Vision Series: For Others at the Workplace

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Our commitment to you at Passion Creek is to design everything we do to be formed by Jesus together for others. So we spent four weeks on the formed by Jesus part. What are we formed by? His love, his life, his leadership. There’s three ways we do that together, and now we’re talking about for others.

This is part two of that. And so before we dive in, we’re gonna talk about how to be for others in the workplace. I want us to first talk about a. Important topic we mentioned last week. It was so fun, me and Caleb talking about how can we be for others in the neighborhood? And you guys mentioned a lot of good questions.

What should the conversations be? What does it mean to share the gospel? And so I thought it’d be really helpful for us to begin tonight by first saying what Julie just read. They need to hear what does it mean to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord? And so I wanna start out here.

Everybody believes and shares a gospel. Every single person, believes and shares a gospel. The question is it the true gospel that we find in God’s word? Here’s why. Everybody knows something has gone terribly wrong, both in our soul, but also in our society. That’s why the news is always on.

And so why? We’re always checking everything, right? We know something is deeply wrong, and so all of us, because we know something terrible has happened, we’re trying to put our hope into something or someone as the solution. I love it. Tim Keller always mentions the fact that you have breath in your lungs shows that you have hope and faith in something.

Now, like we believe. If it’s not God, whatever you’re putting your hope in, we’ll let you down eventually. And so that’s why we love to share the good news. Now, what we’re gonna do, it’s gonna be really quick, but this is really deep. A few months ago, this past summer, Pastor Caleb, By the way, I’m totally stealing his material for the next five minutes, Pastor Caleb had an outreach workshop that’s available on our Passion Creek YouTube channel, and he talked about what is the gospel and the three different gospels that people believe.

I am hijacking that, but if I give him credit, it’s okay. So we’re gonna do that for the next five minutes if you don’t agree with any of it. Caleb at passioncreek.church. All right. So number one. I want us to first look at a gospel that most people believe in our area. We mentioned last week, 60%.

61% of people in this community are nothing. They don’t believe in a religion at all, and we would call this the secular gospel. It is still a gospel, but it’s very human. and it’s not looking towards the creator. And if it is, it’s very much, Oh, the universe has my back. Here’s the idea behind the secular gospel.

We need saving from the idea that we need saving. And is this idea of saying institutions and religions have had control for too long and it has led to abuse and some of that, I would say, yes, that is true, but it doesn’t mean you throw out the baby with the bath water. They also say, The church is just a place to use guilt tactics to keep you under their thumb.

And so true freedom is to realize there is no such thing as sin. We have today replaced preachers with therapists. Nothing wrong with therapists, but I also think they do have a place, and I know this sounds very self-centered, but I think preachers still have a place today. We’ve replaced churning from sin, which is what we call repentance.

That’s no longer the message that we celebrate this message. We celebrate instead of churn from sin, we say no churn within the answers within you. You follow your truth, which has all sorts of issues that we don’t have time to go through, but Pastor Caleb did at the outreach workshop. The second element behind the secular gospel is this idea, what is salvation?

What does it mean to be saved? Salvation is freedom from restrictions and complete. and so the real sin in today’s culture is low self-esteem. . The real sin is to have desire within your heart and you somehow declare you shouldn’t follow it. Now, of course, this again is sticky cuz our desires even are, we are confused about our own desires.

Our desires don’t always compliment each other. But still it’s this idea, My aim in life isn’t holiness. No. It’s something much more important. According to the secular gospel, the aim in life is happys. . And so commitments are the culprit to our stress. Things like the church are what’s weighing us down, and so I’m gonna, I have to be honest, to give it a fair shake.

Parts of this gospel can sound very appealing, but I’m here to tell you it’s really hollow. Especially when it comes to suffering. The secular gospel does not have an answer to the suffering in this world, especially because they don’t believe in a life after this one. And so you better get heaven here cuz there’s nothing after this.

It leads to a lot of heartache. Timothy Keller makes a similar point. He says The great trouble is that it does not the great, the secular gospel does not do what every other worldview and cultural narrative has sought to do in the. It cannot incorporate into itself and render meaningful, the single most immutable and certain fact of human life death.

That’s the one thing that is coming, and that is the one thing the secular gospel simply doesn’t have an answer to. The only answer is that’s when it all ends. It’s very hopeless, in my opinion, leads to a lot of depression. I think it leads to a lot of the heartache that we see in today’s world. But here’s the second one, and this is when, just stay with me.

This might be difficult to hear. A lot of us have been raised on the American Gospel. Now you, when I mention this, just hold on. You’re gonna say, Wait, this isn’t the gospel. I’m walking out now. Hear me out Slow. Here is what the American Gospel shares, and I believe it’s incomplete. First off, we need saving, but we need saving from an eternal life in hell.

That’s why you have the people who knock on the door and they train you. You say your name and then you say, Hey, what’s your name? Awesome. If you were to die tonight, where would you go? Heaven or hell. That’s like how you start out the conversation. Not a very good conversation starter. Not a great way to make sure you get anywhere closer into the house.

And so this is the whole idea where we think the gospel kind of has nothing to do with today. It just has everything to do with the last day of your existence. And so now, what is salvation? Salvation is living in heaven forever when we die. So the hope, every time we get together, we just disagree. This life isn’t good.

We’re not perfect. We’re never gonna really transform this side of heaven. But when we die, we’ll be glorified. Everything will be better. No more tears, no more crying. What a great thing to look forward to. And so churches that believe in this American Gospel, their whole goal is just to get more people converted.

Just to baptize as many people as possible. And again, I would not be against that. We love baptisms here at this church. But this idea though is that it’s just about heaven and it really doesn’t have a lot of implications for this side of heaven for here and now. This gospel was really became dominant after World War ii, and I think it’s still pretty dominant today.

It’s a tremendous strategy for making converts, but it’s terrible at making disciples. This gospel does not actually transform people’s life. Today. And so now life with Jesus is only about sin management. It’s very individualistic. You just worry, okay, am I gonna go to heaven? It’s just me and Jesus. As long as I’m saved once, saved forever, save.

Everything is great. Now, this gospel, you can find it in the scriptures, these elements of truth. Yes, but I believe it is incomplete. It’s not even to my understanding of it. I don’t even think it’s compelling, especially compared to what we have, the biblical gospel. The Biblical gospel, I think is rich all throughout the Bible.

It’s not just picking verses here and there, but it’s throughout the entire text and it’s the gospel that we want to root as a foundation in our church, and we wanna empower you to share this gospel to your neighbors, to your coworkers, and around the world in this gospel. We do need saving. We need saving from the corruption of.

And so sin has completely OBL obliterated us. We have sin done by us, so we have committed our own wrongdoing. We have sin done to us, which I think we need to talk more about, right? So we have been hurt by others. Why? Because of their own selfish, sinful. Actions. And also we have sin just done around us.

So because of even the sin around us, this life isn’t what we desire it to be. Sin has marred everything. It has broken families, it has broken our own souls. And the hard part is sin keeps lying and we keep falling for it, and it makes our life worse and worse. So what do we do? We need salvation.

We need saving. In the biblical gospel, salvation is life with. Now and in Eter. In the biblical text, this word eternal life. I think for most of us, we assume it means quantity. Okay. We get saved and that means eternal means it’s never ending. And that’s true. But I love about the biblical text. This Greek word of eternal life also is saying it’s not just quantity, but it also refers to.

It means not only are will you forever be saved, but there is a, at that moment an opportunity of abundance to enter into your life at the moment of what some theologians would call regeneration. You have now begun the process of living eternal life today. That’s why we have a book we always hand out and me and Pastor Caleb got to meet the author just a couple weeks ago.

John Ortberg. We love this book. It’s called Eternity is Now in Session. What if he says, the gospel is not even so much about getting you into heaven, Although that’s true, but what if even more than that? It’s about getting heaven into you, and we believe that’s a really compelling vision. We have that in Roman 6 22 it says, But now, Since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification.

Sanctification is this idea of us growing and changing this side of heaven to become more like Christ, and the outcome is eternal life. Life in abundance now and forever for the wages of sin is. That’s complete corruption, but the gift of God, He’s eternal life. But this only comes in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

We believe Jesus is the author and perfector of our faith. It is through him that we receive this salvation. So for the rest of your life, we pray. Part of it is here at Passion Creek, we want you to be formed. We want you to be saved by the love, life, and leadership of Jesus. His love. He defines our identity as righteous children of God.

We’re not determined by our performance or how well we did today. We’re Charly love. He determines our habits. We look at the life of Jesus and we walk the way that He walks so we can walk in freedom. He directs our thoughts, our thought. His ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and so we studied the scriptures.

We so desire as a church family, not just to think about scripture, but to think s. , and this is Earth shattering News. This is what’s called the gospel because it has an answer both for life and for death. And we have come to the realization that the majority of those around us today are still suffering under a false gospel.

And so we have to be for others. And we have to share this good news. That’s why Romans 10, it continues. It says, How then can they call on him? Jesus. they have not believed in. How can they believe without hearing about him and how can they hear without a preacher and how can they preach unless they are sent as it is written?

How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news? That’s what we desire to empower you at Passion Creek. How can we be the people with the beautiful feat that are bring. The good news. That’s why the title, Longest Intro ever. The title of my message today is for others at the Workplace. So we want to get strategic here for the rest of our time.

How can we at Passion Creek, figure out how to be for the gospel? How do we preach the gospel to not only our neighbors, but also our coworkers? The workplace is one of the most strategic places we can share the gospel. It’s actually where we at least spend a third of our life. So it’s really sad if we ever at the church, never talk about your job, cuz that’s a third of who you are.

We need to talk about it. It’s likely the place where you interact with the most nonbelievers especially, and this is sad, but we also love it. It’s really a hard combination. When you get really involved in church, typically what that means is your friends just become a church family, and so you’re less and less around non-believers.

We want you to be around non-believers, and the workplace is a great place to start. And also though, we believe it’s increasingly your workplace is really the only place a believer can have influence on a non-believers life. And here’s why. John Tyson, he’s a pastor in New York City, and he explains there’s three levels of hostility towards Christians here in America.

You have green. Yellow light and red light. A green light culture means there’s no hostility at all to Christians. I don’t believe that’s the area we’re in anymore, but in this type of culture or society or city, which I think is still available in America, Christianity is a positive, right? It’s a positive contribution to society.

Not everyone may participate, Certainly not everybody goes every Sunday, but they’re thankful that at least that church is in the. It really blew us away. I was a part of the planning process to get this building together, and so many neighbors were so upset that a church was being built, and it would just, it blew my mind thinking the ch the church, it’s quiet.

We’re not even around that much and we’re here to bless the city, but for some people, it’s one of the worst things. But a green light culture, they. In a green light culture, pastors are looked to with respect. We’re not in that society. I hate it. Every time I meet somebody new in this community and they ask me what I do, I know that conversation is now over

Oh, pastor, oh no. And they start to replay all the different cuss words that they, which I really don’t care, but they get super nervous. And in this culture, there’s church on every corner. But in Yellow Light church is weird, but not necessarily harmful. and so they think it’s great that other people found hope in religion.

They just hope their super Christian neighbor doesn’t invite them to Easter, right? You stay private with your faith and everything will be okay. I think this is a lot of our culture here in this community. Hey, it’s great. Just don’t push it on me. You do you and I’ll do me. But then you have a red light culture, which it seems to be increasingly more the reality in a lot of cities throughout America.

And it’s not just that church is weird. No. Instead the church is harmful. Christians stance on topics like sexuality and morality in their eyes are not only wrong, but they’re destructive. So in this worldview, private faith isn’t. It needs to be completely eradicated. Christians are the problem in this world according to this type of culture.

Pastors are not just people to not have conversations with. Pastors are bad people that should never be trusted. And again, we’re predominantly, I believe, still a yellow light culture, but it’s not trending in the right direction. So why do I say all that? Your coworker is more likely to hear the gospel from.

than he is to hear it from me. Because you have interactions with a coworker, you actually have more respect cuz you don’t have the title of pastor and you’re able to live life on life. And so we want strategically to say, at our church, how can we best empower our people? To live out the Christian life at the workplace and share the gospel.

And so how we view and interact with our work is a major way. We share the gospel. So allow me for the remaining time, I wanna to compare and contrast the way Christians view work and then the way culture views work and how that can actually be an opportunity to share the gospel. So first, in our culture, we live to work.

You ever noticed. people in your job, They lived all of life is the workplace and by default, in America, I believe we’re raised to believe the God of work will provide the id, the idols of power and approval. We crave power and approval, and we believe if we serve the God of work long enough, we will get power and approval.

What is power? Power? Things like control, things like position, influence, success. All of life is to attain those intangibles or things like, You can totally use your workplace, your job environment, to secure relationships to achieve and climb the ladder, to increase your social circle and to have a better appearance.

And so if this is even you, this is how it appears in your life. It manifests by working over time. You’re not with your family as much. You’re worn out, exhausted. You ask, How are you doing? You say, I’m just super busy, right? You wake up one day and you realize, I’ve just lived my whole life. Working. I saw, I know none of y’all are on Twitter.

You make fun of me that I’m on it. But I saw on Twitter earlier this week, these two comedians were talking and they’re known for being really funny, but they were just bawling their eyes out with each other. And so I, of course two grown men crying, You gotta press play on the video. And so I was listening and it was so sad because they were saying our, we are so successful in our career, but I barely even know my seven year old.

And they were crying about that and they never once said, We should quit doing this, but they just grieved the fact that, look, if you wanna worship the God of success, you’re gonna have to sacrifice your children at the altar. What a great opportunity for you and I to live differently in Christ. We don’t live to work.

No. In Christ. We love to work. I wanna show you the difference. The Hebrew word for work is avo da, which that word has like at least three meanings. One of them is calling, and so we believe You may have heard this preached wrongly. I believe work was actually instituted before sin was introduced in the story in Genesis three.

And so work was actually a blessing, a sacred gift that God gave to mankind. But after sin entered the story, work is now cursed, which means you’ll now sweat. You know the garden won’t always grow the way you want it to, but by the grace of God, especially with Christ in us, our work can still be a sacred calling, and so we believe your work should be a part of your life.

You’re, You should work with your hands or your brain, whatever God has gifted you with. On the short, quick, how do you find God’s calling for your life? We believe it’s three things. Affinity number one, you have to have a desire for it. Is there something in your life that you love to do? Maybe that can be your job.

Number two is ability. Are you good at it or do you have the potential to be good at it? And here’s the biggest part. Do others affirm that you’re good at it all? It’s not like American Idol all over again, right? Where they’re just like, Wow, nobody told you that. You’re terrible at singing, right? You have to have some sort of ability and then you need opportunity.

Knock on doors and if God opens them, continue to walk through them. And so we believe work is a beautiful thing that we can enjoy. We enjoy it, not worship it, and your coworkers begin to see the difference. The difference between somebody who is using it as their God and getting exhausted and doing everything just to worship the God of work versus the person who enjoys work, but it’s not their entire existence.

Another Hebrew word, avo da. It also means worship. When we work, it’s supposed to not only be just an enjoyable calling to fulfill how God has wired us, we’re also supposed to do it for God. Colossians three, it says, Whatever you do. Do it from the heart as something done for the Lord and not for people knowing that you’ll receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord.

You serve the Lord Christ. Work is so much more enjoyable when the purpose is for God. to worship him, to be grateful for him and use it to his glory. Tim Keller again. Sorry. never, I should never say sorry. Tim Keller’s the best. He says, Thinking of work mainly as a means of self-fulfillment and self realization slowly crushes a person and undermines society itself.

Yeah. So work is a gift, but it is not. And for too many of us in our culture today, we think career is what will fulfill us. And it’s not only Christ and Christ alone. Amen. So some know, and this is happening more and more, some don’t live to work. on the contrary in our culture and maybe some of your coworkers, instead, in our culture, we work to live.

Notice the difference there. You only work just enough so you can pay the bills. Have you guys heard this? There’s this recent phenomenon in our culture, it’s called quiet, quitting. Have you seen things about that? There’s quiet, quitting. They surveyed workers all across America, and we especially saw the spike when Covid 19 hit.

They admit that they no longer work hard at their job, so they literally go to. Do the bare minimum just so they not don’t get fired and they have a paycheck to do the things that they really want. Why? And I know some of y’all are saying it’s cuz y’all, millennials are the worst. Now hold up. It’s not just us, it’s also Gen Z.

But anyways, so for us, why do we do this? I think it’s because honestly, our generation has seen the older generations serve the God of work and see how it didn’t change their life. So we think the God of work doesn’t work, so maybe there’s another God to worship. Work didn’t give my dad the power he needed work, didn’t give my mom the approval she needed.

So maybe I’ll now not work as hard because it didn’t work out for them. So what happens? Work, you can’t avoid it cuz bills have to be paid. So instead of it becoming God, it becomes the necessary evil to worship the God of. The two idols that we look to if we’re just working to live. All we want is to work just enough to have a life of security and a life of comfort.

Security so you can have a family, so you can have finances to do what you want so you feel protected. You feel safe in a good neighborhood. You feel like you have a. Comfort so you can have those moments, those weekends of pleasure, you can have those days where you’re completely free, where you can be healthy, where you can buy the vehicles that you want and have and enjoy all of recreation that you can.

This type of life is focused on the weekends and is focused on the next Disney World trip. I didn’t say Disneyland. That’s different cuz I’m looking forward to that one in two weeks. But in our culture, we work to. I want you to see, we are trying to get what only Christ can give power approval, security, comfort.

Those things are found in Christ and Christ alone. See, the gospel redeems us from this situation. So instead, in our culture, we work to live, but in Christ, we work to love. Let me show you the difference there. Jeremiah, the people of God were exiled to Babylon. They were no longer the majority culture, very much in a similar situation we feel like we’re in today.

So the temptation was to be completely against Babylonians, to hate them all, to have their little corner. But instead, what God calls them to do is to work and to build and to bless Babylon, which was crazy for them to hear. Look at Jeremiah 29. This is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel says to all the exile.

I deport it from Jerusalem to Babylon. Build houses and live in them plant gardens and eat their produce. Find wives for selves and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men and marriage so they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply their do not decrease. Pursue the wellbeing of the city.

I have deported you. , Pray to the Lord on its behalf for when it thrives, you will thrive. Friends, our work is one of the best ways we can look at our world and say, I want my world to thrive because when the world thrives our church, our lives thrive as. really sad. A lot of us have a Christian perspective saying, Work, you only work enough to get a paycheck so you can tithe, do that, but it’s much more than that.

It’s to bless the city around us. David Bruce Heman has a really good quote about work. He says, God cares not only about redeeming souls, but also about restoring his creation. He calls us to be agents not only of his saving grace, but also of his common. Our job is not only to build up the church, but also to build up society to the glory of God.

As agents of God’s common grace, we are called to help sustain and renew his creation, to uphold the created institutions of family and society, to pursue science and scholarship, to create works of art and beauty. And to heal and help those suffering from the results of the fall. This is a more robust picture of the church being engaged in the city and working for a purpose.

Let me give you quickly, this feels more like a lecture tonight than a sermon. My apologies. But come next week, here it is. Six types of work that you can be engaged in. I have talked to so many Christians and you get so discouraged cuz you think, man, pastor you, you preach the gospel.

You’re clearly involved in the kingdom work. I don’t think anything I do matters. That is quite the contrary. So let’s look at a few of them. This is according to Robert Banks. He has a good book called Faith Goes To Work. Here’s six different ways you could bring glory to God through your work. I want you to think through, which one are you?

Number one is the obvious one. It’s called redemptive work. This is God saving and reconciling actions. These are people like pastors, evangelists, counselors, those types of things. They’re very much working with the soul and they’re constantly, Their job is to communi. The gospel. The second way though is creative work.

This is God’s fashioning of the physical and human world. So this is things like sculptors, painters, musicians, poets, designers, builders. Man, I love going to certain cities. I love seeing skyscrapers. I actually think of the glory of God when I see something that beautiful, that huge and en. It is God wants us to establish a city and grow it, and we can be creative in the process, and that gives glory to God.

Who is the ultimate creator? The sec. The third thing is providential work. This is God’s provision for and sustaining of humans and creation policy makers, farmers, firemen, technicians, truck drivers, civil servants. Robert Banks says in that book, The work of divine providence includes all that God does to maintain the universe and human life in an orderly and beneficial fashion.

This includes conserving, sustaining, and replenishing. In addition to creating and redeeming the world, we live in a culture that glorifies the ceo. And really minimizes the minimum wage job. But friends we can’t exist as a society if we don’t have people in all of those areas. We need people doing the providential work, and this is the work of God.

The next thing is justice work. This is God’s maintenance of justice. We believe in justice here. This is why we have judges and lawyers. One of my best friends became a lawyer, and he is in a really tough part of Texas and he barely makes money, but he’s doing it because he wants to bring justice in that little corner of the universe.

These are city managers, prison wardens and guards, law enforcement. So many different ways that you can participate in justice work. Maybe that’s what your job is doing. Number five, quickly. Compassionate work. This is God’s involvement in comforting, healing, guiding, and shepherding. The obvious are things like doctors and nurses, paramedics, but also therapists, social workers, nonprofit directors, people who are stuck in addiction.

They need people like compassionate workers who are there to walk alongside of them as they stumble their way towards healing. This is a work of God. We need that just as much as we need the preacher. The last thing is revelatory work. This is God’s work to enlighten with. So obvious is preachers, but also things like scientists.

I love when we have new scientific discoveries cuz it declares the glory of God. Things like educators, I believe all truth is God’s truth. You have things like journalists, you have scholars. This is all things that bring glory to God. So hear me, I want us to be clear. At Passion Creek your work matters.

No matter what you do, but here’s the warning for all of us, your work matters. But it’s a terrible master. It’s a terrible master Work cannot be the place you find fulfillment. . I know for me, I’ve been a little bit burnt out from work, especially. I spent year and a half writing my book and I was so excited to release it into the world and it was super underwhelming.

And everybody who’s ever written a book told me this would happen and it just is this Oh, you just think it’s gonna be the greatest thing ever? And you’re like, Okay, cool. Now what? Now it’s Oh, when’s your next book? It’s let’s like be pumped about this one. No, when’s your next one?

And there’s just a weight. Enters into the story. And so as I was examining for my own personal life, why am I so crushed? I should be excited. I wrote a book, right? And so I was thinking through the paradigm of power, approval, comfort, security, and for me, I was looking for approval. Good job, Dre.

You wrote a book, right? I liked the book, whatever, but also security. I wanted to make money off the book so I can go to Disney World, right? Or whatever. And so what’s so hard for us in this balance is we have to remember our work so matters, but it’s not the end all beat all. And we’re in a world where work is one of the only gods we serve.

And so what a beautiful way for you and I to share the gospel by going to work day in and day. Loving it, but not worshiping it, not making it our existence. How you and I react on the day to. With our job, it’s fundamental in how we lead coworkers to the person and work of Jesus. And so we want to empower you to share the gospel.

We want to empower you to live it. And so in your together groups this week, you’re gonna be challenged with two sets of practices. One’s gonna be a group practice. Which I hope you guys attend group this week to learn what that is. But the second set of practices are individual, so those are always available on our website.

Let me highlight our individual practice this week, and I pray that you engage in it. It’s very similar to last week. Number one is to meet a coworker. I ask Caleb, how do you not meet? Shouldn’t everybody know their coworkers? But he’s No get to know. Don’t just go beyond just knowing their name.

Learn about their life. Learn about their passions. Learn about where they’re from. Care for them. Listen. So maybe that’s your agenda this week. Sharing the gospel seems really overwhelming and scary, but the first step is just to get to know somebody you work with. The second thing is to invite a coworker.

There’s a few different things you can invite them into. Invite them into. Hospitality. Have dinner with them. Invite them over to your house. Invite them to cultivate this Saturday. Invite them to church next Sunday. Get your families together. Live life together can tell you how many people come and they say, We’re just so lonely.

I don’t know anybody. It’s the job of the church to, to bring people over. And then that the last thing is to serve a coworker. Sorry. It’s to share the gospel and you serve them by sharing the gospel. Share what Christ has done in your life. Invite them to church. Pray for them, love them. Give them what they need.

Just imagine if we became people who just practice this week in and week out. Who can I have over with? A neighbor who can I love? Okay, now my coworker, who can I get to know? Because our world is believing in a false gospel and it has eternal implications, and I pray that you and I may see the beauty and the how beautiful are the feet of those who share the good news week in and week out.

Let’s Pray.