TGIM
-Thank God It’s Monday-
Romans 12:1 - Message by Eugene Peterson – “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.”
We are all familiar with the acrostic: TGTIF – “Thank God It’s Friday.” I want to suggest a new acrostic: TGIM – “Thank God It’s Monday.”
I’m not talking about “Thank God It’s Monday,” because I’m going to call my work and tell them I’m worn out due to all the weekend activities and won’t make it to work. People can think up all kinds of excuses for not going to work on Monday. A New York temporary help firm collected some of the excuses employees made for not showing up for work on Monday. “I had to sort my socks.” “My favorite actress just got married, and I need time alone.” “The wind was blowing against me.” “A plane landed on the highway.” “There was a bear on my street.” One employ was honest and confessed, “I just forgot to come to work.”
I. Your Work Matters to God
The translation of Romans 12:1 by Eugene Peterson in the Message declares that your work matters to God. “Your everyday, ordinary - life you sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life” matters to God.
The writer of Ecclesiastes believed that work was a gift from the Lord. Ecclesiastes 5:19 NLT, “And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life – that is indeed a gift from God.”
There may be some of you who work for bosses you are convinced missed their calling as a gift from the Lord. I hope none of you have a boss like Sally who woke up every morning feeling like she had to push a giant boulder up a hill at work. She told about her boss who lectured the workers under him unmercifully in a meeting before work started. One by one, he presented them with a painful list of all their failures, flaws and shortcomings. He chided them for over an hour for all the mistakes they had made over the year. Then he announced that the Human Resources Department of the company was sponsoring a blood drive and that he would donate the first pint of blood. An anxious voice piped up form the rear of the room and asked, “But whose blood?” I hope you have a boss that is more sympathetic.
Have you ever gotten so angry with your boss that you wanted to walk out the door? Advice columnist Jeffrey Zaslow once asked his readers the question, “Had they ever gotten so angry with their boss that they wanted to quite their job?” He received several interesting stories:
Several waitresses and secretaries said their most satisfying career moves were when they walked out the door. Gina, a restaurant waitress, told how her boss once offered her a ten-cent a month raise, ‘as a big favor.” Gina saw it as a big insult so she quit. It made her day, she said, “to see the manager running from table to table, trying to fill her shoes.”
From the beginning of creation God blessed the work of His hands and gave the first family work to do. “So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day, having finished his task, God rested from all his work.” Genesis 2:1-2
“The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and care for it.” Genesis 2:15
From the beginning of creation God created humankind to be His co-workers. God placed man in the Garden of Eden and gave him the responsibility of caring for it. Man’s job was to cultivate and care for the garden. Work from the beginning was a partnership, God planted the Garden and man cultivated it.
All legitimate work is an extension of God’s work.
False views of work leave God out. Some see work as the ultimate purpose to find personal fulfillment. When a person has this view their world falls apart when they lose their job or feel like they are a failure at their work.
Another false view of work sees work related to success. Success in life means success in work. This person looks at his or her work as the reason for living. One person refused to retire because it would mean the end of his career.
You can look at the term “Success” in many ways. A man may be a secret alcoholic, his third wife may have walked out on him, his kids are on drugs, and his subordinates hate his guts, yet from the world’s view he is successful in his business. He is regarded as a successful person. People are eager to get his endorsement, his money, his endorsement and his participation.
In corporate life “success” is having the ability to move up the corporate ladder and hierarchy of the corporation. To fail their career path is to lose their sense of self-fulfillment.
Another false view of work is to look at the success of a person according to the person’s material wealth, professional recognition or positional status.
Success to an officer in the army is the number of stars on his shoulder. To a football player success is a Super Bowl ring. Success according to this view is totally based on what a person accomplishes. And if you can’t have happiness then success is being able to make enough money to buy pleasure.
The danger of making success at work the only criteria for success is that view of work tends to make an idol of a person’s career. Anthropologists define an idol as “anything that is sacred in such a way that it defines self-worth, becomes the controlling center of your life, and is the last in a series of priorities to go.”
Your work matters to God and God wants to be your partner in your work. If your work is an extension of God’s work, then your work should be done God’s way.
Our prayer should be that we do our work with integrity. Our prayer should be that the attitudes we demonstrate, the methods we employ, and the strategies we use should be done God’s way. If your work is an extension of God’s work then your need to prayerfully seek God’s guidance and ask God for wisdom.
Not only does your work matter to God, you are to give your work to God as an offering.
II. Give Your Work to God as an Offering
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life you sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.” Romans 12:1
The Apostle Paul says we are to place our work before God as an offering. Every legitimate work can be an offering unto the Lord. The Apostle Paul describes your work as God’s work. Ephesians 6:7, “Work with enthusiasm, as through you were working for the Lord rather than for people.” NLT If you have that view of your job you can “Thank God It’s Monday.”
If we really catch the vision that when we start work on Monday, we are involved in God’s work, then we can “Thank God It’s Monday.” Paul told the believers in Colosse, “And whatever you do or say, let it be as a representative of the Lord Jesus, all the while giving thanks through him to God the Father.” Colossians 3:17
On Sunday we come together to worship and praise the Lord in song and testimony and the preaching of the Word. We get equipped for our ministry of work, Monday through Friday. When we go to work on Monday we enter our mission field. As Christ-followers we all are called to full-time Christian service and ministry. So-called secular work can be as sacred as so called sacred work.
The Apostle Paul taught that all believers are to be involved in getting equipped for ministry. “It was he (Christ) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” Ephesians 4:11-12
Wherever you work you are called to bring light and hope to the people around you. You may be the only Gospel some people will ever see. St. Francis of Assisi gives this advice: “Preach sermons; and if you must, use words.”
Some of you may have seen the recent film, Amazing Grace, the story of William Wilberforce. Two hundred years ago William Wilberforce led the drive to end the British slave trade.
Kevin Belmonte writes in his book, Hero for Humanity, that Wilberforce resisted efforts by his friends to become a follower of Jesus Christ. Wilberforce was wealthy and enjoyed life to the fullest with high fashion living and the goal of advancing his own political career.
Through the influence of a friend, Isaac Milner, Wilberforce accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord and condemned himself for having wasted so much of his time and talents.
After becoming a Christian Wilberforce considered resigning from being in politics and a Member of Parliament and begin serving the Lord in other ways. But several friends including John Newton, the former slave ship captain turned minister of the Gospel and author of the favorite song, “Amazing Grace” encouraged Wilberforce to stay in politics.
After searching scriptures Wilberforce felt it was God’s will for him to stay in politics. Through his political influence the British slave trade ended.
The Bible does not make a distinction between sacred work and secular work. Doug Sherman says all work can be “sacred” “sacred because it is God at work – being accomplished through everyday people in their everyday occupations.”
Our life can be a testimony to people around us that as a follower of Jesus, we live life to the fullest. Our life witnesses in several ways:
• Through the development of an attitude of contentment not covetousness.
• As you pursue a lifestyle of limits not luxury.
• By cultivating habits of generosity not greed.
The Apostle Paul’s occupation was a tent maker. He used his skills in making tents to support his ministry of planting
new congregations. Many of you are ministers in disguise as engineers, receptionists, office managers, teachers, dental assistants, contractors, business owners, and salesmen.
An unknown Author has written a paraphrase of Psalm 23 for the workplace.
The Lord is my real boss, and I shall not want. He gives me peace, when chaos is all around me. He gently reminds me to pray and do all things without murmuring and complaining. He reminds me that He, not my job, is my source. He restores my sanity everyday and guides my decisions that I might honor Him in all that I do.
Even though I face an absurd amount of e-mails, system crashes, unrealistic deadlines, budget cutbacks, gossiping co-workers, discriminating supervisors and an aging body that doesn’t cooperate every morning, I still will not stop - for He is with me! His presence, His peace, and His power will see me through.
He raises me up, even when they fail to promote me. He claims me as His own, even when the company threatens to let me go. His faithfulness and love are better than any bonus check. His retirement plan beats every 401k there is! When it’s all said and done, I’ll be working for Him a whole lot longer and for that, I bless His name!
On this Labor Day weekend we can thank God for Mondays. On Monday we enter our mission field and are partners with the Lord in His work.
All work matters to God. (Excellent Resource, Your Work Matters to God by Doug Sherman and William Hendricks)
Whatever our work we can offer it as an offering to the Lord.
Closing prayer of dedication of our work to the Lord.
“Lord Jesus thank you for the gift of work. I give my work to you as an offering.”
