do you know that the average person Will spend 90,000 hours in his or her lifetime working with so much time of our lives spent at work at one job or another? I think we should take a few moments and and chat about that, shouldn't we? To take a look at what does it mean to honor God with our work? You see, we're in a series entitled and Power University and just as teenagers and adults go off to college to learn or maybe go to a trade school and learn and become an apprentice and a skill. There are times where we as christians feel a disconnect between sunday and monday, but church is not just a place to go to, but a family to belong to and a mission to live out. And so my prayer for you is not just to come on a sunday, check the box and forget everything we talked about, but rather to come or watch, engage, be spiritually filled up connected to God connected with other believers and use that as the opportunity to launch into your week, to live out your faith and to bring God glory with everything that we do. Because worship is not just a song that you sing, but a life that you live, but really there is no separation between secular and sacred, it's not like, well I have my church thing and then I have my life the prayer and the hope is that jesus has your life and that a personal faith is a public faith and that it influences how you view the world and how you make decisions in the world. So you talk to people how, how you respond in that meeting. How do you write that email? How you lied, how you follow everything comes in, Because if you're taking notes, write this down. That that work is an opportunity to worship that Yes, raising our hands, singing is great, but so is being a man or woman of integrity and being honest and encouraging and inspiring with how you treat your employees or employer. So, we want to take a few moments this morning and talk about what does it mean to view work as an act of worship? Because work is both deeply divine and holistically human, that there are parts of jobs that bring fulfillment in our lives, and then there are parts that we just dread. And so where does this idea of work come from? And how can we actually change our perspective and be excited about going to that job or that workplace tomorrow morning? Well, if you have your bibles, we're gonna start in the very beginning their genesis chapter one and jesus, and and you know, pre incarnate jesus God, the trinity is creating the world, okay. You know, jesus is there because it says then God said, let us there's no us if there's no one he's talking to. And so when he says, let us he's referring to God and three persons God, the father, jesus son and the holy spirit And God says here on the 6th day, let us make mankind in our image and our likeness so that they may rule over the fish in the sea. So pause there for a second notice that as soon as God says, let us make mankind in our image, we have a responsibility. You see that so that let us make like so that so we are like God. So that why? So we may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals. Like the bobcat that was outside my parents house this morning that he just showed me. That was kind of crazy. He walked out into the kitchen, looked out his window, bobcat right there. Okay, so just just no dad, we are called to rule over these animals and by rule over if it were me, I would stay locked inside my house for a time being its wisdom. All right. And so we rule over these animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image and in the image of God, he created them male and female. He created them and God bless them. Okay, so God makes us like so that's what makes us like him so that we can rule and what was God's first action for us blessing? Imagine right there if you entered the workplace or entered relationships with the starting point of blessing, we are created in his image, which means we are then called to create as God created. We create because God creates but satan counterfeits. God creates what is good and satan comes in and counterfeits what is fake. But then he tells us and he shows us the way he says, then God blessed us. He didn't demand us. He blessed us right from the beginning, he said to them be fruitful and increase the number, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. What's interesting here is that God creates man and then gives him a job to do. Now this is Genesis Chapter one. But when does sin come into the world genesis chapter three. That means that work is an ordained action of God. That's how God intended us to be. That as we live in his image, we are called to work and bring blessing to our world. And that idea of being blessed to be a blessing can take form in a variety of jobs. He doesn't say have this job and this job and this job only, but rather as you work and what you do bring blessing to others. And so this picture of blessing really runs throughout all of scripture. In fact a lot of the main characters in the bible were not just seen as pastors, that rather you see carpenters and shepherds and educators and tax collectors and doctors and tent makers, jesus himself was a carpenter. And so as you worked with your hands or worked with your mind or work in politics or work in sports or healthcare, it's not just a separated thing. We're like, okay, we have health care, we have education, we have railroads. If you've seen that one episode from the Office, it's a great show. Anyway, okay, I thought about just filling the sermon of quotes from Michael scott, but I decided probably not great anyway, so make your industry industry okay. But what we've done as a church is that we've said, okay, we have education, we have health care, we have business. And over here we have the church and that sounds good, except if we're isolated from from each other, then you can remove one column and you don't interact with the others and that's what a lot of the american church has done in recent days is that we have become so far removed from the culture that we no longer have influence within it. Instead, what if you took this column of church and you flipped it on its side instead of making it its own separate column, you actually made it the foundation of every column. So now in health care, christians are leading the way and education, christians are leading the way in business christians are leading the way, it wasn't that long ago that we actually experienced that the earliest hospitals, universities, teaching on economics came from a biblical perspective and that's because it had people who had faith, who had a calling in their lives, who had a skill set in their lives and then they turned and used to bring glory in God's kingdom to earth. If you wanted the best music, you would go to the church. If you wanted the best literature, you would go to the church, the best art, the best architecture, you pick any category and the strongest, the best, the smartest, the brightest came from the church. Not because you had to be great, but rather you're serving someone great. And so it's not like churches, a thing I do on Sundays, but churches who I am and I take with me. Okay, I my last name is cradle aim. I don't change that name on monday, I take that with me because a part of who I am, it's part of my identity. Okay, do you take christ with you into the workplace because work came into play before sin did. Now sin came and messed it up. And actually when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, they were told that you were gonna struggle with two things you were going to struggle with childbirth Relations are three things. Childbirth relationships and work and all those still apply today. And so if satan's gonna come in and if he's gonna come in for your family first and if he can't come after your family, he's probably gonna try to stir up some trouble in your workplace, thankfully, God has given us the tools and the ability to work out our salvation and not work for it. See in the new testament now, if you go to Ephesians chapter two Verse 10, it says this Verse eight talks about salvation and then you go to verses later in verse tennis is for we are his workmanship. In other words, we are handcrafted by the creator himself. God looked at the world and thought to himself, I need you and I need you here in this time period right now, he says created in christ jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. So this idea of walking into the workplace and then with the name of jesus should be very empowering to us. This is not just a verse for pastors for all believers later in, Peter, Peter would write that we are actually seen as a priesthood of all believers that your faith is what you take with you into the workplace and into onto the job site. So, if we try to understand working as worship, what's the difference, what's the difference between a christian and a non christian when it comes to working hard, because I know some non christians who work really hard and I know some christians who don't work that hard at all. So what should be the difference? Well, the key difference for christians to viewing work as worship is this our motive, the key to working as worship is knowing our motive motive actually separates us from the animals. Animals work hard. Animals that work on a farm or beavers, like building a home in a river. Birds flying around pollinating flowers like animals work hard. Okay, But you don't see like two horses who were pulling farm equipment back in the day, turning back, oh man, can you believe carl cash? I can't stand that guy. Like we're we get we're pulling the car and I'm doing all the work, you know, and like there's no there's no office politics and dynamics and animals really right? There's usually the alpha and then everybody else. And then you move on because everything is done for some idea of survival, but you get to humans who created by God in his image, who are in fact relational? And now we question everything, don't we? What did you mean in that email? What did you mean by what you said there? What do you mean by what you didn't say there? How come last time I turned this in and you praised me. But then the next time I get ignored and we go in and there's all these questions about existence and why and relationship and how do we do that? Well, the difference for christians is that we approach work differently, that we have the highest possible motive Here let me let me prove it to you here with a couple verses. First Corinthians 1031 used to say this at Soda Hills Christian camp. They actually wouldn't let you in to eat Until you said this verse together collectively as a camp. And so I memorized this as a kid. But first Corinthians 1031. So whether you eat or drink or whatsoever, you do do all to the glory of God. That is not just what you do, but how you do it and why you do it. So if you are cleaning the house, that's that's awesome. Now, imagine cleaning the house at the White house or the palace for a king. Whoa, Same job. But now it seems a little more stressful, right. Same thing. If you're writing, if you're writing a report or in a meeting, okay, it's just a meeting. But if you're meeting with the top world leaders, oh my goodness! What's changed? Well, who it's with and who it's for. Well, when you do everything for the glory of God, it brings the sacred into the ordinary. A couple of the verses here, Colossians 3 17 It says and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord, jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him. Then a couple verses later it says this verse 23 again, whatever you do work heartily asked for the Lord and not for men knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the inheritance as your reward. Or you are serving christ, What were the jobs back then? Well, there was Pharisees, there were tax collectors, there were rulers, but then there were also slaves and and and just these blue collar workers and didn't. And so and yet somehow as a church, they would all gather together. That same book, colossians talked about how under christ that whether you're a slave or free man or woman, you know, ruler or common person, you would all come under the gospel and authority of jesus. And so that was one of the unifying factors of the church is that everybody needs the gospel and everybody needs jesus. And so whatever you do work with all your might to the best of your ability with excellence and integrity because you're doing it for God, you're not doing it for your bad boss, you're doing it for your king, for the God that you worship? Because when you do it for God and not for man, that's worship. Okay, But let's let's start to get a little practical here. Like why, why is it important that we treat our coworkers with integrity and consistency and value excellence and give it our best shot because in Matthew chapter five verse 16, it says this way in the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good feelings, you know that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. Why do we give it our best at all times? Because the world is watching, here's the thing about our culture that loves authenticity now is that it used to be just a couple of decades ago, if you claimed you believed something, but then you lived this way that oh that person must not be adhering to his belief, but today your lifestyle is so closely connected to what you believe that if you claim to believe God, but then you live in this way and the world sees this, they're gonna not say oh they're not following his own belief, What they're gonna say is oh he's a hypocrite and therefore what he believes must not be true. You might be the only version of God that people at your workplace see and if you are the ambassador, you are the representative of the kingdom, you are the christian in your spot, if it seems really dark and it seems very difficult and you're like man, the things they say, the stuff that's done is really shady in that workplace environment. If you're battling that, what if you flip that and said, you know what, I have the opportunity to show them something different, I was having a conversation with some friends who they were reaching out and they were living out their faith and they turned to him and just said um wow you're not crazy. Like some of the other christians I know you seem pretty normal like oh I I don't know if that's a compliment or put down, I don't know. But yeah I have a conversation with you and have a family. Yeah let's just talk you know and because how you live is what people view Christianity as and so as people are watching, do we live in that way? So let's get super practical. Okay workers were deemed by God. Work is placed before sin was work is actually a form of worship. That what separates us from the world is our motive and our motive being worshiped, which then means that we can be honest and have integrity and work ethic and consistency and service. Okay but let's let's land the plane here this morning. Just talk about some real practical things because leadership in the workplace actually um ends up as a biblical concept. Let me show you. So um I was in grad school doing some research on stuff on leadership theory and we're not gonna nerd out there. But let me just give you some broad brush strokes because the idea of academic research of leadership, what works in the workplace has changed in the last 100 years. See first people follow what was called a trait leadership theory, which the focus was on attributes. In other words let's look for the right person. This person looks like he's a leader. He was born a leader and say they look at attributes, but then they realized just because you have attributes doesn't necessarily mean that you follow through. And so then they moved to what's called skill leadership theory. So instead of looking at the attributes of a person, they looked at the abilities, okay, what can you do? But they realize that it's not just your ability, but actually how you behave. And so that moved to what's called style leadership. Okay. And so he said, okay, how are you going to behave in a specific organization? You might hear if you read leadership books, it's like Peter Drucker and some other guys that or ken blanchard and some others that started coming out and saying, okay, how do you behave in these circumstances? Well then they realized that different situations require different behaviors and so then they called it situational leadership. Okay, how do you function in this world? How do you function in this world? And how do you function in this world? Well, in 1979, a guy named Robert Greenleaf actually coined the term servant leaders. Is that the role of a leader is not just to get people to help him, but the role of the leader is actually to empower and to love and serve his employees or his people. Do you see where this is becoming a very biblically tied concept? This is from a secular world that then they actually went full circle. Well no you're born with it, you have this No. Okay. How do you, what what can you do? Okay, now what do you actually do, know, what do you do in this circumstance? Okay, situations change, how do you act here? Well actually the best leaders serve and then situational and servant leadership got together and had a baby and they called something called transformational leadership and this is right in the early eighties, why is this important? Because if you're in business at all, you've probably read one of a series of leadership books maybe john Maxwell, Jim Collins, Stephen Covey Cozaar, the leadership challenge all of this came out of this idea of transformational leadership, transactional leadership says, I give you one thing, you give me another. In other words, I give you money, you give me hours, I give you this and it's very, very cold. And what business organizations realized was that the best leaders actually transform their workers to become better people and that Jim Collins in good to great says that the really the call of a leader a level five leader is someone who exhibits personal humility and professional will this idea that the best leaders transform their works place and that influence isn't even about a title or authority but an attitude and reflected through your actions and so all of the leadership books that you find today now promote what's seen as transformational leadership. But what's interesting is who out of anybody in the world was the best at influencing people with how he loved and served jesus. Do you see the opportunity there that if we love and treat people like jesus, we have the chance to lead our organizations to work and influence up, influence out and influence down and change the people that we work with and the and the industries that we work in, whether it's a trade or a skill set, whether it is more seen as white collar and and knowledge and thought whether it's online in person, we're all trying to adapt and pivot on the other side of a pandemic. But what remains the same are biblical principles to where the world who has rejected God as a whole, comes back and says, you know what through all the trials and tests and time, you know what works best is the leaders who love and serve people well. That's where we as christians can step in and be like, let me show you because now you have the holy spirit in your life to actually make it possible so to get real personal and practical here, Okay, how do we work on our motive? How do we work on our work ethic and our skill set? Okay, I would encourage you to do this, I didn't come up with this phrase, but I love it. So I'll share it with you. Is that when you're at work, work twice as hard on your character versus your competency. Character and competency are crucial to the workplace, right? If you're going to the doctor's office and you meet a surgeon, you care that he's a nice person, but you also don't want him to say, hey, this is my first go. Let's try it. Right? No competency does matter. Okay. And so you need both. But where competency will get you the job character will keep the job. Don't go to a place with your competency that your character can't sustain you. You see it in church world sadly, how many church leaders in the past 23 years have we seen with a major moral failing that wasn't their competency that caused them to fall, was their character. If you work twice as hard on your character and who you are and your integrity and how you treat people, how you speak, that's gonna set you up to sustain you for the long run, just give me two quick examples of why this is important. Um Patrick lynch peony, I love the leadership book stuff. So if you really want recommendations and business and theory and all that stuff, we can have a conversation offline. But one book I want to recommend to you. It's it's new on the market by Patrick lindsey only. He's a believer actually called the motive. And he shared that in this case that the motive of a leader or of an employee makes all the difference. And he compared to things, there's a responsibility centered leader and then there's the reward centered leader. If you're an employer, you want to hire the responsibility center leaders. And if you're the employee, you want to be one why? Because if you are responsible for someone, you feel that you're calling to help and serve others, these are the people that will go the extra mile for the company, for the co worker and for the boss or for the employee. This is where we, as christians have the chance to get ahead and show the world what light really looks like. Because most of the world functions as rewards centered leaders. They enter a job thinking what's in it for me. And as soon as something gets hard, they're out right? Because if you're focused on the reward and you don't get it, you don't want to have the hard conversation, you don't want to delegate. You don't want to go the extra mile, right? So how can you position yourself with the right motive of honoring God? Right? What greater responsibility is there to bring light into the workplace and to give God glory that you're working for the audience of one that God has placed you in that as an opportunity in that email, in the meeting that you don't want to be in to actually engage people and connect at a deeper level because you have the responsibility to be light to everybody around you versus how many of you know, a boss? No a coworker who's only in it for themselves. What's it like to work for that person? What's it like to work with that person? See this is where work and worship really comes together. One more example, here is generosity verse, greed. You see this in the workplace all the time. Do you come from a place of what can you give or do you come from a place of what can you get? Because we tie it all the way back to Genesis Chapter one, what did God do? God created us in his image. So we can create and build in love with the passion and dreams that God's given you. But even in those tasks and skills and jobs that you don't like, you can still go through why? Because the first thing God did after created it was created us is he blessed us. Now, this could be a sermon for another time, but I find it interesting. So God creates man on day six and what happened on day seven rest, I say that just for those in the room who might struggle with being a workaholic that the first command God gave us after he created us and the challenge was rest. What if rest wasn't just an escape of what happened, but a preparation for what's to come if we change our perspective, it changes everything. So I want to encourage you that whatever your job is, do it with all your mind and with all your heart and soul and mind because how you work is how you worship God is watching and the world is watching and we have a chance to change the world with the gospel when we lead and love people the way that God has loved us, let's pray dear Heavenly Father, just thank you, thank you for all those in this room who have so many different jobs. Maybe they're even in between jobs right now. God I pray that you can give people wisdom for making healthy decisions. That our motive would be gospel centered, that we can love people the way that you have loved us, God that we can change the world and health care education God I thank you of placing people everything from Uber drivers to house cleaners, to stay at home, parents raising their kids, to entrepreneurs, to cashiers, to those who are just all over the map. God, we gather as one unified under your love and light. So whatever our jobs, whatever our responsibilities, I pray that we can have the motive of loving people the way that you have loved us of blessing our workplace in our community and our relationships to be honest to have work ethic, to have integrity, to value excellence, to give it our best because you are watching and so is the world. Because when we put forth our life and we live out your spirit. God, it changes things. Thank you for giving us different jobs, different passions, different skill sets, help us to persist and to overcome challenges that we face each and every day and may we remember that everything we do is worship God. We love you and we sing of your greatness and we pray that we will take this love and this prayer and this passion with us to work tomorrow morning, we love you God, it's in your son's name. We pray. Amen.