As for Me and My House:
Work and Responsibility
Dismissal of Children, Greeting and Update on Arma Move
All children birth to three are dismissed to go to the
nursery at this time!
I want to welcome everyone to the Grove! If you’re a
first-time guest or a regular attender, thank you for spending
your time here at the church! If you’re looking for a church
home, find out more about us to see if we’re a good fit for
each other!
As you parked today you may have noticed our
school bus parked out back. We were blessed by Lone
Cherry Baptist Church with that bus for absolutely free!
Last Monday Zach Sachs, our Outreach-Operations
Director, and I attended the USD246 school board meeting
to request meeting space for our church in either of Arma’s
schools. This would allow us to meet six essential criteria to
accomplish our vision:
1) reach more people more effectively
2) offer full children’s ministry programming for birth through
fifth grade
3) have ample parking and seating for 200+ people
4) provide a non-threatening environment for those who
are freaked out by church, lost and need Jesus
5) allow us to embrace our vision of being a regional
church reaching many communities in Southeast Kansas
and, lastly
6) allow us to move toward our goal of reaching 310
people with the Gospel in 2017-2018 in order for 1% of lost
people in Crawford County to hear about Jesus in the next
year through the Grove Church.
Be praying for this opportunity. Pray for God’s
guidance for how he wants us to minister to Southeast
Kansas. Pray for God’s protection over the Grove. Pray for
the leadership of the church. Ask God to give us wisdom.
Pray for the lost people of Arma, Mulberry, Arcadia, Franklin,
Girard, Fort Scott, Pittsburg, Liberal and Mindenmines, MO
and the other smaller communities that abound in our area.
Ask God to provide workers, volunteers and launch team
members for this endeavor. Finally, seek God to see how
YOU can help us reach as many people as possible!
Setting Up the Series
This is our fourth week in our series As For Me and My
House. We’re discussing several issues that have dramatic
influence on the culture of our homes and the environments
we live in. We must choose what our family will serve,
whether that be God or evil. We must remember God’s
goodness in saving us and allow that to be the foundational
component that we build everything on.
In the past weeks, we’ve discussed money, marriage,
sexuality and parenting. A common theme develops in this
series is that we have unrealistic expectations and we
expect unrealistic people or things to fulfill them. It’s natural
bent, our proclivity. It is a fight for us to keep God to be in
his proper place in our lives as utmost and superior to
everything.
Our identity was never meant to be found in how
much money we have or don’t have. Our identity was
never meant to be found in our ‘soul mates’, our sex lives or
in our children. And this week we’ll discuss that our worth
and purpose certainly isn’t found in our work or our jobs.
INTRO/Setting Up the Sermon
Dirty Jobs was a show that ran for 8 seasons on the
Discovery channel from 2004 to 2012. I remember watching
that show in fascination and thinking, “My job is alright!” I’m
not collecting seminal fluid from horses for artificial
insemination, being a maggot farmer or trapping leeches.
Making pizzas at Pizza Hut or running film at the movie
theatre wasn’t so bad as soon as I watched those episodes!
I speculate that part of the success of that show wasn’t
necessarily how gross those jobs were but how discontent
we are with our sanitized, mundane and safe jobs.
Numerous studies have shown that well over 65% of
Americans are disengaged with their jobs. 70% of
Americans are actively looking for another job right now.
40% of America’s unemployed have stopped looking for a
job. If you’re between 26-35 years old (a large portion of our
church) you will almost certainly have between 4-5 jobs by
33 years old and have an average tenure of around a year
and a half. Americans, second only to Japan, work more
than any other developed country in the world. By the time
you die the average person will have spent 90,000 hours at
work! You will most likely spend more time with your coworkers than your family if you live in the US. In America
alone last year 658 million vacation days went unused.
We have issues with work. We’re addicted to it or
apathetic about it. We have severe expectation issues with
our jobs. Proverbs 14:4 ESV says, “Where there are no oxen
the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the
strength of the ox.” The moral of that parable is if there’s no
work to do the stall stays clean. But if you want
abundance… you’re going to have to shovel come crap. I
don’t know of a job in America where you’re not going to,
at some time or another, have to deal with some stinky
stalls!
Anyone with a job knows the stresses that work can
create in our households. This is yet again another area
where we have unrealistic expectations and expect an
unrealistic job to fulfill it. Proverbs 14:23 “In all toil there is
profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.” In other words, if
you want something to happen talk is cheap. You have to
put action behind your aspirations. You need verbs to
execute your vision.
Why this is so important? In order to fulfill our highest
calling from Jesus we must learn to make the best use of
time with our jobs. We have to learn balance. We have to
be driven. Most importantly, we must realize who it is that
we actually work for. Ephesians 5:15-17 ESV says, “15 Look
carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as
wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days
are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand
what the will of the Lord is.” All of this time you will spend
working is time ordained by God and you must choose
what you will do with every second. Let’s not be foolish. The
days are evil and short and we have the healing the world
needs.
Sermon
Pt 1 Work was established by God as part of his original
design.
In the beginning, before humanity’s fall, God had
man work. A dangerous tendency is to see work in two
polarizing fashions, as savage or see it as savior. God uses
your work to provide for you. If you have the ability to work
you have been given a treasure of treasures. Many people
lack the ability to provide for themselves and are forced
into dependency. The ability to work is a gift.
Recently I was listening to a podcast where the man
being interviewed was a workhorse, a Clydesdale of a man.
As he described his unbelievable workload and the
responsibilities he had the language he was using had
caught my attention and soon the host commented as
well. Every responsibility, however intense of mundane, he
would say, “I get to ____________.” Everything he said was, “I
get to.” as opposed to, “I have to.” What an attitude to
have. Imagine your conversations changing from “I have
to” to “I get to” about your everyday responsibilities.
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“I get to cook dinner.”
“I get to study for a sermon.”
“I get to host Home Group.”
“I get to change diapers.”
“I get to make lesson plans.”
“I get to follow Jesus.”
One could argue with me that it’s just semantics. But is it?
Our attitude should be like Jesus (Philippians 2). The way we
talk and think are interlinked. So, we must recognize that
God had work in mind from the beginning. And whoever
understands this will be satisfied. Proverbs 12:11 ESV,
“Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he
who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.” Those with a
disregard for work will always be left wanting and feeling
entitled. 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12
Pt 2 Work has been cursed because of sin.
Mondays, as in “I’ve got a case of the Mondays”, didn’t
exist before the fall. That one co-worker who eats egg
sandwiches and tuna salad didn’t exist before the fall. You
can read the account for yourself in Genesis 3:17-19. You
will sweat. You will have conflict. The earth will work against
you. You will toil without profit. You’ll cut your hands. Your
back will be sore. You will work yourself to death. You’ll
begin to find your identity in what you do instead finding
your identity in who made you and who you work for. Our
focus needs to shift more toward whose we are rather than
what we do.
Some of you are embarrassed about what you do for
a living. Maybe it’s not glamourous or sexy. Maybe it’s dirty
and sweaty. Maybe it’s lowly, there’s no glory in it. I would
remind you that the Word says that you would rather have
little by honest means than great wealth by being a liar
(Proverbs 16:8). If what you do is honest and righteous you
have nothing to be ashamed of. Why? The most important
thing about you is the fact that you are God’s child.
Work cannot be your identity or worth. When that happens,
you become an idolater. Luther said, “Why do the Ten
Commandments begin with a prohibition of idolatry? It is,
he argued, because we never break the other
commandments without breaking the first.”
Just as you can’t identify with what you do… you
cannot identify others by what they do as well. There are
farmers here who barely have a high school education who
are smarter and have higher IQs than professors with PhDs
at Pitt State.
The opposite from identify with our work is the act of
vilifying work as unholy and unbecoming to a Christian. “In
her book Creed or Chaos?, Sayers addresses the traditional
seven deadly sins, including acedia, which is often
translated as “sloth.” But as Sayers explains it, that is a
misnomer, because laziness (the way we normally define
sloth) is not the real nature of this condition. Acedia, she
says, means a life driven by mere cost-benefit analysis of
“what’s in it for me.” She writes, “Acedia is the sin which
believes in nothing, cares for nothing, enjoys nothing, loves
nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for
nothing and only remains alive because there is nothing for
which it will die.”
Proverbs 13:4 ESV, “The soul of the sluggard craves
and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly
supplied.”
Pt 3 You give purpose to your work. Your work doesn’t give
purpose to you.
In everything you do… Do it for the full glory of God. The
only reason you need to do a great job is the reality that all
your work is for Jesus, your savior. Ephesians 6:5-9 ESV says,
“5 Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and
trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by
the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as
bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the
heart, 7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord
and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone
does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a
bondservant or is free. 9 Masters, do the same to them, and
stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their
Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality
with him.”
Every job you ever have you are working for the
kingdom of God and the glory of Jesus. That includes the
most menial tasks you get to do. There’s the old saying,
“You can’t see the forest for the trees.” In the middle of
everyday life it gets hard to see the bigger picture. When
you’re changing the day’s 8th diaper it’s hard to focus on
the glory in that. On a trip to Colorado several years ago I
remember climbing Mt. Baldy in the Elks. When we crossed
the timberline (where the trees stop growing) I was
astounded to see what we had come through to get to the
summit. With Jesus as our vantage point we get a proper
view of what we are doing.
We transition from trying to find meaning in our work to
giving meaning to our work. We learn that dream jobs are
exactly what they sound like… dreams. Perfect jobs don’t
exist. I once heard Mike Rowe say, “Don’t follow your
passion. Take it with you.” If Jesus is our passion, we’ll take
him into every room we enter, every task we’re assigned
and every responsibility we have.
When you know why you work you’ll be more satisfied
with what you do. Proverbs 6:6-11 ESV says, “Go to the ant,
O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 7 Without
having any chief, officer, or ruler, 8 she prepares her
bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. 9 How
long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from
your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of
the hands to rest, 11 and poverty will come upon you like a
robber, and want like an armed man.”
“When you want to do something big in the future be
who God wants you to be today. You wanna do something
big for God in the future do something small for God today.
God’s will for most of us is a someone instead of a
something. It’s someone right now as opposed a something
later. You want a calling? Love! You want a calling? Serve.
Jesus didn’t teach about your occupation. He taught
about what you’re to be occupied with… loving God and
loving people, the greatest commandment. –Craig
Groeschell
Pt 4 Jesus should be on full display when you work.
Jesus is more concerned with whether or not you
have a towel in your hand than what title you hold in this life
(Mark 10:45/John 13). When I took a job with Chick-fil-A a
former professor from the Christian College I attended
came in, saw me changing out a trash bag and said, “All
that talent and you’re changing trash bags. I just can’t
believe it.” Now, I rarely have prolific spiritual moments. But
when he said that to me all I could think was, “No servant is
greater than his master.” If Jesus is on display there should
be no insecurity in what you do because you know who
your boss is! If you’re a: Server, Accountant, Stay at home
mom, Teacher, Professor, Laborer, Painter, Musician, Nursing
Assistant or Pastor YOU are on the payroll for the kingdom of
God!
What does this do for us? We work with humility. We
work with patience. Jesus is a savior who loves working and
we must all be workers who love saving. Tim Keller- ““If God
exists then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones,
pursued in response to God’s calling can matter forever.”
Our commitment to him and the work he’s given should be
so great that when people ask, “What do you do for
Jesus?” Answer them, “Whatever it takes!”
Randall Shahan’s crew at church. What started with
a text that said, “See you at church?” ended up with 6 of
his 7 employees at church, baptized, dedicated and
rewriting their family history. What did he want? That 7th
person to be there. Could it be said of us that we desire the
kingdom to that extent.
Beeline to the Cross
Jesus came to do the work of the Father and did it
flawlessly, in humility and with passion. Position meant
nothing. Fame meant nothing. Glorifying the Father through
His work meant everything.
Call to Action
• Whatever you do for work… bring honor to Jesus
• Work with more excellence than anyone around you
• Work your best to see the kingdom of God grow
Announcements
12 for 12 sign up, Home Groups, Together Sermon Series,
Texas Mission Trip Sign Up, Trey and Meghan Philippines Trip,
Rachael and Zach India Trip,
Benediction
Numbers 6:24-26 NASB, “24 The Lord bless you, and keep
you; 25 The Lord make His face shine on you, And be
gracious to you; 26 The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.’