife. Oh, wait, I found two in the back. I found two in the back, and it's not Jeff Renewal. I had two good speakers and an eight-track take-pile. Eight-track? Yeah, remember eight-tracks? Yeah, okay, I got people to remember. If I did that four-larder, they'd go, what? Eight-what? Eight-what? It'd actually switch over in the middle of a song. You remember that? But it sounded so good coming from those blaring speakers, and then you hope nobody looked at your ragged-looking car. His mind had been wrecked three times. Had a log chain on the front, tying the hood down. It definitely didn't draw the women. I guarantee you that. I just told everybody I had to strap that engine down. It was so big, so powerful, that little six-cylinder.

But we were influenced by in-crowd, weren't we? There were certain people, and then the athletes, you know, you hung around them. You went to various places and did things. Then I became a senior.

We didn't care what people thought. We were what people they wanted to be as you were a freshman. Then you get out of high school, go to college, go to work, and you were influenced by friends because all of a sudden you have new friends, and they can have influence on you. The job, your bosses, have influence over you, and it may not always be a good influence. It wasn't with me. I started working construction and found, yeah, there were new words I never even heard before that I could hear every day. And then you begin to, oh well, pick one or two of them up and use them. And then the gawking at women, the things that go out to eat in our lunch, and you see nice looking girls walking by, and they're just like, wow, look at that.

So sin becomes a taskmaster to us by other people. Why? Because it's part of the world. It's part of the world, and it's not God's world yet. He created it, but it's someone else has the influence. Someone else is the head over it, and he uses the taskmaster sin. And as we get older, we see the influence of entertainment. Words that, when I grew up, you wouldn't even hear those things. On the radio, now it's no problem. You wouldn't see it on TV. No problem. It can be done now. And they will actually cut out a few words, but yet they don't mind GD being in. Do they? Oh, we can't say this word, but they can say GD. How many times? And it and it has an effect on us.

And we have to look at it. Even though we're a long way from that, we still deal with it because we still live in this world. And it may be learning lessons from somebody working on our car. It may be a neighbor. It may even be a lawyer.

We are so in the world, and this world is not God's. C.S. Lewis, famous theologian writer, said, No man knows how bad he is until he has tried to be good. Isn't that true? And we get a chance to do that every year because it says examine yourself. So this gets us a chance to say, I need to be better. Well, how bad was I? Or how bad am I? Well, maybe not that bad. But then you may find out, huh, this is going to take some work.

And it does. I remember Frederick Douglass, famous. Back in 1852, as he fought for slaves to be released, as he educated man who tried to help this country. And it is through him I learned because I did a study. As a matter of fact, in my senior and high school, I did a term paper on Frederick Douglass because I liked how he was so bold and stepped aside, stepped up to the plate. And he had this quote that I found so revealing. It says, There is no existence in the world so sad as that of a slave. And there is no slavery so hard as that of sin. Here's a man who knew about the slave, but he also knew it's even tougher. Sin. That we deal with.

God's spring holy days are about getting free from the taskmaster called sin. God's spring holy days are all about getting free from this taskmaster that we have in our lives. His name is sin. Egypt and Babylon. They're both used in Scripture. They are used in Scripture as metaphors for sinful cities, sinful countries, a sinful world.

Revelation 18. What does it tell us? There's only a little bit in there for us. You know what it tells us? Come out of her, my people. Like Babylon, like Egypt, like the world today, we are to come out. We have to live here, but we don't have to be a part of her. You can, but you're going to be owned by sin. It'll be your taskmaster. It'll drive you.

Watch my clock today. I have none.

Oh, I got one there! Wow! Thank you, Dave. I appreciate it. I can read that, and it's on time.

So we come to a point where we are now that we start thinking about. We had a sermonette this morning, a very good one, by Mike Hamill, about leavening. About putting it out. Hopefully it's online, as I suggested. It's one of his best he's ever given. And he talked about leaven and leavened bread, that we're all about to confront in the time ahead. And I want to make a statement here that leavened bread is not sin.

Okay? It's not. It is a symbol or a metaphor for sin. That's what God uses it for, because it's puffed up. He does not want us to be puffed up because his son was not puffed up.

He wants us to be like his son. Humble. Humble.

So I have a piece of unleavened bread here.

It's very flat. Don't everybody get excited out there? I could compare it to one of those leaven pieces over there, and you'd go, which one do you want to choose? Ah!

It's the only time people go, huh, I don't want the skinny one. This. This is a spiritual barbell.

Okay? A spiritual barbell. Because this is about the spiritual. There's nothing here about eating this that's going to make you healthy. It's not going to really give you sustenance. There's nothing about it, but God says, for seven days, you're to eat this thing.

He didn't ask you. He didn't. It's not a suggestion. It's a commandment. You shall eat.

But I must say, God's desire is for us to become spiritually strong. What did I say?

This.

Is this. This will help. Physically, oh, barbells help. They increase your strength. They can make you stronger, make you look better. As physically, you can keep this, and you can work out with this. And it's like, physically, this is it. This is really good for you, no matter what age. But this is spiritual in nature. This is a spiritual barbell. Yes, that's right. Putting it to your mouth during the days of Unleavened Bread. Pump the matzo. Okay? Pump the matzo. It's going to make you stronger spiritually. Because every time, not just to eat it, but to think, why, why are, why am I eating this?

Why did God ask me to do, no, he didn't ask me. Why does God tell me to do that? Every day. Because he wants us to.

It's a bigger piece. He wants us to think why we're eating it. Do we just like, let's get this down so I can have something else. No, he gives us for our benefit so we can think about that dry because it is dry.

Okay, it's flat. And Mary looks at me now, do you want your water? Absolutely. This is important to us. We must just look at this as, what, duty? Because sometimes you can go to the gym, and I do that. I try to go three times a week. This week I ended up once. Okay, I intended three times. I only made one. But look, I can have this, and I need this. But this, the spiritual, is what, that's my reward. I'm 66 years old. Nobody's going to stop me on the beach and go, what a beautiful body you have. Okay.

So this is what we need to look at, examine, and use it during those seven days to spiritually pump us up. Spiritually make us stronger.

I didn't collapse the whole thing.

But too many times, I have actually, during the days of unleavened bread, and I'm supposed to be your pastor, I've actually got up in the morning and said, I got to eat a piece of bread. And I went in and I ate that piece of bread. And I said, it was 30 seconds of thought. But is that, thank you, dear, is that what God gave this for?

He knew what it would be like 2000 years, in Jesus Christ's death. He sees the future. He sees everything. Why? He wanted to give His people, His people, because nobody else has got it. Well, unleavened bread. What? The world doesn't view that, do they? They don't view unleavened bread. Why would you do that? Oh, that's kind of silly.

No, He gives it to us. He made sure so that we could use this matzo, this flat bread, to build spiritually, remind us of sin. Let's go on, as I have to break this up, since I have a Bible study afterwards.

Don't deceive yourself. Don't deceive yourself.

Sin is your taskmaster. I don't care who you are. Because we all want to overcome something. I haven't met a perfect person yet. I've met some think that thought they were. I dated some girls when I was younger, thought they were. But how much self-control do you have? All you need?

In every situation? No. Is this something that can help us?

This can help self-control. This can help anger issues, which leads to other sins, as Jesus Christ said. He said, don't murder. He said, don't even get angry.

Lying. Pompomato. It'll help you. Lust, coveting, even idolatry. Where we put something over it. Well, I don't have time to study like I need to today.

I'll get back tonight. I'll read then.

Then you're tired.

This is what God wants us to do.

He wants us to break the chains.

Break the chains is slavery. The slavery of sin. Let's go with me, if you will, to John 8. John 8. Verse 34. I find this interesting. John 8 and verse 34. Jesus answered them, and said, surely, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

Had a problem with that.

Had to look it up. Had to go through quite a bit of study, because we all commit sin, but yet we're not all slaves. There are certain sins that I'm not a slave to.

I like my wife. I like women. You're not going to find me going on a date with a man. That's a sin that ain't going to happen. It just can't happen. It's not here. But there are certain sins that I have to fight.

But then I went to the Greek.

And I wanted to see this, how it was actually phrased in the Greek. It almost sounded like Yoda. Remember Yoda from that movie, whatever, that little creature? Yeah, Star Wars. I call him a little creature. I don't know what he's called. Well, he is. And so it says over here, most of the sure life, say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. When that didn't fit because I may have committed a sin once and I've never committed it again. So how could I be a slave for sin? So I didn't understand. So I knew that wasn't what Christ meant.

But we all do sin. But I read the Greek and it says everyone doing sin. Sin. A slave is. There you get the Yoda part. A slave is. That's how the original Greek is. Everyone doing sin, a slave is. And when I looked at the Greek were there as they were doing, it actually is translated in other ways. Everyone practicing sin. Practicing sin is a slave to sin. And I think most of us can agree to that because we may be stuck in one sin and then that becomes a habit. That's why we're fighting the same one all the time. Or one or two that just seems to pop up their ugly head.

Sin. As your taskmaster. Are you willing to admit? You know, the first thing comes in when you go to AA. I haven't been there, but I've had the books and I know people who have worked with people who went to AA. Alcoholics anonymous. First thing they have to have you do is what? Admit you got a problem. Yes. And you have to. So we have to as we enter these days, as we examine ourselves, we prepare for these because I've kept 40 something of these. Matter of fact, how many? 20, 40, yeah, 44 of these. How many Passovers will this be for? So, anybody got more than 44? Okay, make me feel young now. How many, Bill? I figured out from 1972 to now. Okay, who's a mathematical genius in here?

72 was the first one.

53? 53. Anybody got 53 beat? I don't see anybody's hand shooting up. Wait a minute, somebody else? How old are you, Bill? No, just kidding. Yes, somebody else. Vic, was that you? How many? Oh, same one. He got baptized same as you, 53 years. So you've kept 53 of the days of Unleavened Bread.

And but yet you're not perfect yet. Still working on it. Vic's not perfect yet. I don't know. Maybe is he perfect yet? You live. Okay, just checking Frank. We're just.

He's Frank and honest. So. So this is something that takes a lifetime. But you, these two guys haven't given up. I haven't given up with over 40 years and said, well, I just can't do it. But. Because we see some progress. And God sees some progress. You know, that's all he wants. Because it's as he said on Sermon of the Mount, Be you perfect. But the actual translation in the Greek says become you perfect. It's a transition. It's a transition from this very human, frail kind of body. To the spiritual realm. Christ, he came. And showed it could be done.

And he wanted us to mirror him. To mirror him. Because someday you may say, well, I don't know any perfect yet. Someday you will be perfect. He said it. He said it. First John 3-2. When he comes, you will see him as he is. Because you will be like him. This is what he wants. This is just. Pumping matzohs helps us to become more like Christ spiritually inside. Keep pumping. Now something, well, here I get that dry bread. No. It's that wonderful tool. It's that symbol. It's that metaphor. To help us remind the put sin out of our lives every day.

Free from bondage and control of sin this year. This is what your goal is. This is God's goal for you. Is to try to move you out so sin is no longer your taskmaster. Will you sin? Yes. But will it control you?

No. Because the problem is sometimes we try to do it ourselves. I got this, God. I work on this. The next thing you were on our knees going, God, why did I do that? I'm so sorry. We need to say to God, need your help.

I don't have a hacksaw, spiritual hacksaw, to break this chain. But you do. Help me break this chain. Help me free me from the taskmaster.

It's an interesting read in Exodus 5 as you read about those taskmasters. Because every time the Pharaoh had something and it didn't go right, things didn't go right. Make it harder on him. Try something different. This is like Satan with sin. Let me give them something harder. Let me see where they're weak. Let's get it. Let's see what we can get them into. And he's good. He's really good at it. So brethren, I tell you, come here in weeks, let's pump some matzohs. Let's build ourselves spiritually, like the weight can do physically. The more you pump, the stronger you will get. And we will work at putting sin out of our lives. And we can just call it spiritual bodybuilding.