Shove That Job - I'll Take It

Introduction

A You cannot watch a news program without hearing about record unemployment and job plans.

1 People want to work but can’t any jobs.

a My dad telling me he could quit one job and go across the street to work the following day.

b Johnny Paycheck, “Take this job and shove it” is now “Show that job - I’ll take it.”

2 Your job is a big deal to God! 18 Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting : to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one's labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward .Eccl 5:18 (NASB);

11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you,12 so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.1 Thess 4:11-12 (NASB);

11 For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies.12 Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.2 Thess 3:11-12 (NASB)

a He wants us to enjoy our jobs but for some of us it’s difficult. (It’s not that we are ungrateful, unthankful, but we just don’t like our jobs.)

b There are several reasons:

aa Feel underappreciated by our employees or employers.

bb We took a job, chose a career to please our parents.

cc We do something just for the money.

dd Or we chose the road of least resistance, easiest thing to do.

c The good news is that it is easier/more common now than ever to change careers mid-stream. (Re-tool yourself, work from home, all thanks to the internet.)

B The better news is that God’s Word gives us some resources/tools. We can appreciate our jobs and see them as a way to serve the Lord.

1 Today I’ll show you how your job can be a blessing, a bridge, a building project.

2 Pray.

I Whatever your job is, view it as a blessing!

A God always intended for us to work, have jobs.

1 Some believe we went to work only after sin entered the picture. Wrong!

a 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven.5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.

Gen 2:2-5 (NASB); 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky , and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky , and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. Gen 2:19-20 (NASB) God shows us the example to follow by working.

b From day one Adam was introduced in the garden he had responsibilities, job!

c When Adam/Eve sinned, evicted from the garden, something happened. 17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.18 "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field;19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."Gen 3:17-19 (NASB)

aa God didn’t give Adam a job to curse him as a result for sinning... God cursed the ground. (Harder to make a living.)

bb Dirt is now filled with thorns, thistles, rocks... no more easy tilling, planting.

cc You will now sweat to get your bread!

2 Work was never a curse but rather a gift from God.

a Part of His plan/purpose for our lives, it’s a blessing!