Rock Solid Finances: Part 2 “Work Diligently”
Preached by Jimmy Seibert
4/25/2010
Let’s pray together.
Lord Jesus, Thank You for Your faithfulness. Thank You for Your grace. Thank You for Your abundance. Thank You that You are doing above and beyond what we could ask or think. Lord Jesus, we ask again today that Your Word would come alive and change us, that it would rearrange us and let us see life from Your perspective. Lord, I pray, take this simple message and turn it into something that changes our lives, we pray. In Your precious name, Amen.
One of my heroes of the faith is a guy named Bill Adams. Bill leads one of our teams in Russia. The reason he is a hero is not just because of his gifting, but because of who he is. He is a man of discipline, a man of faithfulness, a man of perseverance. When Bill graduated from high school, he was a long distance runner. He was good in his little arena or world, but not good enough to get a scholarship. He came to Baylor and walked on their track team. Bill, as a freshman, learned a lot and got better and better as the months went on. Eventually, he began to win some races and place. The coaches began to take notice. What they took notice of more than anything was his work ethic; he would work harder and longer and literally would give everything he had every race or opportunity he was out there. Eventually, by Bill’s junior year, he was an All-American for his last two years. Bill ended up setting many records during his time at Baylor in long-distance running. One of them was the 10,000 meters; his record stood for 21 years. It was just broken a couple of years ago.
Bill used to talk about this particular phrase when I would ask how he did it, how he would always have the last push in him, he would always say, “Because I had the hay in the barn. I put the hay in the barn.” What he meant by that was this: “I would get up and do the workouts when everyone else wouldn’t. When I felt like it, and when I didn’t feel like it, I would do a little extra. I would always do what the coaches asked, and just a little bit more. I would do it consistently, knowing that in the time I needed it, there would be a harvest. There would be something extra there because I had laid the ground work of faithfulness and diligence. I put hay in the barn.”
The Scriptures talk about that as well. Proverbs 28:19 “He who tills his land will have plenty of food, but he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty.” Proverbs 14:23 “In all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” God has invited us into this Divine partnership with Him, where we get the delight of walking through life with Him and being like Him, working diligently in whatever God puts before us. This Divine partnership produces great things in the Kingdom, in our natural world, and ultimately glorifies God.
In 1 Corinthians 3:6-9, Paul describes it this way, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God causes the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God causes the growth. Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
Today’s message is not going to be an emotional one, it will be a building day. It’s going to be “Lord, work this thing in me,” Because if you get this, you’ll be set for life.
Let’s start at the beginning, Genesis 1:27-28, “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” God is at work. He creates us and He says, “Now you will be like me and work with me.” They were delighted, they were thrilled to bear fruit and multiply, to go out and subdue the earth and care for what God had put before them.
Genesis 2:15 “Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.” So there was this divine partnership that God invites us into to work with Him. Jesus, in the book of John alone, talked 27 different times about labor and hard work. In John 5:17 He said this about Himself and would invite us into the same experience, “But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” Jesus said He was about His Father’s business, that He was a worker and He was inviting us to be a part of that as well.
Ephesians 2:10, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.” We are created for this deal. We are made for it. Work is not a labor so that you can then go and have your pleasure, work is a part of a flow of life that is holy, right, righteous and wonderful if seen rightly. It is the way God created us. Paul would exhort us, even, in the area of work. In 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12, “For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.”
So work is holy. It is right. It is God’s way and it is wonderful if seen rightly. Our hope really, for most of us as humans is that it’s really not true. We hop that we really won’t have to work hard at whatever pursuit we have. But I just want you to know that it is not God’s anger that caused you to have to work; it is God’s blessing to enter into something great with Him. Let’s just say you took another viewpoint: let’s say you decided in your mind that it’s really not about man’s work, it’s just about the sovereignty of God alone, without man’s partnership. It would be like a couple of farmers sitting on the porch rocking back and forth, saying, “You know, I heard we don’t have to do a lot to bring this harvest in. I tell you what, it’s planting season, and it’s the spring. I tell you what, this year let’s just pray about it.” So they sit on the front porch and watch during planting season. It’s time to till the soil and they are just sitting there saying, “Let’s just pray about it. Isn’t it going to be a great harvest? Can’t you just see it coming?” They are just enjoying it, then the spring rains come. One says, “Isn’t it crazy how quickly those weeds come up? They’re everywhere! I rebuke those weeds in the Name of Jesus” Then, they keep rocking, eventually after a couple months, it’s hot enough that the weeds wilt. “See, I told you the Lord would answer; it just took a little a time.” The ground becomes dry and arid, and they are saying the harvest is coming. Around fall, it’s harvest time and nothing is coming up. And they are sitting there saying, “I wonder what God’s deal is?” They start questioning God because the harvest doesn’t come, instead of questioning themselves. You see, life doesn’t work that way. Anybody who is successful in any arena, whether business or athletics, or education, or parenting, there is a hard work part of it, not as an oppressive thing, but as a wonderful place to enter in and partner with God for His glory.
But you know what’s hard is to get that balance right. It really is challenging: What part is God’s and what part is mine? I love 1 Corinthians 15:10 because he captures the essence of it. Paul says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” Paul is saying, “I am what I am by the grace of God. I had nothing to do with my creation. I had nothing to do with my salvation. It’s only by grace, not by works.” Salvation can’t be created or worked for. God did it. If you have trusted in Christ, it’s not by any work of your own. Yet that beautiful, wonderful grace did not prove vain. He did not just put it on a shelf and then resign to doing nothing. He applied that grace to live life in a holy and righteous way. He said, “I’m working harder than any of you, yet not I, but the grace of God within me. I am entering into the flow of God with great diligence and hard work. Not by my own strength, but by the grace of God within me.”
Maybe another way to look at sovereignty/grace vs. man’s responsibility would be a two-cycle engine. If you are familiar with a weed-eater or something, it has the oil/gas mix you have to put into the engine. If you don’t get that mix right, a couple things happen. If it’s too much gas and not enough oil, you get that high-pitched squeal, then the oil blows up because there’s not the right mixture of oil in there. But if there is too much oil, the engine eventually runs down and goes too slow to work. If we say sovereignty is the oil side, it’s absolutely the lead piece and needed. But oil without gas doesn’t get anything done. Same way if it’s all gas, if it’s only what you do, eventually, you’ll blow up. You get real dis-illusioned.
There is this balance that God has for us, that farmers understand. The downside for us as Western believers is that we didn’t grow up in farming world. We don’t understand the natural rhythms. Most people that are farmers understand the rhythms intuitively. I think God gives us more and more clues in the Scriptures to help us out with this. Jeremiah 29:11-13, “For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.” God’s plan for you is good. His sovereign plan, He created you not for junk, but for purpose. Everybody has something valuable no matter how gifted or un-gifted you perceive you are. There is a dynamic creation of God in you that has a great plan attached to it, thank You, Lord. Sovereignty of God, we had nothing to with it. Now, “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” Now as you respond to God’s sovereign initiative, the outcome becomes the destiny and inheritance God has for you. There is God’s initiative and our response that creates that beautiful balance of grace and response to God that produces what He has for us. With that as a background, with work as a holy and right God-thing, what I want to do is cover three major aspects. Work is God’s provision, work is a place of witness, and work is a place of contribution.
Let’s start with work as a place of God’s provision. Philippians 4:19 “MY God shall supply all of your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus.” Just as Jeremiah 29:11 says God has a great plan for your life, in the same way this promise is absolutely true for everybody in this room. God will supply every need according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. But there is a partnership piece to enter into it. It is not that the Father has not committed to take care of you, it is that your response then to God’s initiative and affirmation. How do we create an environment to always be provided for? We are just the soil and the seed, it is God who rains on it and causes the growth. The first thing I want to mention here is in order to create that environment is that we do our work unto the Lord, and not unto man. Colossians 3:23-24, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.” Here’s how you know whether you are doing your work unto the Lord: What do you do when nobody’s looking? What do you do when your boss or parents or teacher’s not there? How you do your work is whether you have got this piece down or not. King David is the best example of this. He started off as a shepherd boy; he was the youngest of all the boys. This meant when the inheritance was doled out at the end, he would get the least amount of inheritance from his father. He was a shepherd; he took care of the sheep away from the rest of the family. The shepherds were the bottom of the social rung; he was never going to be anybody of notoriety in this world. He also was alone a lot of the time, and so really nobody was looking except God. His response to God would determine how well the sheep were taken care of or not. The Bible says that David took on a lion and a bear to protect the little sheep. If I was out there by myself, taking care of somebody else’s sheep, and a lion came – I would run like crazy and say, “I’ll buy you a sheep later.” I would NOT be thinking, “Take this sucker on. It may cost me my life, but I would rather be a faithful man and die early than a fearful man and lose my inheritance.” Can I say it again? I would rather be a faithful man and die early than a fearful man and lose my inheritance. David was faithful. When God needed somebody for something greater in His Kingdom, or a work that was great, He found David. The Bible says this in 1 Samuel, it says that man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. God chose this man, because He saw His heart. Do you know that if you are a faithful man or woman in any arena, and specifically in whatever work God has given to you, that God will find a way to bless you and will find a way to honor that work? Proverbs 18:16 says, “A man’s gift makes room for him, and brings him before great men.” There is nothing to fear about God’s provision if you work heartily unto the Lord and you do it faithfully, even with a sacrificial attitude, you can trust God to provide.
Another piece in creating the right environment for God to be your provider is to be diligent in the work that God has given you to do. Be diligent. Proverbs 12:24 “The hand of the diligent will rule, but the slack hand will be put to forced labor.” Proverbs 21:5, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.” Now, diligence, what does that mean? It is painstaking commitment above feeling or emotion to the task given. You are committed to the task because that is what God has given you to do, or those over you have given you to do. You do it no matter how you feel – that is what diligence is all about. You do that day in and day out, rain or shine, difficult or wonderful days, and God always blesses it. There is always abundance for the diligent. Parents, the best thing you can give your kids is to train them in diligence. What do they need when they leave the house? They don’t need a big inheritance; they need certain character qualities that will allow them to get their own inheritance. One of those is diligence.
My daughter Lauren is about to graduate from high school, and in about 3rd grade, we became aware of a couple of things. One is she had 50% hearing loss; God healed her about twelve months later, praise God for that. That was making certain letters and speech things difficult. The other one was she was really challenged in spelling. Where other kids would take three or thirty minutes to do well on a test, for Lauren it would take up to three hours a night. IT was so difficult that literally it was night after night of two and three hours, with her in tears and us in tears. What we really felt and told all our kids was this, “Life isn’t about grades. It’s not A’s, B’s, or C’s, what we are going to teach you is to be diligent in your work. And you will be diligent and you will follow through in what you have been asked and learn to overcome when there is difficulty. Ultimately, whatever the grade turns out, that is fine.” What we did through that journey was we taught her to overcome. We didn’t say, “Lauren you are as good as any of those other kids. We love you. It doesn’t matter, just spend three minutes on it and you’re done.” We said, “You are going to have to spend three hours, even if other kids spend three minutes. But, if you learn to overcome, you will be able to overcome anything that comes in your life. We are going to cry with you and labor with you, but you will overcome. Then you will be an overcomer for the rest of your life.”
Third grade was two to three hours, fourth grade was two to three hours, fifth grade was two to three hours, by sixth grade we were down to one hour and by seventh grade she was on her own. She is going to graduate one of the top students in her class; she has several scholarships lined up because of her grades and diligence, not because of just natural gifting. Here’s the point: you want to leave your kids with diligence. When we ask ourselves what we want the kids to have when they graduate high-school and leave the home, we say we want them to know how to live simple, work diligently, give generously and trust God with their lives. That will serve them the rest of their days, and we want to contribute and help wherever we can, but it’s not about resources, it’s about character and qualities you can have the rest of your life.
Some of you guys hear that and think, “Look, I never got that.” Can I be honest? Most of us didn’t get that. God is gracious above and beyond. God will meet us where we have need if we will submit to it. That is why we go through the Scriptures, so we learn to shape our lives around the Scriptures and not our experience. As we do that, God transforms us by His grace. Diligence…
An additional piece is not only to be diligent, but to be faithful. There is a story that Jesus tells in Matthew 25 about one who is given 5 talents, one who is given 2 talents, and one is given 1 talent. The one with 5 talents and 2 talents produces double fold. The one with 1, Jesus comes and says something very interesting. The guy said, “You know, I knew I didn’t have much and I was fearful I would lose even what I had, so I buried it.” The Bible says that the king was angry, the master was angry and said, “How dare you squander the very little you have been given. I gave you something and I meant to reproduce it, why did you not trust me and give what you had?” Here’s the point: in this room we have 5, 2, and 1 talent people. Your perspective and the world’s perspective are not fair. Can I just say you don’t want God to be fair? You don’t want God to be fair. Fair is not good. I want Him to be above fair, thank you Jesus. On a gifting level, all He is saying is we don’t sit around in self-pity, we take what we do have and diligently submit it to God and trust Him to reproduce it, multiply it and care for us.
One of my other heroes of the faith is a guy named Danny Wible. Danny’s a dear, dear friend. As long as I have known Danny, 25 plus years, he gets up at 5 am in the morning. He spends time with Jesus; he makes his lunch, ensures the details of the day are taken care of and goes off to teach school. Danny has taught school for 34 years, his last 24 have been at Midway, where I believe he has taught mainly sixth grade. Danny has affected thousands of young people’s lives. He has been honored at different times. One year he was teacher of the year. Every year he was honored by the students he led because he impacted their lives significantly. Financially, Danny didn’t make that much compared to others he knew working just as hard. Some of the things and needs of his family, he would offset his time off in the summer by working at Baylor or mowing lawns. More than anything, he has been faithful to whatever task he has been given. The fruit of Danny’s life has been that he has been provided for, he has had enough. At times, he wanted to have more, but he has had enough. He is a successful man, he is a prosperous man. Where others have put in the same amount of work, and have made hundreds of thousands of dollars, Danny has made less. Yet, he has always had enough. Really the success in Danny’s life is not simply the financial provision that has come out of his faithfulness and diligence, but it has been the investment in his own kid’s lives.
Owen is a man of faithfulness and hard work. He is going to graduate from Baylor debt-free because God has honored his faithfulness and diligence. Emily has been in Seattle in one of our training schools. She needed a job and one had fallen through. The only job that was available was 10:30 at night to 1:30 in the morning. She has to be at the training school at 8:30 in the morning. The initial emotional response is “I don’t want that job.” But it was the only one available, and the main part of the job is taking q-tips and cleaning out machines in a workout facility. Emily took that job in order to be diligent with what God had given her and trust God for something more. Now, she works regular hours with a regular rhythm and with other workers. She was willing to take the low road because she had been trained to be diligent with what she had been given, and trust God with what she lacked. Aaron and Andrew, their other two kids, are the greatest servants around. These guys are the first to serve, to give, to lay their lives down and look to someone else’s interest. These are men of God. Danny is rich, prosperous and successful – maybe not financially in the world’s eyes, but in God’s and other’s eyes, he has had more than enough. Faithfulness is more important than a dollar figure because God will always provide what you need.
What God needs from you is some seed in the ground. You have to put something in the soil. You have to give Him something to work with. It would be something like this – some of us are complaining that we make very little and we need to make a certain number. Listen, if you will be faithful with your $25,000 a year job, maybe God will give you something more. Maybe if you need $50K as a family and you work hard in the $25, God will do something supernatural and above and beyond. If you don’t put seed in the ground, I don’t see the miracles happening.
You can’t sit around and do nothing and say, “God, you do something.” There is a partnership at work here. Some of you are refusing to take an $8/hour job because you are “holding out” for the $20/hour job. Can I say get to work? Believe God for your lack. We’ve been married 23 years, rarely does the budget ever work – God is always doing above and beyond. We are working diligently and trusting Him with what we cannot see. Put some seed in the ground farmers, and let God put some water on it and do above and beyond. Just do that which God puts in your hand. You say “Well I have a tough time getting a job because of extenuating circumstances… I’ve applied to over 20 difference places…” Well, here’s the deal: serve somewhere. Love somebody. There are opportunities up here. Come up and serve. Just get actively involved. You see, when you aren’t working, you are drifting. God wants you to have grace and abundance in your life. Just find a place to serve. Whether it’s at the local church or a place that just needs some help, start serving and you can trust God with that which is lacking in your life.
When we talk about this, some of you say, “Okay, talk to me about work and how much you are supposed to work or not supposed to work?” Can I just say every answer to every question in life is in the Bible, how about you just read the Proverbs? Keep reading, you will eventually get there and find the answer. Throughout the Scripture, God speaks clearly. What does He say about work? Work 6 days, and rest 1. Now, the context was an agricultural society, so you have got to try to translate that. Let’s do it this way: they worked sun up to sun down; they had rest and lunch and dinner with a good night’s sleep. They got back to work the next day. The Sabbath meant it was absolute, 100% rest. Our world doesn’t work in that rhythm very well anymore. What I have tried to do is say, okay 6 days of work, sun up to sun down in the winter is 8-10 hours. If it’s 8 hours a day and we multiplied by 6 that is 48 hours/week; if we go with 10 hours, that’s 60 hours/week.
My perception of watching people who are successful (and I don’t just mean that monetarily, but in the fullness of that word), they are working anywhere from 40-60 hours/week. We have a rule on our staff of 40-60 hours a week. If you are working more than 60 hours/week, we want to talk to you and help you adjust it so that you have a healthy family life and are taking care of this vessel God has given you. If you are working less than 40 and you are on our staff, find another job. If you want to argue about how little you can work, you need to find another job. If you are doing more than that out of a workaholic attitude, we need to talk about how that is driving you. Yes, when it is harvest time, there are several times you have to put in extra work because it’s harvest time and we are all in this together, but that is not the general rhythm of life.
As you are looking at aright perspective of work and partnership with God, I think that is a Biblical framework that might help us. What do we do with the two extremes? Laziness and workaholism. IF you are a workaholic, here’s the deal: I want to know first-off, what is driving it? Is it to be somebody, are you working hard hoping that you make the big money or the big impression so that you have significance? You are already somebody. Really, you may not feel like it and somebody may not agree with that statement, but I want you to know that God says you are already somebody; you are saved and cared for. We are no longer working for significance. If I am a workaholic because of significance, that is a non-biblical approach to work. I want to deal with that issue and find my significance in God and be diligent and faithful, and I’m ok. If your workaholic attitude is “I need more money.” Again, God is your provider, He asks you to work diligently, hard and reasonably and to trust Him with what is lacking. Usually we want more money because we want more stuff, not because we don’t have food or covering.
Proverbs 23:4-5 “Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, cease from your consideration of it. When you set your eyes on it, it is gone. For wealth certainly makes itself wings like an eagle that flies toward the heavens.” We are not to set our hope on wealth, we are to set our hope on God, follow Godly principles of work, and trust Him. We are not to pursue it to the point of hurting ourselves and those around us.
This brings me to a third point on the workaholic deal, a lot of times it’s not just our own anxiety, but we also bring others into it. I just want to say a word about two income families: I understand, especially if you don’t have children, both parties should be working. There is work to do and things God has put before you. Once you have children, you step into a role where you say, “We are here to serve them.” Again, there are extenuating circumstances that lends both parties to work; I’m not trying to make some hard and fast rule. What I am trying to say is if the reason you are working is to keep a certain standard of living that is beyond just your basic needs being met, then I want to question what is best for you family. Titus says to women, “be workers at home.” Anybody who works at home is a mom. If you don’t call it work, they will scream at you – rightfully and righteously so. They are working extremely hard, sometimes harder. Whether a wife works at home or outside the home, here’s the deal: once you have kids, there is a work to do to serve them rightly and righteously. If you are thinking more stuff is what they need to be happy in life, you are absolutely, 100% wrong. I can prove it through case after case, who they need is you. They need you in their lives. However that works out, don’t be driven by materialism. Be driven by righteous parenting, and let God work out what that looks like.
Let’s go to the other side, laziness. I wish I had more time to talk about the sluggard in Proverbs; it’d be a great study. Proverbs 6:1-6 would help you begin that study. Working too little, let me say a few things. Again, we talked about the passage where it says, “In all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.” There is another thing about working too little. Proverbs 18:9, “He who is slack in his work is brother to him who destroys.” What happens is if we become idle, it eventually gets you into trouble. That is why I say even if you can’t get employed right now, go find somewhere to serve, to do something with your hands. There is an old saying, “Idleness is the devil’s workshop.” It’s right. You are just a setup for stuff. Do you know that a lot of the troubles in the Middle East with suicide bombers and the jihadists and everything else come out of going into refugee camps and getting young men who don’t have work? Sometimes it’s not their fault, but the bottom-line is wherever a third world culture doesn’t have people working, and there is a high unemployment rate, you will see anarchy and chaos. Men and women were made to work. There is a thing that has to be about us that keeps us in the place that God has for us of focus and clarity. Many times we are sitting around, dreaming all day about all these things. We are philosophically getting depressed, when really all we need to do is go out and sweat. Get to work; quit thinking. I have too many stories to back that up.
The other little deal on this working too little, is you are doing it because you are waiting for the lottery or a settlement, hoping you wreck your car and are provided for. You are waiting for an inheritance. You are waiting for something to fall from the sky. My experience in seeing absolute abundant miracles financially over the last 23 years is that if there is no seed in the ground, no right environment that stuff just doesn’t happen. It’s a holy partnership with God. What is the fruit of this? It’s prosperity and abundance. You become a diligent worker, partnering rightly with God, there will be prosperity and abundance come your way.
Proverbs 10:4-5 “Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully.” The next one, Proverbs 10:22, “It is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich, he adds no sorrow to it.” Listen, I believe in prosperity. Remember, prosperity is not just a financial word, it is a soul-prosperity, my relationships prosper, my family prospers. Danny Wible is an abundant, successful, prosperous man but his dollar figures are not exorbitant, they are enough. Are you with me?
The blessing of the Lord makes you rich. For some of you guys, you’re hard work and diligence will make you a multi-millionaire, and some of you will just have enough. We are not to compare ourselves. If you end up being a multi-millionaire, God made you that for the glory of His Name. Learn to be a servant with it, not a hoarder of it. Learn how to help and empower people, and not always increase your standard of living. Increase your standard of giving. Why don’t you find yourself as a resource in the hand of God? God causes the growth.
We said that work is God’s provision, work is God’s witness, it’s a place to witness. Acts 1:8 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Our illustration would be Christ in the Church, and us in the world. These places of service are places of influence and witness. Two different ways, they’re a place to proclaim the gospel with non-believers in your place of influence. We just got a report from Jordan Gandy, the manager at the UPS stores. In the last two months, they have seen 7 people come to Jesus. Also, through the Waco Drive store, they have seen several people healed, they’ve seen people get words from the Lord and the business prosper. The whole purpose by Taylor Hobbs and Mark Owen was obviously to see these businesses be successful, but also to have a Kingdom business. They wanted to have a place where young people could grow and learn business skills while increasing their witness and learning ways to live out the Kingdom in business.
God has given you a place. If you say, “I don’t have that environment or those employers.” Wherever you are is your place of influence. God has put you there for a reason; He’s put the person beside you for His name’s sake and His glory. Witness though is not just proclamation, it’s also who you are. You witness everyday as a teacher when you don’t participate in the gossip in the lounge. You witness every day when you righteously handle finances, not cutting a corner to shade the government or outwit another. You righteously serve and are honorable with integrity. You serve righteousness when you deal with an employer and a situation by not entering into the rebellion, but you submit and bless. There are a hundred different ways you are a witness in the workplace when you live out the gospel. People are in awe that you are not like them.
It creates an opportunity for the Kingdom to advance. Really, God’s goal is to advance His Kingdom in every one of these areas, for His will to be done and His wage to be distributed. We do that as a witness in the workplace by the way we live.
Lastly, our work is also our contribution in the community. When you take seriously the grace of God on your life as whatever skill or place that you serve, it is a place of contribution. Our air conditioner broke a couple weeks ago, a guy in our community – Joe Warren, showed up to help us. Joe is excellent at what he does. He stuck with it even though there were a few problems along the way. Joe was faithful and diligent to see it all the way through. I am so glad that he used his gifts to serve me. He uses his gift to serve others. Of course he gets compensation to provide for his family. But that gift is an amazing this that we need to run the air conditioners here in our community. It is the same for mechanics, plumbers, teachers, doctors – those gifts are right and righteous in and of themselves. Not just as a place to proclaim the gospel, not just to live righteously, they are a place of absolute significance for the well-being, health, and uplifting of our lives, our city and our nation.
In every arena, these people who live righteously contribute rightly. We all gripe and complain about taxes, I don’t’ know if you figured this out yet, but you pay taxes so you have the street to drive on. We gripe about our taxes, but that pays the policeman or fireman to come when we need them. Listen, the problem is not the taxes; the problem is the people distributing the taxes. You have the ability to vote for these people. When you vote for ideology rather than righteousness, then what you get is what you voted for. If you think that someone’s ideology doesn’t affect their legislation, the bottom-line is you need to vote for righteous people. People live out eventually what they believe. We are stunned by all these scandals in the political world. “I can’t believe it!” Absolutely, I can believe it! You didn’t ask the question, you voted for someone out of an ideology, not who they were. Of course we want them to be skilled and competent, but you have got to be about voting for righteous people. If we hold them to righteous character, eventually that will be right distribution of the taxes and the money God has given them to care for, right?
Contribution – do something that contributes to society. When you dig a ditch, you contribute. When you teach a kid, when you work at the 7-11, you contribute to society if you see it as that. I want you to know, we need you. We need you righteously in the workplace. WE have a bunch of job applications out there if you need a job. In the meantime, if you need a job, we will get you some applications and will be praying along with you. We’ll also get you a place to serve around here. Whatever you do, if you’ll be faithful, diligent and hard-working, it creates the environment for God to bless you, your family, our city, our nation for His glory.
I want to end with a little testimony from some dear friends, Aaron and Patricia Pena. Aaron is the principal at Provident Heights. We’ve told a little of their story, but maybe some of you don’t know they story of diligence and hard work in trying to eradicate debt and live righteously. I want you to hear on the backend is who Aaron and Patricia are today as people is because God dealt with them in the area of finances and work. Remember it is never about money, it’s never really just about work, but about the work of God. It comes out of these basic things God asks us to do. When we walk God’s ways, we always learn more than we could ask or think. I want you to hear their story and then we will end.
Video: “We are Aaron and Patricia Pena, and we have been married for almost 13 years now. One of the toughest mountains we have had to climb was getting out of debt. I can remember as a 23 year old, newlywed, a week after our marriage, laying out all of our statements and bills across our living room floor and just becoming overwhelmed with the reality that not counting our new house or our car, we were $120,000 in debt. We felt very hopeless, and went to a Bible study later that week and couldn’t help but share our burden with our friends. They prayed for us, and were there for us, and gave us a Larry Burkett book, The Complete Financial Guide for Young Couples.
We felt immediately empowered to overcome our debt. We only had 2 teachers’ salaries, but we decided it was time to start working on this and not wait for our salaries to increase. We immediately put ourselves on a written budget and didn’t deviate from that no matter what. We did things like shop around for sales and bargains any time we needed to purchase anything. We talked about every purchase that we had to make. We didn’t have internet or cable, we shared one car, and we didn’t go out to eat a lot. We cooked our own food at home; we ate a lot of rice and beans, cereal and sandwiches and packed a lunch for work. We kept our utilities low, we didn’t always crank up the AC on those hot Houston summer days, we did everything we could to keep our expenses as low as we could so that we could send more and more to the debt week after week, and month after month. That same semester after we started our new budget and our new try at living simply and saving, we also started graduate school. We were committed to not incurring any more debt. That semester, we got a job at Foley’s. We worked as teachers by day, and at Foley’s by night. We earned enough money to pay for our first semester of tuition. Every semester we had the money cash to be able to pay for it.
We knew that this journey would be a long one and endurance was the key. In the process, God was really working on our hearts. We were learning how to live simply and be content with what we had. The less money we spent, the more money we could give to debt. We were committed to that. It took a long time for us to get through and pay off all of our debt. In the 9th year of our marriage, we had 3 kids and had gone down to 1 salary, but we were able to make our last payment to our debt. Through sacrifice and working diligently, we are now debt-free.”
Amen. You know what? More than being debt-free, they are free in God. They are free to serve, they are free to love. They are changed people because they took seriously the admonition to partner with God, to be co-workers with Him and trust Him with their lives.
Let’s pray together.
