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Transcript July 26/27, 2014

Proverbs: On Working Hard Petie Kinder | Proverbs 23:4 & Colossians 3:23-24 What’s up Traders Point? How are you guys doing this morning? Eleven o’clock man, this is awesome. I love it. My name is Petie. I’m the student minister here, the student pastor here at Trader’s Point. I’m so glad you are with us. I get to work with our 7th through 12th grade students every single Sunday night at our program called Catalyst. It’s from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. So if you are here and you are a 7th through 12th grade student, you need to come to Catalyst. Next Sunday night, August 3rd, we are kicking off our brand new school year with Catalyst and we would love to have you. If you are a parent of a student, do whatever it takes to get them there. We have a ton of fun. We also talk about real issues that really matter to students and how Jesus is right there in the midst of it all. We are going to keep going on that one. Just as a brief reminder to parents of any age child, next weekend is promotion weekend. So make sure when you check your child in next week, you check the sticker when it gets printed off. They will be going to their next age level and grade ministry environment, so make sure you drop them off in the right place promotion weekend. Today I get the incredible privilege of preaching one installment in the series on the Book of Proverbs called Life in the Details. If it is your first time, we are so glad to have you here. Our lead pastor, Aaron Brockett, takes the month of July as time to refuel and re-‐energize and get ready for another year of leading our church and preaching and teaching us from the Bible. So we are glad that he gets that time. In his stead, we’ve had some great, world-‐class communicators, our very own Jake Barker and Matt Hessel. Could we give it up for those guys, for the work they’ve been doing? Love those guys, man. It’s awesome when Aaron steps out and those guys just step in and kill it every single week. We are so blessed by them. Today I get to talk to you about something that, unfortunately, no one really wants to talk about on the weekend. No one really wants to talk about it on Sunday. In fact, this is something most of us try to escape from on the weekend, but we’ve got to talk about it. Because the thing we are talking about today will consume, on average, 90,000 hours of your life. Okay? That’s a lot of hours. That’s a lot of time. That’s more time than you are going to spend eating. That’s more time than you are going to spend with your friends or your family. That’s more time than you are going to spend at church. It’s more time than you are going to spend doing just about anything other than sleeping. We are going to talk about something that starts with a “W” and ends with a “K” and it’s got an “OR” in the middle of it, called Work. Work, work, work. I know as soon as I said that, some of you went, “Oh noooooooooooo, it’s not Monday yet! Don’t make me go there yet. I don’t want to go back there yet.” I understand that, but this is so important for us to talk about. The shear mathematical figure of 90,000 hours demands our attention and demands that we look at it to see if we are approaching 90,000 hours of our life in a wise way. Not only that, there was also a study

Proverbs: On Working Hard July 26/27, 2014

Intellectual materials are the property of Traders Point Christian Church. All rights reserved. 2

that came out recently from Gallop that said that 87 percent of workers worldwide are emotionally disconnected from their jobs to the point that it results in a lack of productivity. Another way to put this is nearly 90 percent of the world is incredibly frustrated with 90,000 hours of their existence on this earth. I think that we can all agree that means we are doing something wrong. We are not approaching this aspect of our lives in a wise way and it is having some devastating consequences. Just so you know who I am, and a little bit of my history as it relates to what I’m talking about today, when it comes to work, I have been all over the map when it comes to jobs. If you look at my list of employment, it’s almost like hilarious how many different things God has had me do in my life. My parents owned a gas station when I was growing up, so as a teenager I worked in a gas station selling cigarettes and lottery tickets to old retired farmers. I learned all the cuss words there were to learn from those guys. They taught me. After that I was an umpire. I was the one that the crazy mom of the t-‐ball player was like chewing out because I called little Johnny out at first – and he was clearly out. It was like, easy Mom. Crazy, crazy, crazy. I have – this is an embarrassing one to admit – but I’ve done it in two services, so let’s do it again. I worked in a museum exhibit where I impersonated Johann Gutenberg operating his freshly invented printing press. Uh-‐huh. No pictures of that experience exist. I’ve burned them all. Instagram was not around then, so it was a much, much easier time. I’ve worked for Apple, the computer company. One of my claims to fame – this is like a big deal – this is actually lame that it is my claim to fame, but I was in the lunch line behind the Steve Jobs out at Apple headquarters one day. It was pretty crazy. I wanted to tap him on the shoulder and get the Steve Jobs selfie. That would have been like the selfie to end all selfies. They actually have a rule, I kid you not, that when Steve Jobs was alive, you would walk on campus and they would say, “Hey, just FYI, you could be fired, so follow this rule. Do not talk to Steve Jobs unless he talks to you.” So it’s much more like being in line behind Darth Vader, “Oh my gosh, I’m confident that he has the iPhone 10 that has a light saber that could kill me.” That would have been easy for him. I’ve been all over. I’ve worked on the west coast. I’ve worked on the east coast. I’ve worked in jobs that I love. I’ve worked in jobs that I hate. I’ve worked in jobs that make very little and I’ve worked in jobs that make very little. Like, I’ve been on all sides of that. But because I’ve got such vast work experience, I feel like I really resonate with what Proverbs has to say about work. Proverbs has a lot to say about how we approach our work. I hope that you will resonate with it as well. You see, Proverbs – I love this series. I love the whole aspect of it. Proverbs is one of those books of the Bible that regardless of where you are at spiritually, you can sort of nod your head in agreement with Proverbs. Maybe you are here and you have been a committed follower of Jesus Christ for all your life and you are just loving it. Or, maybe you are here and you would not even consider yourself a Christian, this is your first time, you are not a follower of Jesus, we are glad you are here. Regardless of where you are, you can read Proverbs and go, “Oh yeah, that makes sense. I’ve seen that proven true in my life.” But Proverbs, like every other book of the Bible, ultimately gets us to Jesus. So just like Genesis to Revelation, everything is about Jesus. Proverbs is about Jesus and Proverbs will point us and get us on a crash course destination with Jesus himself. What we are going to do is examine two flawed ways that we have been approaching work as humanity for thousands and thousands of years. This is not a new problem. This is not something fancy that is just



for our culture. This is something we have been experiencing problems with for thousands and thousands of years. This is just a small disclaimer, before I jump into the Proverbs. If you are here and you are retired, I want you to know that the principles that we are talking about today still absolutely apply to you and how you are spending your time. Also, if you are a student – I’m the student pastor so I can’t get up here and not talk to the students a second – if you are a student this is not your excuse to check out and play with your phone all service. This is absolutely for you because, let me tell you, right now in your life your job is being a student. Can I get an “Amen” from a parent in the room? I hope this goes without saying but if you are a stay-‐at-‐home mom or a stay-‐at-‐home dad, I hope this goes without saying but I’m going to say it anyway. This absolutely applies to you because it’s your job, and it is a job that is much harder than all the rest of our jobs. Can I get another “Amen” from some parents? Yeah. Awesome. My wife is happy. Proverbs 18, if you would turn there with me, Proverbs 18. We are going to tackle two flawed ways of approaching work. The first one we will find in Proverbs 18. While you are turning there, by a show of hands, how many of you in the room have ever worked in a job that you absolutely hated? Okay, if you don’t have your hand up, you are probably a liar. We’ve all been in a job where we clock in and we clock out, right? We don’t really care about the job. It’s not fun. It’s not fulfilling. It’s not meaningful. We don’t feel like it’s advancing the world in any way shape or form. It’s just a J-‐O-‐B and it’s paying the bills. Really, all you care about is getting to the evening, where you can really live the life you want to live. Isn’t that right? You just want to get to the weekend. You really, really, really resonate with the great theologian, Loverboy, when he penned the words, “Everybody’s working for the weekend.” Yeah, Loverboy is your jam. FYI students, that hairdo used to be the hairdo that got all the ladies. I just want you to know that is historically accurate. It happened. We’ve all been there right? Where we work for the weekend? We don’t care about the job. We sort of begrudge it. We don’t care if we do a good job, we’ll cut corners when we can. We will kind of be lazy when we can because it’s just a job. It is just something to pay the bills. It’s not something that we are passionate about or excited about. So you operate out of this mentality that I call “work to live”. You work to live. You don’t really care about it. You are just doing it so you can get to the life outside of your job. Now I know a lot of us find ourselves there, even right now. When we are there, we get in this mode where it could be called lazy. It could be called being slack in your work. It could be called not caring about your work ethic, not doing a great job. It is easy to do because you don’t care about the job. Now Proverbs has a lot to say about this, a lot to say. We could examine multiple Proverbs. We could look at Proverbs 12:24 that says, “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.” We could look at Proverbs 13:4. It says, “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” We could look at multiple Proverbs that all of us could nod our heads in agreement with, because they outline this principle that we all know. The principle is very simple. Hard work is rewarded. Hard work is rewarded. If you work hard enough and you keep going, eventually you will get rewarded for that. But at the same time, if you are on the other side, you are lazy, and you are slack in your work, you don’t do a good job,



there are consequences that come with that. We understand this. We all nod our heads in agreement. The Proverb I think we need to look at is a little more challenging to us, is Proverbs 18:9, just where I had you turn. Chapter 18:9 says, “Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.” Or, as the New Living translation puts it, “A lazy person is as bad as someone who destroys.” Now that is kind of a large leap there. That is a pretty drastic comparison, someone who destroys. Have you ever had been around people or known people who are just incredibly destructive? Their lifestyle, their relationships, the way that they live their life is just very, very destructive? It seems like everywhere they go a trail of terror follows behind them. They are just really destructive people/presences. For me, when I think of that destructive person, I think of my two-‐year-‐old son, Emmet. He is destructive. Don’t let him fool you, he may look sweet but that boy is crazy. I love my boy. I love him to death, but he is a ball of chaos sometimes. We are in this stage of life right now where we are trying to teach him to clean his room, like pick up his toys and clean his room. Now teaching a two year old to clean their room is basically you cleaning their room. This is all it is. So we will try to clean up his room, we will do the thing and get it all nice and clean. I will leave the room for two minutes. I will come back and I kid you not, every toy is back out of the chest, every book is off the shelf, all the clothes are off the hangers, the ceiling fan is broken, and I still can’t figure that one out. It’s like, what just happened in this room you crazy kid? He’s insane. Now when Proverbs says “one who destroys” it’s not talking about something as simple as a messy room. When Proverbs says “one who destroys” if you go back and study the Hebrew behind that word, it actually gives us connotations of someone who takes pleasure in ruin, destruction, and devastation, in disaster – someone who enjoys it. Now that is like the most villainous, evil, historical figure we could even imagine that fits that bill. That’s like Dark Lord of Mordor, Lord of the Rings style of evil. Proverbs is saying that if you are slack in your work, if you do an average job, if you’re just kind of lazy, not really caring what you are doing, you are a brother to that type of villainous, evil person. I know that seems like a real, real drastic comparison, but I think we have seen it to prove true in our lives. You see, I think the root underneath someone who just works to live, who doesn’t care about their job, who doesn’t do a good job, if you pull up the root – not just the symptoms, but what’s underneath – I think the root is selfishness. The root is selfishness. It is saying, “You know what, I’m going to do as good a job as I want to do. If I don’t feel like doing it, then I’m not going to do it. If it doesn’t fit in with my schedule, and my preferences, and my feelings, and my energy, you know, I’ll pass.” The root is selfishness. Selfishness always hurts people. Selfishness is always destructive to the people around you. You would know this if you have ever worked on a project with a team of people and you’ve got everyone pulling their weight and they are doing a great job. Everyone is trying to make the deadlines come together, but you’ve got that one person…that person is who is always late, never meeting the deadlines, who never really cares, who just clocks in and clocks out and he doesn’t care. You know how difficult that is. You know it is almost better to have no teammate at all than the teammate that won’t carry his weight and do a good job.



Have you ever managed someone who doesn’t care about his job? You know it is the most frustrating thing. It’s almost impossible to get him to care about his job. It’s so frustrating because we’ve seen this be destructive. So if you are here, and you resonate with this and you don’t really like your job, really don’t care about it, hear me out. I’m not saying that you are necessarily lazy. I think that could be the case. I think that some people need to come to grips with the fact that they might have some lazy issues. However, most of my experiences with people who are in this situation, it’s not really a lazy issue it’s more an issue of the external circumstances that are around you in that job. Like maybe you work for the world’s worst boss. Maybe you work for the micro-‐managing, never encouraging boss. That’s horrible. Maybe you work for Michael Scott Dunder Miffling Paper Company. The dude is just a doofuss. You think, “Man, I could do this job with my hands tied behind my back.” You don’t respect him. You think, “Man, he is just a bad boss,” right? We’ve all worked for those people before. Maybe at one point you tried to do a good job, but nobody noticed. Nobody recognized it. You think, “Man, if I’m going to work this hard and nobody is even sees it, why would I keep doing that?” Maybe you are in a culture of employees where everyone else doesn’t care, everyone else hates their job, everyone else hates their boss. So you kind of get sucked into it via osmosis. There are a multitude of reasons why you would work to live, but if this is you, I don’t have to convince you that this is a horrible way to live your life. You know how miserable this is. If you can’t envision doing what you are doing for the rest of your life, if you can’t envision clocking in and clocking out and playing that game where you look at the clock and say, “Alright, I’m not going to look at the clock again for an hour,” so you work and then you look up because you think it’s been an hour but it’s only been four minutes – you know you don’t want to do that for the rest of your life. This is horrible way to spend 90,000 hours of your existence. So “work to live” is incredibly, incredibly broken. As I say that, I know that there is another whole other different demographic in the room. People, when they think about the slack in their work, the lazy people, the work to live people, the people who just want to get to the weekend and cash in the paycheck, they think they are crazy. Because this other group of people, man, they are motivated. They are determined. They are good at their job. They are Type A, they love it. They are all over it. They are selling it, producing it, they are earning and achieving. They are like Christopher Columbus. They are exploring continents -‐ I don’t know what that means. But I’m saying they are just doing it, man. They are going to go down in the history books one day because they are so, so good at their job. But if someone around you, maybe a spouse or a friend or a family member, could speak into your life they might say that you like it a little too much. They might say that you are obsessed with your job. They might say you don’t work to live, but you are on the other side where you live to work. It consumes you. When you’ve got free time, you are thinking about work. When you get home, you are still checking the phone for e-‐mails, you are still answering stuff, you are still taking calls. You can’t let go of it. You are just all over the place. You love your job so much and you are good at it, but you live to work. There is a word for people like that. I find myself on that side of things. I love my job and when I’ve got free time, I’m thinking about things like how can we advance? How can we reach the next group



of people? How can we do the next thing we need to do in student ministries? I’m always thinking that way. So I feel that, but there is a word for people like us. It’s called a workaholic. They’ve come up with a term for us, us addicts to work, right? And workaholics – what I’ve learned about myself and about others as I’ve experienced this – workaholics typically don’t know that they are workaholics until someone clues them in. So just as a family real quick – we’re a family, right? Let’s have a little intervention, nothing like an intervention at 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning. I want you to ask yourself a few questions that will help you determine whether or not you could be a workaholic. You could be someone who lives to work. Here they are. First one: Are you most satisfied and happy when working? “Ouch, you cut me deep, cut me real deep, Shrek. That’s challenging. Back off, man.” I love Shrek. Are you most happy when you are behind the desk working and advancing? Then when you get home, you find yourself a little bit more snippy, frustrated, impatient, and negative. Chances are you could be living to work. Do you want to make a name for yourself? Do you care greatly about the opinions of other people? Because let me tell you, if you want to make a name for yourself, you will work as hard as you can until you have achieved that name for yourself. Do you want to make a name for yourself? Last question is this: Do you think you are really important? Do think the world couldn’t really function without you? This is pastor confession time. I think, sometimes, I’m a little bit more important – too important – than I really am. I would never verbalize this (I’m not that crazy), but I think sometimes my actions say that I think God is up in Heaven, nervously pacing back and forth, wondering what He would do without me, “I don’t know Holy Spirit, we’ve got to keep him healthy. We’ve got to keep him there because what would we do without him? The wheels would fall off?” That’s so stupid. That’s so dumb, right? But I think some of us think we are so important the world could not function without us. If that is you, you will work, and work, and work. You will live to work. You are a workaholic. Workaholics – from personal experience and from seeing many, many other people – workaholics are on a very dangerous path. Proverbs affirms this. Turn to Proverbs 28:25 which says, “A greedy man stirs up strife,” where the New Living translation simply puts it, “greed causes fighting.” If you are tracking and you’re not asleep yet – if your neighbor is asleep, wake him up – if you are still awake and still tracking, you know that I’ve just made some logical leaps, like massive, massive leaps. I went from you love your job, to you are good at your job, to you might be living to work, to you might be obsessed with your job, so you might be living to work, you might be workaholics – and now you are greedy. You are thinking, “He just went from you like your job to you are greedy,” boom, real quick, right? You are thinking, “I’m not greedy, back up off me!” Well, here is the thing. When you pull up the roots again “live to work” is a symptom – pull up the root cause on being obsessed with your work. The root cause is greed. The root cause is you are not content with your current achievements, your current success, your current reputation. You are not content with your current income. You are not content. You are not content with the good you are doing for the world. You are not content. You are not satisfied. You are greedy. Greed is the root. Greed. Greed is such a dangerous thing. It says that greed causes strife. And that’s another Proverb that we think, “Man, yes that makes sense,” because you’ve seen this. You’ve experienced this. Greed causes fighting, internally and externally. The internally, maybe you’ve



been like me before, you’ve got a big project at work coming up and you can’t go to sleep at night because you are thinking about it? That’s called not having peace. That is called internal strife, internal conflict. You can never be at peace when you are not content when you are not content with what you’ve got. Not only that, it causes so much fighting externally. What I love is that Proverbs beats science to the punch on this, but science has finally caught up with Proverbs on this one. Science has actually affirmed this for us. I want you to look at three studies that shocked me and really were like a strong warning to me in my own life. The first one is this. Kansas State University published a study in the Financial Planning and Review Journal, which found -‐ surprise, surprise -‐ overall wellbeing is not a priority for workaholics. So much so, that physical and mental wellbeing is drastically reduced for those who are workaholics. The study defines “workaholic” as anyone who works on average more than 50 hours per week. So overall physical and mental wellbeing is drastically reduced, and it goes on. They have drastically higher percentages of reported cases of depression, increased risk of heart attack, diabetes, weight gain, high blood pressure, anxiety. I could keep going. The point is, live to work, workaholism, is not just like a figure of speech, it will actually, factually kill you. Science has proven. It will kill you, but it will also kill those around you. These next two, man, I hate. They just tear me up. I hate these studies. Another study recently showed that the divorce rate doubles for marriages in which one of the partners is a workaholic. Seriously, we know this. The divorce rate is already crazy high as it is. Throw in a workaholic and it almost seems inevitable. And not just in marriage. Think about your kids because recently research from the University of North Carolina found that children of workaholics have a higher rate of depression and anxiety. The kids have a higher rate of depression and anxiety, primarily because the workaholic parent has placed severely high expectations on their kids. “Live to work” will not just kill you. It will kill those around you. There is one Proverb that I feel like we need to, as a church, as a movement of followers of Jesus, as a nation, there is one Proverb that I would love for us to really internalize and really hang onto, is Proverbs 23:4, and it says this, “Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit.” Wow. Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich. Not just rich with wealth but rich with success, rich with accomplishments, rich with your reputation. Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich but be wise enough to know when to quit. I love that. How many cautionary tales do we have to hear of people who have gone before us before we realize there is no “top of the mountain”? You think, “Okay, I’m going to climb this mountain and I’m going to get up there and then one day, when I make this much money, then I will take it easy. One day, when I get to this position or, one day when I’ve got this size of a house or, this kind of car, one day when I’ve got this much money in my retirement, when I get to that point, when I climb that mountain, then I will start spending more time with my family. Then I will be a good neighbor – or maybe even meet the neighbor. You know, then I will start going to church, getting involved, start serving, and tithing.” Then, then, then, I will do it. How many times do we have to see people who have gone before us, who have proved to us that there is no “top of the mountain”? You climb up there you get there and guess what? The mountain just keeps going. It keeps getting higher, and higher, and higher. This is why work, and wealth, and money, and success are a horrible god. They are a horrible god to worship because they will never satisfy you.



Even God Himself rested. God rested. God Who created the Heavens and the Earth and everything in it, Who knit you together in your mother’s womb, Who knows the very number of hairs on your head (even if you are bald), He knows it all. That God Who can do more work with one spoken word than all of us in the room could collectively do in a lifetime, that God rested. He created the world in six days. On the 7th day He kicks back and He chills. You think you don’t need rest? I think we need to be wise enough to know when to take a day of Sabbath like the Lord asks and then gives us. He says, “Hey, take one day where you rest, you relax, you don’t push forward in your career, but you just rest and focus on Me.” Absolutely, we need to have a day of Sabbath. But I think we need to be wise enough to know when to quit for the day. Maybe I’m the only one that struggles with checking my iPhone constantly or checking my email after hours. Maybe I’m the only one who struggles with that. Maybe you all don’t, but I think I need to be wise enough to know when to quit for the day. Live to work, work to live – these are horrible options. They are both broken. Another way to put it might be to say this. Don’t be idle in your work and don’t make work your idol. Don’t be idle in your work. Don’t take a backseat. Don’t do a slack job. Do a good job, a hardworking job. But also don’t make work your idol to be worshiped, to be bowed down to. Don’t be idle in your work and don’t make work your idol. Now, collectively as a group, can we take one, big, deep breath together? Ahhh (that’s more for me than for you). When I was prepping this message, and writing it, and getting ready I thought, “This could be the point in the message where I just make everyone’s day and say, “Get out of here early and beat the Cracker Barrel crowd! Do your thing, man.” But as I prepare a message, as any preacher prepares a message, we are always putting ourselves in the shoes of the listener, because truthfully, we are listening. I want you to know that. When any of us preach, it is not the expert preaching to the non-‐expert. It is not that at all. In fact, I need this message probably way more than anyone else in this room. But any time someone preaches, it is a miraculous act of God that He puts a message on this person’s heart to give to a group of people but it is working on the preacher just as much as on anybody else. So when I was thinking to myself, don’t be idle in your work, don’t make work your idol, I thought it makes sense. Live to work, work to live, they are both broken. I just don’t know if I can find the balance to be honest. It seems like if I’m on this side, I’m not doing a good job and I don’t really care about my job. I’m just clocking in and clocking out. And you are telling me to care about my job. You are telling me to do a good job and to work hard. It seems like I would very quickly end up on this side, where now I love my job and I’m accomplishing things, and I’m earning, and I’m obsessed. And I become a workaholic. It seems like a very narrow tightrope, nuanced, tall task. I just don’t know if I can do that. Lucky for us, the Bible doesn’t leave us hanging. There is a third option that the Bible gives us to approach our work and it is not “live to work” and it is not “work to live”. The really beautiful thing about it is that it really has nothing to do with us. It has nothing to do with you. It has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with who your boss is – everything to do with who your boss is. A good boss, whew, a good boss makes all the difference in the world. How many of you have seen the movie, Remember the Titans? If you haven’t seen it, it’s on re-‐run, I think on every channel, ten times a day, so just check your local cable listing to find it. The most



memorable quote for me from Remember the Titans (and I watched this movie growing up like crazy) was when Julius says, “Attitude reflects leadership.” We’ve got like ten people in this crowd who have seen it. Okay, “Attitude reflects leadership, captain.” Isn’t that so true? When you work for a good boss, a good leader makes all the difference in the world. And, just like that, when you work for a bad boss, a bad leader makes all the difference in the world. This is where I believe Christians have an enormous advantage on the rest of the world. I want to show you what Paul says in the book of Colossians 3:23-‐24. What Paul says about our Boss. You thought we were done with Colossians a couple months ago? Nope, we are going back to the well. Colossians 3:23-‐24. Look what Paul says about our Boss, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Whoever wears the manager tag in your world, whoever is higher than you on the organizational chart at work, whoever your boss is, even if you are self-‐employed or you are the CEO and you are the boss, whoever your earthly boss is, Paul says, “Don’t get confused, he is not your real boss. Yes, he is there for a reason, he is there to be honored and submitted to.” We should work hard for our boss, but Paul says, “Don’t fool yourself.” He isn’t your real boss. Whatever you do, you work for the Lord. Jesus is your Boss. You see, the Bible doesn’t say you should work to live or live to work. Rather, the Bible says that we should work and live for Jesus. Work and live for Jesus. Oh man, when Jesus is your Boss, it makes all the difference in the world. Everything changes when you start working and living for Jesus. For one thing, if we work and we live for Jesus, we will work as hard as we can for Jesus. We will do a good job. It doesn’t matter if you are in an entry level position, the bottom of the totem pole, or if you are the CEO, presidentito, the head honcho. It doesn’t matter where you are on that whole spectrum, you will do a good, hardworking job because you are working for Jesus, the Man who gave His all for you. He surrendered everything for you because He loves you. You are not working to earn His love. You are working as a result of His love. Because you have received it, you are saying, “Jesus, I’m so thankful for You. I will do this good of a job for You.” You see, even the most mundane task, the job that you are getting ready to do on Monday that you dread because it just boring and purposeless and mundane, the most mundane task is never mundane when you work for Jesus. No, no, no, because now that task is a divine calling from the King. It is a divine task, an honor that you’ve been given to say, “Jesus, I’m going to serve You. I’m going to show You how thankful I am for You.” It is a divine calling from the King. There is no such thing as mundane and purposeless work in the Kingdom of God. Everything has purpose, because everything is done for the Lord. Whatever you do – I love that phrase – whatever, it doesn’t matter what you do. I think this turns on its head this whole Western, first world, privileged idea that when I’m not happy with my job I quit and try to find another one. When I’m not happy with my job, I just go off and find another one. Hear me out. I’m not saying you should never quit a job. I’m not saying that changing positions isn’t a good thing sometimes. It’s something that God wants you to do sometimes. All I’m saying is that your happiness is not your boss. Your happiness is not your boss. Jesus is your Boss. I mean for one, that job is providing you with an income which is a pretty sweet deal. Also, think about this. What might happen in that job, what might happen to your happiness levels – and let us all



remember that happiness is so subjective, so changing from day to day – what might happen in your job right now if you went to work on Monday and said, “You know what? I’m not working for men. I’m not working for men. I’m doing it for the Lord. I’m doing it for Him and I’m going to do the best job I can do. I’m going to be thankful.” Who knows the opportunities that might be opened to you if just a slight perspective change happens in who your boss is? I’m telling you, I affirm everything that Aaron Brockett has said about this issue. He has said it multiple times. He’s said that he believes Christians, followers of Jesus, should be the most tough-‐nosed, hard-‐working, strong work ethic, most intelligent, most dependable, most sought after employees in all the world because we are not working for men. We are working for Jesus. Oh my goodness, what culture change might happen in our world if that were the dominant theme? What might happen in America, if those outside the church, those outside the faith, looked at Christians and said, “You know what? Christians are kind of crazy (I don’t know if you’ve heard but they believe a Guy died for their sins and that He came back to life. Crazy!). They are kind of crazy in their beliefs. I don’t care about that. I want to hire as many as I can because they are the best workers that you will ever find.” What kind of culture change might that bring? What kind of a testimony might that be to the glory and the honor of God and how many lives might be changed if that were the case? Oh my goodness. Traders Point, yes, we should be known for our beliefs but we should also be known for our strong, unstoppable work ethic. Because we aren’t “workin” for the “man”, we are working for the Lord. When we work and we live for Jesus, we will do a good, hard-‐working job because we are working for Him, but also the other thing that drastically changes is we will rest well, because Jesus is in control. We can rest. We don’t need to keep advancing. We don’t need to keep plowing at the end of the day. We don’t need to burn the wick at both ends. We can rest well because Jesus is in control. Your future is not decided by you. My future is not decided by me. I’m telling you, if you knew the details of my life and you knew what it took for God to get me up here talking to you guys, you would know that it is nothing that I did. It is a gift from God. Everything good that has happened in your life, according to the book of James, is a gift from on high. Every good and perfect gift comes from God. And every time you do good in your job, every time you get a raise, a promotion, a new opportunity, that is a gift that has been given to you by God. Let’s get even more base level. The book of Deuteronomy says that it is the Lord God that even gives you the ability to work, period. To make any sort of a living, to work is a gift from God. Nothing you have is your own. It is a gift from God and we can rest well because our future is decided. Our future has been decided, not by us, but by Jesus. Are you trying to keep up with the Joneses? Who are the Joneses? Ain’t nobody caring about the Joneses around here! Come on, man! If you are here and your last name is Jones – we do care about you. But seriously, the Joneses have a boat. Who cares, man! You have Jesus and Jesus is all you need. Jesus is the only thing that will satisfy you. That is clap-‐worthy. All right, good. But for real, the money, the wealth, the accomplishments, the success, it will not satisfy you. Only Jesus will satisfy you. Because of that you can rest well. You can close up shop at the end of the day and say, “I’m done. I’m going home. I’m going to be the neighbor, the friend, the mother, the son, the daughter, that you have called me to be. I’m not going to worry about it Jesus. I’m going to go. I’m going to go home. I’m going to work hard for You and I’m going to rest well because You are in control.”



So this week Traders Point, and going forward, my challenge to you is just to remember who your Boss is, to remember that you are working for Him. You are working for the Almighty King of the universe. You aren’t working for men. Let that motivate you to do a good job. Let that motivate you to rest well and trust in Him. I think the only way to end this message on work, on thinking about your Boss, the only way to end this that really makes sense is through Communion. I know that sounds like a weird transition, but I believe this. I believe that in Communion, in a piece of bread and a cup of juice, which we do every single week, that represents the body and the blood of Christ that was broken for you and was poured out for you because of His great love for you, that in those elements that you are getting ready to hold in your hand, you have the very reason that Jesus is such a Boss worth following, such a leader worth following. In those elements you have a leader Who sacrificed Himself for His people. Man, doesn’t that make a good leader? Does it make a good leader who is going to sit up in Heaven behind his heavenly desk and bark out orders at His employees, at His people? No, no, no. Jesus came down and got in the trenches with us and lived among us. Lived the life that we could never live, died the death we should have died, so that we could be forgiven and free. Oh my goodness, that gets me pumped. That gets me excited. That gets me grateful. So as we take Communion, I want you to focus on that. Focus on why He is such a good leader. Let me pray for you. Jesus, we love You, we trust You, we depend on You. Father, we lift up all the people in the room right now who are struggling to find purpose and passion in their jobs. We pray that You give them fresh perspective, that You might open doors for them, that You might give them influence in their co-‐workers’ lives. We pray that You would help them to be a light that shines Your goodness and Your grace in the midst of their nine-‐to-‐five, that the nine-‐to-‐five would not be a place where you are not present, but it would be invaded by You. We pray that Sunday, Father, is not the only time that we are excited and serving You, but we serve You all day, every day. God, I pray for those in the room who are struggling, knowing that they are too consumed by their jobs. I pray that You would give them the wisdom to know when to quit. That You would help them to make amends with the disasters they may be causing, with the relationships they are impacting, and that You would help them to have that wisdom to know when to stop, when to calls it quits, and that You would give them peace in doing so. I pray that You would help them to trust their future to You, Father, and not to their own hands. Father, lastly, I just want to lift up anyone in the room who is unemployed or who maybe just recently lost a job. That You would comfort them in these moments, Father, You would help them to see that hope is on the horizon with You. That our best days are always yet to come with You and that this season of life they are in is temporary. God, I pray You help those people in the room right now who are struggling with knowing how they are going to provide for their family, that You help them to rely on Your words when You said to just look to the birds of the air, the flowers of the field to see how well taken care of they are and how much more, You as a loving Father will take care of Your children. Help them to trust in that, Father. We love You. We commit ourselves to You. In Christ’s name. Amen.

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