How God Can Bless You Through Your Work | Colossians 3:23–24

Is work simply something we have to endure, or can it actually be one of God’s gifts? Pastor Chris Teien looks at the biblical value of work and how God can use our jobs, abilities, opportunities, and resources to bless us and help us bless others.

Whether you are employed, raising children, volunteering, retired from a career, or serving in another way, meaningful work gives us opportunities to develop skills, serve people, glorify God, and make a difference.

IN THIS MESSAGE

1: GOD BLESSES US WITH WORK

Work existed before sin entered the world. Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden to work it and care for it. Sin made work more difficult, but work itself remains a good gift from God. Having something worthwhile to accomplish can bring purpose, satisfaction, and opportunities to serve others. (Genesis 2:15; Ecclesiastes 3:12–13)

2: GOD BLESSES PEOPLE BY GIVING THEM SKILLS

God gives people different abilities and can develop new skills throughout our lives. Scripture describes Bezalel and others receiving wisdom, ability, and craftsmanship for the work God gave them. Pay attention to what you can learn through your job and the opportunities God places before you. (Exodus 35:30–35)

3: GOD BLESSES PEOPLE BY GIVING THEM OPPORTUNITIES

Opportunities allow us to discover abilities, gain experience, serve others, and sometimes step into things we never thought we could do. Instead of automatically saying no because you feel unqualified, consider whether God may be giving you an opportunity to learn, grow, or serve. (Genesis 12:1–4; 1 Thessalonians 5:14)

4: GOD BLESSES PEOPLE THROUGH YOUR QUALITY WORK

The quality of our work can become part of our Christian witness. People notice workers who are dependable, honest, diligent, and willing to go the extra mile. Whatever our job may be, Christians are called to work willingly as though we are ultimately serving Christ rather than merely working for another person. (Colossians 3:23–24)

5: GOD BLESSES YOU WITH REWARDS

Hard work can bring many kinds of rewards, including financial provision, satisfaction, relationships, experience, and opportunities for greater responsibility. Scripture also reminds us that the Lord sees faithful service and that our ultimate reward comes from Him. This is not a guarantee that faithful Christians will become wealthy, but we can trust God to see and value work done faithfully for Him. (Colossians 3:24; Proverbs 14:23)

6: GOD BLESSES WHEN YOU GIVE BACK TO HIM

The resources we receive through our work can also become opportunities for generosity. Instead of seeing everything we earn as something to keep for ourselves, we can honor God with what He has provided and use our resources to support ministry and help people in need. Generosity is a response to God’s provision, not a formula for getting rich. (Proverbs 3:9–10)

BE ENCOURAGED

Your work matters to God. Look for work worth doing, develop the skills He has given you, take advantage of worthwhile opportunities, and do your work with excellence and integrity. Then use whatever God provides to bless others and honor Him. Whether your work happens at a business, in your home, at church, or as a volunteer, it can become an act of worship and a place where God works through you.

Helping you understand and apply God’s Word. Find more ways to listen and connect, plus links to sermon transcripts at Well.faith. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church. Questions or feedback? Email wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

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Chris T 0:17

All right, I'm going to talk about work. Work. Even if you're retired, you should still have some kind of work. It is a great gift from God when you wake up in the morning, and not only do you have something that you have to do, but you want to do it. Something to accomplish, something that might make the world a better place, something that might help change someone's life, something that might, when you're done, you can look back on and have great satisfaction and say, I did this well. Sometimes being a pastor, it's tough to know if you're making a difference or not. Sometimes people seem like they're going spiritually and then all of a sudden they just disappear. It's like, where'd you go? How come you're not at church? Yes, I'm talking to you. Thank you for watching. Why aren't you here? Where did you go? So I have to admit that sometimes cleaning up the dog stuff in my backyard brings great satisfaction because when I'm done, I look and I go, Yes, everything is clean once again. And the dogs come out and look around and they go, Yes, you've done a good job. Everything is clean once again. So on the other hand, it is a great delight being a pastor and seeing not only people get saved, but people start to follow the Lord. People start to volunteer and serve and share their faith and very good things. But work is a big deal. Work is a major part of our life. The average person is going to work 90,000 hours in their life. And work can be a place that brings great memories, relationships, hopefully friendships, sometimes victories, sometimes challenges that are rewarded. Many times people work and they're rewarded. So they're rewarded financially, they're rewarded with satisfaction, they're rewarded as they use their skills. The average person has 12 different jobs over the course of their life, and maybe you have had many different jobs over the course of your life. And different jobs are different for different people. So I don't think any of us qualify to be in the Super Bowl because we're just that's not how God wired us, built us, or gave us that opportunity. But today, between the 49ers and the Chiefs, the winners, they're gonna get $164,000 in addition to what they already get paid, and the losers, only $89,000. So I wouldn't mind being a loser in the Super Bowl today. Tickets. An average ticket for the Super Bowl is $8,600. That is a lot of money to go see a game. But their time is limited, they will not be on that field for decades. That is not a long-term career for those people. If they're lucky, maybe they can slide over to coaching or sports camp, sports announcing or something like that. But anyway, I don't know what your job is or what your job has been. I know that some of you are retired and you still have work that you do. So many of you volunteer at the church. The church would not be able to survive if it wasn't for your level of volunteering and all the things that you do to serve the Lord at church. Now that I don't see anything in the Bible that necessarily talks about retirement. But retirement in the American way is kind of a cool thing where you can quit your one job and then go do something else that you want to do. And if you're really fortunate, you can get a check from your other job, maybe a pension or investments, or somehow you can get money coming in so you can continue to fund God working through you so that God can provide for you as you continue to work out the rest of your years. So maybe your years will be many, maybe your retirement years have been long. Some people, I knew a UPS guy retired at 55 because he basically timed out. After 30 years, he was supposed to retire. So he retired from that, he gets the check from that, but he's also doing something else. He's not just sitting around. I guess research shows that if you retire and don't do anything, if you're just gonna sit around the golf course and sip lemonade all day, your life is probably gonna be a lot shorter than people that actually have a reason to get up in the morning and do something. And if you are blessed with the ability to be self-funding and do whatever you want, the it's wide open to the works that you can do for the Lord and the things that you could do, you should use your time wisely. Work is a gift from God. Some of us think that work is a curse. If Adam and Eve hadn't sinned, we wouldn't have to work. No, Adam and Adam was working before sin. He was tending the garden, he was naming the animals, he was enjoying everything about being in the presence of God. And sin made work more difficult. But work is a good thing. I love work. My wife knows that I'm a workaholic, one of the few respectable holicisms that you can have in society. So I got to take the week off because the home COVID test showed the little blue lines. So I'm like, I just have a cold. But to do the right thing, I stay at home, and Tim got to step in. But I still worked because I love work. So I sat there and I built up another desktop computer that is way faster and way more equipped for editing video than I've ever had before. So I don't know how things continue to get smaller and faster. I just hope it doesn't fail me. But nonetheless, I did work. I like to do work, especially when I think that I'm establishing and building something for the kingdom of God, something that will make ministry better, something that will make life better, something that will help us to be better. And in John 1.16, from Jesus' abundance, we have all received one gracious blessing after another. His abundance, we have received grace upon grace in another translation. Grace is where Jesus gives us what we don't deserve. Everything we have in our life that we enjoy is from God. It's not that we earned energy, it's not that we earned intelligence, it's not that we earned these bodies that we have, they were given to us by God. And sometimes we struggle with health issues, sometimes we struggle with other things. But I think that even in the midst of the health issue, sometimes in the midst of you not really feeling like doing something, but you still step up and do it anyway, I think God sees that and he's glorified even more in the fact that you stepped up to worship and serve God, even though you had this sickness and you had uh this trouble and you had this pressing problem and you had all of these things, all of these entanglements, and you still stepped up. It's a good thing to do what you can to the best of your ability to glorify God, and he sees that. And we should follow after the Lord and to do his will and to keep moving forward. Some of us think that we're right with God because we we do the best we can, because we're moral, because because we do these works or because we give or because we do these things, we're keeping God's rules and commandments, but God sees our heart, God sees our desires, and God gives us grace more than we deserve. We couldn't keep God's holy law perfectly, it's impossible. But through receiving Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, through his forgiveness, then we receive grace. First, or Titus 3, 4. When God, our Savior, revealed his kindness and love, he saved us not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and a new life through the Holy Spirit. He generously poured out the Spirit upon us through Jesus Christ our Savior. Because of his grace, he declared us righteous and gave us confidence that we will inherit eternal life, that we have confidence when we're in Christ, a confidence that allows us to step up as a Christ follower and live for the Lord, to live our lives according to God's book, to stand against the world's policies and the world's strategies and the world's ideals. It's getting weirder and weirder out there as far as the things that people in culture believe. It's so bizarre, and it is totally against what God's word says. So you've got to choose. Are you gonna follow along with the world and things will probably be easier then? Are you gonna stand up and say, wait, so our great-grandparents didn't believe this? Godly people in the past didn't believe this. God's word doesn't say anything that you say about this is true. I'm gonna I'm gonna side with what God says. And that's maybe why the New Testament, why Peter says that we're strangers and aliens in these in this present world. We're seen as odd, we're seen as outsiders. Our citizenship is actually in heaven. But work is a blessing. God blesses us with work. It is not a good thing to not have a reason. To get up in the morning is not a good thing to not have any kind of work. It doesn't mean you have to go to a job. It doesn't mean that you have to have an employer. There's all sorts of different types of work that you can do. When my wife stayed at home with our kids and homeschooled our kids and everything, she was busy and she was diligent, and so our kids were well cared for. Our house was always clean, she always had things that she was doing. She did her work, she was not lazy at all. Because that was her work. That was her job. And fortunately, God provided enough money for us to get by. She did some part-time stuff on the side and stuff to help, but nonetheless, her job was taking care of the kids and helping to raise the kids. And right now her job is helping me and church here, and that's great too. But work is a good thing. So Adam was in the garden, Genesis 2.15. The Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to enjoy it, to sit there and sip lemonade, to draw it, to write about it. No, to work it and take care of it. And he found satisfaction in that. Can you imagine? I don't know if you're into gardening. I am not into gardening. Gardening is not my thing. I'll trim it with the lawnmower. That's as far as I'm I'll get my hedge, I'll trim it, I'll chop it, I'll cut it off. But that's what I'll maybe I'll fertilize it so that the grass grows. But I'm not into gardening. It doesn't appeal to me. I'm probably not gonna be growing new plants, but who knows? You never know. I could change. You could convince me maybe. And I'm not, I tried gardening and that didn't work either. But nonetheless, Adam was in God's plan and he's in the garden and he's working it, and work is a gift from God. And God has made us all different. Fortunately, there's like different aptitude inventory tests that you can take that will help you figure out what kind of job you might be good at. So you answer all these questions and they give you like a list of things maybe that you would be good at. It is not a good thing to say, I need a job, I want to make a lot of money, let's see who's hiring, and say, you know what? I really don't like people and I hate teeth, but I hear there's a lot of money being a dental assistant. I think I'll clean people's teeth because I want the money. That's not good for anybody. It's not good for you, and it's not good for the people whose mouth you're working on. So you should become a dental assistant because you love teeth and you love people and want to see them have happy, good smiles and healthy teeth. Some people, they love working in a factory. They will just, they feel content to do the same thing over and over. They'll do it good too. They just, I'm coming to work, I'm gonna do the same thing I do all the time. It's what I do. So, whatever it is. When I lived in Forest City, Iowa, where they make Winnebagos, I got the public tour where you go around and they give you a tour of the Winnebago factory where they make Winnebago motorhomes. And then I got the private tour with an accountant that went to our church and it was a totally different tour. It's very interesting. And then I stood next to the accountant during the parade, and then that parade, instead of just fire trucks, they had all the Winnebago line go down the street too. I'm like, how much is that one? How much is that one? What's the profit margin on that one? And it was very interesting. Anyway, some people love to design things, they engineer things, they build things, they build it and they hand it off and they want to go off to the next project. They're creative. Factory workers, they'll be like, I put on the door. Every Winnebago you see out there on that model, I put the left door on. That was me, I did that. Some people are good with words, they're wordsmiths, they love to speak and write words. Some people are so creative, some people are given the ability to be creative. They can walk into a room and see what could be done for colors and textures and all these different things. Some people, the work is a reward enough, just the satisfaction from the work. And other people are like super money motivated. They're like, I don't care what the work is, I need the money. And sometimes that's true because of the cost of everything going up, and if you have to provide for yourself and your family and all the bills and everything, yeah, sometimes, sometimes we're money motivated. But it's good when you can do what you want to do and still find ways to get bonuses and rewards and raises and things like that. Some people are excellent at problem solving. That's what they want to find a problem. They want they want to come in, find a problem, find a solution, build up a team to take care of it, and that's how they go. Some people they do things that are wonderful and temporary. For instance, a cook, so they're a chef, and they make the finest food, and people love their food, but then they eat their food and it's gone, and they don't have anything to show about, show for it except maybe somebody's memory or maybe a Yelp review. And so it's short-lived, but it's delightful and it's delicious, and it's good, and it's satisfying to them. Other people make things that are permanent, that are run for a long time. So, like the Mason or the bricklayer, so comes in and builds a building or a church or something like that that stays for a long time. Work is a gift from God. Teaching, it's a wonderful thing when someone is able to teach somebody a new skill. I can only imagine what it's like to be a music teacher and to teach a child to play an instrument and then have that child grow up to do recitals and be excellent, an excellent musician, and think to yourself, huh, I got them started down that path. Very good thing. In Ecclesiastes, Solomon says, people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor. These are gifts from God. And it is a great gift to be able to enjoy the things that you have worked for. Sometimes it's better to work for it than it is just to be handed it because you value it more. I'm not sure what the name of the bedtime stories were that my wife would read to my kids when they were little. But this I remember there was one this one story where this lady was a missionary, like somewhere in Africa or whatever, and so she needed basically cow patties, cow dung, tried to fuel her heat at night. And the children wanted Bibles. So instead of just handing them Bibles, she said, if you go out and you collect a certain number of these cow patties for me, I will give you a Bible. And therefore she got the fuel she needed for heat, and the kids worked for their Bibles and treated it better. It can be a good thing to do that. Actually, the Bible says if a man doesn't work, he shouldn't eat. And that is a good thing to remember too. But to know that God blesses us with work, that work is something that should be a part of the Christian discipline. A good work ethic. To be good workers, to be godly workers, to want to step up and do work is a good thing. So maybe you need to pray about your work. Maybe you are not satisfied in life. Maybe you're not satisfied with the time that you have. I know as we all continue to move down the road, we start to lose opportunities, either with health or time or whatever. So we should take advantage of the opportunities that we're given each day, and maybe even build those skills. God blesses people by giving them skills. So he blesses people. He can bless people. So God blessed Abraham in Genesis 12. The Lord had said to Abraham back then, leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, go to the land. I will show you, I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you and make you famous. You will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who treat you with contempt. All families on earth will be blessed through you. So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abraham was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all his wealth, his livestock, and all the people he had taken into the household at Haran, and headed for the land of Canaan when they arrived in Genesis twelve. So God can bless us. There's no guarantee that God's going to bless us. There's no guarantee that every one of us are going to be the head and not the tail, that we're going to be, we're going to be rich beyond rich beyond measure, that every committed Christ follower is just going to be automatically rich. That's not a thing. God can bless you and give you riches. But I think he watches to see what you're going to do with the money, with the riches, with the resources, with what you've been given. And if you've been faithful to bless other people with that stuff that God has given you, I think God then can give you more and bless you and give you skills. To give you skills. I don't know what type of skills you have acquired over time. My first job when I was 14 years old was working at Hardee's, working at the Hardy's restaurant. So my grandpa owned a hard, owned two Hardy's restaurants, and trained me up in the Hardee's way. I was probably the only 14-year-old that ever read the Hardy's franchise manual from cover to cover and was committed to following it. And I worked at Hardee's for a couple of years. And then I graduated and went to college. And tried to work at a Hardee's, this was in Minnesota. Tried to work at a Hardee's in the South. Turns out I didn't really like working at Hardee's. So actually, the one in the South, I despised working at Hardy's. You know what I liked? I liked the people that I was working with. The people that I was working with at the Hardeys when I was in high school was like a family. We had a good time together. It was fun to work with those people. It was work, but yet it was fun. Back then, so night mid-1980s, we had three hamburgers for a dollar, or two cheeseburgers for a dollar. School buses would roll in after a game on Mondays when we were kicking out these burgers. And my coworkers and I, we would load up that chain broiler with as many hamburgers and buns as we could. We had a ketchup shooter and a mustard shooter in both hands, and we're like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. We're kicking those things out as fast as we can. And they gave us free caffeinated pop. That was a benefit. And anyway, it's just what we did, and we were so fast and good at it. And it's like muscle memory. So years later, where I used to live, they had the barbecue days each summer. So it was a big town festival, and they'd make these barbecue sandwiches and stuff, and I'd volunteer to help there. They're like, where did you learn how to wrap those burgers so fast? I'm like, when I was a kid working at Hardy's. But nonetheless, so I gained a little some skills there at Hardy's. And I also worked at Devonnie's Making Pizza, and I worked at a bakery for a while, so I have some skills. But and then I, for a period of time, uh, some guys in my church came along and they said, Hey, what are you doing for work? We'll pay you more money if you come work for us as a construction laborer. And so I got to work for them for I know it was like a year, and they did each job long enough for me to learn some kind of new skill, which was like super helpful for like home improvement. And when I went on a missions trip and all these things, I learned some skills along the way. Sheetrocking and all these different things that we did. I I learned and it was good. Skills along the way. Would I become a contractor? No. Am I helpful sometimes? Yeah. And so skills. And then when I worked at Pentax, I seemed to stay in each job long enough to learn some kind of skill. And then I was moved on to the next position. And God can use the work that you're doing or the opportunities you have to teach you new things. And it's even better when you start to look around and say, what else can I learn? And I try to encourage young people if you're going to get a job and you're trying to find a job just to make ends meet, get started, get one that teaches you and trains you and gives you some kind of skills. God gives skills and opportunities. He often does that through the workplace that we're in. We learn new things, and it can be a great thing. You can also figure out what you're good at and what you like to do. So God blesses people by giving them skills. So it says in Exodus 35, Moses told the people of Israel, the Lord has specifically chosen Bezalel, son of Uri, grandson of her. The Lord has filled Bezalel with the Spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, ability, and expertise in all kinds of crafts. He is a master craftsman, an expert in working with gold, silver, and bronze. He is skilled in engraving and mounting. Just advance the screen when I get. Close. Gemstones and in carving wood. He is a master at every craft. And the Lord has given both him and Oli of the tribe of Dan the ability to teach their skills to others. The Lord has given them special skills as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet thread, and in fine linen cloth and weavers. They excel as craftsmen and designers. So skill can come from God. Skill can be given to us as we're in the middle of doing the job, in the middle of doing the work. We can learn new things. We can gain new skills. We can find things that we really like doing. So there are certain things I wish that I would have learned to do. So I made a lot of concrete when I was working as a construction laborer, but I never learned how to float and finish concrete. I wish I would have learned how to do that because that would have been the missing piece to me actually like finishing my own stuff. So maybe I'll learn that from one of you. But nonetheless, sometimes we waste years. Sometimes we just time goes on and we don't take advantage of the opportunity that we have. If somebody says, hey, would you like to try this? Would you like to try to drive this? Would you like to try to do this? Would you say yes? Try the new experience. Maybe you'll find out it's not for you, and maybe you'll find out it's really fun and that you're able to do it. And there's different skills that we need to get. So we learn different skills to do things, but we could also become more skilled at time management so we don't waste those years and maybe skilled at organization of some kind. So I read in America the average desk worker has 36 hours of worth, so 36 hours worth of work on his or her desk and waste three hours a week just searching for things in the maze of clutter. So on the other hand, though, if you just leave things in piles, eventually that stuff will time out and you can throw it away as time goes on. But find some system of organization to do your work better. Sometimes writing down what you did for work brings great satisfaction. So if you have like a task list, to-do list or whatever, when you write down the things that you accomplished, then the days that you don't feel like you're getting anything done, you can look back and go, oh yeah, I did this and that, I remember that. It'd be a good thing. But God blesses us by giving us opportunities. Giving us opportunities. It is a wonderful thing when we find an opportunity and we step up to see if this is for me. Maybe you step up, you say, I'm gonna try it. That's what you by the way, if somebody gives you an opportunity, you definitely should say, I'm gonna try it. So, especially around the church, too. You want to be real careful with that. So you want to make sure that someone doesn't hand off the position to you just because you volunteered to do it once. Say, I'd like to try it and see how it works out. We can talk about it. I'll do it a couple times and then we can talk about it and see how it works. And if you are like a leader of a ministry, find people that want to try it and see if they like it, and then give them some skills so that they can also do your role in children's ministry, youth ministry, serving ministry, all these different things. But it's a good thing when we have opportunity and we step up. Sometimes people won't step up, sometimes they are too afraid to step up. There are people who don't feel qualified who step up and they actually get the job done. And they will tell you that what they're doing they're no good at, and they don't really feel like they should be doing it. But they do it and they're doing it well, and it is a good thing. And so many times God can fill in the gap of us between our competence and us actually getting stuff done. Other people will tell you how great they are at it, they're fully confident, and they don't get anything done. So in 1978, two American psychologists observed what they called the imposter syndrome. They described it as a feeling of phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable, or creative despite evidence of high achievement. While these people are highly motivated to achieve, they also live in fear of being found out or exposed as frauds. If it sounds familiar, you aren't alone. The amazing American author and poet Maya Angelou shared that I have written 11 books, but each time I think, uh oh, they're going to find out now, I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out, despite winning three Grammys and being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, this huge talent still question her success. Sometimes we are too humble. Actually, we're talking about meekness and the Beatitudes. It is a good thing, actually, to be humble and to maybe just say, I'm surprised that this was such a success. Praise God. Praise God. 1 Thessalonians 5.14 about laziness says, We urge you to earn those who are lazy, encourage those who are timid, take tender care of those who are weak and be patient with everyone. Be patient with everyone. Jerry, would you grab the lights? Watch a little bit about work.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

There was a war between the two lands. A great divide that none could cross. A great warrior, a wise nobleman, and me, a simple roofer by trade, brought along because I knew the way. Try as we may, we could not get in, unknown to them as we were. And with difficult news, both bad and good. Our job undone, the mission failed, we made ready to return. When something caught my eye. A place where I could serve. Oh stupid word, but by a simple skill. To me a door was opened. And so in time were ears. So where a knight was turned aside and wise men could not go, a simple man, Rufer by trade, accomplished the king's will.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Most of us spend over half our lives at work. Whatever it is you fill the nine to five with, planting crops, building cars, taking care of patients, teaching students, or running a business, work is where most of life happens. For some, work is a drain. They dread Monday mornings, forcing themselves to struggle through because they need the paycheck, while many times feeling trapped and beaten down by their job. Some people love their work. It energizes them. It's a place of security, a place to chase dreams, desires, and success. At work, they find fulfillment. We often forget to connect our faith to our work. We don't consider the reasons God may have to set our job. We don't think about the purpose and meaning we could bring to our work. We simply focus on how it makes us feel. But what if we saw our work as an opportunity to worship? As Christians, we are called to serve Christ with our lives. For a few, that means working as a pastor, a youth minister, or a missionary. Others serve the church by teaching children or singing in the choir. But when Sunday is over, most of us are to enjoy our jobs outside of the church. For us, our mission is in the marketplace. We may not be the kind of missionary who move to the far regions of Africa, but around the conference table, around the water cooler, around the cubicle, we have an opportunity to worship the God who created us. He gave us skill. He gave us passion. He gave us work. But we do our jobs with excellence and integrity and diligence. It's an act of worship. We are displaying God's pastorship, the nominal world around us. We are earning the right to be great. We don't see a divide between Sunday and Monday, between the sacred and the secular. We've been invited into parts of the world that a pastor or traditional missionary will never see. We have conversations with people who have never set foot in the truth. Whether we love or dread our work, we choose to turn the focus away from ourselves and for the mission God has for us. Church is not the only place we worship, and Sundays are not the only days in our calendar that have needed. Every day a mission for God brings us great joy. Like the heroes before us, we can be modern-day knows and justice and peters who are called with a purpose. God has designed us. For us, work is worship.

Chris T 32:31

Wonderful thing. God blesses people through our quality of work. It's a wonderful thing when people know that you can be trusted to do a quality job. So I think I mentioned before in Sunday school or somewhere that the house we had built years ago when it was being built, the building inspector came to look at what I was doing with the basement. And he called out the name of the builder. He's like, is this and name the guy's name, house? And I'm like, yeah. He always goes the extra mile and does a better job than everybody else when it comes to putting in the deck ledger boards and getting ready if people want to put on a deck and also in his construction, you did it, you got a great house. What a great thing if that was you to be called out for the quality of your work. What if you were called out for the quality of your leadership or your management or the thing that you do or your volunteerism or the way that you treat people? What a great thing to be called out for the quality of your work. Colossians 3 23, work willingly at whatever you do, as though you are working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, that the master you are serving is Christ. What a great thing to think, okay, I'm doing this, I'm doing this job, I'm digging this ditch, I'm whatever you're doing, I'm cutting down this tree, I'm cultivating these plants. And God sees, and God can reward me for doing a good job because it's actually Him that I'm serving, even though I might be working at a greenhouse or whatever, and God blesses us with rewards. God can bless us with rewards, He can bless us with financial rewards, He can bless us with all sorts of different types of rewards. Psalm 18. The Lord rewarded me for doing right. He has seen my innocence. To the faithful, you show yourself faithful. To those with integrity, you show integrity. To the pure, you show yourself pure, but to the crooked you show yourself shrewd. You rescue the humble, but humiliate the proud. You light a lamp for me. The Lord my God lights up my darkness. God can reward you. When you are doing the right thing in the right way, God can reward you. Proverbs 14, 23, all hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty. And as we serve the Lord, as we seek the Lord, and as we're rewarded, we can give back to him, and he can bless us when we give back to him. And we've talked to that about that in the past often. But honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops, and then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. So out of the first part of your income, you give back to God, and he can reward you for your generosity, for your faithfulness. He can use you to help provide for the church and other people in need. So there's no cap on your generosity, on how much you can give back to the Lord, and there's no cap on how much he can bless you and give back to you. It's actually an exciting thing to be in the middle of God's will and to see him work. So as we look toward the future, we wonder how we're ever going to survive with all the difficulty and wars and financial issues and whatever, and then to be able to look back and see how God has gotten us through, how God has been faithful to get us through. And that's that kind of confidence that we can continue to worship and move forward and be people that bless others and be blessed through our work. Our work can bless us and bless others, and God can be honored with the work that we do. Let us be godly workers, let us be good workers, let us find something to do for work if you don't have anything. Because God did not create anyone to be sitting idle, watching TV, doing nothing. Instead, God has created us to make disciples, God has created us to worship Him, God has caused us, created us to make a difference in the world. So the worship team can come forward next week. I'm going to talk about the power of influence. So, and what a blessing that can be. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your word. We thank you for this time. We thank you for work. Give us all work that we enjoy. It would be great to have work that brings eternal significance. Help us to see our work as a mission field. Help us to see as a work as a place to learn new things and to enjoy the skills and opportunities that you've given us. And we ask for help for the people that aren't happy in their jobs and the people that do feel trapped in their work and the people that do need more of a reward that you'd increase their skills, maybe help them to find a different job, increase their finances, and that they would thank you for that in Jesus' name. Amen.