Speaker 1: Hey, what up?
Speaker 1: It's Mark Carter.
Speaker 1: I'm the pastor of Fierce Church.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.
Speaker 1: I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Folks, those of you joining us on Facebook Live or watching by video, thank you so much for being a part of this experience.
Speaker 1: We're super glad that you're here.
Speaker 1: We're glad everybody's joining us today for the continuation of the Make it Rain series.
Speaker 1: We're talking about making it rain, and not literally.
Speaker 1: We discussed a passage last week, deuteronomy 28, all about how, when we obey God, he increases the effectiveness and productivity of our lives.
Speaker 1: We looked at the people of Israel and as they were working, as they were planting their crops and having their livestock even sometimes going to war they not only experienced the normal blessing that would come from that kind of work, but then God compounded the blessing that came onto their lives, and so we're going to dive into how to make it rain with regard to our work today.
Speaker 1: Before I do that, I just want to encourage you.
Speaker 1: Some of you have come in here today and maybe you're feeling a little bit distant from God.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not so sure about this religion thing.
Speaker 1: Can I just remind you of his commitment and affection for you.
Speaker 1: You know the book of John the writer John.
Speaker 1: He was one of Jesus's disciples and he said to those who believe, god gave the right to become children of God.
Speaker 1: I am a child.
Speaker 1: I'm a child of my parents.
Speaker 1: They chose to have me.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any choice in the matter.
Speaker 1: They chose to have me.
Speaker 1: And now, through the years, even if there were ever static eye to eye or if we're very tight, nothing can shift the reality that I am their son, because that's what I am.
Speaker 1: Even if they didn't want me to be their son, I wouldn't stop being their biological child.
Speaker 1: You know, your relationship with your heavenly father is a lot like that.
Speaker 1: You may feel distant from him, you may feel like you've messed up too bad or you can't approach him now.
Speaker 1: But listen, his commitment to you, his desire to celebrate you, his desire to cherish you, and his commitment If he makes you his child through Jesus Christ ain't nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 1: It don't rub off, it doesn't go away.
Speaker 1: And so I just want to remind all of us, if you're feeling a little bit on the outs from God, he is not on the outs from you and he is going to be sure to fulfill his commitment.
Speaker 1: Well, hey, let me tell you.
Speaker 1: Let me take you back in time a little bit, to the year 2000.
Speaker 1: I was working construction and we had these 10 hour days for four days of the week, and so, myself and this other crew, we'd be out in the middle of nowhere outside.
Speaker 1: We were working on the railroad in any kind of weather, and it was beginning to get colder and colder, and one day in particular it was probably somewhere in the thirties outside, but it was raining all day and we don't get to go inside.
Speaker 1: So now I'm sopping wet and I can remember the sensation of walking around and my shoes are literally filled with water.
Speaker 1: Like you just splash, splash, splash.
Speaker 1: And this is going on hour after hour after hour, and in my heart, as I'm just out there, I'm just saying, jesus, this is not what I wanted, this is not the job that I thought I was going to have.
Speaker 1: I've got a heart for ministry.
Speaker 1: I've got a heart to be a pastor.
Speaker 1: What are we doing here.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had a job where your question was what are we doing here?
Speaker 1: Even if you aren't in that particular job right now, I think you know what I'm talking about and let's use some Bible language for it.
Speaker 1: Whatever your job is, whether you're a student, whether you're retired, whether you're at the beginning of your career or you're nearing the end, whether you're at a good moment or a poor moment, you know what it means for there to be thorns in your job thorns and thistles, hard stuff, pressures, things that don't seem to work out.
Speaker 1: The reason that's a Bible idea is because we see this in the very beginning of the Bible.
Speaker 1: After our first parents, after they betrayed their loving God and they went their own way, god tried to warn them.
Speaker 1: He said hey, don't do this, because it's going to jack you up, and it's going to jack up the entire world.
Speaker 1: Our parents still went ahead and did it, and God says this is going to mess with your work life.
Speaker 1: Now let's read it together Genesis 3, verse 17,.
Speaker 1: And to the man he preached, pronouncing this is what happens because you've sinned against me, since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat.
Speaker 1: The ground is cursed because of you.
Speaker 1: All of your life you'll struggle to scratch a living from it.
Speaker 1: It will grow thorns and thistles for you.
Speaker 1: Thorns and thistles for you.
Speaker 1: Do you know what it's like in your job situation, your work situation, your at-home situation, to have thorns and thistles encroaching on your productivity?
Speaker 1: I mean, work is hard, man.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed this?
Speaker 1: Work is hard.
Speaker 1: Work has all kinds of pressures, all kinds of stresses.
Speaker 1: There's all kinds of weird conflict that people have at work.
Speaker 1: Well, the wrong person was hired over here.
Speaker 1: Well, I thought I was going to get this role, but now they have it.
Speaker 1: Now I'm butting heads with this person.
Speaker 1: Now we're not seeing eye to eye.
Speaker 1: Then, you know, the boss forgot to order that thing and now they're blaming it on me.
Speaker 1: And now I have to go out of town.
Speaker 1: I have to have this conversation.
Speaker 1: All I want to do is want to get home, I want to get some rest, and yet, around and around this merry-go-round, we go.
Speaker 1: There's just hardship after hardship after hardship.
Speaker 1: My friends, what you're experiencing there, when that shuts down your productivity, when it shuts down your energy, when you feel like this isn't significant, this isn't meaningful, what you're experiencing is the curse You're experiencing, the thorns and the thistles that are now a part of work here on planet earth.
Speaker 1: And what's hard is when we start.
Speaker 1: You know, when we're young, we're very optimistic.
Speaker 1: Most of us.
Speaker 1: We start, we're like, hey, this is going to be great.
Speaker 1: But then time goes by, life goes on and we have more disappointments, more reasons to be discouraged, and slowly we begin to ask the question, like is this all it's going to be?
Speaker 1: Is this all it's ever going to happen to me?
Speaker 1: I have these dreams, but maybe as I get older now I'm old even and I'm thinking do my dreams even have a place anymore?
Speaker 1: I can't keep up with these young ones.
Speaker 1: I can't keep up with these new technologies.
Speaker 1: I can't have a platform that these other people have.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to get you know.
Speaker 1: I don't know about LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to hook up with the right people to take my career forward.
Speaker 1: I don't know about all this.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's just too late for me and we operate from a place, even on good days of no rest, and so we we go around the calendar again and say, when I get to this final destination, this vacation point, then I'll be able to rest.
Speaker 1: But as soon as you get back on monday morning, you're not living from a place of rest.
Speaker 1: But you know, jesus christ lived from a place of rest.
Speaker 1: Jesus christ I.
Speaker 1: He had a lot of work to do and he never shied away from work.
Speaker 1: But we find him.
Speaker 1: The Bible declares that he was asleep in the boat while the storm raged around him.
Speaker 1: There's Jesus taking a nap.
Speaker 1: He's completely unperturbed by his situation.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because he trusted his heavenly father.
Speaker 1: And see, to explain it a little different way, jesus understood that the heavenly father was his real ceo, he said.
Speaker 1: He said god's my ceo, god's my boss and I just trust his sovereignty.
Speaker 1: Well, many of you have a boss.
Speaker 1: Some of you might even be your own boss, but what I want to submit to you today is your opportunity to trade in your boss, or at least you're thinking about your boss.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can really get rid of her For the boss, god.
Speaker 1: Have God as your CEO.
Speaker 1: Nothing may change practically in your world, but the way you view your work, I think, will substantially change.
Speaker 1: So we said last week when we started this series if you will fully obey, god will make it rain.
Speaker 1: If we will fully give ourselves to God's ways, he will increase our effectiveness and productivity when it comes to life here on planet earth and the work that we do.
Speaker 1: But I want to give you a little break this weekend, and so here's just my encouragement Take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and slap somebody on the knee, tell them, take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: You see, when God is our CEO, you're going to take the pressure right off.
Speaker 1: Now here's four ways work is different when God is your personal CEO.
Speaker 1: It was five ways, but I cut one of them and I cut it because really it just wasn't very good.
Speaker 1: I cut.
Speaker 1: I cut number three.
Speaker 1: How many you've ever listened to a sermon and you're like pastor, you could have quit 15 minutes ago.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: I've certainly been in those situations, and so I'm just like, hey man, sometimes less is more.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to give them the less and it's going to be more.
Speaker 1: Trust me, it decent point, but we'll come back to it another time.
Speaker 1: So here's really four ways that work is different when god is your personal ceo.
Speaker 1: Here's number one work is always significant.
Speaker 1: Work is always significant, whatever you're doing, wherever you are, whether you are the house mom, you are the mechanic, you are the bank teller.
Speaker 1: You are whether you are the house mom, you are the mechanic, you are the bank teller, you are the cashier.
Speaker 1: Whatever you do, whatever your work is, it is significant in the eyes of God, because when you and I do it, we are imaging God.
Speaker 1: See, I can't love my work and you can't love your work if we don't see it as significant, if we don't really believe that in some way we're representing a good God, the God of work, we can't really enjoy it the way that we're supposed to.
Speaker 1: Let's go back and get a little bit of God's vision for work Genesis 1.28,.
Speaker 1: Here he is.
Speaker 1: Work is a part of this perfect environment.
Speaker 1: I want you to get this here.
Speaker 1: This is within the Garden of Eden, so the fall of the sin has not happened yet.
Speaker 1: But in this perfect environment for human flourishing, what is there?
Speaker 1: There is still work.
Speaker 1: Listen to what God says to these humans.
Speaker 1: Then God blessed them and said be fruitful and multiply.
Speaker 1: That's a work word.
Speaker 1: Fill the earth and govern it.
Speaker 1: Rain over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky and the animals that scurry along the ground.
Speaker 1: He says I'm giving you work to do.
Speaker 1: Here's your work.
Speaker 1: You are going to be like me and do work while you're on this planet.
Speaker 1: There is no task, there is nothing so minuscule that God does not say that is work and that is dignified.
Speaker 1: There is honor in what you're doing, because it is what I do.
Speaker 1: You may not be aware of this, but other ancient cultures, like the Greeks and the Romans, like other Eastern cultures, they did not see work the same way that the unique text of the Bible does.
Speaker 1: Take Zeus and Pandora.
Speaker 1: You guys remember them right, maybe from English class when you were in high school.
Speaker 1: Remember Pandora?
Speaker 1: Zeus puts all of the difficulties and hardships of the world into this box and Pandora comes and opens it up and what's in there?
Speaker 1: Death and disease and plague and sadness and work.
Speaker 1: Work is in that box.
Speaker 1: Then you take let's take another Eastern account of creation.
Speaker 1: Some of you may remember Marduk.
Speaker 1: Marduk was this kind of king of gods and he and his friends just take this new territory and they say well, we don't want to have to run this, so what we'll do?
Speaker 1: Marduk says this.
Speaker 1: He says, he says I will create, I'll produce a lowly primitive creature.
Speaker 1: Man shall be his name and to him shall be charged the work so that the gods may rest.
Speaker 1: So in Marduk's version, the gods get to rest and man gets to work.
Speaker 1: How different is the God of the Bible?
Speaker 1: Notice this.
Speaker 1: Here's the God of the Bible.
Speaker 1: He creates this perfect paradise for human flourishing.
Speaker 1: And what do we find when we approach him?
Speaker 1: We see God himself with his hands in the dirt.
Speaker 1: God is working, god himself is doing the honorable thing.
Speaker 1: The Bible is a unique text among ancient literature that defines work not as a bad thing but as a God-like thing.
Speaker 1: It's a noble, it's a good thing to find ourselves working.
Speaker 1: Now let's fast forward to the appearance of God, the Son, jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: What does he do?
Speaker 1: Even then, he comes as a baby and he doesn't come as a philosopher, he doesn't come as a general.
Speaker 1: What does he grow up into?
Speaker 1: Into a carpenter, into a worker.
Speaker 1: That's what God does.
Speaker 1: That's how he shows up, and you don't get any sense from the Bible that there's some kind of conflicting class system.
Speaker 1: There's not snobbiness.
Speaker 1: All work is significant in the universe of the Bible because when we do our work we are imaging God.
Speaker 1: So, whatever it is, whether you're an investor, whether you're a gardener, whether you are an artist, whether you are a manager.
Speaker 1: When you and I, whatever our task is, when we say I am doing this unto the Lord, our work is significant because it is the kind of thing that God would do.
Speaker 1: Now, on the negative side, because in this perfect garden, even there there was work.
Speaker 1: When we don't work or we don't give ourselves to something that makes us proud, there's something in our soul that begins to shut down.
Speaker 1: You guys have seen this.
Speaker 1: You've seen what happens when we're not giving ourselves to something that is meaningful, there's something in our soul that begins to atrophy.
Speaker 1: We were made to work.
Speaker 1: God wants us to work in order to image him.
Speaker 1: Even when it's not what we would prefer, god still says if you do it unto me, it is meaningful.
Speaker 1: So what do we do about that?
Speaker 1: Well, obviously, don't be lazy and give yourself to the work.
Speaker 1: But also, here's what's powerful about it Because God says whatever I do is significant.
Speaker 1: Here it is.
Speaker 1: Now check it out.
Speaker 1: I don't need anybody else to affirm it.
Speaker 1: I don't need anybody else to tell me that it's significant.
Speaker 1: I don't need anybody else to affirm it.
Speaker 1: I don't need anybody else to tell me that it's significant.
Speaker 1: I don't need the applause of the people over in the other cubicle.
Speaker 1: I don't need the applause of the mama down the street.
Speaker 1: I don't need anybody's applause.
Speaker 1: Now, would that be nice?
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, everybody loves un-at-a-boy or an-at-a-girl.
Speaker 1: But listen, this is what I'm discovering.
Speaker 1: As a disciple, you actually need to, to only need, jesus.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the place of power, that's the place of strength.
Speaker 1: When you can say, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: Thank you for encouraging me, but at the end of the day, I get my affirmation from Jesus.
Speaker 1: He says this is meaningful.
Speaker 1: He says this is significant.
Speaker 1: If you agree with him, that's great, but I'm getting my props from him.
Speaker 1: So, whether you're a student, whether you're a Marine, whether you're helping out here at the church, whether you spend your whole day in sewers doing waste management, whether you spend your whole day in a cubicle and you go hours and wonder if anyone has even noticed that you are in the building, whatever you do, god sees it and God says it is significant.
Speaker 1: So tell somebody to take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: Take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: You don't have to make yourself significant.
Speaker 1: Jesus has already made the work significant.
Speaker 1: So take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: So what do we do?
Speaker 1: Number one we know that work is always significant.
Speaker 1: Number two work is focused on the community.
Speaker 1: Work is focused on the community.
Speaker 1: You see, we have to check our motives.
Speaker 1: We have to be careful because we can build our own little kingdoms.
Speaker 1: We can say I'm going to do work so that finally, they'll know I'm going to step over this person, I'm going to aim at the promotion, I'm going to do whatever I've got to do just so that I can get where I'm trying to go, because it's about me, it's about my world, it's about me getting there.
Speaker 1: And we want to be very careful because, according to God's word, that's actually not how we should be thinking about work, if God is our CEO.
Speaker 1: And how do we know this?
Speaker 1: I'm going to take you to a strange text to demonstrate this to you.
Speaker 1: You remember the story of Cain and Abel, right?
Speaker 1: It was the first murder in human history.
Speaker 1: Cain murders his brother, abel, and God weighs in and is going to give this severe punishment to Cain.
Speaker 1: And we're like what's he going to do?
Speaker 1: Is he going to bring fire from heaven?
Speaker 1: Is he going to invent some kind of crazy dinosaur to eat him?
Speaker 1: No, he doesn't do any of that.
Speaker 1: Listen to what God says invent some kind of crazy dinosaur to eat him.
Speaker 1: No, he doesn't do any of that.
Speaker 1: Listen to what God says, genesis 4.12,.
Speaker 1: No longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work.
Speaker 1: From now on, you'll be a homeless wanderer on the earth.
Speaker 1: And I hear that I'm like, are you serious?
Speaker 1: He just gets to wander around Like that doesn't even sound, that's not even jail.
Speaker 1: Like like that's all that this guy gets.
Speaker 1: But as we look at ancient rabbis and what they understood about this text, they make the case.
Speaker 1: This is actually about community.
Speaker 1: Cain is forbidden.
Speaker 1: The curse is Cain.
Speaker 1: You don't get community.
Speaker 1: Now think about a town, think about a city.
Speaker 1: Here's what's great about our lives.
Speaker 1: Right now I can go down the street, I'm going to stop at Chick-fil-A and I'm going to take advantage of their gifts and I'm going to eat some good Chick-fil-A.
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to go on over to Meijer and I'm going to pick up a prescription and I'm taking advantage of their gifts and on the way home, everybody's contributing to everything and we're all taking advantage of everybody else's gifts.
Speaker 1: Are you seeing how that's supposed to work?
Speaker 1: And so it's a curse on Cain you don't get to take advantage of the community gifts and you don't get to contribute to the community gifts, cain.
Speaker 1: And it's a curse on us when we don't understand that we're not just absorbers, we're not just consumers, we're not just supposed to make it about us.
Speaker 1: We're supposed to make it about the community.
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to use my gifts to build you up.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to use your gifts to build me and others up.
Speaker 1: So what is the pattern?
Speaker 1: The pattern is in order to make it rain, I need to make it about others, not just personal advancement.
Speaker 1: And our hearts are so important when it comes to this because there's something humanizing about it.
Speaker 1: When I remember my work, it's not just for me to go to work here today so I can add more to my bank account.
Speaker 1: My work here is about the people who are benefiting from my work, who are benefiting from my work.
Speaker 1: Acclaimed English crime writer and poet, dorothy Sayers, back around World War II, bemoaned this habit of thinking of work as something that was only about making money.
Speaker 1: She's watching this and here's what she says.
Speaker 1: The habit of thinking about work as something one does to get money and position is so ingrained in us that we can scarcely imagine what would happen if we begin to think about work otherwise.
Speaker 1: People become doctors these days, not primarily to relieve suffering, but to bring their family up in the world.
Speaker 1: People become lawyers, not necessarily because they have a passion for justice, but to bring their family up in the world.
Speaker 1: Here she goes, up in the world, here she goes.
Speaker 1: During World War two.
Speaker 1: One of the greatest surprises we had in our lives listen here is that we found ourselves, for the very first time, happy.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because for the first time in our lives we found ourselves doing something, not for the pay and not for the social standing, but for the sake of working together to get something done that benefited everyone.
Speaker 1: Dorothy's writing and she's saying there was a social revolution because people during World War II said look, I just have to help, I just have to get in there and help somehow.
Speaker 1: And it turned into a psychological revolution.
Speaker 1: People became actually happy because they weren't just building their own kingdoms, they were helping out everybody else.
Speaker 1: Now I wasn't alive during this time, but I asked my, my grandma, grandma Sue, about it.
Speaker 1: I said tell me about what that time was like during world war two.
Speaker 1: And she said you know, that was really how it was.
Speaker 1: Everybody just wanted to help.
Speaker 1: Everybody was all in.
Speaker 1: They just wanted to make sure they could participate in some way to this horrible situation.
Speaker 1: Well, I do remember nine 11 and I remember what it was like how many of y'all remember this?
Speaker 1: For like three weeks after 9-11, like everybody was just nice in the whole country, like you'd go to restaurants and people are just giving away food.
Speaker 1: Everybody wanted to help and then, like three weeks in it just fell off and just tanked.
Speaker 1: What would it be like if in the church of Jesus Christ, that's how everybody was all the time, if everyone, just like this, is about other people.
Speaker 1: This isn't about me, I'm just doing, I'm just using my gifts not to advance my own cause, but just to help to be a blessing to everybody else.
Speaker 1: It's so freeing when we know because it's not really about me and it's about community I don't have to build my own empire because that's not going to last anyway and no one's going to give two rips when you're dead, who cares?
Speaker 1: But if we can use our gifts to build one another up, baby, that's eternal.
Speaker 1: That's something that lasts and God says here it is.
Speaker 1: I can't make it rain.
Speaker 1: If you keep making it about you, I can't make it rain.
Speaker 1: I can't give you the joy that you're supposed to have, if you keep making it about you.
Speaker 1: But if you start making it about other people, then you'll get a fierce download of my love.
Speaker 1: And you know what this is hard.
Speaker 1: It's not always intuitive.
Speaker 1: We need to connect the dots ourselves.
Speaker 1: We need to look at okay, so what do I do and how can I translate this into helping the community?
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's say you're a housekeeper.
Speaker 1: You're like Carter.
Speaker 1: All I do I mean I vacuum, I clean people's windows and behind the refrigerator, I mean, what is that really doing for others?
Speaker 1: Well, let's think about it.
Speaker 1: So you go and you create these beautiful spaces.
Speaker 1: You give people margin in their minds so that when they come home they're a little bit more soft, they're a little bit more at peace.
Speaker 1: I don't think that you're just a housekeeper.
Speaker 1: I think that you're a peace bringer.
Speaker 1: That's what Jesus has really sent you to do.
Speaker 1: When you say, carter, I'm just a nanny, I don't see how this helps.
Speaker 1: All I'm doing is like changing diapers and wiping noses all day.
Speaker 1: Well, you are, but don't forget the fact that you are pouring in.
Speaker 1: You have a lot of influence to pour in virtue into young lives that will echo for the next several decades.
Speaker 1: Get to you, get to miracle grow that little plant.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not just a nanny, maybe you're a future shaper.
Speaker 1: Probably about six years ago I was coming home.
Speaker 1: I was, I was by vocational pastor at that point.
Speaker 1: I was, I had a non-church job and I was a pastor of a church at that time.
Speaker 1: And I'm driving home and it was, it was about 545.
Speaker 1: And I go to stop off at the, the Haynesville Starbucks there on 120.
Speaker 1: And you know it's cold outside and icy it was.
Speaker 1: It was this time of year, it was a lot like the weather we've had recently and I just been beat up just under a lot of stress.
Speaker 1: It's stressful to do those jobs and and you know just, you know just the thorns of what work is and my heart was just oh, what is the point?
Speaker 1: Like this is so hard and you know at the end of the day you're drained anyway and you're just kind of all out.
Speaker 1: So I'm like I'll just get a mocha.
Speaker 1: So I stop over at Starbucks and I order the mocha and then I pull up, you know, to the window and this barista she didn't know me and she wasn't flirting or anything, she wasn't doing anything wrong.
Speaker 1: But she looks me in the eye and she passes this mocha to me and she just says tough day.
Speaker 1: Huh, be strong out there.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, there was something in me that was breaking, there was something that was melting.
Speaker 1: Because here's this girl I don't know, I'm like the 500th car in her line that day, but she's doing something human and she's reminded me.
Speaker 1: Man, maybe, maybe, maybe it matters what I do, maybe, maybe it makes a difference, maybe there's really still people out here and not just everybody's angry about everything.
Speaker 1: I was just one guy in her life in that moment, but she used that moment to say here, like I see that you're a human and you matter, and so all I am, all I have, is this stupid mocha that you paid for, but I'm just gonna give it to you in such a way that you understand hey, man, you can make it.
Speaker 1: I wonder what it would be like if we just all started to see the people around us and said it's not about me and it's not about my agenda, it's about the community, it's about what I bring to the other lives around me.
Speaker 1: I wonder.
Speaker 1: Bob Goff says every act of selfless love is a declaration of faith, and I think he's right.
Speaker 1: So work is always significant and work is focused on the community.
Speaker 1: We're going to skip over number three and we're going to land on number four.
Speaker 1: Work is a sign hidden in plain sight.
Speaker 1: It's a sign hidden, a sign of the kingdom of Jesus Christ hidden in plain sight.
Speaker 1: Let's jump over to the book of Proverbs.
Speaker 1: There's this.
Speaker 1: It's a little strange if you're not familiar with it.
Speaker 1: There's this personification of wisdom.
Speaker 1: It's, it's it.
Speaker 1: God's representing wisdom as this woman who stands in the town square and she begins to shout to everybody hey you people who don't know wisdom, hey, you people who are doing foolishness, look to me and I will teach you the right way.
Speaker 1: I will help your life, and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
Speaker 1: I want you to notice the, the places she is.
Speaker 1: Let's let's look at this.
Speaker 1: Proverbs 8 1.
Speaker 1: Listen as wisdom calls out here as understanding raises her voice on the hilltop, along the places she is.
Speaker 1: Let's look at this.
Speaker 1: Proverbs 8.1.
Speaker 1: Listen as wisdom calls out.
Speaker 1: Hear as understanding raises her voice On the hilltop along the road she takes her stand at the crossroads, by the gates, at the entrance of the town, on the road, leaning in.
Speaker 1: She cries aloud.
Speaker 1: I call to you, to all of you.
Speaker 1: I raise my voice to all the people.
Speaker 1: Where is she?
Speaker 1: She's at the crossroads.
Speaker 1: She's in the town square.
Speaker 1: Where is she?
Speaker 1: She's right in the center of commerce, right in the center of social life.
Speaker 1: She's also at the gates.
Speaker 1: This is like the justice system.
Speaker 1: This is where the elders of the community meet to decide things.
Speaker 1: She's not hidden.
Speaker 1: She's right there in the middle of everybody's coming and going and she calls out Yoo-hoo, hey, hey, pay attention, I have a message for you.
Speaker 1: I will teach you.
Speaker 1: My arms are wide open and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
Speaker 1: Can I encourage you that you, in the role you're in right now, wherever you are maybe you're a student, maybe you're at your first job, maybe you're getting along in your career, maybe now you're retired and you just have these different places that you go, where you're plugged in.
Speaker 1: Wherever you are, god knows how to get glory for himself and he's placed you right there so that you can be a sign and a wonder to say you, who, you who, come this way, come this way, look at Jesus, look at his ways, look how wise he is, look how adoring he is, look how fantastic and forgiving he is.
Speaker 1: And they look at your life.
Speaker 1: And it's not that you're Bible thumping, slapping everybody upside the head with a devotional.
Speaker 1: You're not walking into the meeting like, hey, who wants to get saved today?
Speaker 1: That's not what you're doing.
Speaker 1: But you're representing a wise life, a forgiven life, a life of excellence, a life of integrity.
Speaker 1: And yes, you're not gossiping, you're not participating in that, you're not.
Speaker 1: You're certainly not foolish enough to walk around pretending you're holier than thou, but what you are doing is you're being winsome.
Speaker 1: You're listening to people so that they won't, so that when they encounter you they'll just say, hey, man.
Speaker 1: So what's?
Speaker 1: What's your deal, sweetheart?
Speaker 1: What's going on with you?
Speaker 1: You say I don't know, hey, man.
Speaker 1: So what's your deal, sweetheart?
Speaker 1: What's going on with you?
Speaker 1: You say I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just live my faith.
Speaker 1: I believe in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: I'm not ashamed of that, I'm not trying to slap anybody with it, but it's a real thing and it is a sign to the rest of the world hey, when you're ready, jesus is a handshake away.
Speaker 1: He's right here.
Speaker 1: And it's not that maybe you wouldn't have the Bible study, maybe you would have the prayer meeting.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you know, as God would lead anybody that way, but whatever it is, at the very least you're saying I'm going to be the very best manager that these people have ever seen, because my God is a God of excellence and he's a God of virtue and a God of character, and I'm going to stand in my little town square and say I love you, I'm on your side.
Speaker 1: I was sent into this dark, dank place that's how some of us see our jobs and I'm the one light that is here with a smile not to bemoan it.
Speaker 1: What if God is honoring you just by having you there, because you're his one opportunity and that particular little location that people might find out about Jesus Christ?
Speaker 1: And some of us I know, I know what it's like.
Speaker 1: I know some of us you're like I don't even know what I'm doing there, carter, like I, I want to do some of us.
Speaker 1: I know what it's like.
Speaker 1: I know some of us you're like I don't even know what I'm doing there, carter, like I want to do some of the God stuff.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the significant stuff and I got to do all this dumb stuff over here.
Speaker 1: I wish I was one of these minister people.
Speaker 1: I wish I was doing church things for a living.
Speaker 1: You know, the awesome thing about you being assigned in a wonder exactly where you are is that you no longer have to compare yourself to anybody else.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be the pastor, you don't have to be the preacher, because God has strategically placed you right where you are to do the work that you're supposed to do in your context.
Speaker 1: You are a mission.
Speaker 1: You are a message from God to the people around you.
Speaker 1: Somebody say take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: Take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: Hey, how many want to hear one more?
Speaker 1: All right, this is kind of my favorite here.
Speaker 1: It is it's number five.
Speaker 1: Work is honored and expanded in heaven.
Speaker 1: Work is honored and expanded in heaven, and I'm so glad that it is.
Speaker 1: And can I tell you, I'm so glad I'm going to heaven.
Speaker 1: You know it's this sounds really lame, but it's not that good people go to heaven, it's forgiven people that go to heaven.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ wants everybody to go to heaven, and so he extends his hand of mercy to everybody and for those who trust him, those who make him their Lord and savior, you can be assured that you, too, are going to go to heaven, and because work is honored and expanded in heaven, here's what's powerful and awesome and wonderful.
Speaker 1: You don't have to make all your dreams come true here.
Speaker 1: Some of us, you've got these things that are burning inside of you and you're passionate about stuff, and time is going by and you're like, oh, I feel like I'm running out and I could do so much more and it's all slipping away from me.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the text I want you to see.
Speaker 1: Jesus is explaining how it works when someone dies and they come up to the father and the father says here's what's going to happen now, based on what you did.
Speaker 1: And he's going to talk about work and this work really what that is.
Speaker 1: It is your work.
Speaker 1: It's every place you were faithful.
Speaker 1: It's every place you were obedient.
Speaker 1: It's every place that you were personally devoted to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: But I want you to see what he does here, verse 21,.
Speaker 1: Matthew 25,.
Speaker 1: His master said to him well done, good and faithful slave.
Speaker 1: Somebody say death is not the end.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 1: I hope everybody hears it.
Speaker 1: Let's say it again Death is not the end.
Speaker 1: You were faithful with a few things.
Speaker 1: You did those things.
Speaker 1: Those days you were down there, those days you wanted to go home, those cold days, those hot days, those hard days, those days when people were crazy, you did them.
Speaker 1: You got through it.
Speaker 1: You did a few things and now I'm going to put you in charge of many things.
Speaker 1: Now come, enjoy your master's happiness.
Speaker 1: You did all kinds of stuff, and it was.
Speaker 1: It was really hard, but some of it was rewarding, wasn't it?
Speaker 1: I mean, some of it was.
Speaker 1: I mean, think of what it's like at the end of a hard day.
Speaker 1: You come home and you're like man, that was hard, but we did it, like I contributed to what it was and everybody used their gifts together and we got the product out or we got the sale and we made it move forward.
Speaker 1: And I feel like I'm a part of it.
Speaker 1: And, man, it was hard but we pushed it down the field.
Speaker 1: That's what it's like on a good day, but you still had thorns, you still had hardship, you still had all the nastiness that comes with the curse here on earth.
Speaker 1: Now let's go to a moment in history, in future history, when you're not a part of that culture anymore, when all the thorns are gone and God peels them back and he says you thought you were productive when there was thorns.
Speaker 1: Now what happens when I double what you have and there's no thorns to stop you?
Speaker 1: You think you're going to have fun.
Speaker 1: You think work is going to be rewarding.
Speaker 1: You think there's going to be dreams that now can come true, because you've got now billions and billions of years to do your best work.
Speaker 1: So you don't have to be afraid down here in this time they ought.
Speaker 1: There's things that I just can't do, because what you can really do is look forward to.
Speaker 1: It's a faith that looks forward to.
Speaker 1: It's a faith that looks forward and says I'm gonna have the opportunity to be rewarded for the work I do.
Speaker 1: That means I don't need to worry about the people that are always seeming like they're ahead of me.
Speaker 1: I don't need to worry about the people that are always cool and always pizzazzy and always up on the tech trends and always understand all the software.
Speaker 1: I don't need to worry about those people, because the only thing that God is gonna ask me about is the work that he gave me to do.
Speaker 1: So I might as well get my eyes off everybody else and say I'm just gonna do the work I've been given and I'm going to do it great.
Speaker 1: That's how I'm going to do it, because the day is going to come when God's going to reward me for this work and when he does all precious.
Speaker 1: There's no more thorns, the thorns and the thistles.
Speaker 1: They're all gone.
Speaker 1: Where'd they go, carter?
Speaker 1: Do you not know?
Speaker 1: They went on Jesus' head as he went up the cross of Calvary and because of him, you will be released into a level of joy and effectiveness and productivity like you have never known before.
Speaker 1: And the dreams in your heart.
Speaker 1: The truth is, those dreams that are too big for this small planet.
Speaker 1: There's too much inside of you, there's too much creativity, there's too much potency.
Speaker 1: This world can't handle it, because you were made for another world.
Speaker 1: You were made for a world with no thorns and because of Jesus Christ, you are going to get the opportunity because you trusted him.
Speaker 1: So, my friends, let's make it rain here, let's give it all we've got in our work, trusting that, yes, I'm going to work here.
Speaker 1: There is a make it rain that happens here.
Speaker 1: There is a prosperity that comes on planet Earth, but maybe the secret is it's not really just about this planet.
Speaker 1: Maybe I sow and I labor and I work here because, ultimately, I'm going to reap there where there is no thorns, because of King Jesus.
Speaker 1: Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being His witness in our generation, check out Fierce Church.
Speaker 1: We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person.
Speaker 1: Also, if you're looking for leadership development-related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry.
Speaker 1: It's because of you that this is possible.
Speaker 1: You can click on the link in the description to give now, or visit fiercechurch for more information.
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Speaker 1: Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it.
Speaker 1: Don't give up.
Speaker 1: Hang on to Jesus.
Speaker 1: He won't let go of you.
Speaker 1: Jesus loves you so much and we love you.
Speaker 1: I hope someday we get to meet in person.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening.