What's My Line?

INTRO. - How old are you? Do you remember the old TV game show called “What’s my Line?” It was a panel game show which originally ran in the United States on the CBS from 1950 to 1967. The game had celebrity panelists questioning contestants in order to determine their occupations. The show was moderated by John Charles Daly and with panelists Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene Francis, and Bennett Cerf.

WHAT’S YOUR LINE? I know what many people do for a living, but what’s your true line in life? What is the thing that motivates you the most and causes you to do what you do in life?

If we would be honest, most of us are not extremely motivated by our faith in the Lord. There is some motivation but I’m not sure it’s the greatest motivation for us in life. IT SHOULD BE!

ILL.- Remember the bumper sticker? “I owe, I owe, so it’s off to work I go.” Because we have a house and a car to pay for and a whole lot more, we are motivated to go to work. Well, some people are. Not everyone wants to work but they should.

II Thessalonians 3:10 “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat." Most people are motivated to work at a job because they like to eat and they have a house to live in and a car to drive. They have mortgages and car payments, so they go to work.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our government would endorse this scripture along with many others? If you don’t work, you don’t eat! That would put a lot of people back to work, even if they were only getting minimum wage pay.

We like many things in life as well as eating and that’s why we go to work. We can’t do much in life without money. And money in the pocket or in the bank requires that we work. And money is a big motivator in life and perhaps one of the biggest.

Money or making money often controls our lives whether we want to admit it or not. If we have enough money to pay our bills and some left over for whatever we want to do or buy then we feel pretty good about life and we even feel good about God. But if we have trouble paying our bills then we are often depressed and maybe somewhat angry at God for not taking better care of us.

Instead of letting our faith control us, money does. Or it could be something else. It all depends what seems to be most important to us.

Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Whatever you treasure most in life is what will motivate you in life. It could be money or anything material or a hobby or sports or even your family.

Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”

We all have a choice to make in life; either we serve the Lord or else we serve something else or someone else. If we have committed our life to the Lord then the Lord should be our great motivator in life and we always seek to do His will above everything else. The apostle Paul was such a man. Nothing was more important to Him than doing the Lord’s will. As a result, he was both a servant and an apostle. He was a humble servant and an apostle of the Lord Jesus. He wanted to fulfill God’s mission in his life.

PROP.- Since Paul was a servant and an apostle, what was his job and what is our job as Christians?

1- To further the faith of others

2- To increase the knowledge of truth

3- To encourage godliness

4- To foster the hope of eternal life

I. TO FURTHER THE FAITH OF OTHERS

1 Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ to further the faith of God’s elect...

ILL.- I read that Theodore Roosevelt, sometimes known as Roosevelt the First, was a President who knew his value and apparently, over-valued himself. One of his children said: “Father always had to be the center of attention. When he went to a wedding, he wanted to be the bride. When he went to a funeral, he was sorry that he couldn’t be the corpse.”

Roosevelt was not the first to put himself first. And there are plenty of people and famous people who like to promote themselves. Life seems to always be about them, their lives, their work, their interests, etc.