Working with Purpose

Why do you work? Some people struggle to work faithfully, while others work constantly without knowing what they are trying to accomplish. In this Labor Day message, Pastor Chris Teien explains how ordinary work can become an act of worship and service. Whether you are employed, retired, studying, volunteering, leading others, or caring for your family, God can give purpose to what you do.

In This Message

1. Acknowledge Work as God’s Gift (Genesis 2:15; Proverbs 14:23; Ecclesiastes 3:12–13)

Work existed before sin entered the world. Although sin made labor more difficult, God originally gave Adam meaningful responsibility in the Garden of Eden. Every honest kind of work can contribute to the well-being of others, and we should recognize, enjoy, and celebrate the fruit of our labor.

2. Offer Your Best Work to Christ (Proverbs 27:18; Colossians 3:23–24)

Faithful workers care about their employer’s interests and perform their responsibilities with honesty and excellence. Even when a supervisor fails to notice or reward good work, God sees what is being done. Christians should work willingly because Christ is ultimately the Master they are serving.

3. Use Your Influence to Serve (Proverbs 29:2, 7; Mark 10:43–45)

Authority and influence should be used to help people rather than exploit them. Godly leaders recognize good work, correct without humiliating, take responsibility for their mistakes, protect vulnerable people, and help others reach their potential. Jesus demonstrated that true leadership is expressed through service.

4. Use Your Income to Bless Others (Proverbs 3:9; Proverbs 11:24–25; Proverbs 19:17; 1 Timothy 5:8; 1 Corinthians 16:2; 2 Corinthians 9:6–8)

Income allows us to provide for our families, support the work of God, and care for people in need. Christian giving should be planned, generous, and cheerful, not motivated by pressure. Scripture does not promise that giving will make someone rich, but it teaches that God sees generosity and faithfully provides what His people need.

Main Idea

God does not give us the ability to work and earn merely so we can accumulate more. He provides through our work so we can care for our families, support His church, and become a blessing to others.

Scripture

Genesis 2:15; Proverbs 3:9; Proverbs 11:24–25; Proverbs 14:23; Proverbs 19:17; Proverbs 27:18; Proverbs 29:2, 7; Ecclesiastes 3:12–13; Ecclesiastes 4:8; Mark 10:43–45; 1 Corinthians 16:2; 2 Corinthians 9:6–8; Colossians 3:23–24; 1 Timothy 5:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

Illustrations

• An old lumber mill illustrates the planning, workers, resources, and clear purpose required to produce something useful.

• An Iowa farmer viewed farming and his relationships with workers, vendors, and landowners as his ministry.

• A longtime Virginia choir director and football coach demonstrates the lasting influence of faithful work.

• Walking through a cemetery prompted reflection on how people use their limited time and what they will be remembered for.

• Building a deck provided the satisfaction of seeing and celebrating the tangible fruit of completed work.

• Restaurant employees who know the food they serve illustrate how firsthand knowledge can make someone a better worker.

• Temporary factory work and repetitive tasks illustrate the importance of working for Christ even when a job is monotonous.

• A high-school decision to take easy classes illustrates the long-term value of avoiding shortcuts and continuing to learn.

• Receiving an unexpected $70 settlement check after giving someone $60 illustrates God’s surprising provision.

• Preparing dinner for his wife after she began working nights illustrates how unpaid work can serve and bless a family.

Key Quotes

“Work is a gift from God.”

“Offer your best work to Christ.”

“Even if they don’t see that I’m doing my absolute best, God sees.”

“Use your work to serve others.”

“It’s not that we have to give. It’s that we get to give.”

“What kind of financial seeds are you planting?”

Search Topics

Working with Purpose, Christian work ethic, biblical view of work, Proverbs and work, Ecclesiastes and work, Colossians 3:23, working for the Lord, Christian leadership, servant leadership, workplace ministry, purpose in retirement, quiet quitting, honoring God at work, serving others through work, Christian giving, biblical generosity, supporting the church, providing for your family, Pastor Chris Teien, Rockwell Church.

Full Episode and Transcript

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/19725615

Helping you apply God's Word and follow Jesus in everyday life. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church  Find episode transcripts at Well.faith 

Transcript

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Chris T 0:16

Work. I really enjoy being able to talk about this topic. I like talking about work. I like talking about leadership. I like talking about all these things. It's so practical. Even if you're retired, you still have an opportunity to do something with your days. It would make no sense to just retire and do nothing unless you have some kind of illness that makes it so you can't do anything. But I would think that if you were retired and were blessed with a pension or some form of income, that would set you free to do all the things that you always wanted to do. Think of what you could do as a volunteer. Think of what you could do as a person working with purpose. So think about working with purpose, okay? So here is a made-up picture of an old lumber mill on a river. And so just think about how that used to work in the old days. It's got the water wheel that spins, so that would help turn the saw. And so maybe in the winter upstream, guys are cutting timber, cutting logs, and they're dropping it on the river, and the river's frozen, and then eventually the river thaws, and the timber starts to head down to the lumber mill. And when it gets to the lumber mill, they pull the logs out of the water, and then they start to cut them up and turn them into whatever they need to be turned into. Maybe some of it's going to be used to make a home, or maybe even a church, or school, or furniture, or to heat a home, or so many different things with timber. And they only have so much space, and you'd have to, if you lose your mill, you'd have to figure out okay, how many employees do I need? How much wood do we really need to send down the river? How fast can we process it? And where does it go? Do we have buyers for it? Because the goal would be to be profitable and also to provide an income for your workers, a good living wage for them, because when you're good to your workers, they're good to you, and then you'd be able to experience the knowledge that you did a job well done, that you provided for the local community, and that you had another great season of processing logs. So if that were you and you were in charge of all that, you'd really have to think about okay, what is my goal? And farmers do this too, so they know what to do during different seasons. You might not think they're doing anything when winter is here, but often they're maintaining and upgrading their equipment, they're ordering seed, they're getting ready for the next planting season. And sometimes there's a small break-in between planting and growing, but you have to get rid of weeds and everything. And so then eventually it comes time to the harvest for the harvest. And some farmers will do everything they can to harvest everything as fast as they can, and they don't really care about the Lord's Day. And there's other farmers that are committed to not working on the Lord's Day, saying, I'm gonna head to church, I'm gonna put God first, and I'm gonna let Him take care of it. And so they go through this process, they do this thing, and hopefully when the year is done, they find that it was profitable. I've been in a few farming communities. When I lived in Iowa, there was a farmer in the church that farmed 2,000 acres, and he said, Chris, he said, I don't own all of these acres, I rent them. And there's other people that want to rent the land too, so I need to be really good to the landowner. So my wife and I, we bring Christmas presents and all sorts of things to let those people know we care about them and we're happy to rent their land. But he said, I have to have more equipment so I can farm more land, but I really need more land because I have all this equipment. And he said, Every day I wake up and he gave me the number. I'm this much money in debt, and I have to figure out how to get it all paid for to make it profitable. He had a business master's degree in business from a Christian college, from a Christian university. He said, This is my ministry. My ministry is farming, but it's also ministering to the laborers I hire, and to my vendors, and to the people we rent from, and all of these things. That's my ministry. That's where I get to connect with people that the church might not be able to connect to. So we have the person running the sawmill that's got to think about big picture. What am I doing? How much am I gonna do? How is it all gonna work out at the end so that everything is the way it should be? Because if I'm just gonna stack up wood, that's not gonna do anybody any good. Get too much, too many logs coming down the river, and that's gonna create a problem. Get too few workers, and the ones that he has are gonna wear out, and if you get too many workers, they might not have enough work. All those things. So you think that through. The farmer was thinking it through. And what about you? Are you thinking it through? Are you thinking about what you do with your time? As I'm getting older, so I mentioned before that random children now just walk up to me and call me grandpa. That's kind of fun. But uh anyway, as you think about that, as you think about your life, you really want to think about what are you gonna do with your time and what you could do to make it better for better results. And the older people tell me that when you get older, it's not just about time management, it becomes a thing about energy management. It's like, okay, think about the project you want to do and how you want to get it done, and how you have a how you're planning to have enough energy to get it all done, because you're not a young man anymore. And so you think that through. And so I found it really interesting as we're going through Proverbs. I thought we'd throw in some from Ecclesiastes, because Solomon wrote most of them. And I also wanted to point out that some of the things, some of the verses we already mentioned over the summer when we talked about finances and things. But you don't, I don't want to just skip over them. But one of the questions I have is why do we work so much? Now, Labor Day really celebrates the American laborer. Maybe it's a time to talk about resting from labor. I'm not going to talk about resting from labor a lot today, but it is wise to think about why we work. Some people love work. I like work. I like working. I do not know what I would do if I didn't have an opportunity to do work. And so it is a good thing to be able to accomplish things. Some people just work and work, and that is a good thing because in 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul says, We gave you this command, those unwilling to work will not get to eat. If you don't work, you shouldn't eat. Now, this doesn't apply to somebody that has some physical ailment that makes it so they can't work. But if you're an able-bodied worker, you should be doing some kind of work and earning an income and stuff so that you can eat. There's this thing called quiet quitting. And from what I understand, quiet quitting doesn't mean that you quietly walk away from your job and never return. Quiet quitters are people who show up and they do the job that was in the job description, but they will not do any more. That's all they're doing. They're not thinking of how to make the company better, they're not thinking about how to improve ideas, they're not really pulling for the team. They're just doing the bare minimum of what they have to do to have the job. And if there's extra work or overtime needed or whatever, they're not doing it. And I read that one of the biggest reasons why people quiet quit is because of poor leadership, because of leaders. They feel that the leader doesn't care for them, or they're not rewarded for their time, or they're not compensated well for what they do. They've tried in the past to try to help the team get ahead or be encouraging, and it wasn't well received. They didn't find the results. So they're just like, well, whatever, I'll just do the bare minimum. And that's not a good way to be in a company, and that's not good leadership. The best leadership is where maybe you're the owner or the manager or whatever, and you've got a team around you, and you encourage them, and you do everything you can to help them be to be successful and have what they need, and if they have a special family thing to make sure they have the time off, and just to do everything that you can to help them succeed so that they know that you are for them, and those people will go the extra mile, usually will go the extra mile to help you succeed, to help the company succeed and to move forward. And it's a good thing, it's a fun thing when you're in a situation like that to work. There's another interesting thing, though, that Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes. He wrote, This is the case of a man who is all alone, without a child or a brother, yet who works hard to gain as much wealth as he can. But then he asks himself, Who am I working for? Why am I giving up so much pleasure now? It's also meaningless and depressing. This guy's not a quiet quitter. This guy is working, working, and he's experiencing the reward and stuff. He's accumulating stuff, but he's got no one to share it with. He's got no children, he's got no family, he's got no brother. He's just accumulating and he's starting to ask himself, why am I doing this? Why am I spending so much time just trying to get more and earn more and accumulate more and acquire more? And so you got two sides of the coin. You got some people that need motivation to work. You got other people that just work too much and they don't even know the reason why they are working. But work is a gift from God. Work is a gift from God. We need to receive work as God's gift. So work came before Adam and Eve sinned. When Adam and Eve sinned, then God cursed the ground and it made it harder, and they had to work from the sweat of their brow. But remember what Adam's first job was? He got to name all the animals. That was one of Adam's first jobs. And then they got to tend the garden and all that stuff. But work is literally a gift, and it is a good thing. Genesis 2.15, the Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. Can you imagine how fun that could be to be in the Garden of Eden and be working it and watching over it and not having to worry about weeds and having everything work out? What a joy to be able to do that. And that's what God allowed Adam, the first man, to do. Work is a gift. Think about your work and the gift of work that you have yesterday. Sheila's not here today, but Sheila's father-in-law, Dallas Franzen, was Virginia High School's choir director and junior high football coach for 30 years. And so we had a memorial service for him and his wife, Joanne. And so just to think about his life and how amazing that was. I mean, maybe you remember some of the choir concerts and the impact that he made. But I just think it's absolutely amazing that you would work with high schoolers for 30 years in music. Amazing. But so he lived his life, and that's one thing that he was known for, other things too. But when you live your life, what will you be known for? As the family, it was a graveside memorial, as the family was talking and gathering and stuff. I was walking around the cemetery over there across from the hospital in Virginia, kind of looking at the different tombstones. And some people lived a really long time, some people's lives were short. Some people were mysterious. There's actually a bunch of headstones that just have people's first names. One of them just says mother. There's another guy that was a recipient of a medal of honor and a purple heart buried there, but his headstone isn't bigger than anybody else's. And to think about your life and how you are living your life and what you are doing for work. Work can be a really helpful thing. We need people to work so that we can all benefit from it. We all work together, we have different skills. So currently, on the range, our experience has been, it's really hard to find a good dentist that takes your insurance. So some of the medical clinics now don't even have doctors. There's no doctor in the place, just a nurse practitioner and whatever. And so need more doctors. It's really hard to find a plumber or an electrician or just all these different services that are needed. And if all these people had all these different skills and we all worked together and we all did our skill, that makes for a really good society. You know, when you've got the baker and you've got the person who runs the grocery store and the person who runs the hardware store, and you know, just all those things, they all come together and they provide for each other's needs. And that can be a good thing. It provides jobs so that people can earn money, so that they can provide for themselves and their family. And when an economy is good, it benefits everybody, and that can be a good thing. Different jobs have different levels of esteem. You know, if you're a doctor, people think, a doctor, oh, so highly esteemed. If you're a custodian, people think, oh, well, you're just a custodian. But actually, think of the blessing the custodians are when they keep things clean and they think and they keep it all together. Retired people often have a lot of wisdom and skill that you wouldn't know unless you started talking to them and they started to tell you about what they did for jobs, sometimes many jobs, the skills that they have, the knowledge that they have, it can be a really great thing. And so to see work as a gift, and we come to Labor Day to thank God for the opportunity to work. And I've said repeatedly, if you absolutely hate your job, pray for another one. Go get the skills you need to get a different job. There are some people who downgrade themselves on purpose. They're like, Well, I am a nuclear medical technician, but I don't really like it. So I think I want to become a teacher. And they're willing to downgrade their salary and everything else and to walk away from one for the other, things like that. Sometimes people, well, it sounds like a Hallmark movie, actually. They quit their big city job and they move to a small town. So we won't go there. Proverbs 14, 23 says, All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. So I mentioned this in the message on finances or money, but you gotta get to work if you want to see a profit. You've got to do something, you can't just talk about it. So actually, sometimes if you have a really great invention and you talk about it too much, somebody will steal your idea, and then you won't get that profit. But basically, okay, what is it that God is calling you to do? And is there an open door? And can you do it? Maybe you're going to start a new business venture, and it is going to be very profitable for you. And because you've had years where you didn't have much money or profit or you worked for someone else and it didn't go very well, maybe God's going to bless you with that new business adventure. You're going to hire people and you're going to treat them just like you wanted to be treated. You're going to care for them. That is a good thing. But working, working is something that God has given us, and we should enjoy it. So again, Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 3:12, so I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God. Isn't it a great thing when you do work and then you look back and see the fruits of your labor, the things that you did? Or being a pastor, so they always say pastors should have hobbies on the side. I don't really have any hobbies. But when you're working with people, especially as a pastor, you can't always tell their spiritual growth. Sometimes they seem like they're doing really good, and then you can't tell. Did they fall away or what's happening? When you make stuff, like I built a deck for my wife a few years ago, you could look at that and say, Oh, she liked it. Look back and say, Yeah, that's awesome. We made that, and that stands, hopefully it stands for quite a while. But work. Work is an opportunity to encourage people, work is an opportunity to solve problems. Work in ministry is an opportunity to help people grow closer to Christ. But we should all celebrate our work. Sometimes when you finish a big project, or when you go through a hard time, or you reach a goal, or you complete a difficult season, it's a good time to stop and celebrate that. Celebrate that, you know. Sometimes my wife and I reach the end of a certain goal or whatever. Well, I'll go to the store and get something to put on the grill, and we'll have a good steak and celebrate that. But you get through the hard time and you say, if I can just get this done, if I can just get through this, if we can just get through the Christmas season or whatever it is, you celebrate that. And that is part of the reward. So, number two, offer your best work to Christ. Offer your best work to Christ. I think I say this every week before Labor Day. But when you do your work, to know that you're working as for the Lord, that he sees. Interesting, in Proverbs 27, 18, it says, as workers who tend a fig tree are allowed to eat the fruit, so workers who protect their employers, employers' interests will be rewarded. What I understand is fig trees just don't grow easily by themselves. Someone's got to attend it, keep the weeds out, you know, do everything they can to get those figs to produce valuable fruit. And then part of their reward is they get to eat some of the fruit. That's a good thing, actually. I think that if someone works in a restaurant, okay, say I'm the say I'm the restaurant owner. I'm gonna make sure that my staff has tried every meal and they're gonna tell me what they think about it and what could be done better and how they're gonna explain it to the customer. I always think it's strange when you walk into a restaurant and you ask them about this, and they're like, well, I've never had it before, I don't know. And so there was a time in my life, and maybe I should do it again, but I was like counting calories and trying to stay on track of everything, and going out to eat was a big deal. And so we'd go to a different restaurant and I'd say, tell me, tell me what you're known for. What's your signature dish? What is the thing that is the absolute best here? I want that. And then they would say, Well, it was founded on this company was founded on this hamburger here, and I'm like, give me that. And so when we're knowledgeable, when we are able to share in the produce or what we're making or what we're building or whatever, it can help us to actually be better workers. Workers who protect their employers' interests will be rewarded. How could you do that? Think about how you could do that. Okay, you know, they see something, say something. If you see some kind of safety problem, to hopefully your boss or employer would be happy to hear about it and say this is dangerous. We should fix this or we should do this, or we could save a lot of money if we did this, or I think that your vendor is stealing from you, or whatever you can to protect your employer's interests can be good. They'll see your loyalty, hopefully, they'll reward you for it. I have heard a few times where an employee has brought up that something is unsafe and the person in charge didn't want to hear about it. But I don't know, do your best. God sees, God cares, God can help you get another job. But Colossians 3.23, work willingly at whatever you do as though you are working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the master you are serving is Christ. I always loved that, especially when I was doing jobs that I absolutely did not like. Sometimes the job was just temporary, but it was just so much monotony. I do not like monotony. I've met, I was a temporary during work construction, and when it was raining or whatever, I would go be a temporary and make stuff, like hood ornaments or whatever in factories. And so I didn't really care for that. I'm not the kind of person that can do the same thing over and over again. There are some people that thrive on it. They're like, yeah, put me on the assembly line, let me put that cap on there. That's what I want to do all day is just twist that cap on. Oh, eight hours of that, I feel fulfilled. And me, I'm like sitting there trying to figure out how to invent a different cap or a machine to put the cap on, because who wants to put the cap on all day? But if you have to do it the best you can, do it the most efficient you can, do it the way your employer wants, and say to yourself, Well, even if they don't see that I'm doing my absolute best, God sees, God cares, God can reward, and that can be such a good thing. Such a good thing to show God how much you value Him by being a great worker. What's funny now is you don't often realize how many video cameras are all in different. Places. Sometimes it's hard to even tell that the cameras are recording. And sometimes your employer might catch you doing good things in the right way. And it might really make a difference. Think about the mechanic who repairs a vehicle serving Christ. I had in high school, I took all the auto mechanics classes, and for a few weeks I worked at an auto repair shop. And so some of the guys were telling me that we work on a commission here. The more you sell, the more you get. And here's how you can sell more on this car. And that's not very helpful when you're breaking things on people's cars so that you can charge them more. So obviously, I wouldn't do that. But what if you just did the best you could to repair what needed to be repaired? The best way that you could to care for the customer and trust that more work will come in. God sees that, and then you don't have to feel bad about cheating someone. Or what about a student who is doing their homework and taking the test without cheating and doing all the things that they need to do in the right way? So I regret when I was in high school. So I grew I mentioned before I graduated when I was 16, but I really could have graduated a semester earlier because I had enough credits. But I was working at hard used a lot, trying to earn money to go to Bible college, and I talked my guidance counselor into taking some easy classes so they wouldn't be bothered with homework. So I took an easy history class, I think in an easy economics class, which was a total waste of time because they were open book and they graded on a curve. I literally walked in the room and just opened the book and filled out the thing. Probably should have applied myself a little more. I was a little bored, but I thought that it was good to take a shortcut. But I encourage you not to take that shortcut, to do the hard training, to get more skills, to learn things that you wouldn't have known otherwise, and to keep learning. So even if you're retired, to keep learning. Technology is always changing, things are always changing. You can keep learning more and more about how to teach the Bible and Bible study methods and find those things that you're passionate about, and then figure out how God wants to use that in you. What a good thing to work as to the Lord. Number three, use your work to serve others. Use your work to serve others. The things that you can do, the things that you might do for work, to see that as a way to serve others. Proverbs 29, 2 says, when the godly are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked are in power, they groan. So what kind of leader would you be? If you were the supervisor, the boss, or whatever, would the people be rejoicing or would they be groaning because of the way that you treat them? You can correct people without humiliating them. You can recognize good work and tell people they've done a good job. You can take responsibility for your own mistakes. You can give credit where credit is due and do everything you can to keep that team aspect that it's not just me, it's not just you, it's all of us together, all working together, making a difference. So when the godly are in authority, the people rejoice. Be godly and let people rejoice. Which led to another proverb that I thought was interesting that says, Proverbs 29:7, the righteous person knows the rights of the poor, but the wicked one does not understand these concerns. I mentioned this before, but as I was thinking about this more, it's like, okay, so the wicked person is going to do everything he can to try to get everything out of this person and pay them as little as possible. Maybe not give them any benefits. Or maybe there's benefits available and not let them know that they're available and just think, well, you should have read your employee handbook. Too bad for you. If you don't claim it, then I get more, it's just more profit for us. But the righteous person, again, not everybody that's poor is poor because they aren't smart. Sometimes people are poor because of their situation. Sometimes people are poor because they're super smart, but they took a lower position. Sometimes people are poor because they're giving all their money to support somebody else, an ailing family member or something like that. Sometimes people are poor because they were ripped off by someone else or whatever. But the righteous person sees these poor people and tries to do whatever they can to make sure that they get everything that should be coming to them. A righteous person can take a poor person and say, Hey, do you realize that there's these benefits and these tax deductions and these resources and these things you can get for free? Andor in our company, we offer this retirement plan, you just have to sign up for it, or we have these benefits, or this training, or I think that if you were to take these courses and get this certification, I could pay you a lot more. Would you be willing to do that? I'd be excited if you did that kind of encouragement. Is the righteous person showing they care for the poor person, caring for their rights, maybe doing something to protect them and help them. We could talk all day about that. But just think about the authority that people have over. I mean, the teacher has authority over a student. Sometimes people with a lot of money have authority, the kind of authority that if they make a complaint, could get you fired from your job, kind of authority. But don't be wicked, be righteous, and that would be a blessing. Mark 10, 43. Jesus says, Among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came to be not to be served, but to serve others and to give his life a ransom for many. Jesus sees how we lead, and to be a servant leader really makes a difference because you're giving yourself take care for others and being a servant leader. So it doesn't mean that you do every demeaning task, task that no one else does. It just means that you are putting people's concerns, their concerns, not really above you, but you're paying attention to them and helping them to succeed. You're serving them, you're caring for them, you're thinking about their lives, their family, their potential, and it's a good thing. All right, number four. Number four, use your income to bless others. So I mentioned this to you. When we have an opportunity to get income, we have an opportunity to help support kingdom work. We have an opportunity to bless others. And I get so tired of people talking about reasons not to give. When we worship Jesus, who gave his life a ransom for many, who sacrificed everything because we were bought at a price, so we're supposed to honor God with our body and our lives. It's not that we have to give, it's that we get to give. That we get to give. But Proverbs 3, 9 says, Therefore, honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first produce of your entire harvest. So that's what the farmer does. The farmer, the harvester, gives God the first part and then trusts that the rest of it will come in. I read this before too, but in the finance message, one person gives freely, yet gains even more, another withholds unduly, yet comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper, whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. I have heard from business owners who have tithed on their business that this is true. I have met people who said it was their goal to outgive God, and they just kept giving and giving, and God kept blessing them with more. Now, this isn't a message that says that if you give, God's gonna make you rich. God might not even give you any more money back, but he might give you something else. He might give you opportunity. There's definitely reward in heaven, but a generous person will prosper. And so some of these wise, old financial people that I respect say it comes down to not how much are you going to give God? It comes down to how much do I need to keep for myself and what can I do to build God's kingdom with the rest. I mean, to give to the church, to give to people in need, to help fund ministries and ministers. Many people don't realize that in the church often their pastors are one of the highest givers, the ones that talk about giving, they're like, oh, the pastor doesn't give anything, so why doesn't he care? Why does he care? But actually, if you check with a Christian tax accountant for ministers, he would tell you that a lot of ministers are very committed to giving God and offering tithing, putting God first with their finances, living out what they share, what they preach. So, Proverbs 19, 17, whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and he will reward them for what they have done. So think about that. When you are kind to the poor, when you are sharing with the poor that you're lending to the Lord and He will reward you for what they have done. There's been some time, I don't have a ton of money to give to every single person that comes along in need, but there's been times where I've given, and I'm like, I don't really have that in my budget, but I've given it, and then somehow it's come back to my surprise. One time I got a class action lawsuit check for breaks on a car I had years ago for like $70, and I had given somebody $60 earlier in the week I didn't have. So it's pretty cool. If anyone does not provide for his own family, especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. So you got to provide for your family, you've got to provide for your household. That is a priority. So you can't give everything away, obviously. You've got to provide for your family, and then you move from there. First Corinthians 16, too, on the first day of the week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, saving it up so that when I come, no collections will have to be made. So Paul was saying we're taking up an offering for this church in need, for these people in need. And today the church still practices that it is a good thing to be able to budget and to put God first with your finances. Again, you can't pay your way into heaven. God owns everything, but he can bless you for being faithful with your finances. And I shared this, I think, even last week. But the farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. The one who plants generously will get a generous crop. You must each decide in your heart how much to give, and don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure, for God loves a person who gives cheerfully, and God will generously provide all you need, then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. So a farmer who ate all of who took all of a seed and he ate it back in the old days, that would be like suicide. They wouldn't have any seed for the next year for a crop. So he needed to save some. But when that seed is planted, it makes a big difference in the crop. And so what kind of financial seeds are you planting? When you look at your income or whatever you have, and some people's income is limited, but other people have an opportunity to make a lot, and some people you won't even know it. Some people have a lot of money in savings, and they're not touching it because they might need it someday before they die. And then they die, and then their kids or the state fights over it. But anyway, the Bible talks a lot about money, it talks a lot about giving, it talks a lot about work. And I hope that no matter how old you are or what physical condition that you're in, that you will wake up every morning with a plan of how you are going to work, what you're going to do. To come up with your plan and to work your plan and to do your work and to see results. And at the end of the day or week or year, you look back and you see what you accomplished, and that God knows what you're doing and why you're doing it, and He's just pleased. And you might not always get a check. My wife was, she stayed at home with our kids and homeschooled, and she's so valuable. But she'd always have dinner ready for me when uh came home. The worship team can come up here. She did all that, that was great. And then eventually all the kids were all through school and everything, and so we started the empty nesting, and she got a job, and she was working at nights, and so then she would come home and I flipped it around and I would have dinner ready and I'd have it on the table and all ready to go. And when she was late, I'd be like, What's taking you so long? My dinner's getting cold, just like she did to me. And but it's just such a wonderful thing to be able to do work and to have that opportunity to be a blessing, to bless others and to see God reward. So let's pray, Jesus. I thank you for these people. I thank you for this time. If anybody here doesn't know you as our Lord and Savior, I pray that they would grab one of the How to Find God New Testaments and look in the front cover there in the front pages or talk to me. But I pray that some of this might connect to our hearts and our wallets and that in our work ethic, and that this would be a good day in the life of the Christ follower in Jesus' name. Amen.