We discussed you will spend approximately forty percent of your life at work. How depressing is that! About 150,000 hours you’re going to spend on the job. God wants to use those hours to your benefit. He wants to leverage your work in order to produce spiritual growth in your life and mine.
The idea of carrying your faith into the workplace and allowing God to work in you and through you on the job is one of those things you can sort of put up a wall and say, Wait a second! I really have a lot more work to do in my spirituality outside the job before I take it on the job. I’m not ready to go public with this thing. As soon as I go public with it I’m going to blow it on the job and say or do something and people are going to go, “What a ‘Christian’?” Or they’re going to hit that hot button of Hypocrite. I know me and I’ll fail at this. There’s a little bit of a push back on that. The good news is God uses imperfect people to accomplish His perfect will. You’re imperfect – God can use you.
The question is do I allow God access, kind of the back stage access of my heart on the job? That’s a scary proposition giving that kind of green light. The last thing we want is to kind of set ourselves up to have our coworkers judging us on our spirituality. Or worse yet. Be viewed as some sort of completely out of touch Christian nerd.
I hate to admit it but many of your co-workers take just about as seriously the idea of going to church or being a Christian. The media hasn’t really helped us a whole lot in this. We’re either viewed as Ned Flanders wimps or Steve Martin’s char. in “Leap of Faith. There’s really nothing in between when it comes to Christianity. So to go public means to be pigeonholed. To be put in some sort of category by people that you really do respect that you want to think well of you, that can be a difficult thing.
There’s also another group. This other group says going public with my faith, letting God use me on the job, having Him work in me and through me in that environment. Some of you go, I would but I’m shy. So you think you have the “I'm Shy” hall pass. “But God, I’m shy! I don’t have to do anything because I’m shy.” Whatever! No hall pass.
Romans 8:29 “From the very beginning God decided those who came to Him should become like His Son.” God’s goal for my life and yours is that we would be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. So what’s my job have to do with that? How is God going to use my job? Why is my job so important?
Colossians 3:23 “Whatever you do work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord and not for people.” So whether you’re a secretary or a salesman, a stay at home mom or a CEO you and your work matter to God. And He wants to use that time and leverage it for spiritual growth in your life. It’s all of your life that He’s interested in. Forty percent on the job? Certainly He’s not going to let that not be used. It’s a huge chunk of life. God wants to work in us and through us to grow us spiritually.
Three ways He can get that done.
1. God uses pressure to change my trajectory.
He uses pressure to change my direction, my focus. Then once He does that He begins to reset our priorities as well. Stress and pressure can really be an indicator that my priorities are out of order. If I’m feeling stressed it means that I’ve probably taken on some responsibilities I shouldn’t have taken on. When I’m feeling under pressure it means that I’ve stepped forward and accepted responsibilities that are none of my business.
Don’t take them on in the first place. Ephesians 5 “Live life with a due sense of responsibility.” But some of you have this sense of responsibility on steroids. You want to be responsible for everything. If something’s not getting done it’s falling on you and you’re worried about it. I come from a long line of worriers. Any of you professional worriers? Or your parents? You grew up with one? You react one of two ways. You take on the worry and you’re worried about things right now. You’re sitting here listening to me but you’re worried about some stuff. And by sitting here worrying about it right now is accomplishing a great deal… of nothing. The patterns, we get so used to living this way we carry things.
On the other side of that we also don’t take responsibility for the stuff that should have been ours in the first place. We are a nation that says it’s not my fault. We want to blame everybody else. It was the government or my parents or my spouse’s problem, the kids. These are all the reasons I react the way I do. It’s somebody else’s responsibility. Somebody else’s fault.
As a Christ follower you work for God and you and your work are absolutely vital. This week He wants to use some of the pressure that you face in order to adjust some priorities. Maybe give you a more balanced view of your responsibility instead of trying to carry the responsibility of the world. How do you get started on that? How do you get started on this whole idea of making a difference, being available, changing this trajectory of life so I can a have an impact on my job? Not only in me but around me as well.
1 John 1 “This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you. God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness we lie and do not live by the truth. If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Walking in light. We’re saying, “Ok God, 24/7! This is who I am. I really am not that great in being a Christian. I want to get better at it. But I have a lot of room to grow.” That’s a freeing thing to say. If any of you have thought I’m just not that spiritual. I fail and I’m just not that great a Christian.” Here’s what I want you to know: You’re right. You pretty much suck at this, ok? What you have to understand is that’s a great place to come to. It’s freeing. Then you can say, “Ok God, You’ve wired me in this way. I don’t feel all that spiritual. I do want to know You.” You know what the “want to” is? It’s called faith. You’re looking for faith to be some other thing. The want to is faith. Now you just act on it. It doesn’t mean you have to feel anything. You act. You have all the spirituality you need. Don’t sell yourself short. God’s working in you. Be willing to say this is who I am. That is walking in the light.
That’s dangerous, by the way. When you’re walking in the light and say, Ok God, what are we doing? It’s an amazing thing that begins to happen. God uses pressure to change my direction
2. God uses people to change my heart
God uses people in order to work an amazing work of change in my heart. The very thing that you don’t want to have happen is the very thing God wants to do. He wants our lives to be integrated. He wants us to be the same person wherever we find ourselves. The very thing that God wants to use to get that done is relationship. He wants to use the relationships in your life – the good ones and the difficult ones - in order to work this amazing change of heart.
Is there anybody you don’t like on your job? In every work place there are some very peculiar people. Think about it. Think about your job. Any peculiar people? If you can’t think of them it’s probably you. God wants to use these people in order to increase your capacity for love. He wants to use sometimes some very difficult people and there’s quite a process for that to happen.
Romans 12 “If it’s possible as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone.” Aren’t you glad it says “if it’s possible”? Thank God! Frankly there are some people it’s just impossible to get along with. They will not let it happen. They will not ever stop griping and as soon as they give an apology about something they pull away and say why they did what they did. They’re not going to change. They’re whiners. The Bible says, “as far as it depends on you.” If it’s possible. God is developing greater capacity of love in me.
I don’t know where I heard this quote. Probably I thought of it myself and I didn’t realize it. But “it’s not about you.” Part of spiritual growth is a healthy awareness of others. Part of growing spiritually is understanding that it’s not about you. And it’s having an awareness of the people around you, an ability to see below that disagreeable surface for the reason for the behavior that is so annoying to you at that moment or so hurtful. I grow when I’m open for that kingdom business. That’s part of that walking in the light.
What you’re saying is, I’m walking in this light with God. Somebody does something and my first response is I want to react because of what the impact of what they just did is on me because it’s all about me. Instead of taking a step further back and saying, “Ok God, what’s going on here?” Walk in the light. The light is an amazing perspective giver. We get to see below the surface. God wants to empower us and let us in on what He’s up to. He wants to use these people in our lives. Are you open for that kind of kingdom business? You’re going to have to put off your reactions to people’s lame behavior. How do you do that?
Romans 12 says “Live in harmony with each other. Don’t try to act important but enjoy the company of ordinary people. Don’t think you know it all. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Do things in such a way that people can see that you’re honorable.”
There’s a story about a guy showing up the first day at the Bible College. He’d been a Christian for three months when he decided he was going to go to Bible College and he was going to preach the word. He went to Bible college and gets there and he’s pretty excited about it. He shows up for his first class. The professor says, “Turn to Jeremiah,” and he turns round looking for Jeremiah. Who is he? Then finally someone in the class goes, “Hey stupid! It’s in the Bible!” So he’s stumbling through. Someone else goes, “Idiot! You only have the New Testament. Jeremiah’s in the Old Testament!” So he gets done with that first class and is thinking, “I ought to get in my car and get out of here. I shouldn’t be here.”
He went ahead to his next class. He got there and he’s obviously feeling a little more comfortable as he gets involved in some of the conversation. He can see by some of the reactions that he’s probably going to say the right stuff. At the end of the class the professor asked everybody to write a couple of paragraphs about themselves. He did. When he got back to this class he got his paper back. There was a note on the bottom that said, “Thank you for being in my class, Wayne. Your insight and contribution was so refreshing in our discussion times. Your obvious zeal for Christ inspires us all. I look with great anticipation for how God will use you for His purpose.” Then he put on the bottom “The kingdom of God awaits you.” He said he must have read it a hundred times that night.
We tend to maximize the negative voices in our lives. And we tend to minimize the positive. We hear the negative voices screaming. We need to learn how to deal with that. Sometimes we think that’s the way it is and that’s the way you have to live. You don’t. We can learn to deal with this.
As a matter of fact I’m going to give you something I learned... Grab your ear lobe. You’re listening to something and somebody says, “That was an idiot thing to do. I.e., Jeremiah’s a book in the Bible, you idiot.” You know what you do at that point? Just flush that one.
The other thing you get to do is you get to have a lid on your heart. Sometimes people say things and you just let it right into your heart. You let it straight into your emotions. You need to learn how to close that lid. You need to learn how to open and close the lid of your heart and not let everything in so deeply that shouldn’t be there.
God uses people to change my heart - to grow the capacity of love in us, b/c it’s not about you
3. God uses pain to change my character.
The fact is we all have our unique set of problems in our different jobs. There’s a resulting pain from those problems, those trials, those difficulties. God wants to use those to help build our character. That does not mean He authored the problems, trials and pain. It simply means He’s willing to use those. He will leverage those things.
Romans 5 says “We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials. They help us learn to endure and endurance develops strength of character and helps us to trust God more each time.” God is far more interested in your character than in your comfort. God is far more interested in perfecting you than pampering you. I don’t really like either of those statements. I’m very committed to my comfort and my pampering. But every time I pursue that and it runs counter to God’s purposes in my life I find that my best efforts do not satisfy. When I let Him do this transforming work in my heart it’s amazing but I actually end up where I wanted to be all along. Fulfilled. I was just pursuing it in a way that could never get it done. The goal is that we be transformed and become more like Jesus.
God can even use the temptations that you face to do that. All of us face various temptations but there’s a whole new set of them that are unique to work. You have a whole different group of temptations that show up there. 1 Corinthians 10 says
“Remember the temptations that come into your life are no different than what others experience. God is faithful. He will keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can’t stand up against it. When you are tempted He will show you a way out so you won’t give into it.” The temptations are common. We all face the same kinds of temptation. The solutions are also common as well. You go to God. You ask Him to fill you with His Holy Spirit, give you the power to make the right choice. Temptations are resistible. And clearly what we just said God will give you a way out.
It teaches us that although there is a way that God will make that even when I blow it the last chapter is not written. As long as I do something – walk in the light.
There’s a great definition for maturity... It’s this. Christian maturity is this: I'm a quicker repent-er than I used to be. That’s Christian maturity. Because if maturity means you won’t sin, then we have to become awesome actors. Because you’re a sinner and I'm a sinner. Fortunately God is in the business of forgiveness. He can even use my failures to build my character.
Phil. 1:6
“I am sure that God who began the good work within you will continue His work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again.” The most important thing that you’re going to bring from your job this week is not your paycheck. It’s your character. God has begun a work in you. He’s committed to completing that work. He wants to continue that. He wants that backstage pass. Would you give Him the full access pass? The e-ticket to your heart. It will conclude that forty percent on your job this week. I challenge you to say, “Ok God, lights on, windows open. I'm walking in the light. I want to be a quicker repent-er than I used to be. I want to give You access to change me. In every way You want.”
If you’ll do that, I have some exciting news for you. The kingdom of God is at hand for you. The kingdom of God is at hand! It starts Monday morning. What will you do with it?
No comments:
Post a Comment