A Theology of Productivity

We live in the most productive generation in history — and one of the most exhausted.

In this episode, Luke explores the hidden lie beneath hustle culture: “It’s my life.” And why Scripture tells a better story — one where our time, energy, work, and ambitions belong to God.

Drawing from John 15, Paul’s letters, and the wisdom of Christian thinkers like Dallas Willard and Tim Keller, Luke reframes productivity as stewardship, not self-improvement. He shows how abiding in Christ leads to real fruit, why obedience becomes worship, and how an eternal perspective reshapes daily life.

If you’re tired of striving, burnt out by busyness, or wondering what your work is really for — this conversation will give you clarity, courage, and purpose for the week ahead.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

I want to talk to you a little bit about the idea of what is Christian productivity or a theology of Christian productivity. As we get ready for our year and all of our plans for an amazing, the most productive 2026, most productive year of our lives, I really want to bring us back to a biblical foundation of what productivity means in the kingdom of God. Because there's so much pressure around us to produce, but that can really squeeze us into the world's mould, and it's very easy to just simply flow with what everyone else is doing around you. Matthew 13, this is not in the notes, but Matthew 13, 22 talks about the seed that's sown into our lives, and it talks about how it can be like thorny soil when someone hears the words, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word. So there's this deceitfulness of get more, get more, get more, actually chokes out the word of God in our lives, chokes the work of God, what God wants to do in your life can be choked by the culture of more, more, more up and to the right. And if we don't have a clear foundation of what it means to be productive as humans, then we can certainly be blown to and fro. So this is probably the most expectation of productivity generation ever. Um technology certainly drives us that way where there's a high expectation of output for many people. And many people in this church are extremely high output people. I mean, they are doing significant big things in their lives, and that is very, very exciting. And I want to cheer you on, but I also want to give you a framework of how to keep your sanity in the middle of all that. And one of the big lies that pushes and drives a wrong foundation is this, it sounds harmless, but it's this idea of it's my life. It's my life. And if if that is the foundation, it's my time, it's my body, it's my energy, it's my dreams, it's my pace. Once you believe that, then productivity can get really skewed and really bent out of shape. It can become all about me and what I'm producing for my life and me, and I become the center of all the decision making in my life. And that is a scary place to be. Not just simply better habits for life. Jesus is not like a better way to do life. That's not Jesus. Um, it's not just better systems, but it's a different foundation for our lives. It's a different foundation for living. So here's the big idea is Christian productivity is not simply about doing more things, but it's about stewarding a life that belongs to God. My life belongs to God. And I've been entrusted and empowered, we're going to find out, to live a life that is glorifying to God. And that life is the most fulfilling and will be the most fruitful life that I can live. Um, but it starts from a foundation of this understanding that my life is not simply my own, my life comes from and belongs to God. There is no life without God. So productivity is not about getting more out of life, it's about giving your life more fully to God. So I want to give you just four things, maybe four foundational things. I'm gonna call them roots, okay? So if you think about this picture of you've got a factory on one side, which is maybe the world's culture of production, you know, you put things in, you work them, and you produce them. Um it's it's very mechanical, make machines, it's about getting your dialing in your you know, optimizing life. It's gonna get better, I promise. Um versus a kingdom way of thinking about productivity, which is probably more like a tree with deep roots that go down, that is connected to life, and that life produces fruit. And it's not a stressful process, but it is a natural process of being connected deeply to the roots. And this is the idea of John chapter 15, where Jesus talks about all of my fruitfulness in my life. That's a maybe a more biblical idea of productivity. All of my fruitfulness comes from how deeply connected I am to Jesus and his life. So I'm gonna talk about four roots, four roots that can go down deep that maybe can help us. Number one is you belong to God. You belong to God. This is the origins of productivity. John 15, verse 1. Let's read it together. I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, so that it may bear more fruit. So God's not against a lot of fruit, he wants a lot of fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. This is not a threat, this is a reality. You cannot produce kingdom fruit without being connected to Jesus, the King of the Kingdom. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. So this idea of your life is a uh is a stewardship. God has given you a life as a stewardship, and your connection to him is what brings the fruitfulness into your life. You belong to God. 1 Corinthians 6, it says it this way: you are not your own, you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. You were bought with a price, you belong to God, and that's a voluntary thing. I've given my life to Jesus. I've given my all of my being, I've given it to Jesus. I did that at 14 years old. I didn't know everything that I was signing up for. Um when God would call us overseas to plan a church, and God would call us to do this, and our life has been one after another, a constant yes to the call of God. That's been our life and a great blessing in our life. But definitely I got this revelation as a very young person. My life is not my own, and following Jesus is the best life that I can live. It's been amazing. Jesus is so incredible to me. This scripture certainly became a really big thing for me. Um, two years ago when I was going through treatment for cancer, I had this sense of I knew that I couldn't produce anything. I was, I felt really useless. Like I can't produce anything. And so much of that is attached to our identity as people. Much of even in leadership, this is magnified, is people will love you for what you're able to produce for them. As a boss, it's the same. As a parent, there's all of these traps of my identity can get wrapped up in what I can produce for other people. And while I'm producing, people will cheer for me. And the moment I'm not producing, people can back away from you. And that can really mess with your identity. Is my worth is attached to what I can do for other people, and that is a very unhealthy place to lead. It's a place where you'll be easily manipulated, it's a place where where you can be abused or mistreated very easily if your identity is attached to producing things for other people. The foundation for us has to be I belong to God. I am loved by God completely right now, before there's any fruit, before Jesus did one miracle, he heard the voice of the Father saying, This is my son, whom I love, in him I'm well pleased. He hadn't produced one miracle, hadn't done one discipleship course, hadn't changed anything in the world, and he was 100% completely loved by God. That's the foundation for productivity. It's not when I get the big business bigger, then I'll be, then I'll then I'll that hole in my heart will be filled. No, it won't. Or one day when I get I get married, or one day when that that's when I'm gonna be happy. No, it won't. And some of the people here who have lived a life a little bit can tell you that. No, belonging starts with the heart of God, it starts with receiving the love of God deeply into your life today, right now, before you produce anything. This is the foundation of healthy productivity. We're gonna keep coming back to that because it's so easy to forget, isn't it? The second root is that you are empowered by God. It's not in your own strength, you're empowered by God. This is the source of our productivity. What does verse 4 say? It says, Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it by it abides in the van in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. So it isn't try harder, be stronger, push more, as much as it is stay connected, stay surrendered, stay dependent on God. That's the foundation. And when the fruit of your life shows up, and many of you are living incredibly fruitful lives, God gets the glory, not me. That's the idea. Philippians 2 says it like this for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Meaning, even my some of you guys have drive to make to make incredible businesses, to do great things. Even the gifting to be able to even dream and start those things comes from God. It's all coming from God. And the moment, and the moment I think it's all about me and my strength and what I can do, I've missed something of the grace that's available to me every day. Why would I be a Christian business person and not tap into the grace of God? That seems just weird. I as a Christian, I have an incredible advantage in life to hear the voice of God, to receive the grace of God at any moment and every moment that I walk through leading a business or doing an adventure or trying something new or taking a risk. God is available. Why would I not tap into that? It's available all the time. So for me, for my life, scripture and prayer has become like the engine room of the productivity of my life. Prayer. So many of the things that we have done that have actually been fruitful have come from, not from a strategy meeting, but from the prayer room. It's come from me listening to the voice of God. It's not just one more coaching thing. It's what has God said to me? That's where the grace is, that's where the power is, that's where the energy is to keep going, is what has God said to you. Not what God said to some influencer on Instagram reels. What has God said to you about your life? That's where the power of source is for your life. And my encouragement is to you when you prioritize prayer and listening to the voice of God, God will multiply that time back to you. You will never waste time in prayer. It's never wasted, it's always multiplied back to you. Meaning, in prayer, God saves me a lot of wasted time and multiplies the time. It's the same with giving. Whenever I give stuff, God multiplies that back to me. That's the nature of the kingdom. I don't lose by giving. That's the path towards more fruitfulness. This is the way of the kingdom. Route number three is we exist to glorify God. We exist to glorify God. This is the purpose of my productivity. Why do you want to be fruitful, guys? Why do you want to be successful? Why? Is it because there's a hole in your heart that needs to find some sense of purpose? That's not our foundation. It is to glorify God, that God would be known on the earth. If you abide in me and my words in you, you can ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is verse 7. By this, my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. Let me just set you free to all the dreamers here today. Your fruitfulness does glorify God. It's okay to be really, really good at what you do. To be really successful in what you're doing. It is glorifying to God. It is that's a good thing. As long as we get all these foundations right. Is this okay? I we want people to be wildly successful for Jesus. That's amazing. We're cheering for you. This is a safe place to be successful. Yeah? Sometimes you're in environments where people like you while you're down, but if you start doing well, they'll that they don't really they're threatened by that. That's not this church. You can be successful in this church. We'll cheer for you. We're not threatened by it. We want you to do really, really well for the glory of God. Not for ourselves, not just so I can get me and mine and more. Listen to what um Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 10 says. So whatever you drink and eat, whatever you do, do it for the glory of God. This is our motivation. We want God to be known. We want an invisible God to be made visible in Brisbane, in Australia, together, through all of my work. Dallas Willard said it like this. The theologian he said, to be obey is better than sacrifice because obedience places the whole person before God. So rather than just simply maybe a better formula for us with productivity, it's not just about working harder and harder and harder, it's to come back to what has God asked me to do? What has God asked me to do? And in the middle of that is life and grace and strength and the fruitfulness. So when I get off of that, that's stressful. That's really stressful life. Because whatever I'm producing, I have to sustain myself. But what God is working, there's life in the middle of that. And maybe for some of us who are getting stressed out, that maybe the maybe the opportunity or the invitation is to come back to what God has said and what has God called you to do and listen to that voice. Um, I was talking to a business couple in our church recently, and they told me that they're that they have an amazing business. Um, it's quite a large business, and it was not doing well. It was really struggling. They had a really difficult time, and then they said they started praying together, and they made a decision to really start prioritizing stopping working on Sunday and being in church. That was the decision they made. That's what they felt was the right thing to do in the middle of their like business, really struggling. They started doing that, and they said they come and told me, they didn't tell me that they were doing that. They came and saw me three months later, and they said, I just wanted to let you know that we made this decision three months ago, and our business has completely turned around. I don't know what's changed, but everything has changed. Our business is crushing it. And I said, That that is just like God, isn't it? To do maybe the opposite of what the world would say would be work harder, do seven days, um, don't miss an opportunity, versus come and sit with God's people and let God work well even while you sleep, and the business is doing better than before. That's just like God. That's how he does things. So encouragement to you. And lastly, that here's the root four is we are saved for good work. We are saved for good work. Titus 2, verse 14, it says, He gave himself for us to redeem us and to prev and to purify for himself a people, his own possession, who are zealous for good works. This this word zealous is the word hot. Hot or hot with commitment. Hot with commitment to good works. God has saved us for a purpose. God didn't just bring you and and and come into your life and bring salvation into your life just so that you could continue to live the way you lived before. God has brought you into his kingdom for a purpose. He has great works prepared for you even before you were born, the scriptures say. God had good works prepared for you. And these works are amazing. Tim Keller said it like this Through our work, God is often answering other people's prayers. And I think about some of the people in our church who are building homes. If there was ever if there was ever a prayer of a generation in Australia right now, it's that, how on earth am I gonna get a home? How is this even possible? Cost of living crisis, wages versus interest versus cost of homes. How on earth am I ever going to get a home? You know, some of the people in this church, you are an answer to that prayer. You're an answer to that prayer. I would not be surprised if God gives some people in this room, in this church, some ideas that are so disruptive to the way the normal economy is done that it brings whole generations of people into a place of being able to have homes that they just could never have otherwise. And it's and it'll be a kingdom idea. It'll be an idea from God. That's the kind of thing that God will do through your life. That's the kind of good works that God is building. I hope that's encouraging you. No, not so much? Alright. Keep trying. Ephesians 8, we're almost finished. By grace you have been saved through faith, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand. God has prepared good things for you to do. Okay, and here's the last thought. At the end, I will give an account to God for my work. Okay, this is where it gets a little bit sobering. You were so you were cheering so much before. Let's let's bring it down a little bit, guys. Calm down. This is the motivation for my productivity. Okay. Romans 14, verse 11. As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. This is not a threat, this is reality. When you meet God, you will bow. You won't be you won't be, when I meet God, I'm gonna No, you won't. You'll be flat on your face. In awe of the reality of the nature of the world. God is real. And in light of that, I won't be shaking my fist, I'll be on my knees. That's going to happen, okay? So in light of that, I will give an account for my life to God. And it's not like standing before a judge, it's standing before reality where all will be all will be made known with all the secrets of the heart, all the Motivations of self. It'll all be laid bare. Just simply what is true will be true and will be known. And thank God that He's incredibly gracious. Because this process is not about your belonging in the kingdom of God. It's about what you will bring with you into new creation. I will stand before God. Not to see if I'm accepted by God, that's already decided. God has already decided to love you. He knows everything. Isn't that a little scary? Because some of my thoughts is like if you knew everything about me, you wouldn't like me. But God knows everything about me and loves me more deeply than anyone ever could. That's the God that I'll stand before. So it's not fear of will I be loved. It's a fear of God has given me a stewardship, and what did I do with it? What did I do with that? Everything selfish and empire building will fall away into nothingness, and everything that is done for God and his kingdom will last forever. Nothing you do for God is ever wasted. Matthew 6, 19, this is Jesus' words, strong words. Do not lay up for yourself treasure in heaven. Sorry, treasure on earth. Theology check. Where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourself treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroy, nor thieves break in and steal. Here's the question for me is what I'm building with my life going to last? Or is it simply all about me? Are the treasures that I'm hoarding here? Is it gonna last? Is it worth giving my life to? Um This is something that we we share often with our children. This is often a conversation around the dinner table and around the bedtime discussions. My children love to have long discussions at bedtime. I think mostly so they don't have to go to bed. Um suddenly they get real deep and spiritual and want to have a long talk, you know what I mean? Or they're they're they're like camels and extremely thirsty and need there's there's pl so many reasons why they can't go to sleep. Um thank God for school coming. Um but we spend a lot of time explaining to our children why we are living the kind of life we're living. We are living a life of serving other people. That's the life that we've been called to. And we explain to them why. Why would God ask us to move country to plant a church? Why would we do that? Why would we leave what's comfortable to go and pursue the call of God over and over in our lives? Um because God's plans are huge, and He's invited us to be a part of that, and it's an honor and a joy to be part of that. And one day we'll meet God, and everything that we have done for God will last forever, and that is the hope of my life. It's not about judgment, it's about reward. And the reward in for me in the kingdom of God, in a renewed world, in new creation, will be the people and the people that we invested in, the things that we did for God that lasted forever, that will be that reward forever and ever and ever. So this eternal perspective changes my daily priorities. Okay. Let me finish with this. Um in the end, and maybe at least want to come because I want to give people a chance to respond and I'm gonna pray for us. Um, in the end, in a renewed world where Jesus is king and everything is put right, if that is true, then Christianity is not an escape plan, but it's an invitation to participate, not as a center, but as a loved part of what God is doing to renew the world. That's my invitation. Come. Be part of what God is doing. My pastor used to say to me, this is his recruiting line to get me to come to Japan was leave behind your small ambitions and come and change the world. As a teenager, I could think of nothing better to give my life to. And I feel that there's still the same call here today for us. What small ambitions have I settled for? What small empires am I building when God's invitation is to come and change the world? Come and be part of a renewed world. This is the invitation to the kingdom of God. And whether that's making sandwiches for children at lunchtime or building a skyscraper, it matters not to God. What matters is your yes. God, you have my yes. Not just a yes when I feel good in this moment with a beautiful keyboard playing, but yes tomorrow morning when I don't feel it and I don't I don't feel like I have the energy. But I, God, you have my yes. Here's my life. Take it and use it for your kingdom's sake. I'm here. My identity comes from God. I'm empowered by God, I'm created for good works, for God's glory, and one day it will become very, very obvious my yes when I stand before Him. So I pray that God would expose Hustle culture for what it is and bring us back to a much deeper place of serving him with an eternal perspective of not just more money, more me, more kingdom building, more empire building, but that we would be part of building the kingdom of God. Can I pray for us? And then I'm gonna have a prayer. I have a prayer here to pray over us that um many, many, many thousands of Christians have prayed for many, many hundreds of years. Um we stand together. We pray. Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to you, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly yours, utterly dedicated to you, and then use us, we pray, as you will, and always to your glory and the welfare of your people through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Is to not waste our life building empires that won't last, but to be part of your plans to renew the world. May our work be answers to many's prayers for the good of the people. So fill our hearts, God, with imagination and vision and dreams to make a difference in the world for your sake, for your glory, God, that everyone will know how good you are. We commit our lives afresh to you here, right now. Commit our work to you, our careers, our ambitions, all of the giftings and callings that you've put on our lives, commit them to you. We surrender them to you, God. And we ask, God, only that we would be faithful and obedient to what you've called us to do. And I pray over this church, amazing fruitfulness, unusual fruitfulness, even more fruitful. For some of us here, God is cutting off branches in our lives. Not because he wants to hurt you, but because they're not fruitful. They need to go so that you would be even more fruitful. So, God, pray if there's things in our heart that need to change, God, come in and do that work right now. We invite you, Holy Spirit, change us. We repent of our empires, God. Come and fill us with godly ambition to see your world renewed. Could you just take a moment to respond with God now? Let Him search your heart. Come, Holy Spirit, let God just take a moment to search your heart and show you what needs to go, where the grace is. For some of you, God's reminding you of things that He said to you long ago, calling you back to that grace. Others here are discouraged, and God is saying to you, dream bigger, bigger dreams. Come on, I'm with you. I've called you, I've chosen you. It's time to dream bigger. You're not honoring God with your self-deprecating prayers. God, I'm not good enough. I can't do it. Just not honoring God. His invitation is come on, son, come on, daughter. Have faith. Trust in me. I pray our roots go down deep, God. Thank you all as room. In Jesus' name. Amen.