Friday, January 15, 2010
Your Work Matters to God, Part 5 of 45
TEXT: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:1-2).
IDEA: Christians may believe that there is a distinction between the sacred and the secular.
PURPOSE: To expose the assumptions about work and faith that are invalid.
Listen to a testimony that you may have heard many times. How would you evaluate what this man is saying about his work and his faith?
Testimony: “For ten years I worked as an architect in a large firm in my city. I worked my way through the ranks and I had a very good position in that firm. I enjoyed my work. But as I thought about it, my work seemed insignificant. For example, I helped design some office buildings in the downtown part of our city, and some homes on the outskirts of the city. But I realized that those office buildings would last fifty, at most seventy-five years. They’d be pulled down. Those mansions would become tomorrow’s boarding houses and tomorrow’s slums. So I felt that I wanted to do something very significant, something with eternal value. So I gave up my job as an architect, and I went to seminary, and now I am working on a mission field. I give people the gospel, and I build into their lives truth that has eternal significance. I don’t say that everyone in business should become a pastor or a missionary. But I do think that is something we all have to think about. When we give our lives to God, what do we mean? For me, it meant that I would turn my back on what was passing and give my life to what was eternal.”
What exactly is this Christian brother saying? What do you appreciate about what he says? What might you question?
He is really trying to bridge the gap between his Christian faith and his daily work.
We have said that a major way people deal with faith and work is to keep them in two separate spheres. They don’t have much to do with each other.
Is this man using that solution?
I. We will sometimes bridge the gap between work and faith by saying that work doesn’t matter as much as church or spiritual things.
We often, consciously or unconsciously, embrace that solution:
Let me give you some career choices, and then tell me how you think they would be rated:
Being a pastor, a seminary professor, a missionary, a religious broadcaster.
Being a truck driver, farmer, TV repair person, a barber, or an assembly-line worker.
Being a real estate developer, a banker, a broker, an advertising person.
Being a physician, a dentist, a nurse, a teacher, a counselor, a mother.
Why do we make these choices the way we do?
II. This attitude reflects a heresy that was rampant in the early church. It was called “docetism.”
Docetists said that there were two stories (as in a building): one was spiritual and the other was secular. Your soul was important and your body was not. The spiritual and the religious were very important to God, and the secular and ordinary were less important to God.
The early church condemned the heresy. All of life is important to God. Romans 12:1-2 tells us to present our bodies to God. Whatever you do with your body matters to God.
What do you think the implications are of that when it comes to faith and work? This says that there is no difference between the secular and the sacred.
