Big idea: Three discoveries about God’s purposes in work will help you like your work more better.
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Well, good morning and again, church family, it's good to see you. I don't say this enough. I love you. I'm so thankful for you. Every week we come away from our gathering, so thankful for the body of Christ here. If you're new with us, we would love to meet you. I probably met seven new families just last hour. If you're new, I'd love to meet you and connect with you. We have that lunch right after so feel free to join us for that lunch. It would be a really great opportunity for us to connect. We are starting a series on work, and the series on work three part series is also going to go into our it's also going to go into our small groups. So working in God's kingdom is a theme for that. This morning, I want to talk about God's purposes and work, God's Kingdom purposes through an interesting title. And then we are Brian's going to hit the dignity of work next week, all all jobs having dignity and purpose. And then we're going to talk about integrity and work, which is a major need in our culture. In our era, there is a general and broad distrust of almost all institutions. In some ways that's a product of the lack of integrity in many places. So we're gonna talk about the need for that in our workplaces as well. We're gonna start with God's Kingdom purposes, and we're gonna go back to Genesis chapter one and two, and we're going to hit the highlights that I can apply to work life. Stand with me for the reading of God's Word. Turn to Genesis. Chapter one. We'll read some verses from one two, and then, if you're fast enough to First Corinthians 15, but they'll all be on the screen for you. Genesis. Chapter Genesis, chapter one, we're going to start in verse 26
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Then God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him, male and female. He created them, and God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit, you shall have them for food. And to every beast on the earth and to every bird of the heavens, and to every everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life. I have given every green plant for food. And it was so God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day, thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and to all the host of them. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it, God rested from all his work that he had done in creation. Jump to verse 15. Then God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it first, Corinthians, 1558, therefore my beloved brothers be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not In vain. This is the word of the Lord God. We thank you our good Father, as we think about you, O Blessed Trinity Father, you are the grand architect and designer of all of creation. Lord Jesus, you are builder Holy Spirit. You are the power empowering all the work. And Father, you have made us to work with your work. You are always working. Lord Jesus, you have made us to work under Your Lordship. Holy Spirit, you provide strength in our labor. We are grateful to have work. It is a good gift of you to us. You use it to provide for our loved ones and our family in this world, to make a difference in the world that we live in. And we pray as we enter a short series on work that there would be lots of. Discussions and growth group about how we can glorify You in our work. And I pray for all kinds of work, from the stay at home mom and the home school parent to the person who works at the car wash to the person who works in finance, all of the things that make up work in a city like ours. We pray that whatever we would do, we would do it heartily to you help us understand some initial principles about work. Help them apply to our hearts. Father, we pray for work around the city, and I pray that You would help church like three crosses on assembly up northwest of us that you would help them be faithful. Help Princeton Avenue Church, just a half mile away from that, help them be faithful training their people to be effective workers in their world as they learn and apply the principles from the gospel under the Lordship of Christ. Now we pray that You would give us understanding of your word and your work in Christ's name. Amen may be seated. Has anybody watched the reality TV show called alone? A few of a few of you have it's a competition. It's a take off of like Survivor, except instead of surviving with people, you survive alone. They're dropped into the wilderness to see how long they can survive by themselves. And when they can't handle it anymore, they call for rescue. The last person in the wilderness alone wins a huge cash prize. The episode with Chuck. I can't actually remember his name, but it's kind of related to what got him out. Chuck was nearly starving, but every contestant gets to choose a set of gear that goes with them to help them survive. He brought fishing gear. He caught a sizable lake trout, and he told the camera, because it's like self recorded, told the camera how nutritious this female was. Her eggs were very nutritious, and since the fish was fresh, you could eat it raw and not get sick. You know what's going to happen hours later, Chuck got incredibly sick. Trout have parasites, apparently, and we were subject to long scenes of Chuck vomiting. That's why I call him Chuck. He he feared for Yeah, that's also why we didn't watch any more episodes. How many times do I not need to watch people being sick? I'm good. But he got incredibly sick, and he had to call in for fear for his life alone is really a reality show about work in a fallen world reduced to self, survival and status, self. Can Can I produce for myself. What I need? Can I make a name for myself? I mean, that's what competition shows are about. Can I make it on my own? Can I be the best? All of those things in one little competition show. And to my knowledge, people who've watched the remainders of seasons say, in the end, the winners hate the work, because nobody was really ever built to work alone. God made work, but we rebelled. We feel the consequences. Here's some questions to see if there's a check. Is there parts of work you don't like? Here's some here's some questions, are there some parts of your job that are toilsome? Yeah, for me, remembering passwords toilsome. Lynn, to said to me, like you complain about that a lot. Do you need some help? Yes, I do. Do breakdowns, tech problems or decay slow down your work. I bet they do. I bet it does. Do you feel behind at work always? Do you feel poorly suited for your job sometimes? Do you like your job but realize it doesn't pay the bills, and even when you're Resting, resting is your mind often at work.
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You wouldn't be human if you didn't experience this. These things. Here's the big idea for us this morning, following God's purposes for work will help you like your work more better, more better. Mo better. I know you're asking is, is that even a proper goal to. Like my work? Well, God likes his work. I mean, when you read through it, you can't escape that he saw that. It was all very good Genesis. One says it five different times. I realize some of you don't like your work, but here's the thing about understanding God's purposes, immersing yourself in God's kingdom purposes will help you like your work more. What I'm really saying is that centering your work on God's purposes in the gospel will have a really nice by product. Would you like that? And yes, the statement is grammatically incorrect. I was an English major, more better is not proper, because on the other side, you might like your work for the wrong reasons, and these always leak out negatively in your life. Often you get things from work that you're not supposed to get from work, and often, you get things from work that you don't get at home, your coworkers think you're funny. They lean on you for expertise. You get bonuses and at home, no one's really very impressed when you're home at when you're home with your family, very often your best self is somewhere else, giving home your leftovers. So pursuing God's purposes and work can help you work better if we understand and participate in God's gospel purposes, his kingdom purposes. It will help you work and help you like your work more better. So as we go through this, I'm going to treat this like discoveries. These are secrets. You know, I notice, if you're trying to sell something to business people, it's like three secrets to success. Oh, you've got something. I've got something, three discoveries about gospel purposes that will help you like your work more better. Number one, find freedom by working as worship to God. Find Freedom by working as worship to God. Once we work to worship, many of the problems with work are exposed and corrected, so getting our orientation about work is massively freeing you actually do what you're made to do by doing your work as worship. The Gospel begins with God as creator. In Genesis one, mankind as worshipers and servants. We see it in verse 26 Then God said, this is Genesis 126 God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have dominion. Now, one of the things you'll notice is I already preached through all of this, giving you a lot of the detail here I want to give the application God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, that they may have dominion. From ancient times to this very day, the Bible's view of work is revolutionary in our world, starting with God. The Bible opens with God working, and Jesus affirms it. Later on, the ancient mythologies all had the gods making people so they didn't have to do the work so they could be free to be thinkers and doing the important things. Jesus says this to Pharisees, who were strict Sabbath keepers. Jesus says, My father is working until now, and I am working. So just think about it this way. Heaven is not work free for God, heaven is not work free. God is always working as he works, he creates, he sustains, for mankind to work with them and for him. Here's the thing we've got to understand. The first form of worship is imaging God. If we're going to turn the image into a verb, he says, Let us make man in our own image. An image is something that gives the character and the representative of the thing. Imaging is reflecting God's character as representatives in the world, and we're going to get to the problem of sin, but sinful men and women still image God through their work. Remember, mankind wasn't made because God needed slaves. God wanted to share himself through work while still being the. Authority over our work. This is where we get the big hand off to Brian next week. Who is going to talk about the dignity of work, all work, all lawful work, is God's work. There's no such thing as sacred work and secular work. It might be culturally helpful to understand Christian workplace like a church or a missions organization or the mission and it might be helpful to understand businesses, but biblically, all of it is sacred because God made all of it. So installing wastewater drains in the street is God's work. Just as doing Bible study with friends is God's work. What a revolution that's going to be as you think about your job, what follows in Genesis four is the building of cities and the specialization of labor and arts. Can we preach through that? I think Josh preached through that section. No human is a as a human can fully image God. We can't fully represent since we're finite, very finite, and God is infinite. Unlike God, no human is self sufficient. So in Genesis four, they build cities for a lot of reasons, but one cities is where workers congregate. And what ends up happening as specialization happens is you focus on a few things that you can do, perhaps even that you're built better to do you and the city get an outweighted impact. So remember, in the show alone, the guy or the gals dropped into the wilderness, they bring tools with them. They don't really make it all up on their own, do they? They bring tools with them that had to be made by somebody else. So even fallen man recognized the necessity of specialization cities and towns, so that we give our work and get an outweighted benefit and give an outweighted impact.
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You the
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New Testament backs this concept up multiple times. First Peter 410 is one of them says, as each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as God's steward, as good stewards of God's varied grace. Usually we apply that to church, work, ministry, life within the community, and that is certainly the case, but that is also true in the work world, in a sinful world, think about this. The garbage truck driver, images God the purifier, the medical worker. Images God the healer, the parent. Images God the caregiver, provider, productive, protector, nurturer, the home school, mom, the teacher. Images Christ the teacher, the engineer, images God the architect, designer. Lawful work gives glory to God. And then if we would say this lawful work in a lawful way does as well what's a lawful way well as service to God, imaging God with the desire to serve God in Genesis two, we find that exercising Dominion does not look like dominating. It looks like gardening. The Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it. Exercise dominion means overseeing the animal world and overseeing the plant world in a way that it's arranged more orderly, takes things in wild, abundant chaos and brings order and beauty to them, making them more productive. 215, one of my favorite verses for this concept. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden. So there is the there is the provision for it, we cultivate to make things more orderly, productive and beautiful. Gardening is always the prototype for a workplace. It's always the prototype for a workplace. And what comes secondarily, provision, you do this work, and provision comes along. That's true in chapter one, he says, do all these things, and I have given you all of this for food. Did God like his work? He loved his work. Said it was very good. So should you like your work? I mean, ideally, yes, ideally, yes, you should. Lynn made a list of appliance maintenance projects that she and I have been ticking off. Last week, we took the dryer out, I hooked up the shop vac, I got a new shop vac, and it's got the blower side feature where you can take the hose and I shoved it in the tube and I fired it up and out from the we have a ceiling vent. Great thought. Thank you. Lance Douglas, ceiling vent. That's what you should do. We should make everything go up and out. We turned it on, and it just fired out lint. It he just cleaned that out right into the neighbor's yard. It was great. And then while it was running, I got up and I cleared the little bit because it got clogged, because there was so much stuff. And it was so satisfying when we were all done and the dry times doubled or no halved. Yes, math, math, not my strong suit. Drier speeds, like they went so much fat, like there should be satisfaction in the work that you do. Now we do live in a fallen world, so there's not always all the satisfaction. I understand that, but God did make work good. He made us to step back and appreciate it. We need to add one really important feature to this, and that's the work rest rhythm. Work rest rhythm. Culturally, there's a lot of talk about work life balance, which are sort of secular ways of saying overwork is unproductive, so there needs to be a proper balance. God has actually built something better in with this work, rest, rhythm, Genesis two. If you jump back there, it says, On the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. Has God really ever stopped working, not in the sustaining here was the point. God had made. Everything out of nothing. It started in chaos. He brought it to high order, and he put his image bearers on it, and he stopped, and he went, This is so good. He stopped and noticed and enjoyed the work so God blessed the seventh day. Made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he has done he had done in creation. We were built to like our work. We were built to like our rest. Notice the rhythm, six days of work, one day of rest. Am I saying we need a six day work week? Well, you gotta also have you have some work at your home, so most employers recognize a five day work week so that you can get your work at home done. Like, when else am I going to blow out the dryer vent? But sin entered the world, and we began working for another master. So Adam and Eve disobeyed the command to not eat from the forbidden tree. Satan said, here's the thing, you eat from that tree and you will be like God. You will be able to stand aside from God and do it all for yourself, rule your own life. Soon as that happened, though, we start working for another master, a paycheck, a kind of home that gives us status being an exclusive club, being able to buy all the Seahawk gear for game day so you can be the ultimate fan. I like Seahawk gear, how you work and how you play become means of acceptance, applause and prestige. So with the fall comes the corruption of what you're working for and what you're resting for, how you work, how you rest, becomes of ways become ways of saying. Now I know I am worth something like, what? What's the point of a Cartier watch? Since Nobody wears watches anymore, somebody wears a watch well done status. That's a way of showing that I am something. Now I know I'm worth something. Now everybody knows I'm worth something. But here's what Jesus warns us of when you're trying to do that no one can serve two masters. He either will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. One is going to be your master, and God is the master who works with us and provides our work for us. You. Now, if we were to summarize lawful work, everything that's not a sin in the Bible, we need to add the way we do that work, which is in worship to God. If we were to summarize it, Jesus would say something like this in Matthew 2237 and 39 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. So that means your work needs to be offered to God as love to God. Then he goes on and says, and second, is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So we find a freedom in work as worship to God. And number two, we find meaning by working as love to others. Seeing your work as love for others will both improve your attitude and the parts you don't like, it will also keep you from self centered pride or the idol of personal worth and acceptance and alone. If you watch any of those series, the back story for every single contestant is some difficulty at home and family life and how winning the prize might rescue the family. How many you get your heart strings going? Oh, I'm rooting for this person. This is what's going on at home. I hope they win. They're image bearers too. Image bearers, non believers seek to work to provide for their family. It is not particularly Christian to work for your family. In fact, Timothy makes this statement. Paul says this in Timothy, if anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially the members of his household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. Basic level unbelievers work because they love their family. But there's something positive to say about this, something right and good about paying the bills. If you could pay the bills right on that's good. Stay at home. Moms, home school moms.
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Home school parents. I know there's a lot of home school dads. Is your work giving the care your family needs? Right on? That's good. Praise the Lord. You were, you were to do that is, is providing the resources that your family needs an act of love. It is so even if you don't love your job, but it pays the bills for the people you love, it's going to help you like your job better. But I want to get a little more specific. Three ways we don't often think about our work. Is love to others. First competence, by competence, it's initially laid into two to Genesis, 215, because they were put in the garden to work and keep. Work is the labor of it. Keep is attentiveness to it, that actually means they cultivated the work itself. So competence is a way you love. Listen to Proverbs. 2229 Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings. He will not be obscure before men. General principle, competence makes a big impact, and I'll illustrate it for you. If you get brain cancer, do you want the best brain surgeon or a Christian brain surgeon?
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You want the best brain surgeon, don't you? You want the best brain surgeon. What if the best brain surgeon is Hindu? I want to live, or I want my loved one to live. I want the best brain surgeon. Competence matters. Competence is love. Competence very often gets noticed by your employer. Sales setting, you might get more sales. You might get better positions, which allows you to earn better wages. And as long as money is a tool and not an object of worship, it could be very good when done for the service of God. Competence glorifies Him. You're also going to love your coworkers by being better at your job. Is God good at what he does? Obviously, the creator, sustainer of all things. So you seek to do well at your work. Out of worship to Him who made you you should constantly seek to do what you do better, out of love for the people you're providing for, out of love for the people that you're working with. Out of love to your city are. Your Community. Remember, what you do gives an outweight impact. Competence is important. Secondly, there is influence, influence by competence, by influence when you were when you're new to your job, very often you have no influence other than by the influence of your Christian ethics and morals and your influence of willingness, but as you get more competent, you can seek to improve the fairness in your work. Just the workplace, there are often injustice issues in the workplace, you can be a person that speaks into them. We're going to dive into those message three, you can better benefit your client instead of your boss. I mean, you think through influence in the workplace, and you track through biblical characters, Joseph in Egypt, Daniel in Babylon, Mordecai in the Medo Persian Empire, there were people with massive influence in their culture, by influence, especially, to make sure that your work allows justice in the workplace and justice in the community, which leads to the third way, generosity. Generosity work is designed by God to give you more than you need so that you can be generous to the poor and the work of God in the world. Generosity, when you work and you specialize and you labor, the general principle is you earn more than you need. In the 17th and 1800s in England, after the Great Awakenings, hundreds of 1000s of people trusted Christ and the biblical worth. Work ethic emphasized working hard for the glory of God, saving being frugal, be careful with your money as a way to honor God. But it started to produce a problem that is that middle class or poor people were accumulating wealth, they were accumulating savings. You're like, why is that a problem? And pretty soon you started to think you were better than somebody else, because you were starting to amass an amount, and they had to work hard at including generosity. Work as hard as you can, save as much as you can, and be as generous as you can. Images God in the world. Apostle Paul makes this point by illustrating the opposite of stealing. In Ephesians, 428, he addresses the one who was a thief. And remember, a thief in the world has only one aim, and that is to get for self. So self is on the throne, and so Paul says this, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. The opposite of stealing is generosity. God wants us to use our work for generosity. Your work allows you to be generous to the poor, to support the ministry of the Gospel through your church missionaries and gospel ministries in the city. The great missionary movement around the world in the 17 and 1800s was funded by hard working Bible believers who wanted to see the nations come to Christ. So these discoveries make you like work more and better. Find Freedom by making your work worship to God. Find purpose by making it love to people. And third, find identity by working in union with Christ. This is where the gospel enters. In this situation, mankind has always tried to find his identity apart from work or apart from God. That is, he's always tried to find his identity apart from God. Remember the story about Babel? Let me insert this really quick. Brian and I have both read every good endeavor by Tim Keller. It's a really helpful book on work. We love almost all of it, but not all of it, but that's how every book goes. But he notices the story about Babel in a way that I hadn't seen before. In Genesis chapter 11, which we've gone through as a church. You can go back to it. God had told the nations to spread out, fill the earth, exercise dominion, subdue it, do all. All of the work in imaging him. But they said, No, we don't want to do that. And they took one of the best new technologies in building bricks, and they chose to build a tower into the heavens to make a name for themselves. What's a name for yourself? You want to make a name for yourself? What does that yourself? What does that mean? It means to create an identity apart from God, so that people could know how rich you are, how powerful you are, how special you are. It is an independent identity. Everyone worked together to have a name apart from God. Obviously, Babel was judged, and
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this is where the gospel deals with our sin, frees us from idolatrous attitudes toward work and rest. God himself came to Earth in the person of Jesus Christ. In fact, if you think of in terms of the ancient world, that the gods did everything they could to stay away from work, here you have Christianity, where God came in the person of Jesus, Christ to work. What was Jesus father's trade? What is Jesus? What did Jesus dad do? He was a carpenter. In the American context, that doesn't mean a lot to Australia as a carpenter lesbian, but carpenters in the ancient world, carpenters were really no better than slaves, the hard working people freed up the nobility or the wealthy to not work at All so they could do the important things like philosophy.
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I was on a flight with a philosophy graduate from Berkeley, Jewish atheist, raised a Jew, became an atheist, went to Berkeley, and I was going toe to toe with a Berkeley grad about Christianity. It was a delightful conversation. He was a very easy conversation, but he was on his way to LA. We're going from San Francisco to LA because he's training for a management position at Trader Joe's, sadly to say, that's the job you can get with a Berkeley philosophy degree.
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In Jesus' day, he would have been among the poorest working class kind of people, just not much better than a slave. When Jesus preached the gospel, handled the Scripture with precision and poignant application. He was offensive because he was not trained by the cultural elites, the Pharisees, and he's preaching the gospel to his hometown, and his hometown took offense at his job. Is this not? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? How can this how can this carpenter tell us anything he's not part of the knowledge elite. Oh, and who's the elite today? The knowledge elite. They're the billionaires of the day. How can he tell us anything? Are not His sisters here with us? They took offense at Him. Jesus His own disciples, had a difficult time with the gospel, because Jesus made this other worldly statement, says the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many judgment was coming, and God in Christ entered the world as a mere human and at the lowest social class,
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and Jesus did the hardest work in Eight hours that any could ever do in a billion years, he bore the full weight of the sin for all his children.
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Jesus came to work the greatest. Work in providing forgiveness for our sins. When Christ returns, the first renewal, first stage of renewal in the kingdom, all temptation corruption, will be curbed. The saints will reign with Christ and work with him. This will give way to an entirely new heavens and a new earth, and our original purpose in creative God glorifying, work will be restored. Do you feel behind at work? Do you feel unfit for work? You will not feel that way. When the new heavens and the new earth are established, you will work with energy and joy. You might need this offer person trying to get your identity by your work or what your work buys you for your rest. Listen to the gospel. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me What's a yoke, a yoke a yoke was the piece of wood that was strapped to the animal to harness its energy to do the toil, some work that men couldn't do very often. There's two in the yoke ox side by side, and what Jesus is saying that is, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Jesus takes on the yoke, and we join him in his work, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That's because Jesus, God in flesh has omnipotent power if you have been working for your identity, if you have been working for the rest and payoff, and not working with God for His glory, with Jesus for his missionary purposes, for the world, you are exhausted and you're trying to make a name for yourself, then, in the end, will mean nothing. Jesus is your rest. The very first saving prayer you might need to make today is I submit to you as my Lord and Master, I will come under your yoke, and I know you have promised to provide for me while I work, while I minister, I'll follow you. Jesus, death and resurrection provides forgiveness, restoration, and we call it union with Him. There's the animal picture of union being strapped to the yoke with Jesus. There is the relational union that is described being in Christ. This is going to help us with with three things. I don't have time to do a New Testament, teaching on Sabbath, keeping. Let's just, let's just talk about the rest the work. Rest rhythm, first, work is not a Savior, and rest is not an enemy. You know that rest is an enemy by your worry? Because I'm always worried about getting the work, getting the money so I can get the things that I think I need. Jesus addresses this in Matthew 631, through 33 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or What shall we drink, or What shall we wear? For the Gentiles, seek after all these things. These are things that you make prestige, status, significance, out of and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all, But seek first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. You participate in the work that God's given to you, and he is still your Savior. Second, work is not an evil and rest is not a savior. It's the flip side of it. Jesus tells a parable about a successful farmer in Luke 12, which the farmer has this enormous crop, he builds barns to store it, and he jumps into pleasure, seeking retirement. He says, I will say to my soul, soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years, relax, eat, drink, be merry. But God said to him, fool, this night, your soul is required of you, and the things that you have prepared, whose will they be. So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God doing His work unto the Lord, doing it as love, doing it as generosity. And third, work is not an identity, and rest is not an identity. For prestige, rank, the sense of I've arrived. I. Yeah, and because of the fall, you may not get to work in a place that's ideal for your gifting and abilities. You know, we're talking about it with our family this week, like you're going to change jobs, likely somewhere over your career, if you're young. And how do I know when to change jobs? How do I do it? There's four factors there. It's not a magical formula, but one is you are generally gifted with a certain set of abilities. And that's part one, abilities and gifting. You might like to pursue work like that, because you're gifted for it. But part two is you are to provide for your family, so sometimes your gifting and abilities isn't not, isn't exactly the right fit so that you can provide the third part of the equation is making sure that your work is worship to God, and the fourth part of the equation is balancing the responsibilities that God gives you between home life, work life and community life, church life. There's a balance of those things. It's not a magic formula. There's not a dial set 25% each. But this prevents you from your identity being in your work or your identity being in your rest.
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You're going to like your work more better when you worship, you love and you're united to Jesus and His mission.
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Turn to First Corinthians 1558, I've usually always applied this to church work. I guess I've worked 25 years in church work. So I think of this this way. But first Corinthians 15 talks about the resurrection of Jesus, the resurrection of the body, and the resurrection of all creation, which we call the new heavens and the new earth. And I want to encourage you, if you always feel behind, one day in Heaven, you will have all the time in eternity to get done what God wants you to get done. It will be a relief. And you wonder, does my work matter today because of the resurrection and the reward that's coming. Paul can say this, therefore my beloved brothers, Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, which is all work, all ministry, all family life, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. There is a reward that you can't see that is coming in the day of Christ, and you can be glad in it, Father, thank You for this word about work, and I pray that You would help us glorify You in it as we take communion. Help us remember that the death that you put your son through was to redeem all of our lives, including our work. And we are working for something, for this world, because we love it, but for the new heavens and new earth, because that's where we will all be one day. Pray this in Christ's name.
Dr. Dan Jarms is lead pastor at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
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