God At Work Series

Series: Stewardship

Message: “Worship, Work, and God” or “God at Work” or “Worth of Work”

Text: Acts 20:33-35; Ephesians 4:28

Date: Nov. 13, 2011

Pastor: David McBeath

(Significant portions of this sermon are reworked from Brian Bill of Pontiac Bible Church’s Sermon “Finding Worth in Your Work”)

PRAYER

INTRODUCTION—

Three boys were bragging about who had the best dad. The first boy said, “My dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, calls it a poem, and they give him $100.” The second boy jumps in and says, “That’s nothing. My dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, calls it a song, and they give him $1,000.” The third boy grins and says, “Oh, yeah? My dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper, calls it a sermon, and it takes six people just to collect all the money!”

This morning we begin a 4 part stewardship series. Some of you are thinking “Stewardship Series,” I know what that means, and you are now looking for the exits. I don’t want to pressure you to give anything. But I do want to encourage each of us to be good stewards of all the resources God has given.

I believe stewardship is important! That is why today—I am going to talk about God at Work. God is at work building his Kingdom as we worship God with our work, or with our jobs! Next week is the Sunday before Thanksgiving—so I want to talk about celebrating God’s Provision in our lives and the life of our church. Three weeks from today, I want to talk about Mastering our Money. Without a doubt Jesus and the Bible talks more about money than anything else. We are going to find out why. Finally, after we learn to master our money—we can begin giving with grace that will be week 4.

Speaking of work, have any of you ever found yourself to be extremely sleepy while you were at work. Well, I found some excuses you can use if your boss catches you asleep at your desk:

• They told me at the blood bank this might happen….

• Whew! I must have left the top off the Whiteout, strong stuff….

• This is in exchange for the six hours last night when I dreamed about work. Haven’t we all felt like saying this!

GOD IS A WORKER

OK, on a little more series note, we may get tired at our job, or even tired of our job, but the Bible says Work has inherent value for a couple of reasons. First, God is a worker. Genesis 1:1 states that God created the heavens and the earth and Genesis 2:2 calls his activity “work”: “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all his work.” And He didn’t stop working after creation. This is why Psalm 111:2 declares: “Great are (not were) the works of the Lord; they are pondered by all who delight in them.” So, God is a worker.

WE ARE HIS COWORKERS

Not only is God a worker, but we are workers as well. Genesis 1:26 says that man is to “rule over” God’s creation. Genesis 2:15 states Adam was placed in the garden to “work it and take care of it.” God planted the garden and man cultivated it. This was a partnership that continues today. God gives to us and we manage what we’ve been given. This is called stewardship!! We are to steward, work, or manage God’s world.

Unfortunately, with the entrance of sin in Genesis 3, our partnership with God got messed up. We forgot about this stewardship principle. Adam and Eve became self-centered, with the desire to take from God’s world instead of give, a desire to dominate God’s world instead of serve it, and a disposition to hate instead of love others in God’s world.

The same is true of us. We’ve been designed to work in tandem with God, for his purposes in our world not for ourselves and our purposes. This is why God gives us a co-mission: to make disciples. Ultimately God gives us jobs in order to take care of his world and make disciples. This is one of our church’s core values. We value—making disciples of Jesus who love God, love others, and make more disciples.

What is a disciple—someone that follows Jesus. Who was Jesus and what did he do? He was the second Adam. He was a perfect steward of this world and the work God gave him. Everything Jesus did, even his work as a carpenter was for God, for making disciples. The same should be true of us. Take a look at this video:

WORK/LIFE AS WORSHIP—VIDEO