Last week when we started this series we talked about six levels of work. The bottom level, the lowest form of work is to make money and find success. The higher motivations are identity, maturity, credibility, and generosity.
Now today, we’re gonna get real practical. Today we’re gonna discuss making an impact in your work environment.
How do you change your work culture. Maybe God has got you there for a ministry to change your culture that would ultimately honor God. For a lot of folks, You don’t have to quit the marketplace to work full time in ministry. God wants your work to be full time ministry. He wants us to learn how to use our work not only as an act of worship but also as a ministry.
Colossians 3 “Work hard and cheerfully at all you do, just as though you were working for the Lord and not merely for your masters. Remember it is the Lord who is going to pay you. He’s the one you’re really working for.” Put a star by that last sentence. It blows up that calling in sick thing. He’s the one you’re really working for. Off to the side write down the word “perspective.” If you get your mental arms around that passage it really is a shift for us in the marketplace. We talked about last week, working isn’t just for money and success. God is the one you’re really working for.
If we start there then the big idea is that God is who I’m really working for then I’ve got to figure out how I can work for God in the marketplace, in the work setting that He has given me. How can I work for God? I can work for God by serving others.
That’s what this message is all about. It’s a message of how do you serve other people.
The challenge today is to serve. Look at what Jesus said in Matthew 25 “Anything you’ve done for one of My brothers here however humble, however small, however little, you’ve done for Me.” Jesus says when we serve others ultimately we’re serving God. We serve God by serving others. The Bible is very clear about that. When you serve somebody in the marketplace, you’re serving God.
Not for the benefit of if I serve them I’ll make them more productive and that’ll make me look better and make me more money. Or if I work under somebody, I serve them with the motive that maybe I’ll climb the corporate ladder. No. You serve them with the motive to serve them. When you serve them you serve God.
Why serving makes sense. Let’s look at some of the benefits. You want to know why serving makes sense in God’s eyes.
1. It makes life meaningful.
God wired you and I and created us to serve. He created us on purpose for a purpose and to fulfill our personal mission. He says spend your life in helping others. When you serve, something happens to you.
Titus 3 “Have our people learn to give their time in doing good and provide for real needs and not live useless lives.” Nobody wants to live a useless life. The Bible says you want to live life to its fullest? You want a life fulfilled? Then invest your life in serving others.
I believe one of the reasons why we live in a world where so many people are dissatisfied with life, so many people are bored in their life, they live boring lives, because they just live for themselves. The marketplace mentality is: it’s all about me. It’s all about getting success. It’s all about increasing my value and my wage so I can have more stuff for me. Ultimately they’re unhappy and bored people. If you want to live an exciting life you serve.
If you’re not serving, you’re living a boring life. You could pretend all you want. You can pretend it’s a great life but if you’re not serving others there’s not excitement. There’s not meaning there. God created you to serve. Why serve? It gives your life meaning.
Why serving makes sense...
2. It makes me like Christ.
Serving proves that I’m a Christian. When I serve with the motive to honor God it proves that I’m a follower of Christ. In today’s world it is difficult to prove things.
If I serve in a marketplace long enough people are going to say, What is up with you? Why do you do that? What is different about you? This is very important – a little bit of an aside here. Most of the people, most of us here want to grow spiritually. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we come to church. We want to change. We want to grow spiritually, we want to be more like Christ.
The New Testament teaches that almost all spiritual growth happens in the context of community – when you’re connected with other people. You want to grow spiritually, it’s about your life touching other aspects of other people’s lives and serving them.
Here’s a great passage to memorize: Philippians 2 “Look out for each other’s interests, not just for your own. The attitude you should have is the one Jesus Christ had.” What was the attitude of Jesus Christ? This is a mind blower right here. Jesus said in Matthew 20, “I did not come to be served but to serve. ”
Time out. Let’s think about this one. Jesus – God in the flesh – comes to this playground that we call earth and says “I didn’t come to be served. I came to serve.” That is so different from our culture today. In our culture when you’ve arrived then you get to be served. You attitude – “Look out for each other’s interests, not just for your own.” That’s the attitude of Christ. Let me ask this. Does that come naturally to you? Does that attitude of looking out for other people come naturally to you? Yes or no. No! For most of us who live with other people the answer is no. That’s not a natural thing that I wake up in the morning and go, “Who am I going to serve today?” It just doesn’t happen.
KBL
Why serving makes sense: it makes my life meaningful, it makes me like Christ….
3. It will be rewarded in eternity.
This is hard for us to understand today because very few people aside from Mother Teresa are ever rewarded for their service. Most people in the world we live in don’t get rewarded for their service. But God said you’re going to be rewarded. Matthew 25 “Well done good and faithful servant. You’ve been faithful with the few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness.”
There’s three types of rewards. Write down three words. There’s the reward of affirmation. That’s the “well done.” Can you imagine how exciting it will be when you get to heaven and God says to you, “Well done! Welcome! Well done!” If He says to me “Well done, Joe!” I just know my nature. I’m going to look over my shoulder to see if there’s another Joe around. Well done, Joe. Based on how you and I live our life, Well done, Joe!
That’s affirmation. Affirmation of a life well lived will be affirmation of a life of service. Serving others. You serve God by serving others. Write to the side “promotion.” “I will put you in charge of many things.” You’re going to get promoted. You’ve been faithful in a little, I’m going to give you faithful in much. You’ve been faithful in little, I’m going to give you much.
There’s a third part to this reward. It says “Come and share your master’s happiness.” That is the celebration. There will be reward of celebration. Affirmation – promotion – celebration.
Today, in the market place what are you living for? Who are you working for? Does it matter? Does it count? Jesus says you want to be great in eternity? Then serve here. John 12:26, “My Father will honor those who serve Me.” God the Father honors those who serve.
Let’s go practical. This week in the market place. How can I have a ministry at work, with the people I work with whether they’re Christians or non-Christians? How basically can I be a minister? If God is watching how I work how can I be a minister at work?
Let me give you some actions to put into play this week.
1. Accept others unconditionally.
If you want to be a minister, you accept people. Can you think of names of people that you work with that are difficult to accept? Yeah! A lot of people are difficult to accept.
anyone like this? (Lumbergh)
You’ve got people at work that you find difficult accepting. Everyone needs acceptance. I know what some of you are thinking. “Why should I accept people who say stupid things and do hurtful things to me and to others?” If you’re a Christian that’s exactly why you need to show acceptance. Just because they do foolish things is no reason to withdraw acceptance from them. Everybody needs acceptance. Why? Because we’re all broken. We’ve all messed up. We’re all filled with weaknesses and sins and inadequacies. We’ve got issues.
But here’s what we do. We all are broken. Yet we treat other people like they’re supposed to be perfect. Have you ever noticed the hypocrisy in this at all? It’s like the image that I thought, a mini-image of how we drive. Bad drivers tick you off. But have you ever been a bad driver? Absolutely. When I make mistakes and I cut people off and somebody flips me the bird, the international sign of displeasure, You know what I know about the guy who just flipped me off because I was a bad driver? In about twenty miles he’s going to do something and somebody’s going to flip him off.
That same picture that we see everyday on the highway is what’s happening in the marketplace. We have our own issues and faults and problems. Yet we expect everybody else to be different. Nobody’s perfect. If you expect perfection from people you’re going to be totally frustrated all the time. As a matter of fact I’d say that you can’t minister to people if you can’t accept them.
The Bible tells us if you’re a follower of Christ in Romans 15, “Accept one another just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God.” Look at the result. It’s not to make them feel good, it’s not to make you feel good. It’s to bring praise to God. That’s why you accept them. And by the way, don’t confuse acceptance with approval. You can accept people without approving of their behavior or their lifestyle. You can love people without agreeing with their life or behavior. Jesus did this all the time. As a matter of fact because of who Jesus was seen talking to – postitutes, troublemakers, tax collectors. The people that He hung out with. What was Jesus called? A friend to sinners. Friend to sinners. He accepted people without approving of the things that they had done wrong.
I know that some of you are defensive right now. You’re saying, You don’t know the people that I work with. How many of you work with odd people? I know them! The key is this – here’s the key I’m trying to live out in my own life and the key I’m trying to teach my own kids. The key is when people are hurtful and they say dumb things and they’re mean, HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE, the key is looking past their behavior and into their heart. What we typically do in the marketplace we just focus on everybody’s behavior. What we don’t realize is that people who are hurting on the inside, they will hurt and attack people on the outside. We all get hung up on the behavior. It’s not really the behavior. People are so broken on the inside. I try to teach my kids, Don’t hate them. Neighbors do something stupid or whatever. Don’t hate them. Feel sad for them. They’re hurting on the inside. Have compassion. Turn your anger into compassion.
Everybody is crying out for acceptance. The people in your office or in the marketplace that are the least deserving, they’re the most obnoxious people, those are the ones who need your acceptance the very most. If you want to impact others at work, you accept them unconditionally.
2. To have a ministry at work you encourage others continually.
You minister to people when you encourage them. Here’s some things you can know about encouragement. Everybody needs it. Everybody’s hurting somewhere. What have we said here in the past, “treat everybody as if they have a need, because everybody does” Everybody in your world could use a lift, some encouragement. I’ve never met anybody in my whole life who’s said, “Don’t encourage me.” I’ve had it up to here with all the encouragement. That isn’t reality. There’s so much more that can be filled up. The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5 “Encourage one another and build one another up.” If you’re a follower of Christ of all the people in the world we should be the ones who have the reputation to be encouragers at the office.
Let me ask you. Are you an encourager or a discourager? Do you compliment or do you criticize? Our world is so full of critics and cynics. Jesus said to the followers of Him, be different. The world lives that way. Be different. Don’t be a critic. Don’t be a cynic. Be different. Build people up.
Ephesians 4:29 “Speak only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen.” Can you imagine trying to live that one out? Maybe we need to write that on a 3x5 card and keep that in front of us. Only saying things that are going to build people up according to their needs. What do they need? They need to be appreciated.
People who brag a lot, you tend to think “They don’t need encouragement. They’ve got so much going.” No. That’s why they’re bragging. People who brag. People who namedrop. People who tell you how wonderful they are. They are weak and broken people desperate for validation. Since nobody’s validating their life they’re going to validate it in front of you. They’re the ones who need encouragement the most.
I’d say to you this week try to put this action into play. In the marketplace that God has put me, who can I encourage. How can I do it? When I say encourage, most of us think superficial. I’m not talking about superficial. A lot of times you watch what you say because you think you’re being encouraging but you’re really not.
Those of you in the marketplace, how many of you could use encouragement from people you work with? We all need it.
We minister at work when we encourage others continually and
3. We minister when we forgive others freely.
When people hurt you and they will, you offer forgiveness you will blow them away. People in our world we don’t typically respond with forgiveness. When people hurt us we just kind of bottle it up and we act moody or we do different things. When you forgive them you will minister to them. There’s a couple ways forgiveness works. You say, “I forgive you,” and you asking for forgiveness when you have hurt other people. Our world typically doesn’t do either one of those.
You want to minister to people? You forgive others freely. Then you ask for forgiveness when you hurt people.
Colossians 3 “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Underline that.
Look at the first part “Bear with each other.” What does that mean – bear with each other. That’s one of those phrases that seems weird and churchy. What is this? It means be patient with them. When you’re patient with people. Here’s what I see in the context of the marketplace. You minimize mistakes. You don’t have to make a big deal out of mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Is the world going to come to an end because of this? The person already probably feels foolish. They know they made a mistake. I can either hammer it down and feel a little bit better about myself, showing them what a fool they were. Or we can say, “That’s not a big deal. I know you won’t do it again. Let’s move on.” That’s bear with one another. That’s being patient with on another.
What’s your motive for that? You forgive as the Lord forgave you.
Why do Christians forgive? Because we’ll never have to forgive anyone as much as Jesus Christ has forgiven us. Forgiveness is so rare in this world that when you forgive someone it’s like this shining light comes on. If you were to read the most famous sermon of Jesus in Matthew 5 what He says “You are different. You’re to be a light in the world. Like a light set on a mountaintop for all to see.” When you forgive somebody that light comes on and people are going, That’s different.
How many of you watch American Idol? Remember the woman who made it to Hollywood, she tried out, she was a larger woman. After she made it to Hollywood for the initial tryouts, as she was walking out the door, Simon one of the judges said, “Looks like this year we’re going to need a larger stage.” Fox played that for everybody to see. It was a fun little sound bite for the world. It crushed Mandesa. When Mandesa gets to Hollywood as she comes out to sing, she says, “Before I sing, Simon I just want to let you know that what you said hurt me very, very bad. But I want to also let you know that I forgive you. And the reason I forgive you is because I have been forgiven.” It so moved this guy. You could tell in his eyes and his response as he got up from around the counter and gave her a hug. The Fox executives you know were going, Great TV! The whole world is seeing this thing on forgiveness. It wasn’t just great tv. It was great theology. It was faith in practice that this young woman said, I forgive you because I’ve been forgiven.
How to have a ministry at work? You accept others unconditionally, you encourage others continually, you forgive others freely and you…
4. Help others willingly
This is the essence of servanthood – willingly. Because we don’t want to naturally we say God would You change what comes naturally, the have to, to the want to. That’s what I love about following Jesus. He says, Follow Me.
Being a Christian is a journey. It’s not this overnight sensation. It’s a journey. I’m not there yet. You’re not there yet. God would you change me from being unwilling to willing. I know that when I serve others it makes my life meaningful, it makes me more like Jesus, it will be rewarded in heaven.
Proverbs 3 says, “Whenever you possibly can, do good to those who need it. Never tell your neighbor to wait until tomorrow if you can help him now.” Circle “help him now.” The Bible teaches that offering practical assistance to people at work that when you’re ministering to them, you’re serving God. When you help others even if you feel like it’s in vain, God sees your heart. It changes your character. That’s what I was talking about. He opens the window of your soul and puts His favor in you. This is why I created you.
1 Corinthians 15:58 “Now my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and steady, always enthusiastic about the Lord’s work. For you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.” Nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless!
Tomorrow in the marketplace. You’re helping somebody out on a project and you think, “Nothing I do for the Lord is ever useless.” You’re helping somebody figure out this software program. You’ve already showed them five times before and they’re asking for help again. You think, “Nothing I do for the Lord is ever useless.” You’re taking a shift for somebody else so they can be with their family and you have this space and margin in your scheduled to do it. You think, “Nothing I do for the Lord is ever useless.” You stay after work to help somebody out and you even do menial tasks that you think are below you and you think, “Nothing I do for the Lord is ever useless.”
Don’t procrastinate. When you see people in need, help them out. The problem is we get so wrapped up in ourselves we don’t see the needs of other people. If you want to be more like Jesus Christ you’re never more like Jesus Christ than when you serve.
This week, the people in the marketplace, see them as your church. You’re the minister at that church. When you go to your job you don’t need to go into your job carrying a big Bible and wearing a robe with a collar – “Hello, brethren. I was at church and was told I was a minister in the marketplace.” If you do that don’t tell them you came from FOCUS*! But when you go in and you know the people are hurting all around you and everybody in your office, the people that you work with need to be accepted, encouraged, forgiven and helped.
When you do, what happens as a minister you then earn the right to be heard about this wonderful God who has so changed your life that you want to accept and encourage and forgive and help. God came to earth and died on the cross in the form of Jesus so that those of us who were broken and sinful could be connected with God and have a personal relationship with Him. In that personal relationship we would receive His power to do the things that don’t come naturally to us. When you do these things you earn the right to tell about that kind of relationship.
The closing challenge is I want you to go back to work this week with a new job description – serve. And a new title – minister. As you walk in the doors of your work remind yourself, “I’m a minister of Jesus Christ in the marketplace today.
I can minister by accepting and encouraging and forgiving and helping.”
Who believes that you can put at least one of these actions into practice this week? I believe you can too. I’m proud of you for trying.
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