Entrusted With A Job Series

One thing everyone of us has in common is the desire to feel we have accomplished a job well. This applies in our church life, in our home life and in our life at work.

Different jobs suit different people of course- we all have differing abilities. I know for me that one kind of job I am definitely NOT called into is anything involving fixing things in the house. People say that for me DIY means Destroy It yourself.

But recently, even I experienced something of the satisfaction that comes from knowing you have achieved a job and done it well! I fitted a doorbell! The first time someone came to the door I am sure they were thinking "O well, here I am at the door of the Warnock’s house this means only one thing there will not be a doorbell so I will have to knock, and knock then eventually get my mobile phone out and RING them if I want in but no, whats this a doorbell? DO I dare touch it? What if Adrian fixed it? Will I get electrocuted? So, trembling, I take my life into my hands and wonder of wonders IT WORKED!!!!

I actually did it! OK, OK so it was only one you plug into the mains plug and stick on using a sticky tape but I still got a RUSH I kept pressing it thinking "I did that!"

Mind you, we did have a few noisy people round this week and when someone turned up late no one heard the bell so the trusty mobile phone came in handy nonetheless ..

Which of us doesn’t know that "rush" of thinking "I did it" . "I achieved what I set out to do"

Perhaps at church someone says a simple "thank you" to us and we suddenly realise they meant it and the thing we just did really helped that person! Perhaps at home we get called into school one day and fearfully go thinking "o no my kid must have misbehaved" then when we get there we hear they are doing well and we think "thank goodness!" Perhaps in the workplace we clinch a deal and get that promotion we have been waiting for!

Work is good, God intended us to have that kind of relationship with it!

Todays talk is called "Entrusted with a job". This is because I want us to remember that God has given us ALL a job to do. We have an employer that goes beyond our earthly employer. God has a unique roll for each of us in work, church, family that HE has assigned to us. He has a series of hats for us to wear and has entrusted us with each of them I am a preacher, father, husband, friend, employee, at times employer, and so the list goes on. Each hat represents a job, and each hat has been ENTRUSTED to me by God!

Todays talk will apply as I say to the three main aspects of our lives that each of us will have a part to play in work, church, family

But, there are two sides to our relationship with the jobs that we have been given for some of us, we can especially if we feel we are being successful become addicted to work. We drive ourselves harder and harder either just in one area of our lives so that the other areass suffer or perhaps even more seriously we try and drive ourselves too hard in ALL THREE areas and we are the ones who suffer.

They say that the workaholic is very similar to the alcoholic- he or she just doesn’t know when to STOP!

The trouble is, by the end of our lives will we feel we have accomplished much? When you hear the word "job" we obviously tend to think of the workplace and I will speak about that but clearly a sense of having a "job to do" is not exclusive to our paid work.

In us we have a sense that we have been put on earth for a reason. Somehow the 9-5 (or 7-7!) doesn’t satisfy. "Eat-work-sleep-eat-work-sleep-eat-work-party-sleep" Doesn’t fulfil on our death beds do any of us think we will say "Gee, I wish I had spent more time at the office!"

This is a valuable thought, but can lead us to the first of several misakes we can make about work whether we mean our work for God in workplace church or home our drive to work and work well sometimes is defeated by another job we have which is a drive to leisure and to be lazy!

Wrong thinking WHEN THINKING ABOUT THE JOB GOD HAS CALLED US TO FULFILL

" It doesn’t really matter I am on my way to heaven aren’t I why all this talk about working and a job for me to fulfil? Lets take it EASY and just cruise through life!"