I don’t know about some of you but the hardest thing for me when seeking a job or a pastorate is the interview and the resume. I try very hard to be a good worker wherever I am employed but the interview is the tough part. Even looking at the interview tips that are online doesn’t help much. Each interviewer is different and some want you to tell it all and others want a synopsis. If you don’t tell how wonderful you are and maybe appear laid back one man may think you are lazy and lack self-confidence. Another thinks you are a braggart if you try to show confidence and highlight your achievements. I got two jobs when I thought I had blown the interview because I kept saying that I didn’t have any experience in the areas they were asking me about yet did not get jobs when I did know the topics and had experience. Go figure!
Proverbs 27:2 says “Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.” (KJV)
That makes the whole process even more difficult. The best job I ever got in respect to this passage was the one where they never even called me let alone interviewed me. I sent in the paperwork and the next thing I know I was given an appointment for a physical. After that, I got a start date. It was grand!
Some of you may have never had to this but one time. The first job you took is the one you still have or you have retired from and that is wonderful. Unfortunately, I have had quite a varied career after I left the military. Getting a job and keeping it was tough for awhile due to graduating in the middle of a recession. I later found out that I was often hindered because of my military background. Hmm, and I had heard that “your best bet was to a hire a Vet” but not everyone agreed. Also, I know that I was discriminated against a few times because my degree was in Religious Education. Other times I knew that there were other things beyond my control that caused me to be discriminated against but God always took care of me and now I am four months from being able to retire from a thirty year career. Yet, I am still not done with resumes and interviews in this life or the next.
It is tough enough to go through a process of having to let your resume speak for you or to defend your qualifications when you are applying for a job. It would be even tougher if you were the founder of the corporation and had to prove yourself to the people you employed because they questioned your authority, sought to replace you and even discredit you. You say, that’s nuts! How can that happen? Well, something similar happened to the Apostle Paul.
When Paul entered Corinth it was a city of paganism steeped in idolatry, prostitution and materialism. Sounds a bit like any metropolitan area in the US or the world for the matter. Consequently, Paul was the founder of the 1st Baptist Church of Corinth and anyone who was a Christian in that city was won to Christ by him or one of his converts. You would have thought that there would have been some definite gratitude and loyalty in the hearts of the believers. You would have thought.
Unfortunately, though God had blessed that church with every spiritual gift they never matured beyond babyhood. They elevated the least of all the gifts to preeminence. They carried over some of the practices of the orgies into the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. They tolerated sin in the church. The rich flaunted their wealth before the poor in the church and they still had respect of persons. Man, and to think there are so many churches today that look to the Church of Corinth as a model to emulate instead of an example of how to not do church. That place was a catastrophe and it had the greatest Doctor and theologian of all time, other than Christ Himself, as its founder and teacher. Makes you wonder why we place so much emphasis on degrees and theologians when it is obvious there is no guarantee that the holder of those degrees will do any better than the fishermen who made up the majority of the Apostles.
The “respecter of persons” thing is what got Paul called into question. Once some of the lads in Jerusalem who believed in Jesus plus the law heard of the success in Corinth they had to jump in and infiltrate. They would not have gotten their hands dirty or taken the risk in starting a church in such an area but they could steal sheep. These lads would show up in their long robes looking very respectable. They carried themselves with charm and class calling each other Rabbi; meaning master or doctor. They were grand orators and philosophers. Those in the Corinthian upper crust would love these guys and believe everything they said. Thus when they started criticizing Paul and preaching their errors, Paul had to write the Church and defend his credentials and supply his resume.
Unlike a person applying for a job, Paul was pretty blunt with them and even downright rude by our namby-pamby standards of tolerance and etiquette. Of course, Paul was not speaking this way to the membership but to the Elders he had chosen who had turned against him for these pretty boys from Jerusalem University.
2 Cor 11:16-12:1
16 I say again, Let no man think me a fool; if otherwise, yet as a fool receive me, that I may boast myself a little.
17 That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting.
18 Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.
19 For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.
20 For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face.
21 I speak as concerning reproach, as though we had been weak. Howbeit whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak foolishly,) I am bold also.
22 Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I.
23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
28 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?
30 If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities.
31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I lie not.
32 In Damascus the governor under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me:
33 And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and escaped his hands. KJV
None of those fancy boys from Jerusalem could have come close to having a resume like that and neither did any of those in the Corinthian church that loved those lads. Paul had a little of the same problem in Galatia and he added this bottom line to his resume.
Gal 6:17 From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. KJV
Paul had a tremendous resume and handled the “interview” very well, but what about us? Some have asked the question that if Christianity were a crime would there be enough evidence to convict you. Better yet, if as so many of the jokes say, that Peter interviews you at the gate of Heaven before he lets you in how would you answer his questions and what would he see on your life record, which is your resume?
If Peter asked you, what was your greatest accomplishment for Christ, would you say that you made it to church every other Sunday morning? If he asked how you exercised you spiritual gift would you say, huh? How about your greatest suffering for Christ? Would it be that it was sitting in a too hot or too cold auditorium listening to Brother Ron for forty-five minutes? Would he say, I see where you once said that you cared a great deal about the mission of the Church but you only came on Sunday mornings, never tithed, never witnessed or invited someone to Church? Can you explain how that expressed your care about the mission? Peter may say I see where you said you loved the Lord but no one at your job ever knew you were a Christian and there was a co-worker who killed himself that would have been saved had you witnessed to him. Another one would not have divorced her husband and left her children had you prayed with her. You never cared about seeking to be holy, but you loved 1 John 1:9. You loved the milk of the Word but you never sought the meat. Your love for God never seemed to inconvenience you. How much did you love the Lord?
What a grill that might be, but Peter won’t be the one asking the questions on reviewing the resume.
2 Cor 5:10-11
10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences. KJV
Since Paul mentions the terror of the Lord, I suspect that Jesus’ questions will be far more probing than the ones I used for Peter. Common business practice is to only list the last 5-10 years on your resume and try to keep it to one or two pages. Our resume at that judgment seat will have every detail for however many years we lived. Ouch!!!
We won’t be able to lie or leave out any facts to enhance our interview. We won’t be able to brag because He knows that what sounds good on paper is just creative writing and wasn’t nearly as spectacular as we might want to make it. He also knows that we did things for the eyes of men though we told folks that it was for the glory of God.
We have in the Word of God many resumes of people both good and bad. We can read some of the interviews that God had with them and how He reacted to the answers He got, especially the excuses. We see how those didn’t fly. How should we then live?
Heb 12:1-8
12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
4 Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:
6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. KJV
I fear that we have far more bastards in the churches than sons. Oh, was that shocking? Well, it’s in the Book. There are a lot of folks showing up in church whose resumes seem to be more fitting for one of the devil’s debutantes than of one of God’s children. Many who call themselves Christians don’t have enough evidence to convict them and they can’t resist sin but they can really resist the alarm clock on Sunday morning.
It’s time we all started adding better entries to our resume or we are really, really going to be disappointed at that last interview. Thank God salvation is by grace through faith in His shed blood and resurrection or no one could qualify based upon their resumes. We definitely would not provide good answers at the interview. Yet, if we do not seek to be obedient and resist the devil we are not going to comprehend our sorrow when we see His face.
If you are not saved, your resume might actually look better than mine but without that one entry where you were born again on such and such date you will still go to Hell. Don’t go there. Add today as the day you were saved and then create a glorious resume through His Spirit and His Word!!! GLORY! Maranatha!!!
