Reed_PS6601

Good afternoon. I'm Shelley Reed, and for today's sermon, we are going to be focusing on work. I'm going to share with you real quick. I have some slides that are going to pop up from time to time, but they will be very short and brief, and they're just going to help keep us on track as we move through this particular method of providing a sermon. So today we gather in order to craft really one specific purpose, and that is our recognition of. Of our daily work being a medium for us to move out into the world in order to minister to people who need it. And we need to do this as a unified front. So for our sermon today, we're taking a look at the wisdom books, and this is where we are taught about what work means for real people. Now here we are thousands of years later, and where most of us are no longer toiling under a plow, and we have a different definition of work. We are the privileged few for the purposes of today's message. We are the Americans. We live in an American society. We're very blessed when it comes to work. And we're being raised with this Disney principle of follow your dreams. And so the question is, what does this really mean to a Christian? While many of us are quick to jump to Corinthians and we look for the Scripture and teaching about our spiritual gifts, that's great, but I want to encourage you to go even deeper, past this surface level, understanding that we have unique gifts and really deeper into the toil of what it means to manage those gifts properly. From Mark Twain to Mark Anthony, the idea of doing what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. It's a common American theme, especially amongst those who haven't been wearied by the responsibilities of adulting. When bills come into play and mortgages and the world starts to weigh on your shoulder, the idea of work really changes its meanings for many of us throughout our seasons of life. Now, before we enter into our discussion today, I do want us to really keep in mind the importance that the stakes in which this conversation is being held. We're not selling Girl Scout cookies. We're not aiming to reach sales goals here. Our work is the only work in the world that focuses on matters of eternal consequence. And it's through this vision that I really ask you to put aside your personal desires and your preferences and help us come together as a unified body of Christ as we work to save souls, ones that genuinely need to be saved. And you might find this surprising, this particular sermon can speak to you many times throughout your life. It may be your soul that needs saving as you work through different periods of your own work. So today we're analyzing two different areas of what we call soul work. And those are going to be analyzed, each very distinctively. But each of them speak to us at some point in our lives. By having a biblical reference for our tendencies, we can actually grow closer to God even when we're hitting these periods of sin. And so we're going to look at both slothful work and entrepreneurial work. And we're going to do this through the areas of precepts, principles, and patterns. We're going to start with slothful work. Now, a precept is a call to action that is deeply embodied by those who choose to follow it. Slothful work is often referenced as the character of a sluggard. People who are very sluggish, even, we call them lazy a lot of times, really indolent. Let us consider a couple of biblical precepts that are familiar with this. And the first is do not make excuses. And then the second is going to be, you are not helpless in your situation. Now, to start, the key passage that we want to study when we're thinking of do not make excuses is going to be Proverbs 22:13. And in this verse, it tells us that the slothful, they won't get up because they pretend that there's danger out there, maybe like a lion in the streets. Now think for a moment the last time that you were really frozen in fear or you failed to act in a situation or an opportunity because you were basically using it as an excuse not to do it. You knew you should have done it, but something just held you back. Now, keep in mind here that we're not talking about true, real danger. The Bible is very specific here. It says that they pretend that there is danger out there. Now, I have a good friend who is a travel agent, and she recently traveled to Hong Kong. And if you know anything about the protests in Hong Kong, I come from a military background. So for me to consider travel to Hong Kong right now is a highly volatile, highly risky situation. And I would never advise an American civilian to travel over there on unless they absolutely needed to. There's protests in the streets. The Chinese government is basically looking for any reason to detain an American citizen and hold them in jail. Really, it's a political play of country versus country. And so for my travel agent friend to just willingly say, oh, I'm going to Hong Kong, I was filled with such fear and trepidation about her trip, and yet she wasn't. And so levels of fear, they're very personal, and they do have a lot to do with our backgrounds and our personal experiences that we bring to the table. I'm not saying that she was right or wrong for her choice to travel at this particular time. Maybe for me, there could have been a ministry opportunity that I've missed because I was too worried of my own fears that I had come up with. Maybe I'm pretending that there's more danger out there than there really is now. I don't think so. But I genuinely have convinced myself at this point in time that going to Hong Kong is not something that I should do, whereas my travel agent friend seems to think that that's something that she should do. So when you think about things that you should or shouldn't do, I want you to pay attention to the level of fear that might be blocking you from taking a step forward. And I genuinely need you to recognize, is this a founded fear, and where is that fear coming from? You owe it to yourself to ask those questions and then work with someone outside of yourself to help answer so that you have a truly objective standpoint before you go to make that decision. So then our second precept that we're looking at here when it comes to slothful work is you are not helpless in your situation. We're going to Proverbs 15:19, which tells us that consequently, the slothful, they are restless with unsatisfied desire, helpless in the face of the tangle of their affairs. And it describes this tangle of affairs like a hedge of thorns that ensnares and traps them. Now, what's beautiful about this biblical teaching is this feeling of helplessness. The slothful will continuously feel like something is always in their way and it's never their fault. Does that sound familiar? Let's think outside of ourselves. I think that pretty quickly there's somebody who jumps to mind who's always pointing the finger, always blaming someone else for why something didn't get done or couldn't get done, or why that particular job just couldn't be accomplished at that time and day. That's what we're talking about here, this feeling of helplessness, like we're just not sure how to move forward or what to do. Now, the Bible teaches us very clearly in Proverbs 15 that you are not helpless in your situation. Sometimes the troubles that we have can feel like this hedge of thorns, like we can't go to the right because of this. We can't go to the left because of this. And every time I try to step forward xyz and it literally becomes this web of excuses that we, we ourselves into and we struggle to break through. And the result of that type of blocking and hesitation is actually the sin of slothfulness. And so those are the two precepts that we're going to look at for slothfulness. The next one that we're going to look at is what's called entrepreneurial work. The entrepreneurial work, we're referencing a different character completely. Now here we're actually looking at a Proverbs 31 woman. She's often considered by many to be a superwoman. This list of character traits of our Proverbs 31 Woman is long and it is impressive. And because of that, it leads many of us to believe that we can never truly embody this woman ourselves. But what we're really looking at here is a woman who embodies both living and working blessedly. And so, as we consider our Proverbs 31 Woman, we're going to take a look at the precepts that have to do with entrepreneurial work. And the first one here is that we are to be working for the benefit of others. Proverbs 31:12. This woman brings her husband good, not harm. So something that I have noticed in a lot of our secular advertising, I have a background in marketing, television specifically, and satire and placating. Humor is very, very common amongst our popular media. And I'm sure that a lot of you have heard these commercials, whether it's for shopping, grocery shopping, or just shopping in general, they tend to always be about shopping. But it's typically one or two women's voices and they're making fun of their husbands. It's, oh, well, he's gonna go to the grocery store and if he can find the toilet paper, ha ha ha, maybe he'll make it back home before dinner. But, you know, I want you to consider it might sound funny on the surface. Do you make jokes like that yourself or do you have a friend who is consistently cracking down on her husband in such a manner? Right. There's a. There's truth behind every joke, just a little bit. And what I want you to consider here is that are you doing good or harm in that moment of work, Whenever you are rising another person up to the attention of a third party individual, are you raising them up in a positive light? Are you actually working to benefit them? Or are you working to benefit yourself by trying to find a silly conversational point that will elevate your conversation with the person next to you. So in these cases where we're placating our husbands and we're toying down the smartness of them, you know, are you actually doing yourself any good? I would challenge you. If you're making fun of your husband because he's so stupid that he can't do a simple task, you probably shouldn't have married him because respect is a very deep, very personal, very real part of a marriage. And it's alright to have light hearted conversation, but if he genuinely can't go to the store and find the toilet paper, then maybe that's a task that you just need to take upon yourself so that you can accept that willingly honor God through those motions and just do it yourself with no negativity expressed on other people. And the second precept here that we really need to believe in for entrepreneurial work is find joy in your work. Now, this is a hard thing to do, especially with a lot of the jobs that we feel are perhaps beneath us. But Proverbs 31 teaches us that she works with eager hands. Now, I know that can be difficult when maybe we're changing a diaper. I don't know about you, but I don't really have eager hands when it comes to that type of physical labor. But at the same time, there's a need for that work to be accomplished. And there's a way that you can craft your mindset so that the work that you are doing can be done with eager hands. And so when I say find joy in your work, what I'm really talking about is make a way for your work to be God. Honoring. This past summer, my family made the decision to have a pet. We needed just a little distraction, a pleasant distraction of the Lord's creation in life. And different from most families, we actually chose ducks. So we have three beautiful white Pekin ducks. They're white, they look like Donald Duck. They're huge. They live in our backyard and they bring me a lot of joy just to see them and watch God's creation at work out there doing whatever it is ducks do. They're just hilarious. Well, the chores that can come along with having ducks do not always help me find joy. Ducks are a lot messier than I realized that they were gonna be. I've had them before, but those were smaller. These ducks are terrible. From cleaning out the coop to literally everywhere they go, it rains a little bit and they're like little Kids, they love the mud. And so we're just finding such a mess all over our yard. You know, those types of farm chore responsibilities. There's actually a website called Morning Chores. I love that phrase. And I have made it a mission of mine to approach caring for our ducks with joy in my heart and understanding that the opportunity to care for God's creatures that he has entrusted me with, I will find joy in them. And I can honor him through the steps that I choose to take through this work. So those are the precepts of what we're talking about. With some slothful and entrepreneurial work. We're going to shift into principles now. So principles are very, very different from a precept because a principle is actually the strategy and how we work. And the first principle that we're looking at, again, this is strategy, is spare time leads to sin. And the biblical verse that supports that is Proverbs 16:27. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. Most grandparents, I think, say that to kids who are sitting around because trouble's a brewing, right? I'm not worried when I hear a big commotion upstairs. I'm worried when I hear nothing. And I know my kids upstairs because idle hands, there's just something about it. When you have that spare time, it's kind of going to lead you into no good. It's going to get you into trouble. The second principle here that we're going to discover is engage the Holy spirit within. John 14, verse 26. But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and he will bring to you remembrance of all of the things that I said to you. For those of you that are struggling to find joy in your work, engage the Holy Spirit within. Close your eyes. Ask him. Lord, I do not want to do this task. Lay it all out there. There is no joy that I can find right now in changing another diaper. Lord, I know that this is a task that you have given to me, and I need your help to move forward with this now and the next time that it's put in front of me. The third principle that we're going to look at is work, being inherently human. All the way back to Genesis, chapter 2, verse 15, all the way back the beginning of mankind. The Lord took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. In the day and age that we live in in America, we are so blessed when it comes to the options for entertainment and the time that we have on our hands because we don't have to make tortillas out of corn, we don't have to milk the cows. We can get it at a grocery store. So we have found this time. And what we're doing with this time is changing it into entertainment. We're no longer intentionally working for the Lord with this found time. We are being slothful and selfish and we are entertaining ourselves with it. And so really consider that as a principle of your life, that work instead of, oh, I don't want to end this Netflix episode because I have to do my work. That report is due and it's going to be half an hour late as is. Remember that that is quite literally your purpose here on earth. Don't loathe it. Understand, it's what you were made to do. So the last section here that we're going to take a look at are patterns. And so I present to you two biblical leaders for you to recognize this type of work pattern. In that way you can really identify with a biblical character and you can draw strength from them while you're out in the mission field. And the first I present to you is David, specifically his Psalms 1 to 41. And the second that I present to you is Ruth. So we have a male perspective and a female perspective. And then I add in here a third pattern for you to consider, Job. So we have one biblical character here who's really caught in the midst of his suffering. And we're gonna touch back on Job in just a second. So in conclusion, we're gonna take a look at everything that we've learned today. Our work precepts help to really craft our goals of coming together and working for that common goal. And then we're able to shift into a focus on principles that drive our action, our strategy for working towards this goal of spreading the message of Christ. Now finally, our last point here is that as individuals we need to remember the importance of celebrating our individual work and our opportunities for work and making sure that they collectively fall in alignment with our greater mission to support the overall goal of what it is we're trying to do. Remember that some of us can deeply identify with David. Others can find alignment with Ruth. But also, if you find yourself more in the spirit of Job's deep questioning of his faith and his self focused attitude, that's okay, because even here it can help us to connect with ourselves and with others as we all work towards that deeper relationship with Christ.