Foundations: Prayer (1 Chronicles 4.9-10)

Introduction

As we run through some of our key values here at King’s, starting with God’s Word, the Bible, last Sunday, this morning we turn to prayer.

I’ve got about half an hour. The thing is, where do you start?

First, what is prayer?” It takes many forms. There’s praise, there’s confession, there’s requests, there’s lament, there’s agonising, there’s questioning; “Why, God?”

Then there’s the question “how to pray? Out loud or silently? On your own or with others? How do I stop my mind wandering off? When is the best time? For how long? With or without fasting?

Then, the theological issues. What is the point of prayer if God knows the future already? What about unanswered prayer?

Actually, it’s good that God sometimes delays in answering our prayers. John Ortberg, who leads a church in Silicon Valley, talks about his Uncle Otis who is on the prayer ministry team at his church and once ministered to a man suffering with severe constipation.  

So Uncle Otis, moved with compassion, prayed, “Lord, heal this man immediately!” Everyone in the immediate vicinity was relieved that particular prayer went unanswered!

New York pastor Tim Keller says, “God will either give us what we ask for, or give us what we would have asked for if we knew everything he knows.”

There are roughly 650 different prayers recorded in the Bible. In addition, there are about 550 verses mentioning the word “prayer.”

Going to the Bible to find out what it says about prayer is like trying to get a glass of water from the Niagara Falls.

Without any exaggeration, we could put together a series on prayer lasting the whole year. And we still wouldn’t cover everything.

90% of Christians interviewed a few years ago said they find prayer difficult or challenging (and I’m tempted to say that the other 10% have been known to lie).

I’m one of the 90%. I have been woken up with drool running from the corner of my mouth having fallen asleep whilst praying in every conceivable bodily posture.

This explains why I pray most productively when I’m out walking. I can’t fall asleep then! I also find it much easier - and being an extrovert more enjoyable - praying in a group than on my own.

That’s me. You have to do what works best for you.

But I want to say this. A farmer will never enjoy a harvest unless he first ploughs the soil, sows seeds and waters the earth.

And likewise, you’ll never see God move significantly in your life without investing prayer into the things you care about. You just won’t.

Prayer is usually the decisive difference between what we want God to do and what God actually does.

So however hard we find prayer, and practically all of us do find it tricky at times, we’ve got to find a way to make progress.

I’ll say a bit at the end about how we want to make prayer an actual foundational building block at King’s, and not just a vague aspiration.

But first, I want to look at what God’s word says and I felt I should zoom in on just one two verses from the Old Testament tucked away, like a needle in a haystack, in the middle of a long list of names.

The Prayer of Jabez

In the year 2000, Bruce Wilkinson of Walk Through the Bible Ministries wrote a short book, just 80-pages, but it became a global phenomenon, selling well-over 10 million copies. It is in the top 5 best-selling Christian books ever written.

The book was about the prayer of one obscure Old Testament character. And that book is called The Prayer of Jabez.

“What a pain!” Have you ever said that about someone? Has anyone ever said that about you? It was said about this man, Jabez. It’s actually what his name means: ‘one who has brought me pain’.

When Jabez was born the delivery was unbearably painful and his mother never let her son forget it. When she named him, she wanted him - and everyone else - to know that bringing him into the world traumatised her.

Most children are born after painful and exhausting labour and most mothers suffer in the process. But how many mums do you know who take it out on their kids by giving them names like Distress, Soreness and Agony?

I think we would say today that Jabez came from a dysfunctional family, with a complaining and controlling mother, whose inability to move on loaded her son with guilt.

But in spite of this unpromising start in life, Jabez overcame the setbacks of his birth and upbringing. The Bible says that he was honourable - more honourable than the rest of his family.

This is what 1 Chronicles 4.9-10 says:

Jabez was more honourable than his brothers. His mother had named him Jabez, saying, “I gave birth to him in pain.” Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.

The key to the way out from this man’s unhappy, almost cursed, childhood is his prayer.

There’s a church leader based in Bournemouth called Tim Matthews and he sometimes talks about his big but. Do you have a big but? I hope you do!

Tim Matthews is not talking about the measurements of his posterior, you’ll be glad to hear; it’s actually a comment on Psalm 109.4 which says this:

“With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. In return for my friendship they accuse me, BUT (here’s the big but) BUT I am a man of prayer.

This is written by David before he was king. He’s on the run, with an insanely jealous and controlling king called Saul tracking him down. There are hundreds of armed men intent on killing him. He’s having to flee for his life and take refuge in desert caves.

God has allowed all of that. David never disputes the fact. BUT, he says, I am a man of prayer.”

However bleak your circumstances are, (health, finances, work, family, whatever it is) your prayer adds a huge and decisive “but” to the outlook.”

The Bible says, “Jabez cried out to the God of Israel.” It was not his mother’s crying out in pain that would define his life. It was his crying out to God. This proved to be the turning point in his life.

Jabez had a big but. “Yes, I was born in pain. Yes, my mother put a millstone round my neck. Yes, I’ve lived under a curse my whole life – BUT I’m going to turn to God and cry out to him to act in such a way that my past shall no longer determine my present or my future.”  

Jabez asks for God’s blessing on his life.

He believes that God is a good, good Father who - as Jesus said - delights to give good gifts to his children when they ask.

In James 4.2 God calls a spade a spade when he says, “You do not have because you do not ask.” That’s it, that’s why. So Jabez asks.

He knows that the Lord said to his ancestor Abraham, “I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”

He also knows about Abraham’s grandson Jacob who wrestled with the angel of the Lord all night long and said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

Jabez asks for blessing so he can in turn bless others.

Our purpose as God’s people, the church, is to be a portal of blessing to the world – but you and I have no blessing to offer anyone if we ourselves have not been blessed first.

Hear the passion, the desperation, in Jabez’ prayer; “Oh, that you would bless me!” Are you ready to do battle in prayer, and just refuse to give up until blessing comes?

Ask God. Go on, ask! Pray for favour, the measure of which spills over to bring blessing to your family and church and community.

Jabez also asks God to enlarge his territory. He has his eyes on growth. He wants his life of faith to have greater reach. Why don’t you?

Jabez could have accepted his lot and resigned himself to a life of emotional want, and lack of love and constantly unmet needs.

Have you ever asked God for something so big that you could not possibly achieve it by yourself, it would have to be God?

Ask God to increase his sphere of grace around your life. Ask him to extend your territory.

Ephesians 3.20 says that God is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

Then Jabez asks for God’s hand to be with him. The hand of the Lord, in the Bible, means his power.

It says in Joshua 4 that God dried up the Red Sea “so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.”

It says in Acts 11 that “the hand of the Lord was with [the Christians as they took the gospel into new territory] and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.”

Ask God today that his hand will be on your life, on your church, so that the world will witness something so remarkable that when it comes to pass, everyone will have no option than to say, “that could only have been the hand of God.”

I read a testimony in Premier Christianity magazine a few years ago that encouraged me to persevere in faith for things I started praying for a long time ago.

It was written by a man who couldn’t stop thinking about a girl called Esther.

But he didn’t know if she fancied him, and he was very nervous about asking her out. So he started to ask God for guidance…

This is what he says:

“While on my lunch break, I went for a sandwich and as I pulled some cash out to pay for it, I glanced at a £5 note. Written in pencil was the word ‘Esther’ (it was one of the old paper banknotes). What were the chances?

“I went into a shop, bought a small picture frame and put the banknote inside.” He decided to ask Esther out later that week and give her the framed banknote as a little gift if she said yes.

Esther told him she’d love to be his girlfriend. So he said, “I have a present for you.” And he gave her the little box wrapped in pretty paper.

She tore off the paper, opened the box, held up the frame and went very quiet. She just stared at it.

There was an awkward silence so he told her how he had come across it. Finally, she looked at him – but not smiling. She seemed confused, a bit disturbed even. It definitely wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for.

And she slipped the framed £5 note into her handbag. She seemed so out of sorts that he was reluctant to press her about it.

Anyway, two years later, they got married and were moving into a new flat together. While unpacking, he came across that framed £5 note.

“Esther,” he said. “You never told me about why you acted so strangely when I gave it to you.”

This time, as she took the frame in her hands, she smiled. “If I had told you the story behind it then” she said, “I think you would have felt too pressured. A few years before we met, I was working as a cashier at a printing shop.

And I started thinking one day, how do you know when you’ve met the love of your life? I got this idea. I wrote my name on a £5 note and gave it out when I had to give change.

And I said a prayer as I wrote my name that somehow that banknote would end up with the man I would go on to marry.”

That’s the hand of God right there…

The final part of Jabez’ prayer is that God will keep him from harm so that he will be free from pain.

Causing pain and being labelled a pain creates a cycle that repeats itself through generations because hurt people hurt people.

The prayer of Jabez is a simple request that God will break that destructive pattern of pain so there is a better legacy to pass on.

Some of you know about kintsugi. It is the art of repairing broken ceramics with gold or silver lacquer.

Photo by Pomax on flickr

It comes from the Japanese Kin (meaning gold) and Tsugi (meaning join), so it literally means: joined with gold.

Kintsugi takes cracked pottery and makes something lovely from it. The Bible says that God gives a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

God never promises anyone a life with no pain, and no heartbreak.

But he wants to turn all that is shattered and crushed in us into something beautiful. And one of the ways he starts to do that is when we bring our brokenness to him in prayer like Jabez did.

And the Bible says, very simply, “And God granted his request.”

God’s word says you are not an orphan; you are adopted by grace. You are not defined by your past; you are a new creation. You are not a miserable sinner; you are a mended saint.

Your past does not dictate your future, provided you live in the identity God has given you.

Prayer changes things. And prayer changes people.

There was a Christian school teacher from Bristol whose colleague was an avowed atheist. One week, they both took a class on a coastal field trip, and at the end of the week this atheist teacher went out into the sea for a swim.

There was a rip tide which carried him out to sea and before long he was in serious trouble. He was too far out to be heard, so he started to wave back to those who were on shore.

At first, they thought he was just a friendly wave as if to say “come on in.”

Then someone realised he was panicking, so they managed to alert some lifeguards and they brought him safely back to shore.

Later, on the way home, the Christian teacher asked him, “What were you thinking about when you were all at sea and in grave danger of drowning?”

And his reply was, “I just kept repeating the Lord’s Prayer.” That man was no longer an atheist after that…

If each of us shared, one by one, all the prayers God has answered in our lives I’m sure it would take days to hear the end of it.

My observation, in decades of being a Christian, is that praying Christians tend to be positive Christians and praying churches tend to be prevailing churches.

Because when a church gets it together, and seeks God’s face, and prays heaven down, things start to happen; people come to Christ more frequently, people get filled with the Holy Spirit more regularly, remarkable miracles and ‘God incidences’ occur more often, ministries get raised up and the church moves forward.

I’ve seen this kind of virtuous circle time and again – the key is consistent, united, believing, prayer.

Ending

So I want to end, in the five minutes I have left, to outline how we’re going to make prayer a priority here at King’s this year and going forward.

I have to be honest with you, since coming here two and a half years ago, there have been a few exceptions, but I have only rarely experienced an electric atmosphere of passionate, believing prayer.

I want to see a faith-propelled, rising tide of passion for God to move in power at King’s. And I believe we will get there.

I heard only this week that half a dozen or so just decided to gather to pray together for an outpouring of the Spirit, for a move of God in our town and nation.

It wasn’t a top-down initiative that came from the elders or anything like that. It was organic and it came from hearts that are hungry to see God do more – I love that. I want to see more of it.

I love it when I see people spontaneously after the service here, praying with each other over coffee, as things come up in conversation.

I got a text this week about the group of women who meet each Monday to chat and pray. They also have a WhatsApp group if you can’t get there in person. They’ve seen lots of answers to prayer. Just this week for example, someone shared in that group that they had a skin irritation and was concerned that it would prevent them from sleeping. The group raised their voices to God in faith - and that person slept through.

There is an opportunity every Sunday morning before the service from 9.45am to 10.15am to drop in to the Cumberland Room and pray. It’s not the best time for everyone; especially if you’re involved in getting the service ready – but for others it’s a perfect time.

One of the main reasons we are prioritising midweek groups in homes is so that we can pray together; for one another, for the mission of the church, for the town and for the world.

And on the last week of every month the plan is that, instead of meeting in homes, we come together to hear from God and pray as a church.

The elders pray together every time they meet, and two or three times a year they’re going to spend a whole morning before God, inviting other leaders and prophetic people to join them, to seek the Lord and pray into what we sense is on his heart.

And I’m sure there’s a lot more going on than I am aware of. Be encouraged. Keep going. God is able.

And if it’s time for you to kick start your prayer life back into action, then let’s go.

Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 15 January 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I Read in 2022

Here’s a review of my reading material during 2022.

Absolutely outstanding *****   Very good ****   A decent read ***   Hmm, OK **   Don't bother * 

The Broker (John Grisham) ****

This would make a great film. It’s about a man in jail with access to some highly valuable and sensitive national security information. He unexpectedly receives a pardon from a lame-duck outgoing U. S. President, is given a new identity and whisked off under cover of darkness to Italy. But ruthlessly efficient Intelligence Service hit squads from several countries are determined to track him down, each with their own mysterious agenda. With the net closing in, will his evasion and disguises throw them off the scent? Such a good plot!

 

Straight to the Heart of Romans: 60 Bite-Sized Insights (Phil Moore) ****

I love this series of devotional commentaries that now cover the entire Bible. Excellent on the historical background and perceptive on how each text interacts with the Bible’s big picture, they give plenty of stimulation for the mind and nourishment for the soul in sixty 4-page chapters. I devoured this one. For Paul’s mammoth epistle to the heart of the Roman empire, where the fearsome Caesars ruled with an iron fist, Phil Moore’s constant refrain is that Jesus is the new King in town. This book helps steer you through Paul’s complex train of thought, starting with universal guilt and working on through the decisive act of justification, the messy process of sanctification, the sovereignty of God, creating healthy community and mission. And it never loses sight of the urgent pastoral problem which I have no doubt occasioned the letter; the leadership crisis due to recent changes of fortune for Jews and Gentiles in that city.

Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers (Dane Ortlund) *****

This book came recommended by several friends, but I didn’t find the title particularly appealing. I imagined it might downplay too much Christ’s severity and his relentlessly uncompromising challenge. I was wrong. This is a simple but profound reflection on the heart of Christ and it’s pretty solid theologically. Drawing on the wisdom and depth of Puritans like Thomas Goodwin, Richard Sibbes and John Bunyan, as well as heavyweights like Edwards, Calvin and Warfield, Dane Ortlund writes very insightfully indeed. This deserves to become a classic.

The Jesus You Really Didn’t Know: Rediscovering the Teaching Ministry of Jesus (Andy Angel) ****

Judging a book by its cover, you might think this would be a popular-level look at the hard sayings of Jesus, and the elephant in the room of their being airbrushed out of most contemporary preaching. It sort of is that – but a bit more besides. It’s actually much more scholarly than it looks and it offers a thorough overview of all Jesus’ teaching ministry as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. A lot of the book centres on Jesus’ scrupulous observance of every point of the Law of Moses, dispelling the myth that he ran a coach and horses through it to replace it with an affirming message of hugs, acceptance and love-love-love. In fact, he lambasted the Pharisees for failing to keep the Law, replacing it instead with their traditions. No, according to this book, Jesus absolutely meant what he said that not one jot or tittle will pass away from the law, till all things are accomplished. And he was also serious about his authority, our discipleship (expressed as radical obedience to his commands), personal holiness, final judgement and the fires of hell - complete with six references to weeping and gnashing of teeth. How often do you hear about any of that in your local church Sunday by Sunday? It's not until the appendix that we reconcile all of this with Paul’s contention that gentiles are emphatically not under the Law of Moses. Only then does the big picture of Dr. Angel’s argument become clearer. It’s a really thought-provoking book. It's one of those rare books that I think I need to read again. Ironic, I think, that it is endorsed in the flyleaf by no less than four Church of England bishops, given their collective and lamentable decision in December 2018 to oppose Jesus’ plain teaching that in the beginning the Creator made us male and female.

 

God of All Things: Rediscovering the Sacred in an Everyday World (Andrew Wilson) *****

Salt, stones, sun, sea, sex… ordinary, everyday things which say something to us about ourselves, made in the image of God and about God himself. 30 short chapters of fine writing, surprising facts, quirky observations and at times breathtaking spiritual insight. I loved it. The chapters on pigs and rain were the two highlights for me. Pigs are the epitome of foul but their being made into a pleasing aroma (bacon) by their death is an image of gentiles made pleasing to God by Christ's death on the cross. Rain, in this book, is a reminder of common grace; our beautiful, lush, green planet, a gift generously given as much to rogues and rascals as to the righteous. One of the best books I’ve read in years.

Straight to the Heart of The Minor Prophets: 60 Bite-Sized Insights (Phil Moore) ***

There was a special offer on Phil Moore’s books at a leadership conference I attended this year in which the recommended retail price of each book (£8.99) was slashed to just £1.99. Needless to say, I bought the whole lot, though frustratingly I had already splashed out on this one just a week earlier at full price! Phil Moore covers the final twelve books of the Old Testament in one book, grouping them by intended audience. For some this was the northern kingdom of Israel, for others it was Assyria, for still others it was Judah and the final 3 post-exilic books look to a better Israel under the coming Messiah. The dominant theme that unites all 12 books is ‘blessing (God’s plan A) or curse (God’s plan B); you decide.’ I was struck by how skilfully Phil Moore shows how relevant these prophetic books are to the contemporary church where a selective approach to Scripture and a worldly moral vision lead inevitably towards a famine in conversions, decline and church closures as surely as they led to judgement and exile in the era when these men spoke from God. 

Troublesome Words (Bill Bryson) *

I thought this was going to be a magical voyage of discovery on the quirks of the English language by one of its most gifted writers. No. For that, you need to read Mother Tongue. This was more an alphabetically arranged work of reference for journalists and authors that at times took pedantry to stratospheric heights. The laborious, not to say torturous, discussion as to whether the word “but” is a preposition or a conjunction, and whether it puts the pronoun in the accusative or nominative, made me a bit tired of life. The occasional gem such as, “barbecue is the only acceptable spelling in any serious writing. Any… formal user of English who believes that the word is spelled barbeque or, worse still, bar-b-q is not ready for unsupervised employment” are alas all too rare.

Straight to the Heart of Revelation (Phil Moore) ****

There are almost as many interpretations as there are readers of Revelation but this is one of the more sensible in my view. This isn’t an exhaustive accompaniment to the Bible’s last book; Phil Moore actually misses out several passages altogether including the startling vision of the ascended Christ in chapter 1 and he tends to summarise whole sections spanning several chapters in 4 pages before picking out themes or words that feature in that section in the following chapters. This devotional commentary avoids technical discussions on the basic interpretative approach (though it is clear to me that Phil takes the Amillennialist and idealist views, seeing each series of 7, and the millennium, as an overview of all AD history, but seen from slightly different angles). The bottom line is that it blessed me to read it alongside the biblical text so I’d say it’s a hit.

C. S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet (Alister McGrath) ***

Alister McGrath has written a sympathetic biography of fellow Belfastian C. S. Lewis, a man whose intellect he clearly admires and whose Christian faith he shares. Indeed, Lewis’ work was influential in McGrath’s own conversion to Christ from atheism, also at Oxford. He is adamant, for what it's worth, that the commonly supposed date for Lewis’ conversion to Christianity is out by a year and that Lewis himself got his diary confused. Lewis is famous for his apologetics work and children’s fantasy novels written around the Second World War in which he rose to fame as a commentator on BBC Radio. But his earlier life, including his unhappy childhood and later unpopularity among the Oxford intellectual elite, when his friendship with J. R. R. Tolkein cooled, are less well-known so this is quite illuminating. McGrath also asks probing questions about Lewis’ slightly weird and almost co-dependent relationship with the shadowy Mrs. Moore; a divorced woman old enough to be his mother who lived under his roof. But McGrath, like everyone else, fails to quite get to the bottom of it. 

The Way In Is the Way On: John Wimber’s Teachings and Writings on Life in Christ (John Wimber) **

What a giant John was and what an impact he had on the Church in the Western world in the 1980s and 1990s. I had not heard of this book before, but I came across it in a second-hand bookstore and snapped it up for £2. It’s a posthumous selection of some of Wimber’s articles, notes and transcripts, each chapter beginning with testimonials from his memorial service by people who knew him well. For all its promise, it’s about the most shoddily proofread book I’ve ever read with typos and basic errors everywhere. How it was ever published in this form is a puzzle. But if you can get past that there are a few gems. Not nearly enough to make this book recommendable though. 

Straight to the Heart of Job (Phil Moore) ****

Honestly, Job is one of the books in the Bible I find most difficult to get anything out of. I hoped that reading it again accompanied by my 4th Straight to the Heart book of the year would help shed some light on the seemingly endlessly repetitive poetic musings on suffering and I was not disappointed. Phil Moore does a great job. There were a number of really helpful observations in the book, not least the difference in Hebrew between ‘blameless’ (Job is, compared to other people) and ‘righteous’ (Job is not, compared to God) and the fact that Elihu’s speech at the end is not the same as the three cycles of speeches by the three friends that appear beforehand - and God treats it differently. The cover asks the question ‘why does God allow suffering?’ and though this book does not give a definitive and totally satisfying answer (there is always going to be an element of mystery while we see through a glass darkly) it does shed a lot of light on the matter.

Sins of Fathers (Michael Emmett with Harriet Compston) **

I bought this book when meeting the author at a festival I was working at and I thought it would be a good holiday read. Hardened career criminal dramatically becomes Christian in prison. Cool! Unfortunately, though the basic plot is an encouraging story, there is a lot here, it seems to me, that is of little interest to anyone beyond Michael’s immediate family and friends. I got confused (and bit bored at times) trying to pinpoint which woman (daughter, sister, girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, wife, ex-wife, lover, ex-lover) he was talking about and this, along with Michael’s approach to money, were things I struggled to relate to. Michael’s post-conversion spiritual cooling and drift (drugs, women, brushes with the law, disconnection from church) before eventually getting back on track, cautions against making much of ‘celebrity’ conversions while the work of making disciples is in its infancy. 

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Laura Hillenbrand) *****

My son-in-law passed this on to me when we met up in the summer; I finally picked it up in the autumn and found it hard to put down until I had read it through. It’s the true story, exhaustively researched, of Louis Zamperini, an Italian-American Olympic runner who gets called up during World War II to fight in the U.S. Air Force against the Japanese. Outnumbered and under heavy attack, his crippled plane making it back to base running on fumes, crashing into the Pacific during a dangerous reconnaissance mission in another damaged plane, surviving for months in a flimsy inflatable raft with no rations, constantly encircled by sharks and occasionally shot at on the raft by Japanese planes, before finally landing on an enemy-controlled island – his survival seems utterly miraculous. Thereafter, his abusive and cruel treatment in captivity, singled out by a deranged and sadistic guard, is hard to read at times. He and others in every Japanese POW camp were almost certainly saved from imminent death by the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki bringing the war in the Pacific to an abrupt end. The chapters on his return home; the emotional family reunion when everyone but his immediate family believed him dead, his PTSD, fall into alcoholism and failing marriage are really moving. And, nice surprise at the end, his conversion to Christ at a Billy Graham campaign which gives him a new heart and an attitude of forgiveness for all he suffered in Japan. Amazing.

Straight to the Heart of Luke (Phil Moore) ***

Phil Moore bases this book on the assumption that the Most Excellent Theophilus who is named in the prefaces to both Luke’s Gospel and Acts was the Roman magistrate who handled Paul’s trial that features at the end of Acts. It’s a view I have long shared, but it’s presented here almost as a settled fact rather than the intriguing hypothesis that it is. Luke’s Gospel and Acts are, therefore, according to this book, a two-part legal briefing, painstakingly collated, with the intention of 1) showing how this new Christian movement came about, 2) how Paul became involved in it and 3) how it is bona fide and of no threat to public order in Rome. It’s also an attempt to convert just one strategically located man of influence to Christ. It works OK. Once again, some of the best insights are to be found tucked away in the footnotes.

Does the Future Have a Church? (Terry Virgo) **

What a great title for a book! Unfortunately, it rarely gets better than that inside. I love and admire Terry Virgo; he is one of my all-time top five favourite preachers, but this short book, ironically based on a series of conference talks, and centred on Ephesians 2-4, just struggles to get very far off the ground. If you want to get the best of Terry, subscribe to his podcast which contains some of his best preaching – you won’t be disappointed.

 

Mere Christianity (C. S. Lewis) ****

An absolute classic. I have read many books quoting Mere Christianity without ever having actually picked it up, so I thought I should put that right. It is no surprise to me that Mere Christianity has endured so long despite the slightly 'oak-panelled drawing room' feeling to it. You can smell the 1950s air and hear each chapter as a broadcast on the crackling wireless during World War II. This book commends with persuasive logic and reasonableness a credible worldview for an essential Christianity that Christians in all ages and from all places can more or less sign up to.  

Straight to the Heart of Acts (Phil Moore) ***

The sixth and last Straight to the Heart I read this year. Like the one on Revelation, it does not systematically cover every verse of every chapter which I think is a bit of a pity, especially as it was silent on some of the passages I most wanted to delve into a bit deeper. This one is very much more an accompaniment than a commentary. Phil Moore takes the view that 1) you can establish doctrine on narrative as well as didactic Scripture and that 2) Acts models and showcases how the church should go about its business in every age including in our day. I have a lot of time for both views so I found myself nodding all the way through. But somehow this is not quite at the high level of some of his other titles in this series.

The Bible (NIV) *****

This is the second year in a row that I have read the whole Bible through in 12 months. I think I'll keep doing that as I find it so enriching and enjoyable. I love my single-column leather-bound NIV which I got in 2020 and is now well worn-in and copiously marked. I tend to just read one biblical book at a time, in no particular order, sometimes in one sitting (a prophet, a Gospel or a New Testament letter for example). As you can see from above, I often accompany my Bible reading with something else to help me understand better. I will probably read all the Straight to the Heart books over the next few years and I have a few Bible Speaks Today volumes that remain unread too. I have decided that Tom Wright's For Everyone books are - ironically - not for me, and I have given up on them. I sometimes tune in to The Bible Project podcast which I highly recommend, especially for Old Testament insights. I occasionally follow a sermon series online too (I have listened to David Pawson preaching through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Mark and Revelation for example. Also, I use the STEP app to look up words in Greek and Hebrew from time to time.  I have been reading the Bible regularly since 1979 and I still come across amazing insights that I had never seen before. This really is the Book of books.

Finish Well (Colossians 4.7-18)

 

Introduction

Soon we’ll be hearing about nominations for Sports Personality of the Year. I suspect that many of us have our sporting heroes, people who inspire us by their achievements in whatever game they play. To my mind, none compares with one athlete who was born in June 1940, the 20th of 22 children in her family! Her birth was premature and she weighed in at only 4.5 pounds. She was often poorly in her first year, due in part to being so tiny, so her mother nursed her through measles, mumps, scarlet fever, chicken pox and double pneumonia.

She was from Tennessee and this was the era of segregation in the southern states. So she and her mother were not permitted to be cared for at the whites only local hospital. Then it was discovered that her left leg and foot were becoming weak and deformed. She was told she had polio. The doctor said that she would never walk. Even though it was 50 miles away, her mother took her to a special hospital in Memphis twice a week for two years, until she was able to walk with the aid of a metal leg brace and an orthopaedic shoe.

Her name was Wilma, and she was blessed with parents who were believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

When she was 8, she watched her older sister Yolanda play basketball and, even though her legs were in braces, she said to her mum, “One day I want to do that.” And her mum said to her, “Honey, if you believe, you will.” And she said “I believe, mamma.” On her twelfth birthday, Wilma said to her parents, “Momma, daddy, I have a birthday surprise for you.” And she slowly took her calliper off and walked unaided for the first time in her life.

Soon after, when the basketball club selected youngsters for the new season, Yolanda was picked for the team but Wilma was not. She was heartbroken. But her dad refused to accept it. He looked the coach in the eye and said, “You take one of my daughters, you take ‘em both. I am not leaving until you take Wilma as well.” So he took them both but at first he kept Wilma on the bench and she was the only member of the squad to suffer the indignity of having a vest with no number on it.

Wilma kept praying, kept believing and finally, she got a few games. It was then, running around on that court, that she was spotted by a man called Ed Temple, who coached the women's track team at Tennessee State University. His trained eye saw immediately that Wilma was not built for basketball, but for the running track, and he invited her to a summer sports camp. Wilma rapidly got better and better.

She even started to win races, first in her town, then in her state, and then nationally, even going on to the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956 at the tender age of 16, where she won a bronze medal in the 4x400 relay. “Honey, if you believe, you will.” “I believe, mamma.”

Four years later in 1960, Wilma Rudolph went to the Olympic Games again, this time in Rome, where she won the 100 meters, the 200 meters, and the 4x400 meters relay, becoming the first female American athlete to win three Olympic gold medals, and breaking three world records.

When she returned from Rome, she was honoured with ticker tape parades and a White House reception with President Kennedy. But back in her hometown of Clarksville, Tennessee they planned two hero’s welcome parties; one for whites and one for blacks. Wilma said, “No. You organise one event for everyone or I’m not going.” They backed down. Her victory reception was the first fully integrated municipal event in the town’s history.

Never mind Sports Personality of the Year, Wilma will forever be my sports personality of all time.

And I tell her beautiful story today because she is the perfect modern example of someone who had a bad start (through no fault of her own) but, by the grace of God, ended well.

This is what I want to talk about from the last verses of Colossians as we bring to an end this series today.

Let’s read what it says; we’re in chapter 4, starting at v7.

Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. He is coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother, who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here. My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings, as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. (You have received instructions about him; if he comes to you, welcome him.) Jesus, who is called Justus, also sends greetings. These are the only Jews among my co-workers for the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis. Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings. Give my greetings to the brothers and sisters at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house. After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. Tell Archippus: “See to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord.” I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.

At first sight, that is barely more than a list of names of mostly minor Bible characters. Most of us I suspect know a little bit about Mark, Luke, Barnabas and perhaps Onesimus who’s the converted runaway slave we read about in the Letter to Philemon. And of course, Paul is in the top three most prominent people in the New Testament. I’m sure we all know who he is. But who on earth are Tychicus, Aristarchus, Justus, Epaphras, Demas, Nympha, and Archippus?

And yet look at the words used to describe what these mostly bit-part people do; being co-workers, telling news, encouraging hearts, wrestling in prayer, comforting others, opening their homes, working hard, completing tasks…

This is a snapshot of a church in which different people, each with a unique contribution, each with their mix of spiritual gifts are coming and going, and all pulling together to advance the kingdom of God. This is what I want King’s to be, don’t you?

But I want to single out just two of these names because I feel God wants to speak into our situation here at King’s, and maybe to you as an individual, through their lives.

1) Mark

The first character I want to look at this morning is Mark. Mark, like Wilma Rudolph started badly but he finished well.

We know a little bit about Mark from the Book of Acts. He was Barnabas’ cousin. Barnabas, known as a great encourager you might remember, accompanied Paul on his first church planting tour. And he said to Paul, “I think my cousin Mark would be good team member too. Let’s take him with us.” So Paul agreed and off they went. But not long later, Mark turned back. Before the going got really tough he was out of there. He let the team down.

We’re not told why. Some speculate that he simply got travel sick or homesick. Maybe it was Paul’s demanding personality and leadership style that he couldn’t live with. Others wonder if perhaps, as a Jew, he was uncomfortable with the gospel going to the gentiles. It could have been any of these or all of them. Or some other reason. All we know is that he said, “I’m out.” Paul got annoyed about it. He felt let down and he refused point blank to take him again on a subsequent trip.

Mark was a quitter and he’d blown it. There was a huge blot on his C.V. He was damaged goods. And he was off Paul’s team.

Some of you might wonder if you have made such a huge mistake earlier in your life that it has put an end to your usefulness to God. You might have let someone down. You might have fallen morally. You might have made a catastrophic error of judgement. You might carry a sense of failure and regret. You might think “God can never use me now.” If that is you, you need to think again.

I’m not saying past mistakes don’t carry consequences; they do. But they do not define you. They are not a life sentence. With God, as long as you’re still breathing, there’s always time for another chance.

The leader of Passion Church in Atlanta, Louie Giglio, says “If you’re thinking that you don’t deserve a second chance from God, it’s important to remember that you didn’t deserve the first one either.”

Karma is an idea from other religions. We believe in grace.

15 years after that painful bust up; Paul says here (v10), “if Mark comes to you welcome him.” He doesn’t say, “Avoid him, he’ll always let you down, he did it to me once.”

Tellingly (in v11) he calls Mark “a co-worker (not a former co-worker) for the kingdom of God”, so he must by this time have been restored to the apostolic team and he even says that he has proved himself. He was a comfort to Paul in his imprisonment.

In his very last letter, 2nd Timothy, written shortly before his death, Paul says, “get Mark and bring him with you because he is helpful to me in my ministry.” By the grace of God, Mark turned it round.

Afterwards, piecing together evidence from the New Testament and other first documents from that time, it seems certain that Mark later teamed up with Peter in Rome and it was there he wrote Mark’s Gospel, based on his notes from Peter’s preaching.

Unpromising beginnings. Failure and disappointment. Rejection and exclusion. But that did not define him - and he finished well.

When I was at school, I was pretty average academically and invariably bottom of the class at maths, but I was a pretty good cross-country runner. In fact, I used to run for my school in Essex County races and I was no Wilma Rudolph, but I did OK. I loved middle-distance running. 

The one race I remember best was a 1,500 metres, the whole class of 30 boys – 4 times round a stadium size running track. The race started and I was tucked in to a group of about six or seven, setting a decent but comfortable pace. Then, after about a lap and a half, out of nowhere, a skinny kid called John Gattrell kicked hard and opened up a sizeable lead. He accelerated away from the pack and as we took the bell, which signals the start of the last lap, he was already half way round the track and closing in on victory.

But pace setters usually burn out. And I said to myself, “if you make a move now, and give it everything you’ve got, you might catch him.” You could see from 200m back he was beginning to struggle, his legs were full of lactic acid, he was spent. I started to kick into a good stride. The gap closed. He was so far ahead but I was travelling much faster. I could see it was going to be close. As I turned into the last bend I began to sprint. Gattrell was virtually at walking pace and gasping for breath. And I pipped him on the line, winning by a fraction of a second. I’ll never forget it. Sports Personality of the Year eh!?

But I learned that day that no matter how badly, or how well, you start, the only thing that actually counts is how you finish.

2) Demas

Which brings me to the second character we’re going to zoom in on in this list of names; Demas in v14. He is the opposite to Mark. Demas began really well.

Here we find him (in v14) sending his greetings along with Luke. This is the company he keeps; Luke is a solid, dependable travelling companion who also of course goes on to write a Gospel as well as Acts.

In the Letter to Philemon, Paul describes Demas as a fellow worker. Paul doesn’t consider him a faceless lackey. He is not a minion running around doing unglamorous errands but he’s actually on Paul’s team!

Demas is seeing hundreds of conversions, churches planted, signs and wonders; his travelling band is talk of the town… What a life! Working with this brilliant and passionate guy Paul who has driven out demons, raised the dead, broken out of jails and speaks in tongues more than all the Corinthians. Demas got that gig! He is a trusted partner.

But in 2nd Timothy 4.10 we hear about Demas again. Tragically, we read about a guy who started so well, but finished badly.

“Demas,” writes Paul, “because he loved this world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.”

Why did his passionate heart for God cool and grow cold? It says “because he loved this world.” Was he discouraged by all that hardship and rejection? Was he embarrassed about Paul’s chains? What was it about Thessalonica? Was there a woman there? Was it just the creature comforts?

Demas walks away. He throws in the towel. And he leaves the purposes of God for his life behind. He’s never heard of again in the New Testament.

Jesus warned that this would sometimes happen in his Parable of the Sower.

“Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants… The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.” (Luke 8.7 and 14).

In theAsk Pastor John podcast recently John Piper said that Paul, Peter and the writer to the Hebrews also describe people who make a seemingly good start in the Christian life only to then deny what they once claimed to believe.

And what’s striking in all these descriptions of shipwrecking the faith in the New Testament is that the rocks on which faith shatters are not intellectual problems with Christianity, problems of reason like the historical truthfulness of the Bible or science or the problem of suffering. In every case, walking away from faith is summed up as the heart’s preference for sin.

Not that God ever loses one of his children or any of his chosen ones. In fact, Romans 8.30 says: “Those whom [God] predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Not one of those that God makes a son or daughter will ever be lost. And you can have absolute assurance of your salvation today as long as you are walking with the Lord today.

I don’t want to hear about an experience you had 20 or 30 years ago, however amazing it may have been, if it’s not still real now! If your testimony about being saved is genuine, your faith will still be alive to this very day.

People can – and do – walk away from professing faith. You can make a seemingly good start in the Christian life and then prefer the world to treasuring Christ and lose everything.

Ending

Mark started badly and finished well. As a result, we’ve got Mark’s Gospel in our Bibles. There’s a Saint Mark’s church in our town. There’s a Saint Mark’s square in Venice. We all know people called Mark, named after this man.

Demas started well but finished badly. Consequently, none of us know anyone called Demas. There’s no Saint Demas’ Cathedral or Saint Demas anything. We never hear anything about him again; he’s just a tragic footnote in the pages of our Bibles listing names that we are tempted to skim read.

Some of us maybe don’t know the Lord yet. Is today the day you decide to give your heart to Christ? You might think, “What will my friends and family think? What will this cost me?”

C.S. Lewis put it this way, “There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” Don’t put it off any longer. Put your faith in Christ today.

Some us have known the Lord only a short time. Don’t be like Demas. Stay on track. Keep the faith. Don’t let your heart grow cold.

Some of us started walking with the Lord a long time ago. Have you drifted lately? Do you need, like Mark did, to come right back into the heart of his purposes for you? Do it today.

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 20 November 2022

 

 

 

 

 

God at Work (Colossians 3.22 - 4.1)

Introduction

A woman is walking along a road one day, and she notices two local council workers working by the roadside.

She is quite impressed with their effort and application, but she can't quite work out what their job actually is. So she stops and watches them for a bit but still she can’t understand what they are supposed to be doing.

Finally, she goes up to them and says, “Morning gents! I can see how hard you're both working, but I’m intrigued to know what your job actually is? It seems that one of you digs a hole, and then the other one just fills it back in again.”

“Oh,” they say, “That’s right. Brian, who plants the trees, is off sick today!”

It’s an amusing little story, and maybe you’ve heard it before, but I tell it because I think it sort of illustrates the futility and pointlessness many people feel about their work.

Sadly, there are many who find their work tediously repetitive or pointless. And as a consequence, they feel their lives lack meaning.

By contrast, in my own working life over the years, I’ve had colleagues at times for whom work is frantically stressful, even overwhelming.

A farmer was once asked “What’s the hardest thing about milking cows?” He said, “The hardest thing about milking cows is that they never stay milked!”

Work can feel like one relentless treadmill that sucks the life out of you.

I’ve been in working environments I would describe as attritional, unfriendly, even toxic. Other times going to work has been energising and exhilarating.

What would a Christ-honouring workplace look like? How should a Christian employee approach his or her working day? How should a Christian manager or boss run his or her business?

These are the kind of things we’re going to look at this morning together. It’s 5 verses from the end of Colossians 3 and the beginning of Colossians 4.

It’s just a short passage, tantalisingly brief actually. People have asked me before why the Bible doesn’t say more about work.

After all, for most of us, our job occupies the majority of our waking hours between the ages of 20 and 65.

But God’s word actually says quite a bit more about work than we might realise.

Reading through Proverbs this month, I noted over 30 verses about work. For example, “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” And this one; “He who gathers crops in the summer is a prudent son but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgrace.”

Someone wrote recently that out of the 52 parables Jesus told, 45 are set in a workplace context.

And out of 40 miracles in the Book of Acts, 39 of them take place in the marketplace.

I confess I haven’t checked those stats, but I suspect they’re pretty accurate.

Furthermore, Jesus spent 18 years working with his hands, from his bar mitzvah at the age of 12 at which point he entered his father’s business, until he began his preaching ministry aged about 30. That means he spent over 50% of his life as a manual labourer.

You might think, “what a waste; he could have healed loads more sick people, given loads more amazing teaching and turned loads more water into wine…”

But it wasn’t a waste. Working productively and taking care to do a job well are important to God.

So I want to encourage you to not think of your Christian life as consisting of Sunday and maybe Wednesday night. It’s Monday to Friday 9-5 as well. And, in fact, every moment of every day.

Your work, whatever it is, full-time or part-time, paid or unpaid, is a calling, a ministry.

And please don’t think this is not relevant for you because you’re retired, or unable to work on health grounds, or out of work for other reasons.

What I’m going to say this morning also applies to the way you do your housework, your gardening, decorating, cooking, looking after your children or grandchildren, serving at church or studying.

What we tend to find in the Bible is that God is interested in your work, not so much because of what you do, but because of how you do it.

So, with all that said by way of introduction, let’s read Colossians 3.22 to 4.1.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favour, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong [that’s talking about masters as well as slaves] will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favouritism. Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.

Slavery in the Ancient World

The first thing to say straightaway about what we just read is to acknowledge that the context, like all the New Testament, is first century Roman Empire, in which slavery was not just widespread but all-pervasive.

And slavery was commonplace not only there; it was the unquestioned norm everywhere in the ancient world.

I remember the shock and puzzlement I felt when I first came across passages like this as a young Christian. Especially the fact that Paul seems to be quite neutral about it.

No one seems to know what percentage of the population in the Roman Empire was enslaved; an educated guess is about 30% though some think that slaves possibly outnumbered free citizens.

We’re talking about tens of millions of individuals certainly, and it was a central component of the Roman economy.

It’s thought that New Testament churches had a disproportionately high number of slaves compared to the general population.

We tend to forget this in our land of great cathedrals and bishops in the House of Lords, but the vast majority of 1st Century Christians were poor, powerless and persecuted.

Modern slavery is of course illegal and operates in the shadows. People get trapped into it and trafficked across borders by unscrupulous criminal gangs. In the Roman world though it was entirely legal and just accepted as the way things were.

There were different ways you could end up enslaved. Some were captives of war or victims of kidnapping or piracy. More commonly, people became slaves as a punishment for crimes they committed. Some sold themselves or - tragically - their children into it to settle debts they couldn’t pay.

Under Roman law, slaves had no human rights of any kind and were considered as property, not as persons. Documents from that time describe enslaved people not as employees, but as tools or equipment of a business. It’s mostly complaints from masters about them being disloyal, lazy or dishonest.

As a consequence, slaves were usually treated like animals. They could be bought, sold, mistreated, sexually exploited or even killed for sport without consequences.

This was the brutal, harsh, unfair, cruel society into which Jesus was born and to which the gospel first came.

However bad you feel your workplace is, and I get it that sometimes our working environment can be genuinely awful and humiliatingly underpaid, it doesn’t compare with the way of life endured by some the people Paul was writing to here in this church in Colossae.

So why didn’t the gospel challenge the status quo of slavery in society more than it did?

If you’ve ever seen the animated film Ice Age, you’ll not forget the opening scene in which a squirrel called Scrat tries to open an acorn on the ice so he can eat it.

Alas for him, instead of cracking the acorn, he makes a small crack in the ice. And the crack opens up into a crevice. And, with a growing sense panic in Scrat’s eyes, the crevice gets bigger and, with ominous rumblings, it becomes a giant rift valley. And then before long it’s a massive tectonic fault which splits into two continents.

I mention that scene because it’s a bit like what the gospel did to slavery in the Roman Empire.

The gospel is the acorn. Roman slavery is the vast continental ice sheet.

When Paul said that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, he was saying that these are now redundant categories for Christians.

They no longer define us, nor can they possibly divide us, because every one of us, whatever our ethnic background or social status are first and foremost in Christ.

Because of Christ, Paul told free people that they had been bought with a price – just like a slave.

Because of Christ, Paul told enslaved people that they had been set free from sin and death.

He said all of us, from the richest and noblest to the poorest and humblest, all share one loaf and drink from the same cup.

He said we are all brothers and sisters; members of one another; we are all on the same level.

This is how the gospel introduced dignity and equality and humanity into a sphere of society where it had never existed before.

The little acorn had started to crack the ice! As the impact of the gospel on civilisation steadily grew, the endorsement of slavery steadily declined.

Back in the first century, most masters in the Roman world would have thought it bizarre to be told to treat a slave with kindness and consideration.

What it means for employers

But here, he says, “You guys in charge, if you have become Christians, you cannot go on like before. Those days are over. You are under new management now. You’re no longer top dog. You report to one higher than you.”

Chapter 4, verse 1. “Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”

The Bible contrasts sharply with all other literature of the time on relationships between slaves and masters.

What you find in secular records is advice on how to squeeze the maximum out your workforce as if they were just tools or machines.

But Paul absolutely makes a stand on this point; never mind convention, forget culture, whatever about customs; these people who work under you are human beings and they have rights and moral options.

So if you’re a Christian in charge of this workplace you’re going to provide them with what is right and fair. From now on there are going to be really good working conditions.

“Because” - and here’s the revolutionary thought – “you know that you also have a Master in heaven.”

In other words, you’re going to have to stand before Jesus when he comes to judge the living and the dead, and give an account of how you treated those working for you.

And, as he says at the end of chapter 3, “Anyone who does wrong [he’s talking to masters as well as slaves] will be repaid for their wrongs.”

In our context, that translates as follows:

If you’re an employer, or a manager, if you have staff who answer to you, because you answer to Christ, your boss, you’ll treat each member of staff equally; no favourites. You’ll take an interest in them as people. You’ll pay them what they’re worth. You’ll respect their time off. You’ll not tell them to do anything you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself. You’ll give them opportunities to develop their skills. When you have to discipline them for unacceptable performance, you’ll do it fairly and proportionately.

I remember when Kathie started a community nursing job when we lived in France. On her first day, she came home and said, “Do you know, I think my new boss, Doctor Marze, is a Christian.”

I said “How can you tell?” I thought that maybe he wore a cross on his lapel or had a fish on his car or a poster on his office wall or a Bible on his desk.

But no, she said, “I can just… tell.” She had been with him one day and he hadn’t said one word to her about Jesus.

What convinced her that he was a Christian is the way he spoke to people, his gentleness, his fairness. He took a genuine interest in others, especially anyone in trouble or pain. And he was fun to be with, and it was clean fun, he was full of joy.

She mentioned that he had adopted three children, and didn’t seem to really care about status symbols. He drove an old beat-up Citroen 2CV and evidently lived quite simply for a doctor.

She looked him up online, (nothing like stalking your boss on social media), and it turns out that she was right. He was a charismatic Catholic deacon, very actively involved in his local church.

Isn’t that a great witness? Kathie asked him later about his faith and he was happy to talk about Jesus with great enthusiasm.

But it was his lifestyle and character and personality that provoked the question.

People at work can tell if you are born again and have been filled with the Holy Spirit not so much by what you say but by who you are.

What it means for employees

So much for bosses. What about workers?

You’re not just some random, replaceable nobody getting a wage for a day’s graft. You’re an ambassador for Christ. Lift up your head! You represent the kingdom of God in your workplace. How do you want to be seen by colleagues, contractors, clients, customers, and your employer?

Let me paraphrase v22-25 the best I can and try to frame it in 21^st century terms.

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favour, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.

Employees, you should do what the boss asks you to do not just when they’re around but do an honest day’s work, offering it up to God.

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.

And don’t just scrape by with the bare minimum. Give your absolute best. Put your heart and soul into it. You might be badly paid on earth, but there are eternal, heavenly bonuses that will recognise all your hard work.

It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favouritism.

Remember this; ultimately your boss is Christ himself. Don’t think he’ll let you off doing a lousy job just because you’re a Christian. He doesn’t drop his standards for you just because you’re one of his loved children.

God is looking for people who are thorough, industrious, and who end the day able to say I gave 100%.

The Bible sets out a vision of a Christian worker who’s always cheerful, amenable and hard-working because they treat their work as an act of worship.

Contrast that with what sometimes blights a workplace; people always saying, “that’s not my job”, Olympic-level wasting of company time, bad language, constantly complaining about the company, cursing the boss behind his back, clock watching, always arriving late and leaving early, jobsworth pettiness, computer says no unhelpfulness, slacking, skiving and cutting corners

And it doesn’t matter if you’re a brain surgeon or a toilet attendant or a stay-at-home mum or a student or retired.

The reformer Martin Luther once said, “The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays – and not just because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making excellent shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”

Turn your job or daily activity into an act of worship. Say to yourself, whatever I’ve been asked to do today, it’s got to be good enough for the Lord.

When you take that attitude into work, even the dullest job can be a joy.

Ending

So, as I end...

What do you think God is saying to you today about your work; part-time or full-time, paid or unpaid?

Do you need to receive grace from God today so you can please him more in your workplace, whether you’re a boss or an employee?

Do you want to put a bad attitude down at the foot of the cross and leave it there so that tomorrow there’s a new you in the office?

Do you want to ask God for a spiritual breakthrough so you can have words of knowledge and be a witness to your colleagues or customers, like in Baba and Bisi’s testimony today?

If you’re able to do so, let’s stand to pray…

 

 Sermon preached at King's Church Darlington, 6 November 2022