Sermon Central
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Work Is Part Of The Blessing
Contributed by Shawn Raloff on Apr 7, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: Happiness / Joy come from knowing your true purpose in life.
Intro:
Have you ever had a case of the Mondays? (Robert Frost Quote)
Work is part of the blessing, not part of the curse
Go ahead – get it out…
28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- 5 and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth [2] and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth [3] and there was no man to work the ground,
So if work is part of the blessing than why are Mondays so bad?
• Work is often tied to our identity.
• Work is often mistaken as our purpose.
• The fruits of our work is often thought of as our legacy.
But the Bible tells us differently…
I want you to repeat after me….
What I do, is not who I am
Identity
1. I am a Child of God
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—
2. A father/mother, sister/brother or child
Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.
Story: My First Big Story as a Journalist – “Just because someone calls you green doesn’t mean you are green”
It enables you to overcome criticism, hostile work environment and negative co-workers.
Contentment / Satisfaction comes from knowing who you are.
What I do, is not what I am meant to be
Purpose
1. Love and be loved by God
2. Love and be loved by others
Matthew22:37
Jesus replied: " ’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[2] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’[3] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Story: “Fellowship of the ring” – Finding purpose in a common mission
It enables you to go to even the worst job in the world and perform it with a song!
“I owe, I owe so off to work I go…whistle while you work”
Happiness / Joy come from knowing your true purpose in life.
What I do, is not who I will be remembered as
Legacy (Success)
How much you loved
No one ever says on there death bed “I wish I would have spent more time at the office”
How much you where loved by others
How will you be remembered when you die?
So many people loved Father Mychal Judge, recalled Duffy, because he "treated everyone like family." At funerals, he never just opened the book and started praying for people. He made it really personal. "Countless people told me that on birthdays, anniversaries, dates of sobriety- whatever- they would get a little note from him. He must have kept a huge calendar! In everyone’s lives, whatever was significant, he’d write them a little note about it or give them a telephone call. Everyone considered him family."
Duffy remembers that, outside Father Mychal’s funeral, where the overflow crowd had watched and listened via closed-circuit TV and loudspeakers, one of the homeless street people said, "That priest didn’t hide in the sanctuary; he brought the sanctuary out to us."
Mychal Judge held no distinction between himself and the people, Duffy recalled. "Even though initially a person might approach him as pastor, chaplain, whatever, within 30 seconds all of those titles just fell down and he was just a friend. He wasn’t afraid gently to mention God’s presence."
“Mankind should have been my business”
The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.
"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"
"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
