WEBVTT 00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:01.439 So it is election week. 00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:03.680 Perhaps you're super dialed into that. 00:00:03.839 --> 00:00:05.440 Maybe you care a lot about it. 00:00:05.599 --> 00:00:13.759 Like if you're it's all you've been thinking about since you woke up this morning, or perhaps you're not as dialed into it and um you don't care as much. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:17.120 Perhaps we're probably most somewhere in between those two. 00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:20.640 Um but most likely you'll feel some anxiety, some stress. 00:00:20.800 --> 00:00:26.399 You'll be watching the news, and you can feel yourself getting more and more riled up for whatever reason. 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:34.079 And so I just want to take a moment for us as a church to pray for the election, for our leaders, and for our own hearts. 00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:35.520 Let's pray together. 00:00:35.840 --> 00:00:51.679 Heavenly Father, we come before you and we, as a church, we pause to remember and to proclaim that you are the king of this world, that you are King Jesus, we have one King, and it is you. 00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:57.840 And for that we are so very grateful, so very grateful that we have true freedom. 00:00:59.119 --> 00:01:03.920 We're also grateful for the country that we live in that we can gather to worship with freedom. 00:01:04.480 --> 00:01:06.239 We're grateful that we have a vote. 00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:11.760 We're grateful for the people that paid a price for us to have this. 00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:18.079 We pray as we go to vote this week that you would give us great wisdom and discernment. 00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:22.480 We pray for our election and for our leaders that would be honoring to you. 00:01:22.719 --> 00:01:32.319 Grant that our government will serve your purposes under heaven, unite our country, protect our sacred liberties and rights, and defend us from every evil. 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:37.599 We pray that you would strengthen our country as a foundation of moral clarity and civic unity. 00:01:38.400 --> 00:01:44.719 And all of this we pray for your honor, for your glory, and we pray it through the name of Jesus. 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:45.680 Amen. 00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:56.400 Well, this year Pew Research surveyed and found that people in higher salary jobs are more satisfied with their job. 00:01:57.280 --> 00:01:58.000 Big surprise. 00:01:58.400 --> 00:01:59.280 I'm not sure. 00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:00.959 Did that take a survey? 00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:02.159 Did it take research? 00:02:02.239 --> 00:02:06.879 Maybe somebody was getting paid a lot to do the survey, so they were satisfied in their work. 00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:17.680 As well, a Gallup survey, only 30% of us think that our work is tapped into the thing that we do best. 00:02:18.319 --> 00:02:27.840 For example, the thing I do best is to fly fish in a western valley, have a good beverage, have a dinner. 00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:29.039 And I'm not doing that right now. 00:02:29.120 --> 00:02:32.719 So I'm in the 30% that doesn't feel tapped into, right? 00:02:32.879 --> 00:02:34.240 So maybe you're in that 30%. 00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:37.919 So we have frustration with our work. 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:47.680 As well in that Gallup hole, only 18% of employees said they're extremely satisfied in their work or their job. 00:02:47.919 --> 00:02:53.039 So that means about one in five of us are not extremely satisfied. 00:02:53.120 --> 00:03:00.960 The rest of us are somewhere between, you know, eh, eh, you know, just kind of like two, two, like, oh, this is horrible. 00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:07.840 But only one in five of us are going, like, this is fantastic, this is amazing, I'm in my calling, I have right where God wants me. 00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:10.879 Like the rest of us have all this, we have frustration with our work. 00:03:11.039 --> 00:03:21.280 So maybe that's you, or maybe you work in the home as a parent or retired, and so your work is your home, your work is your family, your work is volunteering. 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:24.159 And so today I want to talk a little bit about our work. 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:26.879 Now, we've been studying our way through the book of Colossians. 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:32.240 We've been learning those promises we have in Colossians 1 and 2, everything we have in Jesus. 00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:44.639 All these, the full forgiveness of Jesus because of the cross, the full righteousness of Jesus because of the cross, all the worth of the identity we have, that we don't have to use the world to know we are a secure, worthy person. 00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:49.360 All of that is lavish in one and two, and then we start to get these applications in three and four. 00:03:49.520 --> 00:03:56.080 We've been talking about loving others, our marriage, parenting, and now Paul comments on work. 00:03:56.400 --> 00:04:02.719 What we've been saying is how we should live is fueled by what is already true about us. 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:07.599 So how we should work is fueled by what is already true about us. 00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:16.720 Point number one is this we are beloved sons and daughters of the Heavenly Father before we are our roles and practices. 00:04:17.199 --> 00:04:21.839 We are already a beloved son and a beloved daughter before we ever enter our work. 00:04:22.879 --> 00:04:25.279 That's what Paul's been teaching us. 00:04:25.680 --> 00:04:30.879 Now, for Paul to talk about work in Colossians, he has to talk about slavery. 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:41.120 The word uses bondservant because this slavery is more like indentured servanthood than the new world race-based slavery we tend to think about. 00:04:41.519 --> 00:04:48.399 This Greco-Roman slavery, it was not the kidnapping and the abuse of New World slavery. 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:50.879 Greco-Roman slavery was not ideal. 00:04:51.120 --> 00:04:55.360 It was not freedom, but it was not new world slavery. 00:04:55.600 --> 00:05:00.000 These slaves that Colossians is speaking to, these slaves were paid wages. 00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:04.399 They were not allowed to quit or to change employees, employers. 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:07.040 The slavery was more that indentured servanthood. 00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:09.759 They were in slavery average of 10 years. 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:10.800 They were stuck there. 00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:12.560 So maybe that feels exactly like your job. 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:15.120 You're like, that actually, I understand now. 00:05:15.279 --> 00:05:16.240 That's me. 00:05:16.959 --> 00:05:22.879 Slaves might be prisoners of war, they could be criminals, or they could be a person working off their debt. 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:36.000 And what we see in Colossians, and we see it in Ephesians 6, and we see it in 1 Corinthians 7, is Paul regularly calls Christian slave owners to a different way of viewing and treating their slaves. 00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:41.680 He calls for a kind of treatment of people that will eventually create the end of slavery. 00:05:41.920 --> 00:05:57.120 So the point is this is that the Bible never called for an abolition of slavery, but biblical theology destroyed the heart of slavery by changing the hearts of the people in the system. 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:05.279 So I say all that for us to enter our passage and begin to pull out of it what it could possibly say for us and for our work. 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:08.079 Colossians 3, verse 22. 00:06:08.319 --> 00:06:19.360 Bond servants obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of I service as people pleasers, but with sincerity of heart fearing the Lord. 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:28.160 Point number two is this God frees our hearts from pleasing people to pleasing God. 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:36.079 Paul wants even slaves to know, even a slave, that they may be a slave, but they don't have to be a people pleaser. 00:06:36.319 --> 00:06:40.000 That they can be free from needing other people's approval. 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:40.480 Right? 00:06:40.639 --> 00:06:49.519 Isn't it exhausting taking your umbilical cord and just continuing to plug it into other people, trying to suck life from them? 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:51.680 Do you like me? 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:53.439 Do you approve of me? 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:54.879 How do you view me? 00:06:55.040 --> 00:06:56.240 Am I approved of you? 00:06:56.399 --> 00:06:57.439 Do you approve me? 00:06:57.600 --> 00:06:57.920 Right? 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:00.800 That is an exhausting way of life. 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:02.959 Colossians 3 23. 00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:09.519 Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. 00:07:10.160 --> 00:07:13.680 After college, I went to work for a construction product company. 00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:16.959 They paid for my seminary and I worked there for five years total. 00:07:17.040 --> 00:07:24.319 I drove 55 minutes down I-85 to an office warehouse behind the Dunkin' Donut in Tucker, Georgia. 00:07:24.879 --> 00:07:26.480 I cleaned out a big closet. 00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:28.720 It was being used as a closet before I got there. 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:30.079 Put my desk in there. 00:07:30.240 --> 00:07:36.639 I mean, do you remember on the office, the TV show, The Office, when Jim moved Ryan's desk into a closet? 00:07:36.879 --> 00:07:38.079 Like, I'm Ryan. 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:39.839 I'm the temp fire guy. 00:07:39.920 --> 00:07:40.319 That's me. 00:07:40.399 --> 00:07:44.079 Like, I'm that was my office in a closet. 00:07:44.399 --> 00:07:46.800 I shipped out engineering notebooks. 00:07:47.120 --> 00:07:48.720 I planned seminars. 00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:52.160 The highlight of the day was the mail would come at 1 p.m. 00:07:52.480 --> 00:08:01.519 and the office manager did the deposit slip, and then he would walk down to my office and hand me the deposit slip and the checks, and I would walk the deposit up to the bank. 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:10.160 So I'd go out the back door, I'd cut through the woods, jump a fence, I'd walk through another office park, cross the office depot parking lot, then go to the bank. 00:08:10.240 --> 00:08:11.759 That was the highlight. 00:08:12.319 --> 00:08:12.639 Okay? 00:08:13.279 --> 00:08:17.600 So I'm just saying that to say I didn't love my job. 00:08:17.759 --> 00:08:21.040 Like I wasn't fulfilled by my job. 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:24.800 I was grateful, but it was not fulfilled. 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:28.959 And my boss was fantastic, which is great because I married his daughter. 00:08:29.199 --> 00:08:32.879 So that was a you know pretty big job perk along the way. 00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:36.879 There was nothing wrong with the job. 00:08:38.159 --> 00:08:40.399 But there was something wrong with my heart. 00:08:40.559 --> 00:08:42.559 Like I needed to learn a lot. 00:08:42.720 --> 00:08:45.279 I needed to learn about waiting. 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:50.559 I needed to learn about joy in the Lord, not in my particular circumstance. 00:08:50.799 --> 00:08:53.519 And I needed to learn this Colossians 3.23. 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:55.919 Whatever you do. 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:01.039 Work heartily as for the Lord, not for men. 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:08.639 Our work is set free because we don't just work for people, we work for the Lord. 00:09:09.200 --> 00:09:14.480 It gives great value and esteem to the very work that you do, whatever the work is. 00:09:15.200 --> 00:09:17.120 Now let's jump to Colossians 4.1. 00:09:17.519 --> 00:09:24.480 Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. 00:09:25.200 --> 00:09:34.720 I love how Paul continues to attach all this horizontal life, all the incredibly practical life, your work, the thing you do, just the job you wake up to, so practical. 00:09:34.799 --> 00:09:37.600 And he keeps connecting it to our relationship with God. 00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:39.360 These things are connected. 00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:49.440 And the more we're secure in God, Colossians 1 and 2, the more that this horizontal, the very practicals of our life, of work, we can go and have a meaningful job. 00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:55.039 That Colossians 4 1, it bridges into our lives and says this. 00:09:55.120 --> 00:10:01.600 Point number three, the call of leadership or employer is to care for those you lead. 00:10:02.000 --> 00:10:05.840 Now it seems basic, but it gets lost when people are difficult, right? 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:07.600 People can be the worst. 00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:09.360 Not you, but other people. 00:10:10.159 --> 00:10:12.720 Not me, other people. 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:23.600 But people can be difficult, or you're trying to reach a goal or make a profit, and we can lose the fact that our call, if you lead anybody's, to care for them. 00:10:24.320 --> 00:10:28.240 In college, I worked summers delivering ice cream and I saved up all my money. 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:30.639 And then in the semester I wouldn't work. 00:10:30.720 --> 00:10:38.399 And so I'd go to class and then I'd go to the Ramsey Center and work out, and then I'd come home and have lunch. 00:10:38.639 --> 00:10:40.080 I'd take a little nap. 00:10:41.120 --> 00:10:42.639 And then I'd study a bit. 00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:45.279 And then I'd go to Intermirfolds and throw frisbee. 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:48.320 There was a lot of frisbee in my college life. 00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:49.759 Lots of frisbee. 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:51.840 It was amazing. 00:10:52.879 --> 00:10:55.120 And then I graduated. 00:10:56.399 --> 00:10:58.159 And nobody told me. 00:10:58.240 --> 00:10:59.200 It's just over. 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:01.360 It's just, it's just awful. 00:11:01.679 --> 00:11:03.360 Nobody tells you. 00:11:03.600 --> 00:11:05.039 It's horrible. 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:06.639 There's no frisbees. 00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:08.480 Frisbees are gone. 00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:13.600 You will never see that many frisbees again in your whole life. 00:11:13.759 --> 00:11:18.639 I mean, 55 minutes down I-85 in the morning to sit in a closet. 00:11:19.840 --> 00:11:21.440 No windows. 00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:25.200 8 to 5, 55 minutes home, then it's dark. 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:27.600 You just like watch a lost episode and you go to sleep. 00:11:29.519 --> 00:11:31.039 That was the day. 00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:36.080 It took about a year, and then I was depressed and I didn't know what to do. 00:11:36.399 --> 00:11:39.519 So I was a young 22-year-old moron. 00:11:40.320 --> 00:11:43.360 The prefrontal cortex has not formed yet. 00:11:43.679 --> 00:11:50.080 And so I asked my boss, who I was not even dating Christy at this point, he was just my boss. 00:11:50.159 --> 00:11:52.320 I said, Hey, can we have lunch together? 00:11:52.639 --> 00:12:05.840 And we never did this, so he knew something was up, and we sat down in a sandwich shop and I said, Um, thank you so much for your generosity in this job, and the company's paying for a seminary, it's amazing. 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:10.240 And then because I'm a moron, I said, I and I I want to quit. 00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:12.399 This was my solution. 00:12:12.639 --> 00:12:13.679 I was quitting. 00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:18.480 And he just kind of nodded along, okay, interesting. 00:12:19.519 --> 00:12:23.039 And he said, Well, how will you pay for your seminary? 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:25.279 I don't, I don't know. 00:12:26.960 --> 00:12:28.080 It'll work out, you know. 00:12:28.799 --> 00:12:31.440 And then he just listened to me whine for a bit. 00:12:31.519 --> 00:12:40.879 Just I think I whined for 15 or 20 minutes, like you know, I and I think what he sensed was this boy is overwhelmed. 00:12:42.159 --> 00:12:46.320 And he just said, Hey, why don't you just scale back your days? 00:12:46.799 --> 00:12:48.320 And let's just see how it goes. 00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:51.919 So I scaled back and later on I scaled back up. 00:12:52.720 --> 00:12:53.919 But I made it through. 00:12:55.200 --> 00:13:00.000 My boss, now father-in-law, he was not defensive. 00:13:00.799 --> 00:13:02.399 He was not offended. 00:13:03.360 --> 00:13:06.159 He listened to me and he cared for me. 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:09.840 He was up, he was a boss. 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:23.039 If you're a boss, if you lead anybody your job, you are called, not just to be their supervisor or their manager, you are called to care for them. 00:13:24.639 --> 00:13:29.120 So, bosses, this means that your employee is no less important than you. 00:13:29.840 --> 00:13:33.120 And you are to provide what is right and fair to them. 00:13:33.519 --> 00:13:37.759 Not just constantly try to squeeze out of them everything you can get out of them. 00:13:38.240 --> 00:13:43.360 Now, if you're the employee, it means that your boss is no better than you. 00:13:43.519 --> 00:13:45.759 Now, they may act like it, but they're not. 00:13:46.639 --> 00:13:47.919 They're not more important. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:53.759 They're no no more word, they're different, they have a different job, but they're no more important than you. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:59.279 And Paul says for you to work with all your heart. 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:06.080 Because you don't just work for them, but you actually work for your Heavenly Father. 00:14:06.399 --> 00:14:09.759 Now Paul speaks to work itself in verses 23 through 25. 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:19.360 Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. 00:14:19.919 --> 00:14:22.559 You are serving the Lord Christ. 00:14:22.960 --> 00:14:28.080 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. 00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:33.600 Point number four is this ordinary work can be sacred callings. 00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:38.720 In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul writes to a church on how to love each other. 00:14:38.879 --> 00:14:55.600 Here's what Paul writes and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. 00:14:55.919 --> 00:15:04.080 He's esteeming the ordinary life, the value of just an ordinary, because most of us are just incredibly ordinary. 00:15:04.799 --> 00:15:05.440 Right? 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:09.200 And most of us work very ordinary jobs. 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:12.159 Most of us are never gonna work in a ministry setting. 00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:13.919 We're just gonna work jobs. 00:15:14.159 --> 00:15:17.679 And those jobs, that work, can be sacred. 00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:27.919 By the 1500s, Paul's thought, that thought of valuing work itself, it was gone by the 1500s. 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:30.480 The church abandoned it, lost the value of work. 00:15:30.639 --> 00:15:34.240 And there was a sharp distinction between the sacred and the secular. 00:15:34.480 --> 00:15:43.600 The church began to teach that if the real spiritual work, the real spiritual people, is in the church and in the monastery, but not the farmer. 00:15:44.799 --> 00:15:46.000 And everyone believed that. 00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:49.360 Everyone believed that the monk was closer to God than the farmer. 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:51.840 But then Martin Luther showed up. 00:15:52.080 --> 00:15:56.960 And Martin Luther said, the farmer's work is as valuable as the monk. 00:15:57.679 --> 00:16:02.080 In his book, God at Work, Gene Edward V, he explains it this way. 00:16:02.159 --> 00:16:07.039 He says, Luther says that vocations are a mask from God. 00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:15.039 That is, God hides himself in the workplace, the family, the church, and the seemingly secular society. 00:16:15.440 --> 00:16:19.679 The priesthood of all believers did not make everyone into church workers. 00:16:19.919 --> 00:16:24.720 Rather, it turned every kind of work into a sacred calling. 00:16:25.679 --> 00:16:30.159 And that is incredibly freeing and relieving and esteeming. 00:16:30.960 --> 00:16:36.480 Veith calls this doctrine of vocation a theology for ordinary life. 00:16:41.120 --> 00:16:52.960 If your work is helpful to others, if it benefits society in some way, then you are loving your neighbor with your work, and then that makes it sacred. 00:16:53.919 --> 00:16:59.840 That is such a rich theology for us, for ordinary life, for what we do day in and day out. 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:01.360 Last point, point number five. 00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:06.079 As we grow more secure in God's love, our work no longer defines us. 00:17:06.240 --> 00:17:09.279 We're finding definition in Jesus. 00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:14.079 That's what Colossians 1 and 2 gives us before we even talk about our work. 00:17:14.240 --> 00:17:18.799 Tim Keller says we often undervalue our work or we overvalue our work. 00:17:18.880 --> 00:17:20.880 If we undervalue it, we just don't care. 00:17:20.960 --> 00:17:22.000 We don't work hard. 00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:24.400 We lack heart and we lack grit. 00:17:25.759 --> 00:17:32.480 Or we overvalue work and it takes functional power over us because it's become an idol, a little g God. 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:36.960 Instead of looking to God for value and worth, we're looking to a job. 00:17:39.920 --> 00:17:46.480 Before I started this church with a group of people, before we started this church, I worked at a very big church down in Atlanta. 00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:47.680 The place is beautiful. 00:17:47.839 --> 00:17:49.920 It looks like the Ritz-Carleton when you go in there. 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:50.720 It's unbelievable. 00:17:50.799 --> 00:17:54.880 You've never seen so much oak crown molding in your life. 00:17:55.279 --> 00:17:56.720 And I loved it. 00:17:57.119 --> 00:18:01.920 The first day I showed up, though, for the interview, all I had one pair of khakis and one button-up shirt. 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:02.799 That's all I owned. 00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:04.880 The khakis were cargo pants. 00:18:05.039 --> 00:18:11.279 So, I mean, it was, I, you know, I was walking into a Ritz-Carleton church wearing the only pair of khakis. 00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:13.759 The only, I was like, hope there's not an interview too. 00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:15.279 Because I gotta buy more clothes. 00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:18.400 And I did, I had to go buy more clothes for the next interview. 00:18:19.839 --> 00:18:26.799 And I got the job, and I quickly realized when I was out in the community, and people would say, What do you do? 00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:27.839 That's what we do in America. 00:18:27.920 --> 00:18:28.319 What do you do? 00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:29.519 That's question number, what's your name? 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:30.000 What do you do? 00:18:30.400 --> 00:18:30.720 What do you do? 00:18:30.799 --> 00:18:33.759 And I would say, Where I work, and people would go, ooh. 00:18:34.559 --> 00:18:36.720 And I would go, Yeah. 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:39.839 Like I loved it. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:40.640 I did. 00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:41.759 I loved it. 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:48.960 I loved when I said where I worked, and people were like, Wow, good for you know, good for you. 00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:53.519 And I just, I just, my ego just blossomed. 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:55.519 You know, I just loved it so much. 00:18:55.759 --> 00:19:00.079 It made me feel important, it made me feel worthy. 00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:04.559 And then I started a church. 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:08.640 And let me tell you, ain't no glory. 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:12.319 The whole church fit in my garage. 00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:15.759 Like, and everyone could have fit in the garage with the stuff. 00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:17.519 The stuff was in my garage. 00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:20.880 This pulpit was in my garage for years. 00:19:21.039 --> 00:19:26.160 And I'd load it in the back of the truck every Sunday morning and drive it up to the preschool where we unstack the. 00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:28.799 Anybody unstack the chairs with me in here? 00:19:28.960 --> 00:19:30.000 Remember the chairs? 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.440 A lot of kingdom work is chairs. 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:37.839 I don't know if you church, like every think about how many chairs there are in this building. 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:43.119 A lot of church and ministries that need a seminary class on chairs, is what they need. 00:19:43.279 --> 00:19:44.640 A lot of chair work. 00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:46.640 And there's just nothing glorious. 00:19:46.799 --> 00:19:49.839 So all that, like, and you'd say, like, where you worked. 00:19:49.920 --> 00:19:52.400 Even now, I'll say, like, but probably you know what I'm talking about. 00:19:52.480 --> 00:19:53.279 Where do you go to church? 00:19:53.440 --> 00:19:54.640 If they go, where? 00:19:54.880 --> 00:19:56.799 And you're like, well, it's by the railroad tracks. 00:19:56.880 --> 00:20:00.880 You know, some real glorious location, you know. 00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:08.240 We love the pull importance and worth from our jobs. 00:20:09.599 --> 00:20:17.039 When we're honest, we probably swing from like undervaluing, like, oh, it doesn't matter, I don't care, to overvaluing, and it means too much. 00:20:17.200 --> 00:20:25.599 And what Paul is teaching us is so profound, because it rescues us from both of those dangers. 00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:44.480 That we can be fully beloved sons and daughters in Jesus alone, fully worthy, apart from any of our production or our work, so that when we come into our work, we're already esteemed and worthy, and we can just work heartily. 00:20:45.440 --> 00:20:47.920 We're not underworking, we're not overworking. 00:20:48.960 --> 00:20:50.799 It's a gospel paradox. 00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:54.880 Only when we find our rest in Jesus can we find meaningful work. 00:20:56.480 --> 00:21:01.440 We have to be at rest in Jesus in order to work for Jesus. 00:21:02.880 --> 00:21:09.519 Now perhaps right here you have a question about that, or maybe you have another spiritual question, and after service, there'll be a pastor down front. 00:21:09.680 --> 00:21:12.160 I'd love to answer those questions for you. 00:21:12.640 --> 00:21:13.440 Let's pray together. 00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:15.920 Heavenly Father, we thank you. 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:22.720 It's in you and you alone that we can find forgiveness, righteousness, worth, and definition. 00:21:24.079 --> 00:21:32.160 Forgive us for the ways that we overvalue our work and try to find justification there and keep looking. 00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:37.680 Forgive us for the ways we undervalue our work and we do not work heartily. 00:21:39.519 --> 00:21:59.440 Help us to live in Colossians 1 and 2 the deep and rich promises of Jesus that define the very core of who we are as your beloved sons and daughters, so that we might come before our work, whether it be in the home, family, volunteering, or the workplace, and we might be able to work for you and honor you with our work. 00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:00.640 In Christ's name we pray. 00:22:00.799 --> 00:22:01.200 Amen.