A Biblical Theology of Work | Adult Sunday School

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Welcome to Kootenai Community Church Adult Sunday School. And I'm just up here this morning to kind of give you a sense of how we're going to start doing it, at least in the short term.
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What has happened is we have been given by God's grace a wealth of teachers. And as you know, sometimes one teacher will be up here one week and there'll be one up the next week.
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What we are going to try to do from here on out until we get the upstairs done, and then it will be in flux again for a short time.
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But until then, we're going to have more of a consistent teaching.
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So one teacher will be up here for several weeks, maybe a couple of months if that's how long his series takes.
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And then we'll go to a different teacher. So I'm working on Daniel. Daniel is cooperating.
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And we're getting there. But this morning we're going to be starting a biblical theology of work with David Forsyth. And is it a nine week series?
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It's a nine week series. And then we have David Henke is in the wings and we have other people in the wings.
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I see Jeff's here and all kinds of people who just have a lot to say about God's word.
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But this morning, so David will start that class. And if you want to just come on up and take over the Sunday school morning.
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Does everybody understand that? Was I clear enough? Okay, good enough. Thank you.
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Well, let's open with a word of prayer. Father, thank you that we can get here together this morning and gather and open the word of God.
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May you work through your spirit in our lives. Help us, Father, to be attentive to the word.
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May you enable us to really hear it with ears of faith. And Lord, to apply the truth where applicable in each and every one of our lives.
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Father, your word is so perfect, so insightful. It's like a scalpel that does the delicate work of heart surgery.
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And we're so grateful for it in Jesus' name, amen. Well, we are beginning a series called
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A Biblical Theology of Work. So this is probably a little different than is typically done.
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So we're going to be ransacking the scriptures together over nine weeks and applying the truth found therein to build a theology with regard to the topic of work.
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But let me begin on a little bit lighter tone as we start and just share with you some funny statements that have been drawn from job applications.
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You remember those, at least I remember them when you filled them out by hand and turned them in. But here are a few just to get you thinking.
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Reasons for leaving the last job. They insisted that all employees get to work by 8 .45
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every morning. Couldn't work under those conditions. Or another was, was met with a string of broken promises and lies as well as cockroaches.
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Or one of my favorites, the company made me a scapegoat just like my three previous employers.
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So, oh, let's see. Here's one, job objectives. My goal is to be a meteorologist, but since I have no training in meteorology,
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I suppose I should try stock brokerage. Oh, just a few more.
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Some typos, how typos, misspellings can change the meaning of a word.
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Here's one listed on a work experience. Dealing with customer conflicts that arouse. Or develop and recommend an annual operating expense budget.
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I'm a rabid typist. And the last one, instrumental in ruining entire operation for a
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Midwest chain. So yes, a misspelling can change the meaning of things.
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So, as we said, I want to start this morning and talk to you about the topic of work. This is an introduction, and introductions by necessity don't get down super deep.
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They're designed to invite us into, think of an introduction to a book, it's designed to build that biblical theology.
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So, just thinking about the topic of work on average we spend roughly 50 % of our lives working.
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On average, roughly 50 % of our lives working, yet for many people it is a source of great frustration and pain.
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That is unfortunately true. So let me begin and stimulate your thinking with regard to work by asking you a series of questions.
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Okay, these are just reflective questions for you to turn over in your mind. How many of you like your job?
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Let's just start with that. How many of you like your job? Would you change jobs if you could?
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You don't have to answer these. Just think about it. Would you change jobs if you could? How many of you are working simply for a paycheck?
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Working for a paycheck. I owe, I owe, so off to work
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I go, right? Yeah. Yeah. How many can't see how your work has any significance or eternal value?
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My work has no significance, no eternal value. Is that kind of how you're thinking, how you feel?
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Are you bored and unchallenged at work? Do you see your job as repetitive, routine, and dead -end?
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Is that kind of the sense you have of it? Do you feel trapped in your job because of financial responsibilities?
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Can't consider anything else. I got bills, I have to make a certain amount of money.
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Does Sunday and Monday seem worlds apart? Can you communicate the purpose of your work in terms of your
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Christian faith? Can you communicate the purpose of your work in terms of your
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Christian faith? Or are they disconnected? Are you hiding your
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Christianity Monday through Friday? Are you hiding it?
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Do you find it difficult to make complex ethical decisions? And you've compensated by adopting a business ethic
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Monday through Friday, and then a church ethic for the weekends. So I have my church ethics on Saturdays and Sundays, and I have my business ethics
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Monday through Friday. Because why? Well, it's a dog -eat -dog world. Do you hate your job?
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Do you hate your job? And do you wonder what do you have looking forward to for the next 30 years?
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You hate this job. Yet 30 years, I mean, that's worse than a prison sentence.
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Are you working for the weekend? TGIF, right? Working for the weekend.
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Just gotta get through to Friday. Or maybe if you're a little bit older, are you working for retirement?
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I just gotta hang on till I get to retirement. Man, the magic age, 62 1 1, 65, 67.
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It goes up, by the way. Figure that out? It keeps going up. Gotta hang on till retirement.
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Boy, I'm gonna hang on till retirement. Four years to go. Is that how you see work? Do you make plenty of money?
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Plenty of money. Yet you're still very restless in your work. Just a restlessness, lack of contentment.
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Do you wonder how to influence your coworkers for Christ? You know that,
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I mean, you've heard that enough on Sundays, to know that I'm supposed to be doing this, but I have no idea how. How do
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I do that? Are you having trouble balancing work demands with your other interests and commitments?
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Work takes so much time that you have no time for other things.
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Do you feel like your job lacks dignity? No dignity in my job.
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Moms, do you feel yourself struggling to try to balance your responsibilities both in and outside the home?
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Is that a struggle? I've got a boss, and I, right?
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Struggles? How do I balance all that? If you're a stay -home mom, do you feel frustrated and undervalued?
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Does the workplace seem like it offers something that will fill the void that you're missing?
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Being a stay -home mom is just not making it for me. I need something more. The allure of the workplace.
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Young mom, can you articulate to others why and how wiping runny noses and cleaning up spilled milk has eternal significance?
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Eternal significance. Wiping runny noses, cleaning up spilled milk has eternal significance.
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But do you know how and why? Would you agree with this statement?
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Success in life means success at work. Success in life means success at work.
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In other words, if I am unsuccessful at work, I will not ultimately be successful at life. Do you agree to that?
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I mean, you're spending 50 % of your time involved in work. It's an important question.
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How do we judge success? How do you judge success? Do you judge it according to the four
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Ps? Promotion, prestige, power, pay?
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Is that how you judge it? That's success? If I could just get that promotion, if I could just get this raise, if I could just have my own office,
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I'd be successful. Terrible illusion.
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All right, that's enough to hopefully get the gears cranking. Judging by the solemn faces
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I'm looking at, I should go back to a couple more of those funny statements from job applications.
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But it is a serious topic, for sure. And let me just say this to you.
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We're gonna build a very robust and glorious, Christ -glorifying and soul -satisfying biblical theology of work.
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So, in the next eight weeks, we're going to address this topic, a topic that is seldom taught on in the church, seldom addressed.
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Why? Why is it important that we do this? Why is this an important series? Here's your answer.
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It is because of the lordship of Christ. That's why. It is because of the lordship of Christ.
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When God the Father raised Jesus from the dead, he made him Lord of all.
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Listen to Peter in Acts chapter two and verse 36. Let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both
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Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Jesus' own words in Matthew 28, 18, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
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All authority has been given to me. It is ultimately a question of the lordship of Christ, and how does the lordship of Christ fit into the field of our work?
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How does it intersect? It's Paul who says that recognizing and submitting to Jesus' lordship is essential to salvation.
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If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved,
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Romans 10 and verse nine. But the lordship of Christ applies to beyond merely the spiritual realm.
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It applies to all aspects of life. If he truly is
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Lord of all, all authority in heaven and on earth given to him, then he is
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Lord of all. Every aspect of our lives to be lived under the lordship of Christ.
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And that includes that function in which we spend 50%. Second Corinthians 5 .10,
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Paul writes, for we must all appear before the judge and seat of Christ so that each one may be recompensed for deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
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It is the lordship of Christ. Okay, so, briefly, very briefly,
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I wanna just, I've got four false views of work. Okay, remember, this is an introduction.
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We're not exhausting these topics. We're just salting the oats. We're just putting it out there.
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So I have four false views of work that I just wanna go through with you quickly. And we will debunk them more fully as we develop over the next eight weeks.
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But for now, this is a start. So the first false view of work is that work is a result of the fall.
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Work is a result of the fall. Therefore, it is necessarily evil. A lot of people won't articulate the second part of that.
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They'll say, yeah, work is a result of the fall, and they won't put the second half. But hey, you know what, if it's a result of the fall, then, so,
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Genesis chapter three, which is way back in the beginning, huh?
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We read in verses 17 and 18. Oh, maybe we'll throw 19 in as well.
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This is after the fall. Genesis three, beginning in verse 17, then to Adam, he, the
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Lord said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you.
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In toil, or literally in pain, same word, by the way, that's spoken of of Eve. In toil or pain, you will eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles that shall grow for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field.
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By the sweat of your face, you will eat bread till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken, for you were dust, and to dust you shall return.
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Whoa. That doesn't look very glorious.
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That doesn't look very glorious. So this idea that work is a result of the fall and the corollary, therefore it is necessarily evil, it confuses something here, and what it confuses is the result of the fall upon work, which makes it more difficult and frustrating, with the purpose of work, which was given by God before the fall, and if you let your eye flip back to chapter two in verse 18, you find it there, okay?
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It's important to make sure we understand which side of the fall we're talking about. 218, then the
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Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone, I'll make a helper suitable for him, and that's not the verse
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I was looking for, it's 15 is the verse I was looking for. 18's a good verse, too, by the way, okay?
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That actually launches a whole series on marriage, but here we are, 15, then the
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Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it, there we go. Okay, pre -fall.
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So the idea that work is a result of the fall is just a confusion of order in the biblical text.
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So work is not an evil to be avoided, it's a good to be embraced.
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It's a good to be embraced. Another false view is derived from 2
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Peter 3, 7, where Peter writes, but by his word, the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
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So this second false view is the notion that it's all gonna burn anyway, why bother?
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It's all gonna burn anyway, why bother? So in its extreme, this view assumes that since God has promised to consume the earth in the fires of judgment, anything we do which is of an earthly nature is at best temporal and ultimately futile.
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See, this is how the false reasoning progresses. It's all gonna burn.
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So any effort I put in beyond what's necessary to get by is a waste, it's all gonna burn anyway.
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I mean, why sustain the creation if it's going to be destroyed anyway?
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The answer is, is because it reflects the image of God.
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Christ himself sustains the creation. Colossians 1, 17, he is before all things and in him all things hold together.
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He is the one who sustains the creation. And he doesn't just sustain it in a barest simplicity painted with shades of gray.
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Christ sustains the creation in beauty and complexity with sights and sounds that even the best
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HD television struggles to try to reproduce. So plant your garden, paint your house, build a bookcase, pick up the trash, write poetry, music, or in doing so, you are emulating
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Christ, you are emulating Christ. There's a quote that's attributed to Martin Luther, the great 16th century reformer, it goes like this.
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According to the attribution, by the way, no one can seem to find it in any of Luther's writings, just letting you know that.
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So it doesn't prove that he didn't say it, but there's not a lot of evidence, but go on the internet, everyone attributes it to Luther, so there it is.
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It goes like this, even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
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So whether Luther said it or not, I like it. And it contains a great kernel of truth.
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Plant an oak tree that will outlive you. Why? Because you're emulating
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Christ, that's why. Third false view, you can't serve
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God and mammon. Matthew 6, 24.
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Matthew 6, 24. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.
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You cannot serve God and wealth, or mammon, if you like the old King James, which is unfortunately or fortunately the way
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I memorized it. This idea that you can't serve
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God and wealth or God and mammon is based on a mistaken understanding of what Jesus is actually saying here in the
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Sermon on the Mount in chapter six and verse 24. What he is addressing here is ultimate loyalties.
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That's what is at question. Ultimate loyalties, who and what will we worship? That's what
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Jesus is addressing there. He is not making a negative statement and upon the life spent working and being paid for one's work and being a thrifty person and accumulating a measure of financial wealth.
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It is not about that. It is about ultimate loyalties. Where does your loyalty lie? Who or what do you worship?
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That's what it's about. Now this idea that you can't serve God and mammon leads into and is sometimes associated with the fourth and final false view here that I have for you and that's this.
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I call it the sacred -secular divide. The sacred -secular divide.
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The basic idea behind that is that God has two types of people. He has those few individuals who are special and have been called by him to the spiritually higher plane of ministry and then there's everybody else.
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In this view, the called are closer to God, more sensitive and obedient to his word, yea, even more holy and ultimately closer to God's heart.
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Therefore, they are often the ones called on to pray. Did you ever notice that? Hey, pastor, would you pray for us?
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We're just having lunch together. Like anybody here is capable of this. These called ones are the sacred workers.
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They're the clergy. Everybody else is the laity.
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You got clergy and laity. Now this type of thinking is totally foreign to the
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New Testament, totally foreign. Instead, finds its roots in a misinterpretation of the
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Old Testament priesthood and assumes that the mode of the Levitical priesthood continues even to this day.
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One of the most obvious examples of all this is seen in the Roman Catholic Church. This is classic
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Roman Catholic theology and ecclesiology. But Protestantism has also drunk in deeply of this poisoned well.
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We Protestants, we have drunk deeply of this poisoned well as well. Peter says all believers are part of a new priesthood, not based upon physical descent, but upon the saving grace of God.
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First Peter 2 .9, that you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
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We are a priesthood. There is no clergy -laity distinctions.
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We see this manifestation of the sacred -secular divide. It's revealed in an often unspoken pecking order that goes something like this.
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The real spiritual ones are the missionaries, missionaries, pastors, followed by church planters.
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They're second, church planters, missionaries, church planters, pastors.
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Missionaries, church planters, pastors. Four, Christian workers.
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Fifth, bivocational pastors, bivocational pastors.
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You're only a bivocational pastor. My son's a missionary. Nice.
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It's unspoken, usually, but believe me, it exists.
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Very much exists. The message is always not so subtle, but it's basically this.
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If you really want to serve God, you need to quit your job, go to seminary, and become a missionary or pastor. If you really wanna serve
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God, quit your job, go to seminary, become a missionary or a pastor, and then you will be serving
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God. But a lot of people don't desire that.
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They don't wanna quit their job and go to seminary. But if this prevailing notion is actually true, then basically what happens is that for all those who don't quit their job and go to seminary, then their role becomes that, essentially, of someone who contributes a few volunteer hours a week, puts money in the operating plate so that real ministry can be accomplished.
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So, hey, you know, you go to a seminary, that's powerful, sold out for God. But other than that, you know what?
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Show up, volunteer, put money in the plate every week. We'll take care of the real ministry for you.
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Many, many churches are established. Not on the, you know, they wouldn't articulate it like that. That's crass, but that's kinda how it's put together.
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Listen to me, beloved. If you must disengage from work in order to do real ministry, then unless you quit your job, you can only be, at best, a part -time
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Christian, a layperson. Say it again. If you must disengage from work in order to do real ministry, then unless you quit your job, you can only be, at best, a part -time
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Christian, a layworker, a layperson. But that certainly is contradicted by the
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Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4, verses 11 to 13, where he writes, he gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastor -teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service.
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Do you see that? For the equipping of the saints for the work of service. So the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the
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Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. The work of the ministry is done by the believers, the body of Christ.
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Furthermore, if 50 % of your life is off -limits to the Bible, except for a few commands like, well, thou shalt not steal, so, you know, hey, don't steal at work, then essentially, your work has no value to God.
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And if your work has no value to God, you are at best a second -class citizen. But that is not true.
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It is not true. So we must not let these false assumptions, even motivated out of a genuine desire to honor
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God, shape our understanding of this most important aspect of human life. As Paul says, we must take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 2
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Corinthians 10 .5. Oh, this is good.
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I'm gonna be able to put some time in the bank. Okay, I'm gonna introduce you to a concept. It's called time in the bank.
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And it works like this. If I finish before the appointed finishing time, then all of that time accrues into a bank to be utilized at a later point.
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Understand? All right. That's how it works. That's how it works.
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So the messages over the next couple of months are designed to help us systematically build out our
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Christian worldview with regard to work. That's what we're shooting for. Okay?
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So I wanna do it through eight, oh, excuse me, seven topics, seven topics.
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There's eight messages because one is so voluminous it won't fit into a single, it's a two -parter.
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Okay? But here are the seven topics that I plan to cover together with you. Number one, workers by design.
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We are workers by design, all right? So we will spend a good amount of time in the first couple of chapters of Genesis.
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And then we will deal with the problem of work. In other words, we're going to look at work pre -fall and post -fall so that we have a really clear understanding of what's true and what's not.
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Okay? So the problem with work. Third, work and the wisdom of Proverbs.
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Work and the wisdom of Proverbs. And we will speak about laziness in work.
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Then fourth, the redemption of work. The redemption of work. Work spoiled, work redeemed by Christ.
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That's what we will look at. What does it mean that work has been redeemed by Christ? Fifth, the doctrine of vocation.
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It's a neat old word from the Latin vocare. It means to summon or to call. What is a vocation?
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It is your calling. What is your calling?
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Because you all have one. And I'll tip my hand a little. It is not necessarily a lifetime calling.
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It can and frequently does change. What is your calling?
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The doctrine of vocation. By the way, a great lesson for young people coming of age in life.
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Like, what am I going to do with my life? I just want to get a job and make money. Not the doctrine of vocation.
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There's so much more, so much more. Six, we'll look at work and the
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Great Commission. Work and the Great Commission. In other words, what does evangelism and work, how do they relate to one another?
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How do I evangelize at work? Hint, it's not standing around the water cooler talking about Jesus while you're being paid to do something else, okay?
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Just put it out there right now. That's not what it is. And then seven, work and welfare.
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How are the glorious truth of work and the necessity of welfare, the care of the less fortunate, how do they relate?
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We're living in a very broken system. Very broken. So, do we just say, hey, you know what?
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It's a broken system and there's nothing we can do and just, that's what it is. Or is there a way to salvage and reclaim the glory of Christ with regard to the care for the needy?
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What role does the church play? What role do I play as an individual? What role do you play?
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That's the two -potter, by the way, work and welfare. So, next week, we begin by learning that God designed work and created us to participate with him in it, okay?
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That's the big idea. Big idea next week is that God designed work and he created us to participate with him in it, okay?
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If we catch a vision of that, all kinds of glories begin to open up before us.
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I think I have eight minutes, nine. Okay, this is probably the last time that I'm gonna say, does anyone have any questions?
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Because other than that, I've got so much I wanna say, there ain't gonna be no time. So, I'm gonna do to you what was done to me when
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I was in seminary, which is, I had a professor who taught like this. With his head still down, he'd say, any questions?
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Fine, let's continue, right? Yeah. Yeah, fortunately, time is not inflating.
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But yeah, I got it. Peter. Speaking on the problem of work, Noaic transition, is there a
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Noaic difference between pre -Noaic and post -Noaic? Pre -Noaic, post -Noaic, and the,
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I'd have to think about that. So, we're talking about the effect of the flood upon work. Is that kind of your question?
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I don't know, let me cogitate on that a while. If you've got a question that's more specific, I'd love to hear it.
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I've heard the premise that it changed, that the curse ended, and the ground that ended there now is a different state of that experience.
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Okay. Was that good when you were born? Yeah, I would, so I'll just respond to that now.
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No, I don't agree with that. Good, thank you. Yeah, I don't agree with that. Okay, good. Next.
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Okay, good.
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Well, I hope you're, oh, go ahead. That'd be Noaic, exactly.
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It would be, it would be. Well done, yeah. Well, I hope I've just, yeah, teased you a little bit, like an introduction is designed to do, draw you in, hope you'll come.
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Think it'll be a blessing. It revolutionized, I just have to tell you this, it revolutionized my life in the preparation of the material that God enabled me to prepare and preach 10 years ago.
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Yes. Right.
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Yes. Yes. Okay, so the question was, is how can we help teach children and grandchildren that their activities, even small ones that are seemingly insignificant, are done for the glory of God?
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That's a good question. I think we will address that from a lot of different angles. Hopefully, we'll get you the answer you're specifically looking for, but if not, at some point,
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I'll have to wedge in some time for a question along that line, but yeah. I think it begins with understanding what is the glory of God.
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So, good, thank you, very good. Oh, sweet, yeah.
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Right. I was not intending to address that in this series.
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I think Jim has addressed it a number of times in the last, well, since I've been here, in the exposition of Hebrews 10 and 11, and now into 12, and so, yeah, we are living in perilous times, for sure, and the world is seeking to squish us into their mold, and so as believers, we've got to know where the boundaries lie, and when we are willing to take that stand, which may cost us our job, and I think a right understanding of a theology of worship will help clarify that decision.
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So in that sense, maybe, but not specifically taking up woke culture and corrupt money, and I mean,
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I got a whole lecture series on money, but not for here and not on a Sunday morning. Some other time, perhaps, but, okay, yeah.
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Okay, well, you successfully used up all but four minutes of my banking time.
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Well done. Let's pray. Well, Father, we have but barely scratched the surface of a really important and far -reaching topic, and Father, we confess that often, we just go about our lives, particularly in these areas of work, without a lot of thought.
44:29
We get up in the morning, and we go to work, and we come home from work, and we work hard, and we've heard those exhortations to work honestly and to work hard, and we seek to do that.
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We seek to bring glory to Christ in that way, and that clearly does bring glory to Christ, but Father, if our understanding of work doesn't extend beyond that, then we're missing so much, and it's a reality that there are many
44:57
Christian people, good, solid, genuine Christian people who find work very frustrating, and they struggle to reconcile that which they hope for with that which they have, and so,
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Father, may you enable us to just have a better understanding of these things, and help us.
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I think of young people who are starting out and considering careers and career decisions.
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There's so much involved in that, and again, there's often just a lack of wisdom, so Father, grant us the mind of Christ in these things.
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We pray for his sake in name, amen. All right, blessings on you.
45:52
Amen. Amen. Amen.