If You Won the Lottery, Would You Show Up for Work? Sermon Series: my95

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Maximilian Cole
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1 If You Won the Lottery, Would You Show Up for Work? Sermon Series: my95 Sunday, March 30, 2008 Dr. Victor D. Pentz Senior Pastor Scripture Lesson: II Thessalonians 3:6-13 (Immediately preceding: a drama, Crisis in the Workplace: If I Won the Lottery Would I Go to Work? ) Does any of this sound familiar? Where do we find meaning in the humdrum routines of daily life? Where is God on Monday, Tuesday, Friday? Last Sunday we read that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb on the first day of the week. That means Sunday is not the weekend. Today is the week s beginning. This very morning Jesus begins his Lordship over the week ahead. So it s fitting that in the weeks following Easter we d begin our exciting new initiative called My95 95 because we spend 95% of our time outside the doors of the church. For over fifty percent of your time, studies show, you are doing whatever work you do, and you spend around 45% in home and family activities. Doesn t it logically follow that God is at least as concerned with the 95% of your time you spend out there as He is with the 5% you spend here at church? The Bible mentions work 800 times, more than either heaven or prayer. So here is the thought we want to tattoo on your brain over the coming weeks: the focus of God s activity is the world. Called Into the World Your calling to serve God in your home, neighborhood, school, or workplace matters every bit as much to God as mine here in the church. In fact, here s what s really humbling for us pastors: in the Bible God hardly ever calls someone to serve in a religious setting. Name one great Bible hero who was a priest! Maybe Aaron, Moses brother, but he was a flake who caved in and built the golden calf. Abraham was a rancher in agribusiness. Joseph was the prime minister of his nation; Caleb and Joshua were generals; Nehemiah was sort of a FEMA administrator who rebuilt a city. Not even Jesus worked in the temple. He was in 1

2 Greek the word is tekton a carpenter, an artisan who worked with his hands in wood or stone. There s this amazing scene when Jesus begins his ministry by getting up to read in the synagogue in Nazareth. Scripture says the people were thinking, Isn t this man the carpenter? Isn t this the fellow who made our kitchen table? Didn t he come over a couple of years ago and put up that retaining wall at the back our property? When people saw Jesus they didn t think holy man or Son of God. They thought tool box, pick-up truck, Home Depot. Let s go back for a moment to last Sunday morning and stick our head inside the empty tomb one more time. There may have even been a glimpse of Jesus the Carpenter on Easter morning. Remember when John looked in the tomb there was this phrase: He saw and believed. We aren t told what he saw to make him believe. Then in what seems like almost useless detail, John goes on to tell us he saw that the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head " was folded up by itself." If you visit the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem this is what they tell you: if you let your imagination go a little, this folded cloth just may have been a secret message between Jesus and John. Peter looks into the tomb and he s still confused. John says, I think he s alive...! It seems in Jesus' day there was a way a carpenter let the contractor know a job was complete. This was a time of illiterate workers who could not write notes or fill out an invoice.1 Imagine, if you will, a hot afternoon in Galilee. Jesus has finished a carpentry job. The hair on his forearms is caked with sawdust and His face glistening with sweat. He takes a final drink of cool water from a leather bag, and pours the rest over his head onto his chest and arms to clean himself before heading home. Taking a nearby towel, he pats himself down, and then he folds the towel neatly in half, and folds it in half again and again. He sets it on his project and walks away. The next person comes along and says, Ah, job complete. The work is finished, the folded towel the trademark of a carpenter having completed his earthly work. We don t know for sure, but we do know Jesus was a carpenter, a man of the world who calls his people to follow him into the world. Gathered and Scattered There s a new awakening among Christians today who want to follow Christ into the world called the missional church movement. We at Peachtree are among the leaders in this movement. How thrilling to think that the same God who gathers us this morning will scatter us tomorrow throughout this city to serve him. And that s the weekly rhythm of God s people: gathered and scattered, gathered and scattered. Someone told me it sounds like the menu at Waffle House: we re gathered, scattered, chunked and smothered. Right now Peachtree s address is 3434 Roswell Road; tomorrow we ll have thousands of addresses throughout Atlanta and our activities will be just as holy to God as our singing and praying this morning. Now here s where I need you to listen very carefully. Being a missional Christian isn t going to add a lot of new appointments to your calendar which you don t have time for anyway. You are already where you need to be; only you ll be going there outfitted with new radar and a fresh openness to take some risks for God, so He can make a difference through you in your home, neighborhood, school, or workplace. Through it all you ll experience new meaning and purpose in your life. Churches haven t been really effective in equipping Christians to live in the world. So we are retooling large parts of our ministry 2

3 here at Peachtree to support you in your 95% world. The image we ve been using is to say the church is to be like an aircraft carrier. Most churches are like cruise ships: you come aboard a cruise ship to have a great time, lining up at the buffet table, playing shuffle board, and all the rest. But the only reason you board an aircraft carrier to become part of a mission beyond the mother ship. You come aboard Peachtree to be launched to extend the kingdom of God to Atlanta and the world. I ve had a couple of people ask why we couldn t think of another image that s not so militaristic as an aircraft carrier, so I thought of one that s sort of eco-friendly. We go out of here as God s worker bees. Some of you will really love this: we are God s yellow jackets (go Tech!). Today we swarm around the nest and tomorrow we fan out to pollinate our city with the good news and love of God. Now what I m saying represents a huge about-face for me, to the point of being embarrassing in light of what I ve said through most of my 34 years of ministry. I have done a total 180 from ten years ago or even more recently. Some of you may have actually heard me say what I used to say from the pulpit. I remembering saying, The most important activity in Atlanta this week isn t what s going on in those tall buildings downtown; it s not what s happening in the science labs of our universities; it s not what happens in our sports stadiums. The most important thing happening in Atlanta this week is what is going on in this sanctuary right now! I don t believe that anymore. Just imagine Jesus saying, The most important thing happening in Jerusalem this week is what s happening in the temple. He d never say that. You know what that s like? It s like a coach at halftime saying to the players, The most important event this afternoon is this halftime speech. Are you kidding? What matters is the performance of the players on the field. Now hopefully the coach s speech will help them do better. But this 5% of your time spent here at Peachtree is to help and guide and inspire and encourage you in your 95% world. And don t let this word worklife throw you. Sometimes stay-at-home parents have this notion, Well they aren t talking about me. Let me disabuse you of that notion. Some of you have heard of Tony Campolo, a well-known Christian speaker. While Tony has spent much of his life traveling around the world, his wife Peggy chose to stay home and raise their two children, Bart and Lisa. When Peggy Campolo traveled with Tony, she found herself in the presence of some of the most powerful, educated, and sophisticated women in the world. Sometimes she felt intimidated to the point where she d question her own selfworth. Tony said to Peggy, Well, honey, why don t you come up with something you can say when you meet people that will let them know that you value what you re doing and think it s important? Not long after that they were at a party. An elegant woman said to Peggy Campolo in a rather condescending tone, Well, my dear, and what do you do? Tony heard his wife say, Oh, me? I am nurturing two young homo sapiens into the dominant values of the Judeo Christian tradition in order that they might become instruments for the transformation of the social order into the kind of eschatological utopia God envisioned from the beginning of time. And what do you do? The woman said, I m just a lawyer. Well, it seems there were some Christians who loved their cruise ship. And they weren t going anywhere. They didn t want to be missional. The Thessolonican Christians cocooned inside the church, abandoned their jobs, and said, We re going sit here and pray, waiting for the Second Coming of Jesus. The Apostle Paul got wind of this and this gritty little tent maker wrote back a letter that said, 3

4 Fine. If you don t work, then you don t eat. Let s see what Paul says to Christians who stay inside their holy huddle. Turn to II Thessalonians 3:6-13, page on 1844 of the Bible there in the pews: 6 In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. 9 We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. 10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: If a man will not work, he shall not eat. 11 We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. 12 Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. 13 And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right. Whether you re a homemaker, a student, a retiree, a plumber, or a realtor, God calls you to some form of work. Here s the thought I want to leave with you today: your work is a partnership with God. A Partnership with God First, God is a working God. In ancient religions being a god meant you got to sleep all day while humans slaved away. On the other hand, our God loves to work. In Genesis, God makes the heavens, the earth, mountains, waterfalls, and hippopotami and then God says, "Let us make man in our image. As a working God, I will create working creatures and I will give him and her dominion over the works of my hands. So God gets down on his hands and knees in the dirt and makes a human and says, Howdy Podner. Partner with me; explore the world; sail the seas; fly to Mars; name the animals. I Corinthians 3:9 says we are "God's fellow workers." When your alarm goes off tomorrow think, I m going out to partner with God. Or let me put it in a way even more thrilling: you are going out for God to do his work through you. I love these words of Martin Luther: God himself will milk the cows through him whose vocation it is! God himself will destroy the computer viruses through her whose vocation it is. God himself will teach first grade, God himself will arrest the criminal, God himself will deliver the mail, God himself will sell the house. One of the reasons there s so little job satisfaction is we feel we re in it all by ourselves, bearing all these lonely burdens. Think for a moment: if you re in partnership with God, on which of the two of you lays the pressure to achieve results? I would say you re off the hook. As someone has said, God s in management. We re in sales. Give God the pressure of the big decisions and you have fun using your gifts. It s Not About Status Second, if God is our partner it s not about status or pay, because there s no higher status role in the world than partner with God. The word call or vocation means to summon or invite by name. Do you believe God calls you by name to your work? I love the conversation a pastor friend of mine had with a new member of his church. A young woman was joining and he asked her "What do you do for a living?" With a smile she looked at him and said, "I am a disciple of Jesus Christ secretly disguised as a legal secretary." Isn t that wonderful? "I am a disciple of Jesus Christ carefully disguised as a car pool 4

5 mom. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ secretly disguised as a financial advisor or as a Varsity Drive-in hamburgerologist." I was privileged to attend Stanford University s graduation three years ago. Professor David Kennedy spoke of the Old West where in the regions where the railroad had not yet reached, people traveled by stagecoach. Stagecoach lines in those days offered three levels of ticket: first class, second class and third class. If you bought a first class ticket, you received a money-back guarantee that you would arrive on time after a comfortable ride with all the amenities. A second-class ticket guaranteed your arrival, but also said that in case of difficulty en route a mudslide that closed the road or a broken axle on the wagon you might be asked to stand by the road for a period time until the problem was fixed. A third-class ticket carried the stipulation that in case of difficulty the holder of such a ticket would be expected to get out, go to the back of the coach and shove it through the mud, use a shovel, and lift the cargo out if need be. Then Professor Kennedy said, even though you have a first-class education from a firstclass college, don t take the first-class or even the second-class route through life. Go third class. Get out and make things happen. Put your shoulder to the wheel. Do the heavy lifting, roll up your sleeves, spit on your hands, and get to work. You need a third-class ticket to have a first-class life. Even if you win the lottery you must work. Don t stay inside the stagecoach. That s what Paul was telling the Thessalonians: the only way to have a firstclass life is to travel on that third-class ticket. It s not about status. It s all about serving. Work as Worship When we partner with God, first, God does his work through us, and shoulders the burden for results. Second, status and pay are less important as work becomes service. Finally, when we partner with God our work becomes worship. Don t let there be a big split between today and tomorrow. Be thinking about tomorrow today. Be thinking about God tomorrow. Let your work become worship as you do your best to honor God. There s an amazing story of survival at sea during World War II. The US Astoria was in combat with the Japanese Navy. When an eight-inch gun turret exploded, Signalman 3rd Class Elgin Staples was swept overboard at about 0200 hours 2 a.m. Wounded in both legs by shrapnel and semi-conscious, Elgin Staples was kept afloat by a narrow lifebelt that he managed to activate with a simple trigger mechanism. At around 0600 hours, Staples was rescued by a passing destroyer and taken back to the Astoria, whose captain was attempting to save the cruiser from sinking. But the ship sank, and Staples, still wearing the same lifebelt, found himself back in the water. It was lunchtime. Picked up again, this time by the USS President Jackson (AP 37), he was one of 500 survivors of this great naval battle. On board the transport, Staples found himself hugging that lifebelt with gratitude. He scrutinized every stitch of the lifebelt that had served him so well. It had been manufactured by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, and bore a registration number. Given home leave, Staples told his story and asked his mother, who worked for Firestone, about the purpose of the number on the belt. She replied that the company insisted on personal responsibility for the war effort, and said that the number was unique to the 5

6 inspector of the lifebelt. Staples remembered everything about the lifebelt, and quoted the number to his mom. There was a moment of stunned silence in the room and then she said, Son, that is my personal code that I have affixed to every item I have ever been responsible for approving. 2 Kahlil Gibran wrote these wonderful words, And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit. Work is love made visible. May you love your work. And may your work be love and worship and service and partnership with God. And tomorrow morning may you hear God s voice calling you to your place of work. Prayer: Lord, I pray for any person here who experiences work as drudgery or a crushing burden. Give us each one a sense of partnership with you. Restore to us joy and passion for the calling you have for us, so we might love our work and so that our work might be love in all we do. 1 Sigmund Brower 2 Quoted in Ravi Zacharias, The Grand Weaver,

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