Sermon Tone Analysis
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THANK GOD, IT’S MONDAY
Determining My Life’s Work
Welcome, once again, to The Journey.
If you are joining us for the first time today, I am Nelson, and if you are back from Easter last week, we kicked off this brand new series called “Thank God, It’s Monday”.
Tell you a funny story, we were at the printers getting some of the stuff printed for “Thank God, It’s Monday” and the first page came through and the printer looked at it like—thank God, it’s Monday?
What kind of warped church is this?
It’s Monday!
It should be “thank God, it’s Friday”?
That intentional.
We are talking about—how can you be thankful for your work.
And the reality here in our city, we work a lot.
I mean, some of you work 60, 70, 80, some of you pull all-nighters.
We work a lot in our city, but fortunately for us, God has a lot to say about work.
I mean, the Bible is not silent when it tells us to work.
Now, the Bible makes it very clear that when it comes to work, that work is necessary.
Our work is necessary.
God created us to work.
Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden, we also learned that work would be difficult.
There is no such thing as an easy job, or an easy in that.
As a matter of fact, the Bible says if you are lazy, that’s a sin of slothfulness and then it goes even farther—if you do not work, you should not eat.
So it has a very high priority on this issue of work.
But it also gives us some cautions.
The Bible says we should never mistake our work for our worth.
Our worth is about who we are in God.
About God loving us.
About God creating us.
About God knowing us.
We are highly esteemed by God.
Don’t confuse your work with your worth.
Guys, we are especially bad at this.
Because the very first question guys wants to ask is—what do you do?
What do you do for a living?
We are kind of wrapped up in this.
Some other people are better at this than I am, and some of you are.
But don’t confuse these ideas.
The other big thing that the Bible says related to work is that you can worship when you work.
Now, think about that for a second.
I’m not talking about the songs that we just did, or some of the stuff that we are doing in church on this, but I’m talking about taking God to work with you.
That work can be a way for you to live out your faith.
That work can actually draw you to God.
And the Bible says that work can be ministry.
So, if you find your message notes, at the top of your notes would you just write down the word—ministry?
And then write down this definition.
The word ministry means to serve.
It means to serve.
So write that down in your notes.
Ministry is to serve.
Now a lot of people will say—now, Nelson, you are in ministry.
That’s true.
I work full time as a pastor at a church.
My job is lead pastor at the church.
To teach there.
To lead the church, and all these things.
And I am in fulltime Christian ministry.
But what I don’t like about that phrase “fulltime Christian ministry” is that somehow means that if you are a Christian out in the corporate world, you are not in fulltime Christian ministry.
Now, God might call you to serve in a church.
He might call you to be on staff.
That may be in your future.
But God calls every Christian to fulltime Christian ministry because we are to live out our faith in the workplace.
It’s not like we leave what we do in here behind, when we walk out the door, and we don’t think about it again until next Sunday.
That’s why this series is called “Thank God, It’s Monday”, because we believe what happens here on Sunday matter in your life on Monday, so you are to serve in the workplace.
You are to be a Christian minister in the workplace.
And we are going to try to unpack that over the next few weeks as we look at these different issues.
But as you see in your notes today, we are talking about “Determining My Life’s Work”, and this is a pretty important topic as well.
A lot of people ask us about this topic.
As a matter of fact, the number one prayer request over the last year or so, on the back of the Connection Card, has been, will you pray for me to know God’s will for my career, or something like that.
I’m thinking about a career change.
I’m thinking about leaving one career and doing another.
We have a whole group of people in our church that are thinking about coming out of the traditional work force and they are going to be stay-at-home moms, or stay-at-home dads.
And so this is a very big issue in our church.
It’s also a big issue in our city.
I don’t know if you saw the recent survey they did of rising juniors in colleges across New York.
Did you see that? Do you know what the number one major is for rising juniors in colleges in our city?
Undecided!
Exactly right.
So more people writing that.
We are waiting longer to determine what our life’s work is going to be.
Because we don’t know.
And books these days are very popular around this topic of helping you discover your career.
For example, one that I never quite understood the title of, is called What Color is My Parachute.
Have you seen that one?
You look at this and you look at all the careers, the best selling issues of magazines are the salary issues, top careers and all that.
Then there’s a book called What To Do With My Life that continues to go strong in bookstores.
So today, let’s look at this issue, because God has a lot to say about it.
And God says that if you need wisdom, if you want God to speak to you, all you have to do is ask.
That’s what the first verse in your notes is all about.
From James 1:5.
Notice what it says, “If you need wisdom, if you want to know what God wants you to do,” ask your family and rich friends.
Okay, not exactly what it says.
Let’s read this out loud together.
Ready?
From the beginning.
“If you need wisdom, if you want to know what God wants you to do, ask Him and He will gladly tell you.
He will not resent your asking.”
There are several things in this verse that are interesting.
The first one says that God is happy to tell you, that God smiles at the opportunity to give you His wisdom.
God’s not sitting up in Heaven saying—I’m not going to tell these guys anything.
I’m not going to share anything with them.
Let them go ahead and figure it out.
God’s not playing dice, as Kerrick said last week, God’s will is not hidden from us.
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