Sermon Central
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Take This Job And...love It!
Contributed by Jerry Shirley on Feb 15, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: How to enrich our work lives and affect eternity, no matter what our vocation is. Powerpoint template available at website.
Take this Job and . . Love It!
powerpoint template at: http://www.gbcdecatur.org/sermons/TakeThisJob.html
Introduction
Is the work you are doing good work? Do you love your work? I have talked to people who say “pastor I love my job.” I have also heard people say “I hate my job.”
Purpose has a lot to do with your attitude concerning your job. In our text the Lord said Mary is doing a good work (or deed). [This is Mary of Bethany, younger sister to Martha and Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead.]
Do you believe you are doing a good work? I want to apply this text to spiritual as well as secular jobs. Take this Job and...Love It!
1. With Respect for the Sacrifice of it. v. 3, 5
1. A Denarii [pence] equals a days wages, she gave 300 days of labor.
2. She broke the vial, and poured it all on Jesus…this may have been part of the ointment used for the burial of Lazarus!
First of all, we ought to work. The Bible says if we don’t work we shouldn’t eat. I’m glad our nation has a plan to help those who cannot work, but I wish it wasn’t so badly abused by so many able-bodied people!
“God gives the birds their food, but He doesn’t throw it into their nests.”
On the other hand, it’s your time and effort we’re talking about here, a sacrifice…and it ought to be about more than just making a living! Give of your best to the Master...don’t be a workaholic at it…love the Lord your God w/ all your strength by focusing on him, your family, and your ministry, the local church, and let the job just be a source of means perhaps…though there’s a way to make it more than mundane! No one on their deathbed wishes they worked more or accomplished more for the company, or had a bigger home or more things…but that they did more for the Master! [but these days He seems to get our leftovers and tired bodies after “late nite Saturday!”]
2 Cor. 8:5
And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.
2. With Respect for the Sarcasm of it. v. 4-5
The sign in the store window read: NO HELP WANTED. As two men passed by, one said to the other, "You should apply--you’d be great."
Life is full of critics, and so is your workplace, and so is the church! You must do your work, and do what’s right, many times in spite of the “bucket brigade” that tries to throw cold water on everything!
This same kind of thing happened w/ this year’s inauguration as the bucket brigade said, “just stand on the steps and raise your right hand, then send the money to Tsunami victims.”
[Note the comment is by Judas in the parallel passage of John 12:4-6…]
Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, [5] Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? [6] This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.
Illustration 5 brooms
There was a man in a particular church, who opened a broom closet and found five brand new brooms. He hit the ceiling. He went to the one in charge of buying commodities for the church. And he said, "Whoever authorized the buying of five brand new brooms at one time? We’re not even meeting our budget!
That’s a waste of money!" And he was very angry. The custodian couldn’t satisfy him, and finally, the man was in to the pastor’s office to see the pastor. The pastor tried to pacify him. And the pastor said, "Well, I don’t know. Maybe we use a lot of brooms! Maybe there was a sale on brooms. But don’t fall out of fellowship over it." But the man never was satisfied, and he left the pastor’s office in a huff!
After awhile, the pastor was having coffee with the church treasurer, and the pastor told the church treasurer about this. The church treasurer just smiled. "Ah," he said, "Pastor, I can understand why he was so upset." “Well”, the pastor said, “Would you please explain it to me?" And the treasurer said to the pastor, "Well, how would you feel if you saw everything you had given to the church in the past year tied up in five brooms?"
We’ve had the same thing right here in the past: I heard of someone being critical of how we do missions, and saying they will not be a part of it anymore…come to find out they had never once given to missions!
