Work

God, thank you that you’re interested in tender moments like this with your people. We’re not used to saying, Lord, have your way with me. At least we’re not used to saying that in lots of circles, lots of settings. Maybe in a marriage, maybe in a family, maybe toward our parents, maybe on a job. We have an agenda, we have what matters to us and it’s hard to let go of that.

But I just sang a song that is a prayer. And there were moments along the way where I meant it and other moments where I just sang the words. I want you to have your way with me and every way. And I want that to be without limit, Lord. And I sense that I’m in a room, a setting filled with people who have similar sentiments.

They kind of take two steps forward in the direction of what we’re just saying and then they back up a little and it doesn’t turn out that way tomorrow. God, I’m just imagining what would happen if there are 400 people at a place, a little church on the corner. We have your way with us and it really happened that we only did what you gave us to do. I know our lives would be changed. And I’m guessing that lives of other people would also be changed.

And maybe, just maybe, your kingdom would come and your will would be done. Here on earth as it is in heaven. So we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen.

Amen. We’ve had quite a transformation here, I know, in the last week. If you were here last Sunday and the Sundays of December, you know the building was beautiful. And now it’s not. No, it’s just kidding.

It’s actually, it’s just normal, right? It’s building. But we came off a great month and a wonderful month and measured in a lot of ways. Probably for me personally, it’s just that wonderful sense that we celebrated again all month long. We called it Advent and that’s a good description of the coming of Jesus, the first Advent.

And of course, if you know your Bibles, of the Bible tells you, we’re not done. It’s not over. There’s a second Advent coming, right? Can I get an amen? I mean, he’s coming.

And here’s the deal, we’re in between, right? So he came and we can look back in history and acknowledge that, but he’s coming again. And our Bibles tell us a whole lot about that. We also noted this last month and it was kind of impressive to me at least that his coming was very missional. Sort of at its core was, was a missional purpose for which he came.

It’s not to charm us at Christmas, it’s to change our lives every day. It’s to change our Attorneys. And last Sunday, we discussed what is a very clear teaching in the Bible. And I would summarize it in one sentence, if you wanna write something down, this is probably worth taking home with you, that we were made for mission. We were made for a mission.

Rick Warren wrote a fabulous book if you’ve never read the purpose driven life. It’s written by a human, so it’s not gonna be perfect like the Bible and God’s word. But boy, is it an asset. It is in so many ways rich and engaging. And here’s some words from him, just the short statement.

“You were made for a mission,” wrote Warren. “God is at work in the world and he wants you “to join him.” Isn’t that personal? And then he finishes it, this assignment is called your mission. So God’s at work in our world and we know that and we know that at your job and at school and in your community, your neighborhood, the way and place in which you spend your time and your life.

God’s at work there, but he’s actually called you and me to engage with him to be on the job for him, if you will. Today as we start our new year, as I mentioned earlier, first Sunday of the new year, I want to restart our series that we spent most of the fall looking at and it’s called Healthy. We defined Healthy this way. It’s a healthy Christian according to God’s definition, is someone who has, is or does certain things. So God would define he says a healthy Christian, is, is, has or does certain things that define their lives.

You’re here on Sunday because it’s, hopefully it’s not to check something off a list or be sure and be seen. I’m actually told that that’s still true in certain parts of our country where you can go to church and churches are jam-packed in some locations still, but so much of it is for sort of social and even business reasons. It’s not, I don’t know a whole lot of people that come here for that and I certainly don’t. It’s a real thing for me. So I want to tell you that this series, just as a way of a reminder, has to do with things that God defines healthy are things a person has, is or does and not one of them can be done in a sustained way without his help.

So I say that to you, it’s not news to most of you, it is to some of you, the Christian life can’t happen, cannot be lived without his help. It’s like trying to drive a car with no gas. It’s not gonna work. It’s like trying to live without blood flowing through your body. It’s that critical and some people in spite of that reality and I think it is a reality will try anyway and that’s why they end up giving up and frankly they often look back and say it didn’t work for me.

They look back and say it didn’t take in my case. You know it works for guys like you, you went to seminary, you get it, whatever, but it didn’t happen that way for me. If I sound familiar with excuses, it’s ’cause I’ve been around a lot of ’em for a long time. But people that give up on this walk with Jesus, a healthy journey with Jesus, oftentimes their issue is, well, I tried to do it on my own. If I could just be that person, if I could just say no to sin, if I could just increase the number of healthy habits, but trying to do it disconnected from the power source, you’re gonna give up and you’re probably gonna point fingers and say it didn’t work for me.

Let me blame God and others for that. So Jesus, I’ll start with a new heart. You gotta have a new heart. And here’s the good news. Jesus gives a new heart.

I wanna show you words from the Old Testament of the new heart. It’s described by a great prophet. In the Old Testament, check this out. I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit in you. And I will take out of you, look how he describes the heart, a stony, stubborn heart.

And I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to live for me, right? To obey my regulations. In other words, it’s gonna take something to happen inside you before it can be something seen flowing from you. You need a new heart in order for the new habits to begin to show and be present in you. So it’s a really important point, but it bears repeating frequently.

Otherwise, we’re in danger of becoming a sort of an association of people that are looking for cool ideas to manage sin. And it’s way bigger than that. This is transformational stuff that we’re talking about. So those words that you’re still looking at, they were originally spoken to Jewish people that had been driven far from their home. They were in Babylonia, about five or 700 miles due east of Jerusalem.

They were a long way from home and they hated it. They loathed not only being there, but the people that had conquered them, the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar and other jerks like that. At least that’s the sentiment in the street in those days. And so there are long ways from home, but God spoke those words through Ezekiel, who was the prophet that was with those people for about 20 years when they were far away from home, both physically and spiritually. And he says, you know what?

I’m gonna do something new. It’s gonna start with a new you, brand new heart. Just tell you, he extends the same promise to us today, to us right in this room. Or to somebody that’s not in this room that you know of that’s broken and far from home spiritually. You know somebody like that?

I’ll bet almost everybody in this room does. I’ll bet more than a few in this room are broken. Notice we don’t say, hey, there’s the door. Fixed and then come here. No.

What a dumb idea. This is where you’re gonna get healed, ’cause we’re gonna come to the one, the healer. We’re singing and we’re shipping the healer. So if you’re that person, if you’re broken, far from home spiritually, or if you know somebody that’s that person, I deeply believe that this message, the message God has for us today is a message for you. It’s from a God who makes the blind to see.

It’s from a God who makes the lame to walk. And it’s from a God who, believe it or not, can make dead people live. Amen? That’s so cool. And I just, I love telling you that.

There’s nothing bigger than that, but let me show you with my Bible’s open Ephesians too. Would you turn in a new Testament? Bible left if you’re an Ephesian. So this is all that’s left, right? Everybody getting it?

So go all the way there and I say that just because I want everybody, if you’re brand new to the book, way more than something I’m gonna say today that will impact you is what God has to say. ‘Cause it’s by far the truest thing that you’ll hear here this morning. So Ephesians chapter two is where I’d like you to look. And I want you to see how what I just said is expressed by the Apostle Paul, who’s the human conduit through which God spoke these words. Notice how he begins.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins. It’s not a very favorable start, is it? Not so attractive. In which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the rulers of the kingdom of the air, spirit who is now at work and those who are disobedient. Notice lest we start pointing fingers all of us, he adds verse three, also lived among them at one time.

Gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Notice like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. Take it in people. This kind of person is deserving of wrath and we are that person. But notice verse four begins.

Notice in order that in the coming ages, he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in this kindness to us. In Christ Jesus. And then words most of us have put to memory for it is by grace that you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves. It’s a gift from God, not as a result of works so that no one can boast.

For we are God’s handiwork. I love that description. Created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. People, if you’ve never surrendered, to Jesus, the Bible describes you in a way that’s not very attractive. Spiritually dead.

Now before you take offense, look up at me right now because you’re looking at someone who was spiritually dead. Okay? So I’m not pointing a finger, how’s the saying go a point of finger and you got, forget how it goes, but you get the idea, right? There’s a bunch of fingers pointing at me because that’s how the Bible describes all of us. Before Jesus interferes, before Jesus intervenes.

I want you to see this in verse four, before verse four, this picture of being dead in your transgressions that we covered up to, notice verse three it ends, like the rest we were by nature deserving of wrath. In other words, spiritually dead people because of their sin deserve death, wrath. You get that, most people would go, yeah, you know, that’s uncomfortable. It’s an unpleasant thing to hear, but it’s kind of true. I know that’s true.

It’s easier to see it in others, magaladia, but it’s true of me too, which makes how verse four starts shocking. It’s more than shocking because if it’s true that somebody did something that deserves death, wrath is what verse three says, then verse four doesn’t make any sense on one level. How does it say it? Because of his great love for us. You kidding me, right?

I thought he just said we’re dead and our trespasses and sin. I thought he just said we’re deserving of wrath and he did, which is what makes God so astounding to me. Instead of washing his hands and kicking me to the curve, he says, because of my great love for you, Steve, that’s what I do when I read the Bible. Because of my great love for you. And notice he draws in how he gives me life.

It’s through mercy. Instead of the wrath that I deserved, I don’t give you what you deserve, which is wrath. Because of grace, I give you something you don’t deserve, which is life. That’s the gospel. That’s the good, news.

That’s what should cause us to just stumble over our words to tell people. And I hope if God has his way in my life and yours this coming year, we will. So that’s how we get life. God says you’re dead. God says you deserve wrath.

But boy, I love you. And I love you. Yeah, you’re a train wreck, Steve. I was. I was that guy.

And then I met Jesus. And I only met him because he loves me enough to send, to let himself be sent to a cross and sacrifice himself from my sin. And then he says, okay, now you ready to live? ‘Cause I’m gonna show you how to live. By the way, as you read New Testament books, typically Paul, what we call Pauline, letters or letters that are human authored by the Apostle Paul.

Typically you’ll find about half of the book is about deep thoughts, deep theological thoughts. And then you’ll find the second half is the practical. So if you’re in school or have been in school, you remember the lecture, the theory, the theoretical, and then they’re followed by a lab or the practical, okay? And that’s exactly what the rest of Ephesians is doing. He describes us later as I stopped when I read it the first time in verse 10, that we are God’s handiwork.

And he gives us then from here from actually the start of chapter four on. He gives us practical sort of ways to live out healthy as his people. So that’s what this study’s been all about. Now, since we’re partners with God, we’re on mission with God. And we started thinking about where most of us spend a great deal of time.

And it occurred to me that the answer is fairly obvious, it’s at work. How many of you have a job to go to tomorrow? Okay, how many of you have ever had a job to go to? Okay, so 100% of us, right? That’s just pretty much everybody.

And we get what work is all about. And I got to thinking about as a place where we’re partnering with God to be on mission for God, okay? So let’s think about work for a minute. And work is what we do. It’s either something that involves our mental or our physical effort on a regular basis, usually both, and it’s done to achieve a purpose.

That’s what work does. Most of us, when we think of work, we think of employment, right? And if you’re a full-time employee, the measurement that people in employment circles use is about 2,080 hours a year, and some of you feel like you work that a month, but it’s a year, is what makes you a full-time worker, okay? Some that are salaried work a lot more, maybe, or whatever, but that’s a rough sort of a stake in the ground of what we’re talking about. So it should come as no surprise that in fact God has something to say about an endeavor that dominates our time, you with me?

I mean, God says a lot about worship, and how often do we gather for worship? About an hour a week, right? Or two? I know you worship every day on your way, ’cause I see some of you driving by, just singing your hearts out in your cars, and being a hazard on the road and other things, but anyway, you get what I’m saying? So if worship’s a big deal, you all got dressed, you came to church, you’re engaged, you’re taking notes, your Bibles are open, you’re hearing some guy talk about God, you followed the lead of worship, that’s a lot of effort you’re putting in, and we’re putting in on a weekly basis for something that’s one hour a week.

So it got me thinking about something that’s at least 40 hours a week, or thereabouts for most of us, and that’s work. I want us to see and hear and take away some very practical simple guidance. You don’t have to leave Ephesians, would you turn to the last chapter in Ephesians? And after describing all the riches that we have in Christ, and I mentioned that earlier, He then takes us to what does healthy look like at work? Okay, remember you have a new heart, that’s where it starts.

So what’s healthy look like for you at work? To work tomorrow. Chapter six, verse five. Because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free. He adds some language to bosses or masters, and masters treat your slaves in the same way.

Do not threaten them, since you know that He who is both their master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with Him. In other words, you’re not a boss or an employee with Him. Bosses don’t have the leg up in heaven. They’re just one of, and that’s sort of a reset moment. Now, let’s talk about something.

This whole idea, you might be pushing back a little bit. Slaves, well, a pastor, this is not, you know, my boss is tough, but he’s not my owner, right? Or I don’t feel like a slave there necessarily. And I have to admit, freely, that the slave master image, to me, and I think to most of us is offensive, and it’s actually foreign to most of our ears. We knew it was part of our history as a nation.

We see traces of it still, but we definitely know it’s still present in the world around us, but it’s a deeply offensive kind of thing. And I want to just quickly point to this and then get to the two or three principles. Though the Bible neither condemns or condones its practice in the ancient world. You probably didn’t know this, but I’ll supply this information. In the first century Roman world, it’s estimated there were several million slaves, okay?

So slavery was incredibly common in that time, and here’s another piece. Many of them were starting to meet Jesus and faced with that sense of, oh, this changes some things, okay? So that’s happening in the back sort of the backdrop, the back story of this council. I want to draw a principle now that seems to apply whether we’re talking today with slaves and owners, or whether it’s a worker and a boss arrangement that we have most of us know about today. And that is this principle, honor Jesus in all you say and do.

We just read words that cut, the lines, in fact they end in verse nine, at the end of verse nine, what I mentioned already, masters and slaves. There’s no favoritism like that in heaven. No one’s got the advantage there. So the principle here is honor Jesus in all you say and do. In a single sentence, check this out, it’s from a parallel passage in Colossians chapter three, 17.

Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. The reality is whatever it is that you do, 1 Corinthians 10 verse 31 says, therefore, whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. If you’re a boss, do that to the glory of God. If you’re a worker, if you’re in this language, a slave, do that, carry that out to the glory of God. The principle that we’re reading here is always in play 100% of the time in the ancient world as it is today.

That’s why whatever you do or say is as broad a language as we could possibly conceive of. So do it all for his glory. But nowhere, I’m sure, is it more difficult than in a slavery or a persecution kind of an environment. So the Bible’s counsel works in those extreme situations and if it does there, it seems to me, stands to reason. It will do so where you work.

I was a union member long ago when I lived in Los Angeles. And when I was down there, I was a teamster and I worked in a grocery warehouse to pay for seminary. And the company had a certain production standard that they required of every employee. You can work here and their standard went like this. When you clock in, go all out until you clock out.

So you show up and you go for it and you keep your foot on the pedal and do it until you have a prescribed break and a lunch and you’re on your way home. That was the standard of the company and can I just say, as a commentary, it was a legitimate standard. Why? They were signing my paycheck. I needed lots of money and I had a seminary bill to pay and life to live and so I went there and that was the terms.

And then I got myself out. I did mention I was a union member. You could not work there unless you joined the union. And I joined the union and I’ll save you details. The union’s production standard was a lot less than the companies.

That was just my experience. I’m not taking a shot at unions or something if you’re a union member. But I’ll tell you, in that setting, the union said, you have to work. If the company said you have to work all out, just go for it. You have to work at this level.

And if you work at that level, if you keep to that standard, you’ll keep your job and was lived out that way. And it was easy to do. One day, a supervisor called me in and he didn’t have me sit down. He’s just kind of pacing the floor a little bit and he says, hey, Steve, you need to take your game up. And these are somewhere close to my words to him.

I said, check my production standard and I think you’ll see that it meets the union requirement. If you have an issue with that, then I suggest you call the shop steward and we talk this thing out. Now, if you don’t know union language, a shop steward is your advocate. He works on the job there and he is like an advocate. He goes to bat for you.

You have to go for it. You have to go for it. There’s two things we can’t help you with. In that context, if you steal or fight, you’re fired. There’s no recourse.

We couldn’t stop the machine. Okay. That’s easy. I’m not going to steal. Who would steal?

Although, I worked with guys in a grocery warehouse and you’d be amazed how many didn’t bring lunch. And I think their logic was because I’ve got the world’s largest grocery store and they would go, I’m not kidding. I saw guys get fired over. They’d go down the Kipper aisle. You know what sardines are in a can?

I think they liked them because you didn’t need a tool. You could just twist the lid off and get caught and fired and they lost their career and save 79 cents. I mean, it was really great logic here, right? So anyway, back to my story and this is really important point. I say to this supervisor who’s the company and I said to him, you know what?

I think I’m meeting the standard. If there’s a problem, call the steward. And then he said this to me. I know he knew and I wasn’t the only one that a bunch of us were Jesus followers and that I was actually training to be a pastor. And so he asked me, just him and me.

He says, Steve, I’m curious, in seminary have you in any of your studies come across these words? And this is what he quoted to me. For those of you listening on the internet, whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men. And it is the Lord Christ whom you serve. Got real quiet.

Who was correct? The company? The union? Neither? Let me say it again.

The company? The union? Neither? Ephesians has answers, three principles for being healthy at work and listed one after the other. Verse five is the first.

Notice I’m stopping short of giving you the answer. Verse five, do your job as if you worked for Jesus. That’s the principle in verse five. Obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and with sincerity of your heart just as you would if Jesus were calling the shots. Not the supervisor, not the shop steward, the living Jesus.

Can I say it this way, the Jesus standard? If you got the union here and the company here, the Jesus standard exceeds all. Secondly, put your heart in your work. First principle, do your job as if you worked for Jesus. Secondly, put all of your heart in your work.

Look how verse six ends. Go heartedly as if you were serving the Lord and not people. Put your heart in your work. The supervisor said, step it up. Jesus says, go all out.

So you can see me smile, Jesus speaking. Someone wrote these provocative words. I’ll say them twice. You can write them down. Good, better, best.

Never let it rest until your good is better and your better is best. Let me say it again. Good, better, best. You got choices tomorrow to work good, to take it up to better or to be all out best. Good, better, best.

Never let it rest until your good is better and your better is best. Third principle, God sees the job you do and he will reward you. Is that not what verse eight is telling us? You know the Lord will reward each of you for whatever good you do. Doesn’t matter if you’re slave.

Doesn’t matter if you’re free. Doesn’t matter if you’re the boss or the employee. You can be a rookie, a newbie, a green horn on the job or a seasoned veteran. Put your whole heart in your work, work for Jesus and he sees you and sees what you do and he will reward you for what you do. Can I tell you something?

You may get passed over for a promotion along the way. You might actually miss out on a raise but don’t ever forget that Jesus sees it and he will pay it. He will reward you because your work is holy. It’s sacred stuff. Quick short story and we’re going to have communion.

Years ago, I would go to Camp Tadmore. That’s where I started ministry. Camp that we go to as a church still and at Tadmore, my father was the director. And there were counselors. We were in the work of touching personal people’s lives.

We were shaping. We were leading kids to Christ. We had devotions with kids. We were praying. Can you hear holy sacred stuff?

That’s about 40 of us, 50 of us. And then over here, there’s another 40. They were called the Saw Crew or Mindy, what was their other name? Work Crew. Mindy was staff there in those days.

And they worked the family and they did all the infrastructure stuff. They put in trails. They cleaned the kitchen. And I’ll never forget my father’s counsel. I wish he was here this morning.

As he was talking to them about what we’ve discussed here this morning. He was talking to those especially that were cleaning toilets at Tadmore. I don’t know about your house but toilets aren’t fun anywhere they are, right? I mean, I don’t like cleaning toilets at home. When it gets dirty, hey, let’s buy a new one.

That’s what we do. Let’s just get a new one, you know? Simple, right? And port-a-potties are just wrong, right? Okay, so, but you got Tadmore toilets.

And my father with a tremble in his voice would say, clean those toilets here at Tadmore for the glory of God. And they were great toilets. And they were clean. And it doesn’t number on you when you see somebody cleaning toilet and there’s, you know, all to Jesus eyes. You know, I mean, they’re just come quickly, Lord Jesus.

You know, a lot of songs went up in those moments. You get the idea. I read a story. You can close your Bible about Leonardo da Vinci, the great sculpture and artist. And he worked a long, long time on a great masterpiece.

Standing near him was a young sort of prodigy, a student who’d spent much of his time watching all this happen. And his mouth just hung open like, taking it all in in awe of what he was watching. And da Vinci, just before finishing this painting, adds to this student of his and gave him the brush and said, now you finish it. And the student protested and backed away. No, no, I could never, to which da Vinci replied, will not what I have done inspire you to do your best.

People I think that’s what Jesus is saying to us, to you and me when it comes to our work. He says, is not what I’ve done on the cross. He finished his work. He fulfilled his purpose in coming. And then he asks us, will, will not what I have done for you?

Inspire you to do your best for me. Can’t just put it in simple speak. Take Jesus to work with you tomorrow and every day and let him work through you in any way he wants to. And maybe, maybe people will meet God through you as you fulfill your mission at work. Let’s pray together.

As servers come forward to take you the bread and the cup, I would just simply say to you, words that I just spoke that I think Jesus would say to me today, is not what I’ve done for you enough to make you want to do your best for me. We’re on mission with him. But before we go out there and before we do what we do, as we do frequently, we take in this very sacred time of remembering what Jesus has done for us. The bread and the cup represent Jesus. His purpose in coming.

Was fulfilled on a cross. He was the one that said it is finished. My work is done. And then he turns to us and says, is that enough for you to make you give your all for me? As you are served the bread and the cup this morning, would you just remember him?

And maybe in this moment, say Jesus, I want you to be in greater focus as I start this new year as I go back to work tomorrow, school, my community. I want to be the best for you. Let’s share in this communion time with him.

Transcript machine-generated from the sermon audio, so it may contain errors. 5,592 words.