Life Apps ~ Confession

If you haven’t been with us the last few weeks we are in a series called Life Apps and we are looking at 5 specific principles that God calls us to apply to our lives and the very first week we learned that it is not enough for us to come together to just learn about these principles. It’s not enough for us to just listen to God’s word and think about how we should apply these principles to our lives, we have to live them out because application is… everything. That’s right. It’s not enough to buy a Nordic Rider and just look at it and feel healthier, if it is going to bring any change to our lives, if it is going to make us fitter and stronger, we have to use it and the same is true with these apps. If they are going to strengthen our faith and help us experience the fullness of life we have to live them out. Just listening won’t bring change, just knowing that we should do something different in our lives won’t bring any change, change comes through application, change comes when we start living out the applications of God’s word.


So last week we looked at our first app, the app of forgiveness and we learned that it is not enough for us to just receive God’s forgiveness for ourselves, we have to be willing to turn and forgive others because forgiven people… forgive. It’s not easy I know. Many of you shared with me as you left worship last Sunday the challenge you were going to face because you heard God calling you to forgive someone specific and this kind of forgiveness is not easy because the pain some people have caused us is very deep, but it’s when we stop seeking revenge and stop holding on to the grudge that we begin to experience freedom and new life, and that is what God wants for us.

Today I think things really heat up because the application we are going to talk about is confession and this really makes us uncomfortable. For those of you who may have grown up in the Catholic Church, the word confession may bring to mind dark confessional booths where you shared you sins with a priest who then told you to do some form of penance, usually in the form of saying some prayers. If you grew up in the Protestant Church you probably learned that we don’t need to confess to a priest, we can just confess directly to God who will then forgives us. The problem with both of these views of confession is that they aren’t biblical and neither one is effective in bringing about genuine life change.

No matter how you grew up, here’s how I think we look at confession. At the end of the day or the end of the week we go to God or some representative of God and tell Him all the things that we have done wrong. We come to God and pull out our list of sins and confess to Him all the bad things we have done and the good things we have failed to do. We confess the words we said that we shouldn’t have said, and the attitudes and motives and thoughts we had that we shouldn’t have had. In some form or another - we give our list to God. After we have done this we usually begin to feel a little better because we feel like our guilt has been lifted, but the problem is that for many of us the next day or the next week comes and we go right back to the those same attitudes, words and actions. Our confession may have made us feel better but it has not fundamentally changed our lives.

Somewhere along the line we have embraced the idea that confession is all about relieving guilt. But real confession is not about feeling better it’s about living better. Real confession is supposed to lead to making real changes in life. So if just telling God all that we have done wrong is not what it means to confess, then what does it mean? What does confession that leads to life change look like? To answer this, let’s go back into the Old Testament and look at one of the very first teachings we have on confession in the Bible, Numbers 5:5-7.

There are two important things to notice here, the first is that when we sin against someone we are also sinning against God. Look at Numbers 5:6. So when we hurt someone or sin against them in any way we are breaking faith, or breaking our relationship and connection with God. So there is never just sinning against another person, sin in any form is a sin against God. The second thing to notice here is that simply telling God or a representative of God all that we have done wrong is not what God calls for. Confession here calls for action, but not just any action. Confession needs to turn into actions which help to restore relationships.

Let’s look at the specifics found here. First God calls us to make full restitution for the wrong we have done. We need to pay back in full for whatever hardship we have caused. But making restitution doesn’t go far enough in restoring the broken relationship so God says, don’t just pay back what you owe, pay back more than what you owe. Make full restitution and then add to it 20%. So if I were to steal $100 I would pay back $120. If I were to kill 10 of your chickens I would have to return to you 12. The additional 20% is to help restore and rebuild relationships. So what God is making clear to us is that confession is never just about words to God, it’s not about going through our list of things we have done wrong so that we feel better, confession is first admitting to God what we have done but then it is telling the one we have hurt that we are guilty and we are sorry, and then it’s working to restore that relationship.

Let me say that again. Confession is never just telling God our sin; it is never just between me and God. Confession is first telling our sin to God but then it’s coming clean to those we have hurt and sinned against and then it is making changes in our lives, changes in our words and actions so that broken relationships can be restored. Now I know what you might be thinking… this kind of confession where we actually tell people our problems and then work to make some real changes in life is messy and uncomfortable because it requires us to be honest and vulnerable with real people. We have to admit to real human beings that we have failed and that we have done things which have caused people pain. We have to admit to people we know that we have failed God and let him down and when we do this we run the risk of looking weak and troubled. This kind of confession is hard and scary and risky so most of the time we don’t do it and most of the time our lives don’t change. But let me tell you this, this kind of confession is what leads to genuine and lasting life change.

One of the greatest examples of what this kind of confession looks like is found in Luke 19 and the story of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a tax collector; in fact he was the chief tax collector which meant that he had many other tax collectors in the region who reported to him. Zacchaeus was also rich, which meant that Zacchaeus was also a sinner, not because he had a lot of money but because if you were a rich tax collector it meant that you were cheating people. Now the truth is that most tax collectors in Jesus’ day cheated people. They would collect more money than they needed to give to the Roman authority and keep the rest for themselves. As the chief tax collector Zacchaeus not only cheated people personally but he may have also been getting a cut from all the other tax collectors in the region. It’s like he was part of whole cheating network. The bottom line here is that Zacchaeus was a sinner who cheated people.

One day Jesus came to the town where Zacchaeus lived and he saw Zacchaeus sitting up in a tree. Now this was not a normal practice for tax collectors, they didn’t usually sit up in trees, but there was reason Zacchaeus was up there that day, it was because he was… short. Many of us know this thanks to the old Sunday School song, (Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he…) Anyway, when Jesus saw him up a tree that day he knew that somewhere in Zacchaeus’ heart he wanted something more than just going through life cheating people so he told Zacchaeus that he was goimg to his house that day for lunch.

Now we don’t know what was said or done during that lunch but it was a real come to Jesus meeting because after lunch this is what Zacchaeus said, Luke 19:8. Zacchaeus was so convicted of his sin that he confessed it all and the way he does it shows us what real confession is all about. First of all, we see that he doesn’t just confess to God and he doesn’t just confess his sin to Jesus in the privacy of his home, he does that, but then Zacchaeus goes out on the street corner and in front of the people he has cheated he tells them what he has done. He comes clean. But it doesn’t stop there because his confession isn’t just words, he seeks to restore relationships, so Zacchaeus doesn’t just repay the people he cheated and he doesn’t just pay them back in full plus the 20% called for in the law, he gives them 4 times what he took from them. He is serious about living a new life, and if that doesn’t show us the genuine change in this man, he also agrees to give half of what he has to the poor. He has changed his life and because he has done it publically you know that people are going to hold him accountable. Because he has made these life changes, his life is better, and we know that because Jesus blesses him. Look at Luke 19:9

This is what genuine confession looks like, first we get real with God and tell him what we have done and that we are sorry but then we turn and tell those we have hurt and then we work to make things right by making some real changes in our lives. If Zacchaeus had only confessed to Jesus, nothing would have changed, but by coming clean to the crowds and getting it all out in the open, things had to change. When we actually confess to others, we are forced to deal with the reality of our own actions and our need to change. Now you might be surprised to learn that the only time in the New Testament where we are specifically commanded to confess our sin - it is not to God, it is to one another. Look at James 5:16.

James begins to show us why it is so important for us to confess to one another. When he tells us to pray for one another he is telling us that we need the support and help of others if we are going to overcome our sin and make any kind of positive change in our lives. As long as sin remains secret, it will survive and thrive, but when we bring it out into the open, when we expose it to the light of day and confess it to others – it can be overcome.

This is the power and effectiveness we see in support groups like AA. Once people can admit to others the problems in their lives and the sin that they struggle with they can begin to overcome their problems because when we confess to others and not just to God two powerful things happen. The first is that once the truth is out on the table – once our problems are out of the dark – they can be dealt with honestly. When we confess to one another there is simply no hiding anymore. The second thing that happens is that if we share our struggles with people we know and trust then they can help us and they can hold us accountable to making genuine and lasting changes. Again, this is the power of groups like AA. They have a community of people who are committed to being there to help one another overcome their addictions.

In many ways the church should function like a giant SA meeting, Sinners Anonymous, where we come together and say things like this, Hi, my name is Andy and I’m a sinner. And instead of finding judgment and condemnation when I say that, I would experience understanding and support and find people who would help me and hold me accountable in love. If the church could function this way, we would experience more significant changes in life. Now I want to be clear that in many ways across the church this is happening, maybe not on a large scale but on a small scale. There are friends and small groups and mentoring relationships developing all over the church where people can be honest about their sin and the things they struggle with and when they do this they are finding love and support which can help them make some lasting changes. I just wish this took place more often and I really wish this was how people outside of the church saw us.

Too often people see the church and church people as critical and judgmental, and the sad truth is that we have been at times. Because of this, the last thing many people want to do in is come to church and be honest with others, and yet what God wants and calls for is for us to do exactly that. God calls for this kind of honest confession among His people because he knows that it is this kind of honest confession that leads to freedom and life and that’s really what God wants for us – freedom from sin and the fullness of life. As long as confession is just giving God our list, it is too easy to live in darkness and shame and go back to that list again and again and never make any lasting changes – but once we confess to someone else, once we share that list with someone else, the light comes on and we are confronted with the truth of who we are and we begin to see the real changes we need to make and usually they are changes we want to make. And then we find someone who help us make those changes.

So real confession isn’t just talking to God, it is talking to one another because it is the support, love and prayers of the people around us that will help break the cycle of sin and help us make lasting changes. Now I said when I started today that this app really turns the heat up, because this type of honesty is scary, but we need to take the teaching of James seriously and we need to start on a path of confessing our sin to one another. For many of us today the first step might be to just identify someone we could confess to. For some the step may be to strengthen relationships of trust so we can be that honest, for some of us the relationships might already be there so we just need to be bold and start confessing to one another. Wherever you are, just don’t be content to confess to God, work for genuine change and real freedom by confessing to one another and working to restore relationships.


Next Steps
Life Apps ~ Confession

1. How has just confessing your sin to God been effective? In what areas has it brought about real and lasting changes, and in what areas has it not brought about change?

2. What things in your life need to be confessed to God today?

3. Is there any restitution that you need to make for past sins? What would adding 20% (or more) look like?

4. Who in your life today could you confess your sin to? Who could confess to you?

5. Who could you develop a relationship with so that in time you could be honest with them about your sin and struggles? Pray for the courage to develop that kind of relationshi

Life Apps ~ Forgiveness

I want to thank apple for helping promote our life apps series by coming out with their new iphone 5 this week.. I'm just kidding, but did you know that this is one of the world’s most recognized symbols? When people see this they think of iphones, ipads and cutting edge trendy electronics.

 

But when people see this:

they immediately think of running, sports, and athletics. But there is another symbol that is even more recognized around the world. Any guesses?

While many consider Coke to be the most recognizable business symbol or business logo in the world, there is one symbol that tops even Coke…

the cross. The cross is the most recognizable symbol in the world and it isn’t just a symbol of Jesus Christ or the Christian Church, it is a symbol of the application we are going to talk about today. Many of us may have a cross somewhere in our home or on a piece of jewelry and we may look at it every day but I’m not sure we see in it a very practical principle God wants us to apply – but it’s there. The cross is a symbol of forgiveness because it is through the cross that we have been forgiven by God.

Let’s take just a moment and go back and think about the cross. The cross was actually a means of execution used by the Romans in the first century so when Jesus was condemned to die by the Roman Emperor Pontius Pilate, the means of execution was a cross. Now we often think about Jesus hanging up high on a cross

but we learned a few months ago during our 24 Hours that Changed the World series that most likely Jesus was only a few feet off the ground when he was crucified so he would have been very close to the crowd. If we stop and think about it, this makes a lot of sense.

Since crucifixions were the means of execution used by Rome, they wanted the cross to be a deterrent to crime, which meant they wanted people to see just how painful it was to die on a cross. To crucify people high on a cross and far away from the crowd would not have been much of a deterrent, but for the people to see someone crucified up close and personal and to hear their cries of help and see the body convulse under the pain they were experiencing would have sent a powerful message to the people. When they crucified Jesus, Rome was making a statement, they were saying, “this is what will happen to you if you call yourself a King and this is what awaits you if you lead a revolution against the established order and authority.”

When Jesus was crucified, Rome was sending a powerful message to the people but Rome was not the only one sending a message that day, so was God. Because the people could get close to Jesus that day, think about what they heard, they not only heard cries of anguish and pain, but they heard Jesus say, Father forgiven them. God calls us to come close to the cross so that we can hear the message that we are forgiven and so that we can see just how much God loves us and just how far God is willing to go to forgive us. It is from the cross that Jesus offered forgiveness which means that it is through the cross – through Jesus’ death on the cross – that we are forgiven.

It is important for us to understand how forgiveness comes to us through the cross. While God created us to be in a relationship with Him, our sin broke that relationship. That’s the story of Adam and Eve. They were created to live in relationship with God, but their disobedience, their sin, destroyed that relationship and the consequence of their sin was that they were not only kicked out of the garden but their separation from God was going to be forever – they would die and return to the dust from which they were created. This is the reality in all of our lives. The Bible says we have all sinned and that the consequence of our sin is death – or separation from God, and on our own there is nothing we can do about this.

But the story doesn’t end there; God loves us so much he doesn’t want us to remain in this state of separation so 2000 years ago God himself came to earth in the person of Jesus to pay the price for our sin. When Jesus died on the cross, God was paying the price for our sin. Our sin was no longer going to be held against us. In other words, we were forgiven. The cross, therefore, is the symbol that God forgives us because God accepted the death of Jesus on our behalf. The price has been paid – but even that is not the end of the story. When Jesus was raised from the dead three days later he shows us that we are not only forgiven, but God raises us up to live a new life. So the cross is a symbol of God’s forgiveness and it reminds us that there is new life that comes with God’s forgiveness.

The cross shows us that we are forgiven, but have we accepted this? Have we embraced the forgiveness of God and allowed it to bring us this new life? If you need to experience the forgiveness of God today and feel the freedom and new life that God’s forgiveness brings, I have good news for you, to receive it, all you have to do is ask. And we ask by simply saying to God in the silence of our hearts, or at the top of our lungs, that we embrace the cross, or accept the forgiveness and new life that God offers. If you have never done that – or if you are feeling the need to do that again today, I want to invite you to pray with me.

God, thank you for loving me so much that you want to live in relationship with me forever and thank you for making that possible through the cross of Jesus Christ. I confess to you that I am a sinner and today I accept the forgiveness you offer me through Jesus. Help me today and every day to accept your grace and commit to living a new life in your power. In Jesus’ name, AMEN

So the cross tells us that we are forgiven, and the cross tells us that God gives us the strength and power to live a new life and a big part of that new life is forgiving others. The app of forgiveness isn’t just about receiving God’s forgiveness, it is also turning to live a life of forgiveness, you see the bottom line is that forgiven people forgive. Say that with me - Forgiven people forgive.

Forgiveness is not something God gives just for us – it is given to us so that we will turn and forgive others. So forgiveness is a principle God gives us but as we heard last week just hearing about God’s forgiveness is not enough, just accepting God’s forgiveness for ourselves is not enough we have to apply this principles to our lives and relationships because application is everything.

Now Jesus makes it clear that forgiven people need to forgive by telling us a parable found in Matthew 18. In the parable there is a man who has gone deep into debt and he has borrowed money from his king. When the time comes to repay the loan, he can’t and in those days you couldn’t declare bankruptcy and just walk away. If you couldn’t repay your debt, you and your family were sold into slavery with the money going to the lender. As the king was considering doing this, the man begged the king to reconsider. The king decided to forgive the man his debt and let both him and his family go free. Now in Jesus’ parable, the king represents God and the man in debt is us and the point of the parable so far is that God forgives us, but the parable goes on. The man who had been forgiven left the king and immediately ran into a man who owed him money and instead of forgiving him, he had him thrown into prison until he could repay him. Now when the king heard about it he was outraged and said to the man, Matt. 18:32-33.

The message of the parable is clear – God has forgiven us and so we need to forgive others. Forgiven people forgive. The principle Jesus calls us to apply to our lives is that forgiven people forgive and forgiveness is something Jesus taught over and over again. In the Lord’s Prayer Jesus teaches us that we need to forgive others as we have been forgiven. When asked how many times we should forgive Jesus said not once or twice, not even 7 or 77 times but all the time. Forgiveness is the foundation for our faith and Jesus didn’t just come to tell us that we have been forgiven and even offer us that forgiveness by dying on the cross, he also came to make clear that we also need to forgive others. Forgiveness is the principle God calls us to apply to our lives, but let’s be honest, application here is not easy.

Too many times we struggle to forgive others because we think that there is more satisfaction in holding a grudge than there is forgiveness. Have you ever held a grudge against someone for something they said or did or didn’t do? Whether it’s a spouse, teacher, teammate, coworker or friend, we will hold onto that grudge because it makes us feel good and we don’t want to let that feeling go, but the truth is that the only person who is hurt when we hold a grudge is ourselves. There was a time I was determined to hold a grudge against a friend of mine and I’m not proud to say this, but sometimes it felt good to be mad at him, so I held that grudge for a long time, years in fact,. Then one day someone said something to me that made me realize that this person didn’t even know I was mad at him. He had moved out of town, I had no contact with him and was still holding that grudge and he didn’t even know it. I had wasted so much time and energy holding that grudge and the only one who was hurt during that time was me. You see I had to keep feeding the anger and resentment and I had to keep reliving the hurt and the pain and the disappointment over and over again and it consumed so much time and energy and it never allowed the pain to heal. The grudge was consuming me, it was holding me hostage and it was killing me and I wasn’t free until I was willing to forgive.

That is what God wants for us – freedom and new life and that comes when we let go of the grudge and are willing to forgive. So what does the application of this principle look like? What does forgiveness look like? To help us understand forgiveness we are going to first look at a scripture and then a story. So let’s look at Romans 12:17-21.

The first thing to notice here is that Paul doesn’t downplay what has happened to us. Paul chooses his words carefully, he says don’t repay evil for evil and in saying that he is acknowledging that what has caused the hurt and pain in our lives is bad. It is evil. This tells us that forgiveness doesn’t mean we let the other person off the hook by saying what happened to us wasn’t that bad. Forgiveness requires us to acknowledge that what has happened is bad and caused deep pain, but God goes on and says, don’t repay that evil with evil; instead, let God bring justice. So forgiveness means we first acknowledge that the pain in our lives is real, but then it means we trust God to work things out instead of seeking retribution or revenge ourselves.

So we don’t seek revenge, instead we seek to live in peace with those who have hurt us, but again, let’s be clear, living in peace does not mean we live in a close loving relationship with those who have hurt us. Forgiveness doesn’t always lead to friendship. Those who have hurt us don’t have to become our best friends, or any kind of friend. Living at peace simply means we don’t hold things against others and we don’t seek retaliation or revenge. When we don’t seek their destruction or downfall but truly allow God to bring justice and peace, we are set us free. And this is where the story comes in. It is the story of man named Louis Zamperini and his story is told the powerful bestselling book called Unbroken.

Louis Zamperini’s began his career as a runner competing in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

He had some of the fastest times recorded during those years and then after the Olympics Louis joined the Air Force. In 1942, Louis, along with 2 crewmen, Francis McNamara and Russell Allen Philips, known as Phil, were sent out on a rescue mission over the Pacific Ocean. During that flight their plane, the Green Hornet,

malfunctioned and crashed into the sea. After 33 days adrift at sea where they endured intense hunger and thirst as well as constant shark attacks and at one point enemy gunfire, Francis McNamara died and as Louis and Phil slid McNamara’s body into the sea, Louis vowed that if God would save them, he would serve God forever.

2 weeks later Louis and Phil were finally rescued near the Marshall Islands, over 2000 miles from where they crashed but their joy quickly turned to fear when they realized they were not being rescued but captured by the Japanese. For the next 3 years Louis was severely beaten and tortured at several POW camps, but there was one guard in particular, Mutsuhiro Watanabe that singled Louis out. He called Louis the #1 prisoner and made his life a living hell. The physical pain and emotional terror that Louis experienced at the hands of this man is unbelievable and the accounts are difficult to read. There were many times that Louis thought about giving up, but he never did. At one point he suffered over 200 punches to his face in one day and every time he fell over he would get back up. Again and again Watanabe would try to break Louis, and while he might be able to break his body, he was never able to break his spirit and after years of unthinkable torture and abuse at the hands of this man, the war came to an end, but Louis was still not free.

When Louis Zamperini returned home he suffered nightmares, fits of rage and sank into alcoholism and depression and it was during this time that he was consumed by just one thought, returning to Japan, finding Watanabe and killing him. Louis was holding a grudge and that grudge had a grip on him and it was destroying his life. His wife, Cynthia, talked him into going and listening to a new preacher who had come to town named Billy Graham, and while he resisted at first, Louis finally went and heard about the forgiveness that is ours when we come to the cross. Louis finally made that trip to the cross. He accepted the grace and love of God and as he walked up the aisle at the Billy Graham crusade he remember what he had told God in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, if you save me, I will serve you with my life.

Coming to the cross that night changed Louis. He was no longer filled with anger, he was never again plagued by nightmares and his plans for killing Watanabe transformed into a plan to return to Japan to forgive him. In a powerful scene, Louis returned to Japan and faced all his captors and as each guard stood to approach Louis he was seized by a childlike giddy exuberance and before he realized what he was doing, he was bounding down the aisle, his hand extended and a radiant smile on his face. He was forgiving them, all of them, but one man wasn’t there Mutsuhiro Watanabe.

Watanabe had been on the run since the end of the war and when Louis first returned to Japan he was told that Watanabe had most likely committed hari-kari. But Watanabe had not died and he emerged on the public scene in the late 1990’s, 50 years later. So Louis once again made plans to meet the man who had so severely tortured and abused him. He wrote Watanabe a letter and headed off to Japan to meet him, but that meeting was not to be, but I’d like to share with you the letter Louis wrote:
To Matsuhiro Watanabe,


As a result of my prisoner of war experience under your unwarranted and unreasonable punishment, my post-war life became a nightmare. It was not so much due to the pain and suffering as it was the tension of stress and humiliation that cause me to hate you with a vengeance.

Under your discipline, my rights, not only as a prisoner of war, but also as a human being were stripped from me. It was a struggle to maintain enough dignity and hope to live until the war’s end.

The post-war nightmares caused my life to crumble, but thanks to a confrontation with God through the evangelist Billy Graham, I committed my life to Christ. Love replaced the hate I had for you. Christ said, “Forgive your enemies and pray for them.”

As you probably know, I returned to Japan in 1952 and was graciously allowed to address all the Japanese war criminals at Sugamo Prison… I asked about you, and was told that you probably had committed Hara Kari, which I was sad to hear. At that moment, like the others, I also forgave you and now would hope that you would also become a Christian.

Louis Zamperini

And that is what the application of this principle looks like. Like Louis, we embrace the cross and accept God’s forgiveness for ourselves and then through the grace and power of God alone, we turn to forgive others. And Louis shows us that forgiving others doesn’t mean we let them off the hook or pretend that what they did wasn’t that bad, we need to acknowledge the evil done to us, but we don’t seek revenge, instead we seek to live at peace and even pray for others. Louis’ life story shows us a couple of things. First it shows us that anything can be forgiven and then he shows us that with forgiveness comes freedom. With forgiveness comes life. So I invite you today to accept God’s forgiveness but don’t stop there because forgiven people forgive. Application is everything; forgive, because forgiveness brings life.

Next Steps
Life Apps ~ Forgiveness
Forgiven people forgive.

1. Embrace the cross. Read accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion* and reflect on how Jesus’ death and resurrection brings you forgiveness. In prayer, accept God’s forgiveness.
(*see Matthew 27:32-54, Mark 15:33-47, Luke 23:26-56, and John 19:16-37)

2. Ask God to show you what grudges you are holding on to. What kind of freedom would you experience if you let go of the grudge?

3. Letting go of the grudge (forgiveness) does not excuse the pain caused to you, acknowledge the reality of what has been done to you but then give it to God.

4. Ask God to show you what it will mean to forgive those who have hurt you. What one step can you take to forgive this person this week?

5. Share this situation with a trusted friend who can pray with you and help you seek God’s forgiveness and the power to live a life of grace and mercy.

Life Apps ~ Appliction is Everything

This week we are starting our life apps series and I’m really excited about it because we are going to be looking at 5 applications – or principles – that can fundamentally change our lives. Now I want to be clear, these are not 5 arbitrary ideas that we pulled out of the air to talk about, these are 5 principles that are given to us by God with the command to apply them to our lives and the reason God commands us to apply these principles isn’t because God wants to saddle us with a lot of rules and regulations, it’s because God knows if we live out these principles our lives will be better. Our lives may not get easier, some of these applications are difficult, but our lives will be more balanced and filled with peace and purpose and power because we will be living the way God created us to live.


We can never forget that we have been created in the image of God, which means God knows how we are wired and put together and God knows how we should order our lives if we want to be happy and fulfilled and the good news for us is that God doesn’t keep this information a secret – God reveals it. God shares with us clearly many principles that will improve our lives when we apply them consistently and intentionally. So we are going to take the next 5 weeks to look at 5 of these principles, but here’s the thing we have to remember, it’s not enough to learn about these principles. It’s not going to be enough for us to come together in worship and in small groups to just listen to what these principles are and how we should live our lives – these are applications we need to live out – we have to apply them.

Application is everything. You are going to here this again and again, so why don’t you say it with me: APPLICATION IS EVERYTHING. It’s like an app on our phones – they can get us organized, they can monitor our health and track our diet, but they aren’t any good unless we use them. Listening and learning about these 5 apps will be good, but listening and learning won’t change our lives. Listening and learning won’t make our lives any better or our experience of God more personal or our faith more powerful because it is application that makes all the difference. Application is everything.

And to illustrate this point I want to show you this. Have you ever seen one of these?

When a friend of mine started working for the Nordic Trac store at the Logan Valley Mall I was able to buy at a deep discount a Nordic Rider. I felt so good when I bought it and after I set it up at home I actually felt a little healthier, has that ever happened to you. You buy the diet book and suddenly feel thinner, or you buy the new running shoes and you already feel fitter. I felt thinner and stronger and healthier just buying the Nordic Rider, but do you know what happened during the 7 years I owned it? I gained 20 pounds, and do you know why? That’s right… I never actually rode it. Oh I may have gotten on it a few times, but most of the time what you are looking at is one of the world’s most expensive towel racks.

You see listening and learning and good intentions don’t change anything, application makes all the difference. Application changes our lives. Application is… everything.

Now there are 2 people in the New Testament who teach us that application is everything and as you might guess, one of them is Jesus and the other is someone very close to Jesus, his younger brother, James and we are going to first look at what James has to say about applying the word of God. James 1:22-25.

So James says we should not merely (or just) listen to the word we have to put it into practice because if we don’t we deceive ourselves. How is it that just listening to God’s word can be deceiving? Well, just listening to God’s word and never living it out is like owning a Nordic Rider and never using it. I was deceived. I thought I was healthier, I even felt healthier when I sat on it – but I was deceived. I wasn’t any healthier; in fact I put on weight. The same thing can happen to our faith.

I hate to tell you this, but just coming to church doesn’t make our faith stronger. Staying awake through the sermon isn’t living a life that pleases God. Even being part of a small group or Sunday School class and learning all we can doesn’t make the difference. If we listen and learn and think that we are growing in our faith and living the life God wants for us – we are being deceived. If all we ever do is come to church and listen and think God will bless us for just being here and listening – we are in danger – because it isn’t a life of listening that is blessed – it is a life of doing – again look at James 1:25. It is those who act on what they hear, those who apply God’s principles, that are blessed.

So just being in church and staying awake and listening isn’t enough and the truth is that it has never been enough, God has always been interested in how His people apply his word. If we go back to the Old Testament we see that just listening and being in worship brought God’s people a false sense of security, in other words they were deceived. The people of Israel believed that as long as the Temple was standing and they could offer their sacrifices and listen to God’s word that they were safe. Like many people today, they believed that as long as they went to worship and listened – God was going to bless them, but they were deceived because God was not calling his people to listen –he was calling them to obey and be faithful, look at 1 Samuel 15:22.

But the people weren’t faithful and they didn’t follow the principles God gave them or apply the word of God to their lives but because the Temple was there and they could offer their sacrifices – they felt strong and secure. Their deception eventually led to the destruction of the Temple and the defeat of their nation. What happened to them is exactly what James is talking about here; they only listened and so were deceived. They thought just going to church would earn God’s favor but what they forgot is that they were called to faithful obedience. They forgot the one thing we can’t forget and that is that application is everything.

Now James gives an interesting illustration of what people are like who merely listen and don’t act on what they hear, he says they are like people who look at themselves in a mirror and then turn and immediately forget what they look like. It’s hard to imagine anyone doing this, but I did this very thing almost every morning my first two years of High School. When I would get ready for school in the morning I would look at myself in the mirror and I could see clearly that I needed to brush my hair (remember this was the late 70’s so a full head of hair was in), but I would walk out of the bathroom and forget what I looked like. I’d eat my breakfast, grab my books and walk to the bus stop where my sister would then take one look at me and say, Andy did you brush your hair this morning and I would reach up, feel my hair and say, Oh I forgot. She would then throw (and I do mean throw) her hairbrush at me and I would stand at the bus stop and brush my hair. (I’m sure my sister wanted to disown me on those days!)

I know this sounds silly, but the truth is we do this all the time. We will come to worship and listen to God’s word or we will read the Bible and hear God’s teaching and we will hear about some principle that we know we need to apply to our lives, but then we will walk out the door or close the Bible and forget what we heard. We do this all the time – we will look into God’s word and see who God wants us to be – but then we will turn away and immediately forget what that life looks like and how we are supposed to live it out, and yet we will feel more faithful because we were in church or we were reading God’s word. Again we are being deceived because listening and learning and being in church doesn’t change us – it is living out what we see and hear that makes a difference. Application is Everything.

Now you can probably guess that today I spend a lot more time looking in the mirror and acting on what I see. Most mornings I spend a lot of time making sure every hair is in place. Not only that, I will evaluate when I need to get them cut, I try to figure out if any of them are their original color, wonder about the increasing number of lines and wrinkles and spots I see and what I should do about it all. Most of us will look intently into the mirror each morning and do something about what we see. We spend a lot of time (and money) making changes to the outside of us and yet we fail to look into the word of God to see what changes we need to make on the inside of us – where it really matters. And yet what James says is that if we will look into God’s word and apply what we find there we will find freedom and blessing. So why don’t we do it? Why don’t we look deep into God’s word and apply the principles that are so easy for us to see?

One reason is because I’m not sure we agree with what James says. James says that applying God’s word brings freedom but many times we think applying God’s word will bring limitation not liberation. Too often we think that applying God’s word will bring bondage not a blessing. A good example of this is God’s teaching about how we order our finances. The Bible is clear that at the minimum we should give a tenth of our income to God – it’s called a tithe and we find it used as a Godly principle all the way back at the beginning in the book of Genesis and then in Malachi 3:10.

So we look into God’s perfect law and it says that when we give one tenth of all we have to God we will be blessed abundantly, but we struggle to really believe this. How can giving away our money bring financial freedom, it doesn’t make sense and actually applying God’s word here seems limiting not liberating and yet if we talk to people who tithe on a regular basis, they would tell us that tithing has actually brought incredible financial freedom to their lives because it helps them order their entire financial picture. But because it doesn’t make sense to us and it seems limiting to us, we don’t do it and look at where it has gotten us? We are not only a nation deep in dept but we are individuals living beyond our means. We aren’t free at all – we are slaves to our debt. We turn away from God’s principles because we think it is too limiting and because we turn away we lose our liberty. We experience bondage not blessing.

So James is clear that listening is not enough, we have to live out God’s word if we want to experience the blessing of freedom and life. Application is everything, but where did James get this idea, my thought is he got it from his big brother, Jesus. In Matthew 5, 6 & 7, Jesus gives one of the most powerful sermons ever, the Sermon on the Mount, and this sermon is filled with principles that need to be applied to our lives. There are teachings about forgiveness and marriage and how we need to give our offerings to God as well as how we are to pray and ask God for help and how we are not to worry and judge others. At the very end of this incredibly practical sermon Jesus says this – Matthew 7:24-27.

Jesus says, if we don’t apply the words we hear, we are a fool. We think our lives and our faith are strong and secure, but they are not and as his brother James would say, we are deceived because just listening doesn’t make a difference. Just listening won’t support us when the storms come, our faith needs to grow which means our lives need to change and change comes with application, but let’s be clear, application is not easy. Jesus tells us this; he says that applying God’s word is like building a house on a rock not on the sand. Now think about these two builders for a moment. The big difference between them is that the one who built on the rock had to dig a little deeper to get to the rock. He had to work a little harder and yet the work pays off in the long run.

One of the things we are going to realize over the next 5 weeks is that application is hard work. Forgiveness is hard work. Confession is hard work. Building trust in relationships is hard work. Rest can actually be hard work. Encouragement is hard work. These applications are not easy and they will require us to take a hard and honest look at our lives to see what needs to be changed, it will require us to find people who can help us make sense out of these principles and their application, and it will require us to find people who will help us live them out and hold us accountable to applying them in the long run. This kind of fundamental life change is hard work and many people just don’t want to invest the time, energy and effort to do it. My hope is that we will be willing over the next 5 weeks to work hard and apply these principles to our lives so that we can experience the power of God’s blessing. My hope is that we will be doers of the word and not just hearers because application is… EVERYTHING!


Next Steps
Life Apps ~ Application is Everything

Application of God’s word is what makes the difference, but application (putting God’s word into practice) is hard work.

1. As we begin this “Life Apps” series, take some time to reflect and ask God to show you the areas in your life where you might be just listening to God’s word and not living it out.

2. Who can help you with the hard work of application?
• Who can you ask to help you make the changes you might need to change in the next 6 weeks?
• Who can hold you accountable?
• Can you ask them this week?

3. Jesus gives us many “apps” (principles) in his Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew 5-7.
• Read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount
• Identify the apps (principles) found there.
• Which principles do you need to apply?
• How can you apply them this week?

4. It is never too late to join a small group to learn more practical ways to apply these principles and find support and accountability in living them out. Stop by the Connection Table to find out when groups are meeting.

What we can control is how we live.

Eriwn McManus is the pastor of Mosaic church in Los Angeles and a prolific Christian writer, speaker and thinker and he offers these reflections on his experience of September 11. When I came home on September 11, I stepped into one of the most horrific moments of my life. I could not believe what I was watching on the television, what had happened in this country. And all day long they kept replaying that same scenario over and over and over again. We had people in our house, and they were frantic. Some were panicking. Some were there to pray. Some were just powerful intercessors. But throughout the day we never took time to process the events with our children, so the next morning my wife said to me, "Erwin, you've got to talk to Aaron and Mariah."


Aaron was 13; Mariah was 9, and I remember sitting down with them and what I wanted to tell them was that old cliché—the safest place to be is in the center of God’s will. Have you ever heard that? The safest place to be is in the center of the will of God. It's so beautiful. The problem is that it is also unbiblical. (and he’s right. Sometimes the most dangerous place to be is in the center of God’s will, I mean think about those who followed God. Some of them were placed in the most dangerous and difficult situations – think about Daniel, he faithfully followed God and ended up in the lion’s den or Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who had to walk into a fiery furnace, or for that matter Jesus who followed God’s will all the way to the cross.)

Erwin said, I wanted to tell my children, "Look, we're Christians. We're followers of Jesus Christ, so this would never happen to us. And besides, we're on the other side of the country. Those events took place really, really far away and if you'll just walk with Christ, you don't have anything to worry about." What I wanted to tell them was that good, old, Christian lie, but I knew I had to tell them the truth. So I sat down that morning and told my children that what we learned yesterday was that we have no control over when we die, or even how we die, but what we have control over is how we live.

And that is still the truth we need to hear today. 11 years later, the lesson we learned on September 11th is still relevant. We have no control over when or how we will die, but what we have control over is how we live. So today can we make the decision to once again embrace the values and behaviors that became so important to us in the days after September 11th?

While many things emerged as being important in those days, I want us to think about just three:

#1. we learned that we needed to reach out and ask God for help. Communities came together to pray and ask God for strength and courage and healing and hope to get us through. We weren’t afraid to turn to God and boldly ask God for help and hope and answers.

#2. we learned that we need to say those things that were important while we still had time because we might not get another chance to say them. We learned how important it was to say, I forgive you and I love you.

#3. we learned that we all need to offer outrageous grace even if it means breaking the rules or sacrificing our own well being. September 11th was filled with stories – some we will never know – of people who offered outrageous grace and sacrificial help to those in need; like the man who held the door open at one of the entrances to the World Trade Towers to help get people out of the building. He was still standing there holding the door when the building came down.

Reaching out to God for help, speaking the truth and saying what needs to be said and offering outrageous grace and sacrificial help are not just lessons we learned on that day, they are choices we can make today and every day and they can be part of the foundation on which we build our lives. In fact, I think the story we heard from Mark 7 shows us that this is exactly how we need to live our lives.

Let’s go back and look at this story from Mark 7. This meeting between Jesus and a Syrophoenician (or a gentile) woman is often troubling for us because it sounds like Jesus just doesn’t want to help her. What we need to know is that there was a lot of animosity and anger between the Jews and Gentiles and for the most part gentiles didn’t turn to the Jewish people for help or support. So when this woman reaches out to Jesus and boldly asks for his help, there were those who questioned her motives and sincerity. So Jesus pushes back a little and in verse 27 when he says, first let the children eat all they want, Jesus is saying that God’s grace has come for God’s people first. It wasn’t that God’s grace wasn’t going to be for everyone, it was, remember John 3:16 says for God so loved the world that he sent Jesus, but God’s grace came first to his chosen people with God’s desire and plan being that once they received that grace they would then share God’s love with those around them. This truth formed the foundation of Jesus life and ministry.

Jesus came as a Jewish rabbi for the Jewish people. He travelled almost exclusively among Jewish communities and taught in Jewish gatherings and came to offer the Jewish people the grace and love of their God. God’s desire and plan was that once they accepted and received God’s grace and mercy for themselves they could then turn and share that grace with the rest of the world. So that is why Jesus said that the children should eat first, and with that comment it looked like Jesus closed the door to this woman, but then look at her response. Her need was so great and her desire for God’s presence and power was so strong that she asked Jesus for help a second time.

What I love about this story this that the woman reached out to God even though it looked impossible and everything was working against her. She was a woman and women didn’t initiate conversations with men. She was a gentile and gentiles didn’t speak to Jews. Jesus had already said no and you didn’t argue with or challenge a rabbi. On so many levels her situation looked hopeless even impossible – but she reached out to God anyway and this is how we need to live our lives. We need to reach out to God and ask God for help even when the situation looks impossible.

Today you may feel like you are in this impossible situation and can’t turn to God for help, you may feel that you have wandered too far from God for too long in order for him to help you, you may feel like you are too filled with questions, too filled with doubts, too filled with sin for God to help you, you may be looking at your own life and thinking, it’s just impossible for me to reach out to God for help – but you can. No matter who we are we can ask God for help and no matter what impossible situation we may find ourselves in when we turn to God – God will be there. King David found himself in some pretty impossible situations and when things looked completely hopeless he cried out to God for help and God was there. Look at Psalm 18:4-6. David felt like his life was over, he was surrounded and being pursued by his enemy and there was no way out, but when he out cried to God – God was there and God delivered him. Psalm 18:16-19. When David felt like his own sin was a hopeless situation, he cried out to God and found God there: Psalm 51:3-4, 7-12

Time and time again David found himself in hopeless situations and yet in those moments he turned and asked God for help and this shows us that we can do the same thing but we have to make that choice. The gentile woman chose to turn to Jesus. She chose to enter the room and ask Jesus for help. She chose to ask again even though he first said no. She had made a decision to live her life a certain way and she didn’t back down and we need to do the same. The only control we have in life are the choices we make and one of those choices needs to be turning to God for help – even when it seems impossible and yes even when it seems hopeless and we feel unworthy – we need to boldly ask God for help and believe that he will not only hear us but come to help us.

Not only do we need to ask God for help, but we need to take the opportunity we have today to say all those things that need to be said – both to God and to one another. The gentile woman said to Jesus what needed to be said. She not only asks for help but she shares the depth of her heart and her understanding of God’s grace and love and then asks Jesus for help a second time. She didn’t waste the moment she was given, She didn’t say to herself, I’ll come back tomorrow – she took the moment and said all that needed to be said, and this is how we need to live our lives – saying all that needs to be said to God and to one another today because we may not have another day or another opportunity. We heard from Colossians last week that we need to make the most every opportunity and that means saying today what needs to be said and speaking the truth to one another – and I don’t mean saying all the negative and critical things we might want to say – those things we need to let go of, what we need to say to one another are the important words of grace and love that too often we put off.

If we need help, we need to ask for it today. If we want God working in our lives we need to ask for it today. If we want God to forgive us and offer us the gift of his mercy and grace and love then we need to ask for it today. If we want the assurance of salvation and the confidence to know that we are redeemed children of God, then we need to ask Jesus into our lives today. September 11th reminds us that we may not get another day to say what needs to be said. If the gentile woman didn’t ask Jesus for help that day, it would have been too late because Jesus soon left, look at Mark 7:31. He was only in this area for a very short period of time so she needed to ask him for help in that moment. We often think we will get another day, but we may not so if we need to ask God for help, if we need to accept God’s grace, we need to do it today.

And if we want someone to know that we are here for them and care for them and love them, then we need to tell them today. Too many times we don’t say the things we need to say or want to say to those we love and one of the things I am reminded of every September 11th is how important it is to let people know how much they mean to us today. In the days that followed September 11th there were so many stories of people who said things like “I never said I love you to my husband that morning” or “the last word I spoke to my wife had to do with an argument.” There were too many regrets that day, which is maybe why God tells us to not let the sun go down on our anger. We need to resolve issues with those we love today and make sure we say all that need to be said while we have the opportunity to say it.

And then in response to the woman reaching out for help – Jesus offers her what those around him would have said was outrageous grace. Jesus not only broke the rules by speaking to the woman, but he broke all the rules by offering her God’s grace and mercy and healing her daughter. Jesus gift of healing was not only outrageous grace, it was sacrificial help as well. If we go back and look at Mark 7:24 we see that Jesus was in this region to try and get a break, he didn’t want to be noticed so he may have entered a gentile area knowing that the gentiles wouldn’t reach out to him, but when this woman did, Jesus sacrificed his time and energy and helped her. Jesus made the choice in this moment to offer outrageous grace and sacrificial help and in doing this he shows us the kind of choices we need to make and the way we need to live our lives.

We control the choices we make in life and one of the choices we can make is to offer God’s grace to everyone even when it means we have to sacrifice our time, energy and resources. In so many ways that was the lesson we learned on September 11th. From the man who held the door open to the first responders of NYC who sacrificed everything to run into buildings as everyone else was running out, to ordinary people across the city who broke all the rules and gave away food and water and shelter and clothing to those in need, to the people all over the nation who choose to give graciously and sacrificially and who chose to come together despite all our political, social, religious and economic difference to pray and support one another, we made the choice in those days to offer God’s grace to others. This is a choice we still can and need to make today.

Think about the people God has brought into your life that need His radical grace and love? Who needs to experience the healing and power of Jesus? Who needs your friendship or forgiveness? Who needs your encouragement or help? God was constantly bringing people to Jesus and Jesus saw each and every person as an opportunity to offer outrageous grace. Whether it was gentile women or children or lepers or prostitutes or fisherman or religious leaders, every person who entered into Jesus life was an opportunity for Jesus to extend God’s outrageous and life giving grace and Jesus broke all the rules to do it. I believe God still works this way. God is bringing people into our lives and into the life of the church for us to love, the challenge is for us to see that opportunity and offer God’s grace in any and every way possible, but here’s the thing, it won’t just happen. We have to be intentional; we have to make it the focus of our lives. We have to make the choice to live a life of radical love.

So the lesson we learned on September 11th is that we can’t control how or when we will die but we can control how we will live. Things might seem impossible – but we can ask God for help and we need to ask Him today. And we need to speak words of truth and love to people and we need to say these things today. And we need to offer God’s outrageous grace and sacrificial love to those who need it and we need to offer it today. It’s our choice. How we live our lives is our choice, it is under our control, so let’s make it our choice to live this way, and to live this way today.


Next Steps – What we can control is how we live.

1. Take one specific step this week in asking God for help. This can include:
• prayer
• reading God’s word
• joining a small group
• asking a Christian friend for help
What makes this feel impossible for you? Write it down and offer this to God:

2. What do you need to say today to
God
Those you love
Those you have hurt

3. What act of outrageous grace and/or sacrificial giving can you offer to someone this week at home, at work, in the church, community or world?

Renewing God's Gift of Work

While we tend to think of Labor Day weekend in terms of the end of grange fair and the beginning of the school year, today I want us to take a few minutes and actually think about labor and our jobs. With so many people unemployed and underemployed you would think that those who have jobs would be happy, but the majority are not. A recent survey has shown that just 45% of people fortunate enough to have jobs today are happy with those jobs. Job satisfaction is at its lowest rate since records have been kept so if you are one of those people who are not satisfied with your job, you are not alone, but there is something you can do about it, and no… I don’t mean you can quit your job. The truth is that many times being unhappy at work has nothing to do with the work we do, our work environment, coworkers or even our boss, it has to do with us and there is something that we can do about us – and the Bible gives us some direction on how to renew our attitudes toward work. Now, if you are one of the 45% who are happy with your job that is great, but please don’t tune out what God might be saying today because the things that we can do to renew our satisfaction in work are the same things that can help us keep not just stay satisfied but even become happy and feel fulfilled in the work we do.


Before we look at how to renew our job satisfaction we need to first understand why we work and why work for so many is difficult. The simple answer to why we work is found in Genesis 1 and the story of creation. We work because we have been created in the image of God and God works. Genesis chapter 1 is the story of God working. God separates light from darkness, God forms the dry ground and calls it earth, God brings for vegetation on the earth, God places stars in the sky, God forms the fish of the seas and the birds of the air and God created animals that roam the earth and then God formed humankind in his image. For six days God worked look at Genesis 2:2-3. So we know that God works and since we are children created in the image and likeness God we have been created for work and in Genesis 2:15 & 19 we see that God invites Adam to join him in the work of creation.

Adam was invited to partner with God in working the land and then God gave Adam the job of naming all the animals. What an amazing thing, Adam couldn’t create the animals but God wanted him to experience the joy of creating so gave him the job of naming all the animals. What a fun job that would have been, and what an amazing partnership Adam got to experience – he was invited into partnership and got to work with God. So Genesis 1 and 2 shows us that we were created to work and that God intends work to be a partnership of blessing and joy, but for many of us it is not, so what happened?

As we read on Genesis 3 we see that what happened is that sin happened. Adam and Eve turned away from God and the consequence of their sin was not only that they were removed from the Garden of Eden, but work was no longer going to be a joy – it was going to be difficult, look at Genesis 3:17b-19a. Sin destroyed the joy and blessing of work and in many ways, sin still destroys the blessing and joy of work. The sin of greed and pride and fear and ego corrupt the work place and destroys our enjoyment of work and the satisfaction we can find in it. Sin makes our work difficult and demanding and it devastates us physically, emotionally and spiritually.

But this is not how God wants us to live. God does not want us to live under the curse of sin, God wants us to experience freedom, forgiveness, and new life which means that God wants to renew and transform our experience of work and find in our jobs not just satisfaction, but meaning and purpose and joy once again and the first step in this renewal process is for us see that all work is a gift from God.

Now the reason we know that work is a gift from God is because God called people from and to every type of job. We don’t know what Noah did before God called him, but God called him and equipped him with skills to be a ship builder. Joseph (in the OT) was a business manager and a administrator. King David started out as a shepherd. Nehemiah, who God called to undertake the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem was first the wine taster for a King. Peter was a fisherman, Matthew was a tax collector and Paul was a religious leader and teacher but also a tent making or tanner. Because God used people from all walks of life and every job imaginable, we see that all jobs are valuable and every job is a gift from God.

One of the things that can begin to help us find satisfaction in our work is to understand that no matter what job we have, our work is a gift and therefore has meaning and value. It doesn’t matter what you do, your job is important. If you think about it, the person who cleans the hospital is just as important as the doctors, maybe even more important when it comes to stopping the spread of infection. Too many times the dissatisfaction with our jobs comes from feeling like the work we do isn’t important and that no one notices or values it, but when we begin to see that all work is a gift from God which means that all work has value and meaning, then maybe our attitudes begin to change. The work may not change, but our attitude towards our work can change which means our experience in working can change.

When we begin to see our jobs as a gift from God we will also begin to do what Paul tells us to do in Colossians and work at our jobs with all our heart as if we are working for the Lord. If our jobs are a gift from God then in some sense we are working for the Lord, but more than that, I think we need to see it like God intended it to be and that is as a partnership or working with the Lord.

Not only are all jobs a gift from God, but we need to look at our work as a vocation and not just employment. The word vocation means calling and if all work is a gift from God, then the job we have today is the job God has called us to and if God has called us to this job then God has something for us right where we are. God has something for us to learn or do in the job we have right now and as we begin to discover this we will find more satisfaction. So why has God called you to the job you have today? It may be for no other reason than to be his presence in that workplace. Maybe the reason God has given you the gift of your job is because he wants his light to shine in that place and he wants his grace to be experienced by those you work with, look at Colossians 4:2-6.

Paul’s job at that moment was to be a prisoner. As odd as that sounds, Paul did see that as his vocation. God had called Paul to that place to share his light and love and maybe that is why God has placed us where we are. Maybe you are in your current job just so you can share God’s light and love with those around you. If that is the case then we need to take seriously what Paul says in Colossians 4:5-6. Do we make the most of every day we go to work? Do we make sure every word we speak is seasoned with God’s grace and truth and love? Are we praying for opportunities to share God’s love in word and action? If doing God’s work in partnership with God becomes our focus at work then our attitude towards the job can change and we can find satisfaction in what we do because our reason for work has changed. It’s no longer about the job or the money – it’s about working with God.

Working with all our heart also means learning all we can in the job God has given us because sometimes God has us in a job today in order to prepare us for the work He has for us tomorrow. Think about King David. He started out as a shepherd and one of the things David learned as a shepherd was how to use a sling shot and how to be courageous in dangerous situations. God used that job to prepare David to take down the giant Goliath. God used David’s previous work experience to accomplish his purpose and plan and God may have you in a job right now in order for you to learn how to do the job God has for you next month or next year.

Every job I have ever had has helped me in ministry today. One of my first jobs was as a dishwasher and every football dinner I get to put those skills to use in the kitchen. My job as a nurse’s aide has made me more understanding of people who struggle with health issues. My job as a theater manager gave me some basic financial sand management skills that help in the administration of the church. Even my jobs working in the national parks helped me see that sometimes the work we do is just the means to the ministry. Sometimes God gives us a job so we can be the salt and light in the lives of our coworkers and there is can be great satisfaction in knowing that God has placed us in a job to be his presence and voice.

It also could be that the job we have today is preparing us for some larger mission God has for us in the world. Ruth Larwill was an ordinary soccer mom living in Brisbane Australia who had an ordinary job, spent lots of time with her family and loved to bake cakes. One day she heard God say to her, go to Cambodia and teach people how to make cupcakes. Ruth had never been to Cambodia, knew no one in Cambodia and had no money to get there. A few days later Ruth went to her job and her boss called her into her office and said, Ruth, we are very sorry, but we have miscalculated your pay and have underpaid you for quite a while, so here is a check for the what we owe you. Do you know how much money it was? It was exactly the same amount of money needed to purchase an airline ticket from Brisbane Australia to Cambodia. Her current job had prepared her for God’s larger mission.

Ruth went to Cambodia and found out that there is a huge market for specialty cakes and she found she could start a cake business with girls who had been rescued from human trafficking and prostitution and needed jobs to help restore their lives. Today Bloom is a thriving ministry which is saving and redeeming girls lives and they are baking cupcakes for the leaders of Cambodia and the world. God had given Ruth a job and a passion that prepared her for a larger mission in the world. So again, every job is important. The job you have has value and it can provide opportunities for ministry today and it can prepare you for a larger mission God has for you tomorrow – the key is to make the most of every opportunity God gives us and work at job as if we are working not FOR the Lord but WITH the Lord.

Two more quick things I want to say about how to gain job satisfaction, and we will look at these in more detail in our life apps series, but I think it’s important to say something here as well.

The third key to job satisfaction is knowing when to rest from our work. If we go back to Genesis, we see that while God was a worker and he worked hard for six days, God also took time to rest. God knew if he was going to go back to work and do a good job – he needed time to rest and reflect. Many times we don’t find satisfaction in our jobs because our jobs are consuming too much of our time. We were not created to work 7 days a week. We were not created to work 20+ hours a day. Our bodies, minds and spirits need rest and quality times of rest and reflection are essential to job satisfaction. I can also assure you that as you take time to rest, not only will your job satisfaction increase, but so will your enjoyment of family and friends and life in general.

So rest is essential to renewing our attitudes toward work, and so is encouragement. Everyone needs to be encouraged in the work they do which means that each and every one of us needs to encourage others. Look again at Colossians 4:3. When Paul asks the church to pray for him and his work he is not just looking for the help of God, I think he is looking for encouragement from God’s people. While we can’t always go around and ask people for encouragement, if all of God’s people made encouraging others a priority, everyone would be encouraged and if we encourage people in their work and they know that we value and appreciate what they do – their satisfaction in work increases.

This week there are two groups of people I want us to focus on encouraging and I want to invite you to work with God and encourage them. The first are all those who work in our schools. With school starting on Tuesday, there will be teachers and aides and counselors and bus drivers and cafeteria workers and janitors who will all be working hard and many of them do their work for very little money. I want us all to find ways to encourage them. If you know anyone who works in the schools – thank them. Bake them some cookies, send them a card, write them a note, let them know you are praying for them this week. Encourage them in some practical way. If you are going to pray for them – great, but then let them know you prayed for them so they can be encouraged.

The other group of people I would invite you to encourage are nurses. As you may know, this week Erin and Jordan Robison (Corina and John’s daughter and son-in-law) were expecting their third child and were almost ready to deliver the baby when the baby died. After spending some time with them in the labor and delivery unit at Mt, Nittany Hospital, I have to tell you that the nurses on that unit are amazing. The care and compassion they showed to the family was incredible and they do their jobs in difficult circumstances. But that got me thinking that the nurses on every unit are amazing. They have to work in some of the most difficult and emotional settings there are and they don’t know what they will find when they walk into any room at any given moment, and yet they do their work with grace and strength and compassion. My heart and life were encouraged this week by the nurses on labor and delivery and I would invite you to encourage the nurses that you know. If you have a doctors appointment, thank the nurses who are there. If you visit in the nursing homes, thank the nurses who are there. If you are visiting in the hospital, thank the nurses who are there – they have a hard job and do amazing work.

This labor day if you are part of the 55% of people who are not satisfied with your job and are just thankful for an extra day you don’t have to work, then there is something you can about it. Don’t quit, instead go to work tomorrow or Tuesday and see your job as a gift from God. Ask God what he is calling you to do and who he is calling you to be at your job. Learn everything you can for the mission and ministry God may lead you to in the future and strive for a healthy balance between work and rest. And then, help someone else increase their job satisfaction by encouraging them in what they do. Let them know their work is noticed and valued and deeply appreciated. Don’t endure the drudgery of work, redeem it and find God’s blessing.


Next Steps – Renewing God’s Gift of Work
1. Pray
• Thank God for your job. Whether it is a paid or volunteer position, thank God for the gift work He has given you to do.
• Pray for those who are looking for work.

2. Ask God to reveal His will for you at your job.
• Who at your place of work needs to experience God’s grace and peace and how can you share it?
• List ways God can use your current job to prepare you for future positions in work and ministry?

3. Rest and reflect
• Make sure days off aren’t filled with more work.
• Take time to reconnect with God, family and friends. (What can you do this holiday weekend to truly rest.)

4. Encourage Others
• Write a note to appreciation to one of our Growing in Faith or Bellefonte Playschool staff members or anyone who works in an area school district.
• Thank those who work as a nurse in any setting.