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How many of us love our work?

How many of us would say our work is exhausting?

DYK that work is a gift from God? Our ability to produce, lead, and accomplish are gifts from God that were intended to make life rewarding.

In the beginning of Genesis, Adam and Eve were placed in the garden to tend it and reap it’s harvest, work that was a blessing.

But as part of Adam’s curse, we have been left to struggle in our work to produce.

So today in our work, we experience forces at work against us.

Realities that take our work, what was to be a blessing, and turns it around and now drives us toward emptiness.

What empties us?

What empties you at work?

Distractions - Distractions from our work take us off track all the time.

Not all the distractions are bad, in fact most times they tend to be just more good things - more things that need to be done, more things that others want us to do, more things that others aren’t doing that we need them to do, more than we can do, so they become a distraction.

Right after Abram sets out to follow God, he runs into a famine.

He has to take a different path.

Distractions from our work take us off track as well.

Disapproval, particularly when it comes from people who are vested in our work, our stake holders - empties us.

When the people - we are trying to help - disapprove of what we are seeking to do, we have to stop, listen, and answer their objections and adjust our work accordingly.

These detractors take the energy and passion out of our work.

Doubts - are another thing.

We normally have all sorts of opportunities to doubt ourselves, and they are draining to our work, but even more so when the doubts and concerns come from those who are our normal support system.

Our family for example.

Doubts - She’s my sister

When it seems like we are pulling rocks up hill, we go home hoping our spouse will hear us, and maybe even encourage us.

But instead of hearing how they believe in us, all we hear is how they doubt our work, our abilitites…leading us to doubt ourselves.

Of yourself and from your support system

When those you expect to believe in you don’t, it’s draining…you question yourself even more.

Delays - are the last one I’ll touch on, when our plans don’t work out on the time line we have set out, we lose passion, momentum; work gets hard when the timeline gets stretched.

Or worse, when we don’t even get to see the job through.

When we have to turn over our work to someone else to finish.

These aren’t the only things that empty us at work, but they are some of the most common.

If we don’t address these we are begging for burnout, so today we are going to look at the alternative God has for us, that is to recall our calling.

When you do everything you are supposed to do, you see ti getting closer, but it’s not realized, you never reach the goal.

In fact, someone else gets to see your project through

Recall our calling or we are are begging for burnout.

These aren’t the only things that empty us at work, but they are some of the most common

In the Digging deeper this week, there re some questions that will help you work through these emptying forces in your life in relationship to another famous worker in the bible, David as he went to fight Goliath.

I encourage you to take our message today further.

All of this is to answer the question, SO WHAT does the resurrection matter to my life?

How does Jesus change things.

I’ve said having faith in Jesus changes our whole life, and work is part of that life, a big part of it.

SO when Jesus promised in , that he came that we may have life and have it to the full, this means for our work to be something more than a job.

This full life is a result of the call that God has for our lives through faith in Jesus.

Jesus has called us to live our lives differently.

This is the calling of every believer.

The bible is full of people who worked, loved their work, yet found themselves running on empty.

I want to look at one of them today, Abram.

Which is it?

Job, Career, or Vocation?

What’s the difference between a job, a career, and a vocation?

Let’s try to understand the difference between these ways of looking at work.

A job is when you just perform a task for pay.

Your heart isn’t in it, it’s just a means to an end.

IN fact you hope to get a better job, because this one doesn’t really challenge you or really meet all your needs.

That’s how a job turns into a career, as it is made up of a series of jobs.

One building on another as you save for retirement, pursue promotions, gain greater responsibility and influence.

Jobs and career form your vocation....what you do.

But your call isn’t just different, Understanding our Calling makes all the difference.

We see this played out in people again and again in scripture.

I want to look at one of them today, Abram.

It all starts in

This story of Abram and Sarai is is one of the greatest stories in scripture.

“Go from where you live and whom you know to a place I won’t reveal yet.”

God says that if Abram does that, he’ll bless him deeply.

Barrenness will turn into family.

Family will turn into nation.

Worldwide legacy and impact will result.

We can reduce Abram’s calling into a mission statement for us today: Follow God.

Be blessed by God.

Bless others.

Now fast forward later into Abraham’s journey.

Abram, is distracted when right out of the gate in Ch 12 he and his wife have to deal with the difficulties of a famine forcing him to move again.

But God has called him.

In ch 13 He has to deal with disapproval from those he is traveling with and the lands he travels through.

You would read about his dealings with Lot and the kings of foreign lands.

But God has called him.

In Ch 16, His wife calls into question his ability to see this through and even convinces him to take a different path, but he remembers that.

In Ch 17, he is called to circumcision…to WHAT?

Then in Ch 22 God calls him to sacrifice his only son.

God has called him.

He travels and waits for a child.

It isn’t until Ch 20, 25 years for the first child that was promised, the seed of a nation, and another 400 years for it to become a reality, but he is convinced,

God has called him.

With both successes and setbacks, Abraham navigates some major-league challenges.

But for us, today, back to Abram...

How?

Why didn’t he just check out on God after years of empty promises concerning a possible child?

What kept Abraham from moving back to family and what he knew?

How did he go through with circumcision and the potential sacrifice of Isaac?

What empties you at work?

Abraham must have stayed true to that call.

“I follow God.

I’ll be blessed by God.

I bless others.”

must have been so spiritually and vocationally formative that it served as a compass in some of the torrential life-storms that came his way.

What empties us?

What empties us?

What empties us at work?

Distractions - Famine