The Masculine Mandate (part 2)

It's great to sing together with a bunch of men. Well, let me make a statement that I think is easily supported from the

Bible, and it's this, that nobody respects a man who does not work.

I'm going to talk about the man's calling towards his vocation and to work, and again, how we glorify

God in that way, but it's okay for a man to be a little dumb. Certainly, it's okay for him to be ugly, even a little overweight, to be a little obnoxious sometimes.

It's not ideal, of course. But nobody can stand a man, no one will respect a guy who doesn't work.

And of course, think of how Paul heaps scorn on a lazy man. If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

People will say, oh, the Christian thing to do is to cut people slack. That is not the Christian thing to do. Paul doesn't do that.

And of course, the book of Proverbs echoes that over and over. Why? Men are made by God to work.

Men have a duty to work. Men like to work, and they feel good when they work hard.

The life of a man is a life of work that is good, and it pleases

God. Now, I don't want to romanticize work, because one of the things we see today is the way that work becomes a source of so many of our idolatries and becomes the only thing in our lives.

That's particularly true here in America. It's not true in many other places in the world. It is true here. And yet, we know that we are called by God to enjoy meaningful work.

I really enjoy seeing anybody who works hard and takes pride in their work in the right sense.

The garbage men in my neighborhood are a good example of it, and I really love them. They're cheerful. They work hard. They compete.

They do a good job. And hey, I'm sure they probably want to move up in life, but that's good work.

One of the things that the Protestant Reformation brought was the sanctity of work in the medieval world.

The ministers were the holy people, and they did work that pleased God. Everybody else, your job was to pay the ministers so that they could do the work that pleases

God. And the Reformation rightly came back and said, no, in all our vocations, whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all to the glory of God.

And we should be seeking honest, honorable labor that is satisfying and glorifies

God. Now, probably most of us have experienced satisfaction in a job well done, and that is because we were made to work.

We were made for work. God placed man in the garden, and he put him there to work.

Now, one thing we see is that work itself is not a result of the fall. The fall is going to corrupt work like everything else, but it was good in the beginning for man to embrace work, and in a right sense, to find some of his identity in it.

Now, it's true, again, let me just say, we struggle with self -glory, with the idolatry of work in many cases.

There's sinful pleasures and selfishness associated with work. We may find too much of our identity is sucked up in our job.

And yet, it's not by chance that the natural question you ask a guy after you meet him is what?

What do you do? What work do you do? Why? Because you're a man. That is not the first question you naturally ask a woman, but it is the first question you naturally ask a man.

What do you do? Now, it's true that sin changed the nature of work.

It made it much harder, much more frustrating. But God created work as holy and good.

Bruce Waltke says this, work is a gift from God. It is not a punishment for sin.

Even before the fall, man had duties to perform and be fruitful, multiply, and it was all very good.

Now, what happens with sin is, and you know this very well, is that sin has made work hard. And you have the curse upon Adam.

Adam's the lord of the garden. He is, and when he falls, the garden, the cosmos falls with him.

So you get the second law of thermodynamics and all kinds of frustration. You get weeds, you get rust, you paint the fence, and you go, well,

I painted the fence, good to go. No, you are not good to go. Why? Because it's going to rust. Why, Adam? Thanks a lot, dad.

But here's the curse. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain shall you eat of it all the days of your life.

And you're going to have pain in work now as a consequence of the fall.

Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. You shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face.

You shall eat your bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

And so in a fallen world that is shadowed by the curse of death and frustration and futility, men either work hard or their families suffer.

Listen to the book of Proverbs, which so emphasizes industry. A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.

Proverbs 10 .4. How about Proverbs 12 .27? Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth.

Now, one of the things I have on my mind here is I find, I hear Christian psychologists all the time saying on Christian radio station things like this.

You know, a man should always be home for dinner, and you should never be working late, and you should be available at all times.

And I go to myself, I don't know what world or what economy these guys are living in. And I've had guys say to me sincerely,

I'm saying, how's your job hunt going? Well, pastor, I feel I should not take a job that requires me to travel. So you will be unemployed, eh?

I feel like I should never work overtime. Men are called to work, we're called to work hard.

We're in a fallen, cursed world. We have to get after it, or is somebody else going to get after us? And we have to compete in the world.

That is not ungodly. And particularly as we have the responsibilities as fathers, we need to be raising up men, young men, who know how to work.

One of the things we've got to do with our children is they've got to know how to work hard, and to sweat and persevere.

I use the analogy of driving a nail in. It is not enough to hit the hammer on the nail.

You must drive the nail into the wood. You must learn to exert muscles and put sweat out and get the job done.

Even when we're doing things like sports. That's why we want to be teaching our children. To sacrifice and to be somebody who can get the job done, because we have got to work hard.

Again, it's true that we should not pursue work so single -mindedly that we compromise our family duties.

But in a fallen world, you have an obligation to hustle, to give all you have in the workplace, as it were, and that may involve some late nights and some business trips.

Even me being here. I've been a little busy these days, and I was in Peru for eight days, about three weeks ago, and then

I was somewhere else in the meantime. This is kind of my conference time. And one of my children said to me, Daddy, you've been gone a little bit.

And I said, you know what, I'm kind of clustering them all together. But Dad, God calls your daddy to get out there and preach the word, because it matters, and we're doing this as a family, and I want you to pray for me, and when

I come back, I'm going to be all yours. And I need to teach my children that I'm unapologetic and having zeal for the house of the

Lord. But I don't want to be one of those pastors whose kids don't know. And so we've got to balance these sorts of things.

Now, of course, work is hardwired into men's hearts. We derive pleasure from work.

After all, what are our hobbies but forms of work? So what do you like to do in your free time?

I enjoy woodworking. Well, that is called working with wood. What do you like to do?

I like to fish. That's like an occupation. I like to follow the Red Sox.

Well, that requires, if you're a Red Sox fan, that requires sabermetrics. Don't be talking

ERA. You've got to know WIP, and you've got to know advanced mathematics to keep up with Theo Epstein. And all of our hobbies are forms of work.

Why? Because we were made for those sorts of things. Have you noticed, again, the first question, hi, who are you?

I'm Rick Phillips. What do you do is the question that comes out afterwards. And so we are to be people.

We are to be men. Part of masculinity is a calling to work.

Interestingly, what will we be doing in heaven? Let me just say right now, I'm amazed at how little

Christians know about life after death, what happens after we die, our bodies go. Actually, I've got a booklet coming out on a pastoral guide to life after death because I find a lot of Christians don't really know what happens after you die.

Your body goes into the grave. Your spirit goes, if you're a believer, your spirit goes into the presence of the glory of God.

And then when Christ returns, you'll be raised in body. People say to me, well, you know, pastor, he's got his legs back.

And I go, no, we buried his legs today. He will get his legs back at the resurrection.

But one of the things we'll be doing in work, in heaven, is working. If you're going to theologically describe heaven, it's really rest and all the robustness of what biblical rest means.

It's worship. But it's not just sitting around singing all the time. It's work. It's the renewal of the cosmos.

It's the work of creation. Going forward, we will be working in heaven. What does Jesus say in the parable of the talents?

Well done, thou good and faithful servant. You've been faithful and little, I will put you over much. You gave me five minas,

I will give you five cities. Now, there's a gracious reward. But the rewards, and people will say to me, are there rewards in heaven?

Clearly they are. But it's the opportunity to fellowship with the Lord and to participate with him in expanded opportunities for work in heaven.

I can't wait. I praise God that there's going to be work in heaven.

But it's not going to have any of the bitterness or the hardship of it. Really, if you take the most exciting hobby you've ever done that's a tiny foretaste of what the work will be when we're glorified without sin and renewed and ultimately resurrected in heaven forever and ever, working together with our

Lord and our Savior. What a blessing thing it is to work. Now, that causes me to say, and I particularly have this in mind with a lot of young guys here tonight, how do we think about work and its godly men in a balanced way?

And does this mean that all work is equal? Of course, the answer is that it's not. Here's the question.

How do worldly people assess the value of a job? What's the one standard in the world that determines what's a good job?

Cash. Have you seen the G. Gordon Liddy commercial? Where he's selling gold on Fox News, you know, and he chinks the gold in his pocket and goes, there's the sound of security.

He's got a maniacal gleam in his eyes. He's chinking gold coins. You know, that's the sound of security.

No, it's not, G. Gordon. Christ is the sound of security. The cross is the sound of security. And so the world says, yeah, it's money.

Well, how do we as Christians evaluate the value of work?

Well, let me give you some guidelines as you think about your own working life. First of all, does this work glorify

God? Does this work benefit my fellow man?

Do I consider myself called to this work and do I do it in a way that I do get satisfaction out of it and it's something that God made me to do?

Does it provide for my material needs in my family? Does it permit me to lead a balanced and godly life?

Let me look through the work of these one after another. The Lord has made us and he has redeemed us that we would bear his image, that we would serve the cause of his glory.

And because our work is so central to who we are that we should never, you know, post -modernity is about compartmentalization.

I got my Christian part and I got my work part and I got my play part. Well, that's not what Christ says.

He's Lord of all of our lives. And so we need to ask ourselves about the work that we're doing.

Is my labor something that is God glorifying? Well, one thing you know it's not if you're violating

God's law. I had an example in Florida of a man who was manager of a nursing facility, nursing home, something like that.

It was that kind of industry. And because of the company he happened to work for and the economics, a tough industry economically, the profit margins are short, high stress, that in order to succeed and to please his bosses, he had to systematically hire low paid unqualified people who were giving bad service to his employees or to the patients there.

And he had to cover up all this. So he comes to see me and asks what I think about it. What did I say? I said, let's whip out our handy dandy 10 commandments.

Right? It's amazing how useful the 10 commandments are. And he ended up going to his, actually he went to his bosses and said, you know,

I'm a Christian, I'm convicted that what we're doing is not right. And I think we can do this, we can do it the right way.

And they fired him and God provided for him. But we are not to engage in work that is not glorifying to God.

You might find yourself in a context where the management style requires you to be cruel and ruthless.

And that's not something you should do for the glory of God. I was an army officer for many years and I was actually converted at the end of my army time.

So most of my army time I was not. And I served under a lot of great officers, I served under a lot of bad officers. But it would never be right in an army context if you have a commander who wants you to abuse people and treat them in a callous, sinful way.

Well, that's not glorifying to God. And so we should always do work.

A sales job where you're persuading people to buy things they don't need or you're manipulatively doing things, these are not things

Christians should do. You may have heard the story of Tertullian, the church leader in Carthage in 220, very corrupt city.

And he was really ripping the church over corruption. And he was talking to some guy and he was upbraiding him for his wicked business practices.

And the man says, well, I have to live, don't I? And Tertullian said, do you?

You have to glorify God, but no, you don't have to live. And we are not to engage in work that exploits people, that dishonors

God, that involves a wrong kind of deception, employee abuse. Here's a good question for you to ask yourself.

Would I be embarrassed for my pastor to visit my workplace? And I will say, as a pastor, I like to meet people in the workplace.

I say, hey, pastor, I'm gonna get to lunch, get together for lunch. I like to say, hey, let me come out to your office. It's good for them to introduce their pastor to people and it helps their witness.

And if they've not been as open about their Christianity, it'll help that a lot when your pastor shows up.

And he hopefully should not be embarrassed about the work he's doing.

The Bible says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Does my work honor God through integrity and decency? Let me say, if it does, it's good work.

And then secondly, the second thing I said is, does your work serve others? Generally speaking, let me say to young people, one of the things you wanna be looking for as you're thinking about your career is how can

I glorify God and how can my labors provide useful services and products for people?

How can I really serve my fellow man? And here's where you may do things that are fairly menial, but are

God -glorifying. And in whatever job you have, the way that you treat people, that you're a servant

Lord there and that you work and you keep and you're a person who's a good friend to your colleagues.

One thing I stress to young people is, even like teenagers, be a good friend, be a loyal friend.

Glorify God by your faithfulness in those settings. You shall love your neighbor as yourself, the

Bible says. Now, I do think that there are some jobs that might make money, they might not be sinful, but I just think it's almost like a waste of a

Christian's life. And I'm probably gonna offend somebody here, but like the whole day trader thing, I'm gonna explain day trading to me.

Well, I sit at home in my computer and I skim money off the market.

Am I being unfair? And who are you serving? Me, I'm making money. And I'm going, I may be honest, but what are you doing with your life?

I'm making money for me. This can't be wholesome. In Florida, we had the whole house flipping thing, which is responsible for so many of our foreclosures.

And I remember in Florida when every year your house would be appraised at 25 to 35 % more.

Boy, those days are gone. And I had some guys, I said, I hear you're flipping houses. Oh, Pastor, it's great.

I'm gonna make a ton of money and I'm gonna go. I said, you know what? I want you to know I'm troubled to hear that because that's not the way that Christian people make their money, by scams, by beating the system.

And I said, it's going to be intoxicating to you and you're gonna get in over your head. And they all ran over their heads and now they got all these houses that are being foreclosed and our whole economy is going.

And I'm not trying to exceed the warrant of scripture. It may or may not be sin precisely. I don't see how

Christians can devote themselves to the life energies in ways that are not contributing in godly ways to people around them.

And so I would say, think about how you can serve and devote yourself. In the workplace, to serving others.

I actually was a corporate consultant for a few years. And I remember I was doing a presentation for the

CEO of Bell South Corporation. And the CEO, I had to catch a flight to get home.

And the CEO was not letting me go on time, which is his prerogative to do. And so I barely leave in time and I go blasting down on my rental car to the off -terminal rental car place enterprise and it's like I get there 20 minutes before my flight takes off in Atlanta.

There's like 1 % chance I make my flight. And I come screaming in and probably violating the local magistrate's laws,

I admit it. And the guy comes down, I said, look, I gotta go. Here's my stuff, charge my car, I gotta get out of here, I gotta go.

And he goes, when's your flight leave? I told him in 20 minutes. He goes, let me ask my boss. He comes back, here, I'll take you in my own car.

I'll drive you there. To this day, I continue to give my business to Enterprise Rental Car because that guy served me in a godly way.

And we had a good conversation and he was a believer and believers in the workplace ought to be people who delight in serving and accomplishing things and doing good in the workplace.

Jesus said, we really are not to live for money. You cannot serve both God and manna.

We can serve God, however, by doing good in our work for others. Now, I do think there is also a sense of personal calling, of enjoyment.

You think of Eric Little, you saw Chariots of Fire. And he says, when I run, I feel God's pleasure.

And that's just kind of the way God made him. When I run, I do not feel God's pleasure, I feel pain. Which is why

I don't do it anymore. When I write books,

I feel God's pleasure. And there's a right sense in who are you, what are you good at, where do you make special contributions.

I think in general, not everybody's gonna have that sense. I'm in a line of work that really calls for a special calling and spiritual gifts for it.

But I think it's a good thing in a general sense to desire to be in a place that really fits your gifts and talents and you get satisfaction and you're a little better than the average guy is at it.

That's the way it ought to be. It is nothing wrong with laboring in a way that meets your material needs.

That's not living for money. We're to be stewards of wealth, we're to be stewards. It is a, let me say this, it is good for you to make money so you can give it to missions.

So you can tithe to your church. So that you can have a little family slush fund. So that when you know somebody in the church is down and out, you can put an anonymous check in the mail or you know, cash in the mail.

It is good to make money, to glorify God with the money. And there's nothing wrong with you saying, you know,

I'm really hoping for a raise. And I wanna glorify God with your raise. And you should want to provide things for your family in a non -idolatrous way.

Some people are underemployed and they need to work on it. The last thing I mentioned in terms of evaluating our work is are we able to lead a balanced and godly life?

It is possible, as you well know, to be so wrapped up in our lives and our work that we don't meet our other duties.

Now you may say, hey, hey, I just want you to say to me, actually, you probably would know the name. It's a Christian preacher and leader who

I admire very well. I'm a good friend of his. And he said, well, Rick, I know you're a workaholic. And I said, if I am,

I need to repent. Because a workaholic has to work. I don't have to work.

I got things I'm trying to get done. And I got things I have zeal about. But I can do other things.

And a workaholic resents being with his children. I don't think I do that. So the question is, how can I be a guy with zeal?

Have zeal, would you? And is after it in the workplace and in life. How do we do that? Well, here's how I'd figure it out.

What are my callings in life? My duty as a man is to be faithful in all my callings.

Fair enough, right? Well, let's see if we can work through Rick Phillips' callings. Am I called to be a husband?

Yes or no? How do you know that? You observe the ring on my finger.

So there's a 100 % chance that I have the vocation of husband. I am to whatever else

I do, I'm gonna do it in such a way that I am zealously able to fulfill God's calling on me as a husband.

Do you, in your opinion, am I called to the vocation of father? Yes, 100 % chance.

Why? Five children. I have a duty, it bugs me when I hear from the child of some famous preacher that they resent their father because he has all this time for everybody else and they don't even know their dad.

I don't want my kids to say that. I have a duty to be faithful to my kids. Am I called to be a pastor?

I am persuaded that I have the calling to pastor a local church and devote myself to the week -to -week exposition of Scripture.

I also believe I'm called to be an author and to write books. I also believe I'm called to come and be a conference speaker and to get on planes and come.

So that's a lot of stuff. So I'm very blessed. Here's the deal, though. I can only be so zealous in any one of these callings to the extent that I'm being faithful to them all.

I probably put out two to three books a year. Honestly, I could do five or six and I'd like to. But I got these children and I'm their father and, in fact,

I love them. And so there's times when I go, dude, turn the laptop off and go down there and play with your little girls.

Go play chutes and ladders, which is hard for me to do, but they're my children. I love them. Go talk to your adolescent daughter.

Go out and sit on the patio and ask and pray with your wife. And, by the way, this has stripped away a lot of selfish things.

I don't have much Red Sox times anymore, although I do have MLB .tv so I can catch the highlights. But, I mean, but I've got to,

I can only be so devoted to my church in such a way. I mean, could I do more? Could I be more accessible?

There's always more I could do, but I've got to be faithful as a husband. I've got to be faithful as a father. And all my, for me, the writing and the traveling is kind of when

I'm being faithful to these, I can do these. But I want to say to you, you and I are not to drop the ball in any arena of life.

And that's how we judge our commitments. I'm to be, I want Christ, and I want to say this should drive us in a positive way.

I want to hear my Lord Jesus say, when he returns or when I go to him, very soon in either case,

I want to hear the words, well done, thou good and faithful servant.

I really want to hear those words. And I want him to say it about me as a dad, and I'm not a perfect dad.

And I, you know, I often, you know, sometimes I'll lie awake at night and go, you know, am I on top of these things?

And I want to be a faithful husband. I want to be a faithful pastor. You know, I want to be not just preaching and writing books.

I want to be ministering to my people. God's called me to write books. I'm trying to write books. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.

You know, one of the things that strikes me when I think about the looking forward to the

Lord and his reward, is if you look at Matthew chapter 25, when

Jesus talks about his second coming and his judgment, and when the son of man returns, he will sit on his throne and the nations will be judged before him.

So the Bible teaches that when our Lord Jesus returns in glory, at that time, he will set up his great throne of judgment.

The entire human race will be resurrected. You know, the ungodly will be resurrected in their bodies because hell is bodily.

And they will, we will all be raised and we will stand before him and praise God. Before the judgment, he calls the sheep to himself.

He calls the elect to himself and he praises them. Now here's the thing.

In Matthew 25, when Jesus praises the sheep before he judges the goats, what types of things does

Jesus praise them for? I mean, help me out. You, Rick, well done for you wrote

X number of books. No, no, it's not the kind of, that's not the kinds of things he talks about there.

What is it? Daily godliness. Isn't that right? Daily acts of mercy and godliness and compassion.

I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty, you gave me to drink. I was naked, you clothed me. I was lonely, you visited me.

I was in prison, you came to see me. What's interesting about my, it's interesting to me because I do some things to get attention.

God, Christ is more interested in the godliness of my conversation with you in the hallway than in the quality of my sermon.

And the, of course, if I have gifts and I have gifts, I use the gifts. He gave me the gifts, he gets the glory for them.

But what Jesus cares about is the faith, hope and love I show, the rights of his peace and joy that I exhibit.

And he cares, doesn't that give meaning to your life? Because you may be saying, you know, I mean, okay, I'm not a very significant, I got modest gifts,

I'm not that smart, you know, I work in an hourly job. Of course, up here you probably make a lot of money doing that. The, but the, you know, let me tell you, your life has great significance as you do your work, as you do it under the

Lord. One of my favorite illustrations is of a pianist who was a great classical pianist.

And he was given an opportunity to perform a concert at Carnegie Hall.

And he performs and he plays spectacularly. And at the end of his concert, he gets up and there's thunderous applause, everything,

Carnegie Hall, all on their feet. And he goes backstage and the stage manager says, well, let me just congratulate you on that spectacular performance.

And now you get to go out and you take your encore. And the young man said, no, there'll be no encore.

He goes, wow, listen to the adulation and the cries and the applause.

Yes, there will be an encore. He goes, no, there will not. He goes, why, what's wrong with you? And he goes, look, and he takes him through a crack in the curtain.

He goes, you see that man sitting in the balcony? Everybody else in this whole arena is standing, but that old man with a hat is sitting in the balcony.

He goes, yeah. He goes, when that man stands and applauds, then

I will give my encore. And the stage manager said, I mean, come on, all but one, one guy doesn't applaud, and you already goes, but that guy is my teacher.

And see, what Jesus wants us is to learn, and we've got to grow into this as godly men, that the applause of the world means less and less to us.

And praise the Lord. I mean, if it gives glory to God, fine, but we live for an audience of one, and we live, do whatever you do, in word and deed, do it all for the glory of the

Lord Jesus Christ, and for his pleasure, and to what we want is for him, like when

Stephen was giving his witness, Jesus stood to receive him. That should be our definition of success.

How we define success will determine the kind of man that we're gonna be, and we need to define ourselves as those who are faithful to our callings, all the callings that we have, and we live for an audience of one, and what he will do, and what he will make of our lives, and the glory he will find in us.

How important are the daily interactions, the small godlinesses of our lives, if we're living for the glory of Jesus, we'll do that.

When I was, the night that I was converted in 1990, I was telling KC that I was in graduate school in Philadelphia, I was 30 years old, my mother said to me, you know, son, you're 30 years old, you've been deployed a lot, you spent your whole 20s in combat units, and you led a kind of rough and ready life, you need to settle down and go to church now.

A senior officer's expected to be religious, and so I said, my mom loves me, I do what my mom says. So I went, actually

I went across the street to First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, which is the mothership of American liberal

Presbyterianism, and I would have made a great liberal, I really would have made a great Roman Catholic, the hats, the silks,

I would have gotten into that. But it was not God's will that that would be the case, and I know that because that church chose that Sunday to have a potluck fundraiser for the

Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua. And that was the single most surefire way of keeping me out of your church.

We're having a fundraiser for communist rebels, forget that. So that night I went to 10th

Presbyterian Church. Actually, the longer story is, the day I moved into my apartment building, there was a woman moving out next door, and being an officer and a gentleman,

I carried one load of boxes, and we got in her car, she tried to witness to me, and I gave her the whole heebie -jeebies, don't be witnessing to me, and I gave her the whole body language thing, and she said, look, okay, if you're looking for a good church,

I'd recommend 10th Presbyterian Church, and then she kind of got in her car and drove away. I've often imagined her kicking herself, thinking, oh, what a lame witness that was.

Well, God used that, because that afternoon, my mama wants me to go to church, I'm not going to that communist -supporting church.

Remember that woman moving out? She made, what was that? And the Holy Spirit brought it to my mind. 10th

Presbyterian Church, and I walk into 10th Presbyterian that night. When I got into the church, I encountered something

I'd never seen in my life, and that was the man of God preaching the word of God with power and authority.

James Montgomery Boyce was preaching Hosea chapter three with power and authority and the Holy Spirit.

I was Gomer, and I was converted that night. I surrendered my life to Jesus. But the first thing that happened when

I went in that night was I met a man named Lawrence Dow. You know Lawrence? Lawrence Dow was a deacon at 10th, and he was a smiling, friendly, pretty old man by then.

Lawrence was an African -American man who, I think, I really think he had a sixth -grade education.

He did not, I know he was not a high school grad, and he was raised in a very poor family. He grew up in what other people call a ghetto, and he was a doorman at one of the downtown hotels.

So literally, this is a guy whose job is to put on the uniform and to hold the door for rich guys and to go, how are you today,

Mr. Phillips? That's his job. But he was also a servant of Jesus Christ. He was involved in his local church.

He was a deacon in the church. And I, to this day, I can remember being greeted by Lawrence Dow on the night of my conversion where I'm kind of anxious about this going to church thing, and how warm and welcoming, and he served

Christ in his capacity, and that played its role of getting me in there ready to hear the word of God, and I was converted that night.

Well, I got to know Lawrence pretty well over the years to come. I later came back, when I went to seminary there,

I was on staff there, I later was the evening preacher at that church, knew Lawrence pretty well. And he was getting older, and he got cancer.

And it was one of those long, drawn -out cancer things. You're often praying for him, and then he gets better. You don't hear about it again, and then you find he's got cancer again.

And I remember one time I said to him, I said, Lawrence, look, are you dying, or what? I mean, what's going on here?

And he said to me, Pastor Phillips, I just am convicted that I cannot go to the Lord until I put another coat of paint on that kitchen for my wife.

Folks, that's godliness, by the way. And he put the coat of paint on the kitchen, and he died.

Well, we had Lawrence Dow's funeral at 10th Presbyterian Church, and downtown

Philadelphia, on that Tuesday afternoon, was a massive track exam. And I kept imagining people saying, what's going on in downtown

Philly? Is the president in town? Is it some CEO? No, it's Lawrence Dow, deacon,

Christian, man of God who's having his funeral. 10th seat's really, the fire marshal says 9 .50.

I know perfectly well you can get 1 ,200 people in that sanctuary. And it was busted to the gills that day.

And it was just jam -packed, and the memorial service for Lawrence lasted about three and a half hours, no, two and a half hours.

And it was just emotionally draining. And he had all these children and grandchildren. They all gave testimony to him about what he'd meant in their lives.

Two of his sons were pastors. There were three men, just interestingly, he was an African -American guy.

They were all white guys. He had led them to the Lord. He had personally mentored them. They were all pastoring churches, and they told the story of that.

And it went on and on and on and on. And one of the things that Lawrence would do was he wasn't a preacher.

He didn't have big public gifts. But he watched out, he worked and kept. And he particularly was a nurturer.

And he would find some guy who's new to the church, and he would get to know him. And he'd take him out to lunch. And he'd say, maybe you and I can get together for prayer.

And if the person didn't know the Bible, he'd say, maybe you and I can study the Bible together. And he invested himself over, I don't know, 30 years in this church.

And he has this memorial service, this guy who's a doorman. You know, what's happening is we got

CEOs all over this country who's dying and nobody cares. And they all write their memoirs. They all,

I mean, they all write their memoirs and say, you know, fame and fortunes for the birds, take it from me.

So my whole life, climbing to the top, I got nothing, I got nobody, because I lived for me. But we, here's

Lawrence Dow, who never, who's lived his whole life at the bottom, but he lived it for Christ. And when he died, it was an overwhelming legacy.

I'll never forget, after the funeral, I was in Phil Reichen's office, my colleague. And we sat in that office for about five minutes and just stunned silence.

And honestly, it was humbling, because we get a lot of attention. And this guy doesn't get it. You felt almost like, this guy should have gotten more attention than we should have.

But Phil said to me, you know, Rick, here's how he broke the silence. He said, it just goes to show you what

God will do in the life of any man who yields himself unreservedly to Jesus Christ.

Isn't that a wonderful statement? What God will do in the life of any man who yields himself unreservedly to the

Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the message I wanna leave you with tonight. You know, I talked in the earlier message about it's helpful to know what we're supposed to do.

You're gonna be a Lord in the garden. You're gonna work and keep it. I think it's, I hope that's helpful to you. I like simple, clear directions.

So go back to your wives and repent and apologize and start and read my book. It's got chapters on it.

And start ministering to her heart as she's desperate for you to do. Connect with your children, bond with them and lead them.

Just develop the pattern of being a worker and then a keeper. The trowel in one hand, the spear in the other.

Do that. We see it's not just about tasks. Yes, that's how we do it.

But we are to yield ourselves unreservedly to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And say, Lord, let me approach my life in this church. I have no doubt this church has a crying need but also a great opportunity in pagan

New England for Christian manhood that both knows what it's supposed to be doing, embraces its calling, defines success as faithfulness.

And then that yields itself unreservedly to the Lord Jesus Christ and says, I want my legacy.

Not through wilderness trips where I stab the elk in the chest and drink his blood.

Where I devote myself as me. You're not me, I'm not you.

But in my calling, in my way to serve Christ with my gifts, to do the things that Jesus is excited about.

Feeding the hungry, visiting the lonely, encouraging the downcast, devoting myself.

And I'm gonna keep doing that throughout my life. And at the end of my life when Jesus comes, I look forward to him saying, well done thou good and faithful servant.

Enter into the joy of your master and into his work. You've been faithful a little. Now I'm gonna bring you into much.

You're gonna labor with me into glory. And I will have yielded my life unreservedly to the

Lord Jesus. What a legacy we will live. You know, what a great opportunity. We can sit around here complaining about pagan

America. What an opportunity we have. We lucky few, you know how the speech goes.

It's January the 5th on St. Crispin's Day. We lucky few, you get to be the men in this place who get to say, we're gonna band together.

We're gonna yield ourselves unreservedly to Jesus. We're gonna embrace the Bible's calling and we're gonna do it over 30 years.

What will God do through the men of this church? If you will do that, I don't know, but it'll be glorious. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what

God has ordained for us. Much of that's in glory. But even in this life, he will do far more than all we ask or imagine according to his power.

Well, let's pray. Father, I thank you for the clarity of your word.

As I've just spoken about work, I pray that these men would be hardworking men, that they would embrace work, but they would do so with a godly perspective that we would not define success as pagan idolaters, but as followers of Jesus, as sons of God.

And I pray that we would do that and we would apply ourselves to it. Lord, help give these men wisdom. I think of some of the young men thinking of their lives to come.

Cause them to understand the whole idea of vocation and calling. And when they have a calling, success is faithfulness to that calling.

Lord, don't let us be people who succeed in one area but fail in another because we've not been faithful. And then

Lord, as we yield ourselves unreservedly to you, would you do a great work in our lives, not for our glory, for yours.

And because there's such a great need, the need of people to hear the gospel, the need of visitors of this church to be embraced, the need of young people and new believers to be built up in the faith, all kinds of the needs of missions, the needs of the diaconate and of the elders in this church, the visitation of the sick, all of that going on,

Lord. Help us to do it all with an eye to the one who is our master, that we would do all of our work for his glory and for his praise.