SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Church.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are ready to go today.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to see all of you here.
SPEAKER_00: It's great to welcome everybody, all of our campuses, everybody online.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, if you are new to this place, we've already said it, but we're so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, my name's Sean, I'm the lead pastor here at Central.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, before we get into the message, I want to ask a question.
SPEAKER_00: I've been asked, answer a question I've been asked like 97 times.
SPEAKER_00: And that is, what's with the glasses?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So um, if you're new, I don't normally wear glasses.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my wife would say he wears glasses all the time, but you just don't see it.
SPEAKER_00: And so I have an eye appointment uh tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: When I was 19 years old, I had an eye injury that was significant, retinal detachment, and they told me, um, you're gonna have cataract surgery really early.
SPEAKER_00: And so tomorrow I have an appointment to get ready for that.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Don't wear your contacts for like four days ahead of time.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what the glasses are for today.
SPEAKER_00: And just to answer that question and what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's funny, on Thursday night I showed up and um I was in the lobby and I found my twin.
SPEAKER_00: Check it out.
SPEAKER_00: I found my twin right there.
SPEAKER_00: It's my mini me.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know who that is, um, that's Cal Jernigan, one of my closest friends and probably one of the most beloved people in the history of Central, formerly pastor before I became a lead pastor, and uh just love that guy.
SPEAKER_00: We were laughing, looking at each other like, whoa, what happened?
SPEAKER_00: He goes, he looks at me.
SPEAKER_00: I've known Cal since 2008.
SPEAKER_00: And he looks at me and goes, You wear glasses?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I have worn glasses around you a million times.
SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, but Cal's gonna be here to preach next weekend.
SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited about that.
SPEAKER_00: You guys love it when he comes.
SPEAKER_00: And so, all of our campuses, let's be here, invite your friends, invite somebody to come.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be talking about an issue next week that I think Cal's had some practice in this last year that I think is gonna be so helpful for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: So please be here for that.
SPEAKER_00: Would be great.
SPEAKER_00: All right, with all that out of the way, let's jump into our series.
SPEAKER_00: We're starting a new series today, and it's called Healthy Hustle.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: The idea of hustle, like when I was growing up, that was associated with sports for me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I get I've heard it a million times, whether my dad from the stands or my coaches yelling, come on, Moore's hustle, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is that whole idea of like get down on defense, get on the floor, get the loose ball, hustle, play fast, play hard, hustle.
SPEAKER_00: We get that idea.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's interesting, that idea of hustle has actually over the years kind of morphed into a different area of life, into the area of work, and it's grabbed a bit of, I would say, almost like an unhealthy connotation to it.
SPEAKER_00: Like the word hustle has grabbed this idea that's a little bit of a negative connotation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we would take it and we would give it almost like a whole association to a certain kind of lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: Like in our culture, we call it hustle culture.
SPEAKER_00: Like people who are, when it comes to work, people are always on, like never off.
SPEAKER_00: They're always hustling, they're always working, they're always on the clock, right?
SPEAKER_00: Just pushing.
SPEAKER_00: And everything they do is about trying to push forward their profession, push forward their success, to be recognized as one who keeps up, one who stays ahead, and one who's successful.
SPEAKER_00: And what has happened over the last few decades is there's this whole idea where we have equated our self-worth with what we accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to how this news executive, um, actually, this news uh writer of, he's a news editor, how he puts it, he says, in a world that glorifies being on the grind, the relentless pursuit of success can become a badge of honor.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm often praised by those around me for being hardworking and relentlessly driven.
SPEAKER_00: People look at me and they think, yeah, he's got his life in check.
SPEAKER_00: Yet behind the scenes, I'm often left pondering how my self-worth has become synonymous with my achievements.
SPEAKER_00: Then he nails the tension.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he says hustle culture equates busyness with productivity, exhaustion with accomplishment, and most dangerously, self-worth with professional success.
SPEAKER_00: Now catch this.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a 50-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: That guy's not a 50-year-old who's been like hustling and grinding for the last 30 years, and all of a sudden he woke up one morning empty and burnt out and like done.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually a 20-year-old college student who's the editor of his college publication who's saying, Man, I'm already feeling the pressure.
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a whole lot of us here sit here and say, Oh, buddy, just wait.
SPEAKER_00: Like it's coming, man.
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole lot more to life, and you're gonna feel that pressure even more and more.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of us that resonate with what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if we step back, maybe not everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Like if we step back right now in this room and in any room watching today, right now, all of our campuses, there's two kinds of people.
SPEAKER_00: Like we could probably divide up into many groups of people, but if we just took it and put it in two groups, there's two groups, and one is that 20-year-old kid.
SPEAKER_00: Like always hustling, always on.
SPEAKER_00: Like, like always on.
SPEAKER_00: You're the first in, you're the last out, and you're the one who hardly takes any time off, or you take time off, but your family would say you really don't.
SPEAKER_00: Like they would say, if you go on vacation, it takes you four days to come down, and you only have a five-day vacation or seven-day vacation, and then you got to go back to work, or they would say, still on email, like still still checked in the job, still thinking about it, always on, and we just get to that moment where we're like, man, it's just all-encompassing.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's another group of people, and the other group of the people are opposite, like haven't always been the opposite, but they would say, probably right now, some of you in this room, some of you in whatever room, you would just say, Hey, I just have to probably admit that I'm I'm mailing it in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm coasting, haven't always been coasting, but somewhere along the line, for whatever reason, I lost my fire.
SPEAKER_00: And I haven't had that fire for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: I check in, I clock in, I clock out.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not really putting in the best effort that I could be putting in.
SPEAKER_00: And both groups, both groups say something's off.
SPEAKER_00: And they're right.
SPEAKER_00: They're right that there is actually something off in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this may sound strange.
SPEAKER_00: After all that I said, just about this hustle culture and this idea of the word hustle and how it's kind of grabbed this negative connotation.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that when you look at our staff values, we have three church values.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus first, people always made for more, but we have six staff values, and one of those staff values is the value, healthy hustle.
SPEAKER_00: We say it like this: we work hard and we have fun while managing multiple high priorities.
SPEAKER_00: And if you come the rest of the series, we're gonna define that, what that means and how that can help in your life.
SPEAKER_00: But what we mean is this here at Central, if you're gonna be on our team, if you're gonna work on our staff, here's what you're gonna do, here's what we're gonna expect, here's what we're gonna require, here's what we're gonna try to model.
SPEAKER_00: We are going to work hard.
SPEAKER_00: Like we're gonna hustle, we're gonna get after it because God has given us the greatest mission in the world, and we're gonna do whatever it takes to accomplish that mission.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna have healthy hearts and healthy relationships in the process.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's actually possible.
SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago, we had a guy named Jeremy Walls.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may recognize that name if you're a business person in the area.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremy is the COO of the Arizona Cardinals.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremy's an incredible leader.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremy is a great family man, and he is a strong person of faith, and he's a good friend.
SPEAKER_00: And we asked him to come speak to our staff on this issue of balancing our relationship with God, man, our relationships with family, and then also our relationship with work and getting after it and working hard.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jeremy was sitting on stage, we got all our staff from all of our campuses.
SPEAKER_00: He's being interviewed by a good friend of his on our staff, Paul Carpenter, and Paul's asking him some questions, and there was this one moment, like he had so many fantastic things to say, but there was this one moment, you know those moments where somebody says something and you just kind of go, you lean in, you're like, okay, tell me more.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to hear more about that.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremy makes a statement.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I've fired a lot of Christians in my day.
SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, What?
SPEAKER_00: Like, tell me more.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Okay, here's here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: I have.
SPEAKER_00: I've fired a lot of Christians in my day.
SPEAKER_00: And some of them, it was because they worked so hard without any rhythm of rest.
SPEAKER_00: They worked so hard, they hustled so hard that they burn out, and eventually they were so burned out that they sacrificed their integrity and their morality, and we had to let them go.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Then on the other side, there are some Christians that, in the name of healthy balance or healthy boundaries, weren't willing to hustle and to work hard, and so we let them go.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said this: He said, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we are called to work like it matters to God, and we are called to love our family like they matter to us and to God.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said this one, I love it.
SPEAKER_00: He said, We can do both.
SPEAKER_00: And guys, that hit me.
SPEAKER_00: Like it hit me and actually stopped me.
SPEAKER_00: I just sat there in that moment and just it hit me like a ton of bricks because of this.
SPEAKER_00: I have never had my work.
SPEAKER_00: I've never had my work questioned because of lack of hustle.
SPEAKER_00: Like never once.
SPEAKER_00: But I can tell you this: I almost got fired for my family and my marriage because I wasn't managing both well.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we're doing this series.
SPEAKER_00: Because I think a lot of us live in one rut or the other.
SPEAKER_00: Man, we're either burned out because we've been going so hard and we're still going so hard, or we're checked out.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think God wants that for our family.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want that for our workplace.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what he's called us to.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we're gonna do over the next couple weeks, next few weeks, is we're gonna ask some questions like, what does it look like to hustle in a healthy way?
SPEAKER_00: Then we're gonna ask the question of what does it look like to rest in a way that recalibrates us to keep us focused on our purpose, but also focus on our most important relationships, our relationship with God and our relationship with the people we love.
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we find a rhythm that helps us do both?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to turn to Genesis chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: What we're gonna do today is we're gonna talk about the issue of work, and I want us to go all the way back to Genesis 1, verse 1, the very first verse in the Bible, the very beginning, to see what it says about God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as you're getting there, whether in your Bibles or your or your Bible app, question.
SPEAKER_00: When you think about God, like if you just get a picture of God in your mind right now, what is he doing?
SPEAKER_00: Like God, right now, when you just think about God, what is he doing?
SPEAKER_00: Most people have this thought that God's sitting on the throne, there's clouds and angels and harps and whatever around, and everybody's, you know, serving and singing and worship songs to God and whatever.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the picture that it gives in Genesis chapter 1, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: It says, very first verse in the Bible says, in the beginning, God what?
SPEAKER_00: God created.
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Before we hear about God's love, before we see any acts of justice, compassion, mercy, grace, any of that, what we see is God creating.
SPEAKER_00: We could say it this way: we see God working.
SPEAKER_00: It says for six days in the creation account, it says for six days that God worked.
SPEAKER_00: Like he created.
SPEAKER_00: He started off and he created the sun and the moons and the stars and the day and the night, the universe, and he created, we know the billions of galaxies, each one of them with billions and billions of stars.
SPEAKER_00: And God worked and he created and he got done that first day, and he said, It is good.
SPEAKER_00: I think God said a little better than that, but it he said, It is good.
SPEAKER_00: And then he got to the second day and he created more, and he went on.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you just go to all the things God created, he separated the waters, he made oceans, he made the mountains, he made the valleys, he made islands and beauty, and he just made all the beautiful things and the animals.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gets to the last day and he creates us.
SPEAKER_00: And every single day when God gets done with his work, he says, it is good.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can almost see God looking sitting back, and God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and God's just like, man, we're good.
SPEAKER_00: Like this is good.
SPEAKER_00: Like we think about what we get to create tomorrow, man.
SPEAKER_00: This is good, this is good.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what we get to do tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: It is good.
SPEAKER_00: God was the original builder, God was the original creator, the original innovator, God's the original worker.
SPEAKER_00: And where it gets personal for us is God says, in if you skip down to verse 26 and 27, it says, in the beginning, God worked, but then it says in verse 26 and 27, he speaks about us.
SPEAKER_00: Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, in the likeness of a God who works, so so that they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that are the creatures that move along the ground, so that God, so God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: In the image of God, he created them.
SPEAKER_00: In the image of God, he created you.
SPEAKER_00: Male and female, he created them.
SPEAKER_00: There's a author, writer, teacher, pastor named Mar uh John Mark Comer.
SPEAKER_00: He he writes a book called Garden City.
SPEAKER_00: I would really encourage you to get this book and to read it.
SPEAKER_00: It's excellent.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about this rhythm between work and rest and how God created us.
SPEAKER_00: But in one of the chapters, in his very first chapter, he tackles this passage and talks about the idea of the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: That you and I were created in the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: He he just tears it apart in the Hebrew language and he uses the word image.
SPEAKER_00: He says that first word, image, is the word Selen in Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: It actually means idol or statue.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so think back, like ancient world, think temples.
SPEAKER_00: You walk into any temple, there would be a statue.
SPEAKER_00: The statue would be a representation of an invisible God.
SPEAKER_00: It was there so that all the worshippers, when they walk in, could get a visible representation, a picture of their God.
SPEAKER_00: We are his image, we are his living statues, making him visible to the world, making the invisible God visible to the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God created, nothing else in all of his creation.
SPEAKER_00: I mean he created the animals, he created with all the creativity, and Adam named them, but the only thing God said is made in his image is us.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's something for you to catch.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a lot of us that would say, well, there's other people that are made in God's image.
SPEAKER_00: Other people represent that well.
SPEAKER_00: No, without doing a thing, do you realize that God said, I created you in my image?
SPEAKER_00: You are a little bit of a picture of me for the world to see.
SPEAKER_00: Then he goes on, John Mark Comer goes on, and he takes the rest of the phrase, the image of God, and he says, in the ancient world, that phrase was used for kings all throughout the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: So take um Egypt, for instance.
SPEAKER_00: Take Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh was called the image of Ra.
SPEAKER_00: Ra was the sun god.
SPEAKER_00: Amon and Ra, he was the image of the sun god.
SPEAKER_00: He was considered to be connected to the divine.
SPEAKER_00: Pharaoh was worshipped, he was considered to be divine, he ruled in place of the sun god, like was connected to him.
SPEAKER_00: And so the people saw him kind of as God.
SPEAKER_00: He was the one who understood the divine in their minds and then relayed the divine's desires to them.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't just Pharaoh, it was like all throughout the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: All of these kings were considered to be connected to the divine, divine themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Now we would probably look at that today and say that's just propaganda, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's just probably a bunch of narcissistic leaders out there.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, it was just that was the way of the ancient world, which the implication was, is that the king was made in the image of God, connected to the divine, and everybody else?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else was nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else was slave labor, and then all of a sudden Genesis comes in.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis chapter one, like from the very beginning, verse 26 and 27, and God says, Let us make mankind in our own image.
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize that you, you and I, no matter where you're sitting, no matter who you are, you are a king or a queen that is put here on this earth to represent the image of God.
SPEAKER_00: And you are called to represent the image of a working God, of a God who works.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of us we get this kind of wrong picture in our mind that work was a result of the fall.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Sin came into the world and God did put some curses.
SPEAKER_00: He cursed the serpent.
SPEAKER_00: Then he also put some curses on man and work.
SPEAKER_00: But what's interesting is work existed before sin came into the world.
SPEAKER_00: Sin comes into the world in Genesis chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Work enters into the world in Genesis chapter 2, verse 15.
SPEAKER_00: It says that the Lord God took man and he put him in the Garden of Eden to what?
SPEAKER_00: To work it.
SPEAKER_00: To work it and to care for it.
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew language there actually carries this idea of taming the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: Like he put he put Adam in and he said, I want you to bring order to this.
SPEAKER_00: And then John Mark Homer goes on and he says, And you realize the very next thing he says is he says, Be fruitful and multiply.
SPEAKER_00: And the implication was that not just Adam was to work, not just Eve was to work, but all their descendants after them.
SPEAKER_00: That every single one of us were called to be a part of this thing with a working God to bring order into this world.
SPEAKER_00: Like we go into the New Testament, here's what we see Paul say.
SPEAKER_00: Paul goes in, and in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 9, he says, we are co-workers with God.
SPEAKER_00: Like it, like if you just step back and you understand what's said in Genesis and all throughout the Bible, what you begin to understand is that you are not just another creation.
SPEAKER_00: You are a co-creator with God.
SPEAKER_00: Which means that your work is worship.
SPEAKER_00: Which means that your work that God has called you to do wherever you are, whether you like that work or not, it is holy.
SPEAKER_00: Where God has you right now, it is an act of worship and co-creation with God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize John Mark Comer talks about this idea that all the ancestors after Adam, what our job was to do, was to bring order into this world and to begin to create with our specific giftings and talents and bring civilization into this world with art and architecture and music, and you just go on down the line to bring all of God's goodness into this world through what you are gifted to do?
SPEAKER_00: Man, I just asked you the question: do you go to work on your Monday through Friday and actually see your work that way?
SPEAKER_00: Like I think it's a good reminder for most of us that wherever God has us, it's an opportunity to worship Him and to work with Him.
SPEAKER_00: And you just say, Well, how do I actually do that in my Monday through Friday?
SPEAKER_00: Colossians chapter 3, Paul writes, he writes the same idea in two different places for emphasis.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17, he says, and whatever you do, not just the spiritual things you do, but whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, your partner, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 23, he says it again Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, not all your effort.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He says, All your heart as working for the Lord, not human masters.
SPEAKER_00: You see, effort is output.
SPEAKER_00: Heart is motivation.
SPEAKER_00: You can hustle all day long and still just be going through the motions.
SPEAKER_00: And what God wants for us from us in our work is that we do it with all our heart, that we bring genuine care, that our purpose comes out in more than just a paycheck.
SPEAKER_00: A couple months ago, I went by a coffee shop in Tempe.
SPEAKER_00: My wife works in Tempe.
SPEAKER_00: She's a teacher at Valley Christian School.
SPEAKER_00: She teaches fifth grade.
SPEAKER_00: And I stopped by, I thought, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get some husband points today.
SPEAKER_00: And uh grabbed a coffee, grabbed her favorite kind of coffee, and I went to uh her classroom, the door was open, I slipped in the back, and she was up front and she was reading the book War Horse.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know what the book War Horse is, there's a movie associated with it too.
SPEAKER_00: It set the scene is in World War I, and it is World War I, the history of it told through the eyes of a horse who just gets goes to different scenes and different battles and different things, different owners, all of that.
SPEAKER_00: So my wife's sitting there one night, and I remember she was saying, Hey, I'm doing this um set of lessons on World War I, and here's what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I think I want, I want to do this creatively, and I want these kids to really catch it.
SPEAKER_00: So I think I'm gonna take the book War Horse and I'm gonna devise a whole unit around this.
SPEAKER_00: And she starts telling me all this, and I'm like, wow, this is so creative.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I walk in and my wife's up there reading this book.
SPEAKER_00: I slip in the back, and there's 25 10-year-olds, fifth graders, there's 25 10-year-olds in this class, and nobody notices me.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just like standing there kind of mesmerized because I'm watching, and all 25 of these kids are locked in.
SPEAKER_00: Like nobody's raising their hand, asking to go to the bathroom.
SPEAKER_00: No boys are poking each other, you know, across the aisle.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's looking at the clock, doing anything.
SPEAKER_00: My wife is up there passionately reading this book, Warhorse, and these kids are just like locked in, except for the two boys in the back.
SPEAKER_00: It was two boys that saw me like after a few seconds, and they looked at me and they realized who I am, and they looked at her, and I was like, shh, don't say anything.
SPEAKER_00: I'm standing in the back, doors here, my wife is up here, her desk is all the way up here, 10 feet from where she's standing.
SPEAKER_00: I walk all the way around the back.
SPEAKER_00: This this is a period of about three minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I walk all the way around the back, I stand and watch.
SPEAKER_00: Then I get all the way around, I stand at her desk for like 30 seconds because I want the husband points, you know, for the coffee.
SPEAKER_00: So I put the coffee down and I just stand there, and these two boys are just watching me, like, what is going on?
SPEAKER_00: How does she not see him?
SPEAKER_00: What's it was he there?
SPEAKER_00: You feel them stressed out.
SPEAKER_00: I'm stressing these two boys.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody else notices.
SPEAKER_00: My wife doesn't even glance.
SPEAKER_00: Guys, I had to text her later to tell her coffee was on her desk.
SPEAKER_00: I walk all the way back around.
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking like she does not notice.
SPEAKER_00: I get to the door.
SPEAKER_00: I just am like, what kind of spell is on these kids?
SPEAKER_00: What is she doing?
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I realize: those kids aren't even there.
SPEAKER_00: Like those kids are somewhere on a battlefield in 1916.
SPEAKER_00: Like, just totally mesmerized.
SPEAKER_00: And I walk out and I'm like, what spell is this?
SPEAKER_00: I realize it's this is not a spell.
SPEAKER_00: This is not even talent.
SPEAKER_00: This is gifting and calling.
SPEAKER_00: You see, my wife does not look at her fifth grade class.
SPEAKER_00: Like, understand, guys, I could not do this.
SPEAKER_00: I could not do this.
SPEAKER_00: I would last 25 minutes, one minute for each kid, and I'd be done.
SPEAKER_00: My wife does not see this as just giving curriculum to kids.
SPEAKER_00: My wife sees every kid in every single seat as an image bearer of God with unlimited potential.
SPEAKER_00: And it's her job to drag it out of them.
SPEAKER_00: So it changes.
SPEAKER_00: When you see your job that way, it changes how you read the book Warhorse.
SPEAKER_00: It changes how you prep on Sunday night.
SPEAKER_00: It changes how you deal with the fifth-grade boy that's struggling not just with the math or the social studies, but he's struggling just with kind of behavior and life and whatever.
SPEAKER_00: It changes how you do everything because you see your work as worship.
SPEAKER_00: You see your opportunity to connect with these kids as an opportunity to honor God and partner with God and create something.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I could not do that.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing: I'm not called to do that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm called to do this.
SPEAKER_00: And my question to you is, what are you called to?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what has God called you to do?
SPEAKER_00: Where has He placed you?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you right now, a co-creator with God?
SPEAKER_00: Like, think about it.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a business leader right now, think about the opportunity you have.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to work.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a CEO or a manager or whatever it might be, you own your own business, you're not going to work just to create a product.
SPEAKER_00: You have the opportunity to create culture, to take people, to take people who have abilities and to begin to drag their potential out of them and not to use people, but to help people become all that God's created them to be.
SPEAKER_00: What you have the opportunity to do is to see your business as your church, and you're the pastor of that church, to see your business as your mission field.
SPEAKER_00: Man, if you're young, you're a young adult, maybe you're a barista, you might be the first warm welcome somebody gets, the first person to say their name every single day.
SPEAKER_00: You're the person who's standing there dealing with people that would never walk into a church that are walking into your coffee shop.
SPEAKER_00: That's your mission place where you get to just receive people with a smile and try to help set their day.
SPEAKER_00: Man, if you if you're a landscaper or a plumber or a contractor, what you're taking is something that's not developed or something that's overgrown or something that's not built yet.
SPEAKER_00: And what you're doing is you're bringing in order, you're building, you're creating, you're redoing something and making it beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: And that's holy work.
SPEAKER_00: The people get to enjoy with their families.
SPEAKER_00: And what you're doing is you're creating on the behalf of God for people to have relationships and connection.
SPEAKER_00: And you may be a stay-at-home parent.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you ever let somebody diminish what you're doing because you're staying home and raising your children because that may be the most important job in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Because what you're doing is you're raising the next generation of leaders.
SPEAKER_00: Andy Stanley said it best.
SPEAKER_00: He said it this way: your greatest contribution to this world may not be something you do, but someone you raise.
SPEAKER_00: Man, what are you called to do?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you placed right now?
SPEAKER_00: What opportunity do you have to be a co-creator with God?
SPEAKER_00: I want to just ask you a couple questions.
SPEAKER_00: A couple questions as we lean into the end of this message.
SPEAKER_00: First is this Do you see your work as partnership with God?
SPEAKER_00: Do you see your work as a partnership with God, as the opportunity to create, to bring your best, to bring your talents?
SPEAKER_00: You you realize that you are uniquely gifted.
SPEAKER_00: And we're not all the same.
SPEAKER_00: None of us are the same physically, but even emotionally and talent-wise and gifting, God has created each and every one of us different.
SPEAKER_00: And what He's done is He said, I want you to come and to create with me.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see your work as a partnership with God?
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the interesting twist in this is if you see your work as a place that you get significance and value, you're gonna put all your effort into your work and you're gonna skimp on other things and other places that are really valuable to you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about this for one moment.
SPEAKER_00: If you go all the way back to that 20-year-old, that 20-year-old already said that our society has ground into him this idea that his self-worth is about what he produces.
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize if you go back to the creation account?
SPEAKER_00: And you look at what God said when he took Adam and Eve and he told them to work, before he ever told them to go work the garden, he placed them in the garden before they ever did a thing, before they worked on anything.
SPEAKER_00: What did God say?
SPEAKER_00: He said they were very good.
SPEAKER_00: That is the one thing in creation that God looked at and he said, You are very good.
SPEAKER_00: Before he asked Adam to do one thing, to partner with him and work, he said, You're somebody.
SPEAKER_00: I think you and I need to understand that we don't have to hustle to be somebody.
SPEAKER_00: We already are created as somebody.
SPEAKER_00: And then what we're called to do is to partner with God.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we become somebody.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we find our value, is when we begin to see what God has gifted us to do, and we follow Him into our work with that and do what we only can do to bring goodness into this world.
SPEAKER_00: And the question is, is do you see your work as that partnership, as that worship to God?
SPEAKER_00: Man, if you don't, I want to invite you to.
SPEAKER_00: I want to invite you tonight to pray about that.
SPEAKER_00: To start tonight before you get into your Monday and to pray and say, God, how help me see my work as a partnership with you?
SPEAKER_00: And then walk into your work tomorrow and start asking the question, God, what do you want me to see and what do you want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: And when you're open to that, man, pay attention and see what opportunities God puts in front of you this week.
SPEAKER_00: Now I do get that there's some of you sitting there today and saying, I don't know if I'm gonna come back to the rest of this series because I'm retired.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I put in my time, I'm done working.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's what I would say to you is you may have retired from your career, but you never retire from your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Like you do not retire from your faith.
SPEAKER_00: Like you understand that your best years, maybe your best years of partnering with God, are in front of you because you've got wisdom and you got time, and we've got young people who need both.
SPEAKER_00: They need to look at you and learn from you and learn from the mistakes that you've made and the things that you've done and things you've experienced and learned.
SPEAKER_00: They need somebody to put their arm around them and say, Hey, let me help out.
SPEAKER_00: Someone to volunteer alongside of them, to work with them.
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize that your life is made from more than just pickleball and golf and whatever you do?
SPEAKER_00: Like you're not dead yet, right?
SPEAKER_00: You got a pulse, you got a purpose, and we need you to step in.
SPEAKER_00: These young people need you to step in and to show you, show them what life is supposed to look like lived in partnership with God.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that last question.
SPEAKER_00: That last question is are you bringing your whole heart to your work?
SPEAKER_00: Just really like ask yourself that question right now.
SPEAKER_00: Just answer it.
SPEAKER_00: Like, am I bringing my whole heart to what I do?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you would say, Sean, well, you don't know the job that I do.
SPEAKER_00: It's monotonous.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the same every day, and I don't know how to keep bringing my whole heart to that.
SPEAKER_00: There's a guy named Brother Lawrence, and Brother Lawrence was in the 16th century.
SPEAKER_00: He was a monk.
SPEAKER_00: He moved into a monastery.
SPEAKER_00: It was interesting.
SPEAKER_00: He's a monk, so his dream was to move into this particular monastery.
SPEAKER_00: And he thought life was just going to be that he would move in and it would just all be like prayer and you know, reading the Bible, and that's what he was hoping for.
SPEAKER_00: Just this holy life of just connection with God, solitude, just kind of being quiet, away from things and people.
SPEAKER_00: He walks in, and the first thing they do, they give him a job and they put him in the kitchen.
SPEAKER_00: He said he hated it.
SPEAKER_00: Like he writes about this and says he hates it because he would go to the kitchen, it was so loud, pots and pans, and all they had to do was clean, and then they're cooking for all these monks, and there's so many demands and whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And he said it's not what I thought it was gonna be at all.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, I would walk into that kitchen, and I felt like that kitchen kept me from God.
SPEAKER_00: So he started praying, and he made a decision that the kitchen was not what was going to keep him from God, it was actually gonna be the place where he would meet God.
SPEAKER_00: And so he changed his mindset so that every pot he washed was an act of worship, and every plate he cleaned was a prayer to God.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said this he prayed this prayer every single day before he went to work.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Oh God, since you are with me, be with me in this my work.
SPEAKER_00: Accept the labor of my hands and dwell within my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Man, what would change?
SPEAKER_00: What would change if we just started this whole thing?
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about rest next week, we'll talk about the rhythm, but what would change if we changed how we viewed our work?
SPEAKER_00: If we saw it as worship, we saw it as an opportunity to serve people on God's behalf and to create something greater in this world.
SPEAKER_00: If you walked in tomorrow morning looking for the opportunity, going, God, what are you gonna do today?
SPEAKER_00: What do you want me to see?
SPEAKER_00: As I do the email, as I file the paperwork, as I do whatever I might do, have the hard conversation.
SPEAKER_00: What's the opportunity you want me to see?
SPEAKER_00: And then what do you want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: you go into your work tomorrow like that, the people at your work are gonna like you more.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna like your job better, and your family might like you better when you come home because you're not bringing the stress and the anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: You're coming home with stories of saying, You want to know what God did today?
SPEAKER_00: And the people at your work and the people in your home might just see more of God this week through you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I just want to lift off all the dads, all the moms, all the grandparents, all the families, all the single people, every person in this room, father, that is gonna walk into their workplace tomorrow, that have relationships, that have a calling, a calling maybe that they don't even realize right now.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that you would help us to see every opportunity as an act of worship to you.
SPEAKER_00: And Father, I pray that would change how we work.
SPEAKER_00: And then, Father, I pray as we go through this series that our families, our relationships, our parenting, our marriages, that they would be healthier because we are figuring out this rhythm of what we are called to do and then how we're called to rest, to reconnect, and recalibrate with you.
SPEAKER_00: So, God, I pray you'll do some great things through this series.
SPEAKER_00: I pray you'll open our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: But tomorrow, Father, as we walk into those jobs, help us have a new attitude and help us to seek you in what we do.
SPEAKER_00: God, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Before you take off today, I do want to encourage you again.
SPEAKER_00: Next week, Cal is going to be teaching for us all of our campuses.
SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to be here.
SPEAKER_00: We honor those who we stand on the shoulders of.
SPEAKER_00: And Cal Journing has been an incredible leader and incredible leader still in this place.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's be here for that.
SPEAKER_00: Invite your small group, invite some friends or neighbors to come with you next week.
SPEAKER_00: And we're just going to track through this idea next week on rest.
SPEAKER_00: Talked about work today, but how do you figure out the other side so we're good for our families and our relationships?
SPEAKER_00: If you have prayer needs today at all of our campuses, we got prayer teams up front.
SPEAKER_00: We'd love to pray for you and be there for you.
SPEAKER_00: You guys have a great week.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next Sunday.