[00:00:01] Welcome to the River Church podcast. We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our
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[00:00:16] thank you. And to the youth, my profound apologies, but if we're brave, we'll get through this together.
[00:00:30] There was a particular morning in 2007 when I woke up and I didn't want to go to work. Has anyone ever had that feeling, you just don't want to go to work today, Every day.
[00:00:43] I was quite apprehensive the night before. I'd taken a call and the mobile phone said Andy. And I was really looking forward to talking to Andy.
[00:00:54] Andy had been one of the most supportive, professional, friendly colleagues I've ever worked with.
[00:01:00] And Andy had been on long term sick. I'd been to see him in hospital and he was still friendly.
[00:01:08] And when I saw Andy on the phone there, I was excited. So I put the phone to my ear and I was very blokey. Hey, Andy, you old dog. How you doing?
[00:01:18] Silence it was a woman's voice.
[00:01:23] This isn't Andy, this is Claire, his wife.
[00:01:26] Andy died today.
[00:01:30] Now, many of you will have taken a call like that to do with work.
[00:01:35] And I got all confused because obviously thinking about Claire, I know he had two young daughters thinking about the wider family, but I also started thinking about work. I was going to have to tell the team, I was going to have to sort out if Claire had any death in service. I was going to have to recruit someone to replace Andy. And I felt terrible that I had this grief and I was thinking about work. Do any of you ever get into that situation?
[00:02:05] Now, there was another reason I didn't want to go into work and it's because my first meeting wasn't in my office, but it was with one of our customers.
[00:02:14] We had put a contractor on that site and whilst he was working on the night shift, they discovered he'd been using their computer to look at pornography.
[00:02:24] And so my first meeting of the day was to go with our account manager to receive a complaint about this contractor.
[00:02:32] I didn't normally work with customers, I work in it, but they thought they would drag me along to show that it was taking it seriously.
[00:02:42] There was a third reason I didn't want to go in and that's because there was rumors that the company was going to be taken over and we were going to lose our jobs. So you can imagine it was a wonderful time to maybe just pull the duvet over the head.
[00:02:57] I go to work, I go to the meeting. And it's a tough meeting. And of course we say, we're very sorry, we're going to change our procedures. This gentleman will never work in our company. At least again, we'll go through disciplinary and all the rest of it.
[00:03:14] Now, bizarrely, the customer said, we want you to know that we've taken this seriously and you're taking this seriously. We said, of course we are. And so we've put some of the pornography that he was looking at on this cd.
[00:03:29] And you account manager can take it.
[00:03:32] And the account manager said, oh, no, this guy works in it. He can take it.
[00:03:38] So I go into my office, I have a pocket full of pornography.
[00:03:44] I've got to tell my team that Andy has passed away. And they're all demoralized anyway because they think they're going to be made redundant.
[00:03:51] And as I walked in, I remember thinking, I'm really angry with the church.
[00:03:56] They've never prepared me for any of this.
[00:04:01] For some bizarre reason, I was most angry with my youth leaders.
[00:04:05] And I hadn't been in the youth group for a couple of decades. By the time I walked in, I thought they never told me anything about the world of work. They just said, be honest, don't steal, and always witness. And none of that seemed to be helping at the time.
[00:04:22] In fact, I thought, because people said at the time, what would Jesus do?
[00:04:27] And then I thought, I've no idea.
[00:04:30] Actually, I do know what he would do. And I hope you don't think this is blasphemous. He would resign, recruit 12 people and make his way to Jerusalem because that's his job, not my job.
[00:04:43] Now, I wonder if any of you have ever felt that set of. Maybe not. But those particular circumstances where there seems to be a distance between your church personality and everything you know, you're supposed to do at church and your work personality. And the two somehow seem far apart.
[00:05:03] And it is dangerous, so dangerous to have those two personalities. Because if we don't integrate what we do there with what we do here, and what we do here with what we do there, if we don't integrate, there's no integrity.
[00:05:21] So what I want to talk about today, I just want to give a few thoughts and a few reflections about how we can narrow that gap.
[00:05:28] And we're going to talk about it in three good work, bad work, and God's work. Okay, now, before we get to that, do you want to know how that story ended?
[00:05:44] Okay, so I'm anxious.
[00:05:47] I'm not in a good place, fortunately, or maybe Providentially. My desk is over there, but the kitchen is there. So I go into the kitchen, open the microwave, set it on medium, 30 seconds, pop in the CD, it sparkles and sparks and goes all sorts of things. Pull it out. It looks like an alien artifact, completely shriveled. Throw that in the bin. Job done.
[00:06:14] Yeah. Don't try this at home.
[00:06:17] I then go and tell my team the terrible news about Andy and then go and see the MD and say, can we have a day off in a couple of weeks when Andy's funeral happens? Just don't want to take care of our holiday allocation so we can all go to the funeral. The managing director agrees to that.
[00:06:35] The company was taken over.
[00:06:38] I got promoted.
[00:06:40] Two years later, I was made redundant.
[00:06:44] The Lord gives, the Lord takes away.
[00:06:46] Blessed be the name of the Lord.
[00:06:49] I've gone through that story in some detail because I want you to know that I know and we know that we all face these sorts of things at work, and we need to integrate the two personalities. Now, I'm aware that not everybody here is in paid employment at the moment. Some of us are retired, some of us are between jobs, some are studying, and some are not able to work for medical reasons. But I hope, even if you're in any of those categories, what I'm about to say will help you, because you'll know someone who is in work and is going through these challenges.
[00:07:26] So let's start with good work.
[00:07:29] Tim Keller. Tim Keller, a pastor who wrote a lot about work and faith, said this.
[00:07:38] Many people make the mistake of thinking that work is a curse and that something else, leisure, family, or even spiritual pursuits, is the only way to find meaning.
[00:07:51] The Bible exposes this lie, and it keeps us from falling into the opposite mistake, that work is the only important human activity, and the rest is. Is a necessary evil.
[00:08:04] And Christians, from a sort of almost instinctive view, think about maybe the story of the Garden of Eden, where God says, by the sweat of your brow, you're going to have to work. And so they get that sense of, well, it's a curse, it's bad, and so it's somewhere over there, and we can develop a personality to deal with it over there. And then church is over here and the two are separated. And Mr. Keller is saying that actually a proper understanding of the Bible shows it's not that.
[00:08:35] And we go to what it says in Colossians, Colossians 1, 1920.
[00:08:43] For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all Things, all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven. By making peace through his blood shed on the cross, all things are being reconciled.
[00:09:04] All things. Not just Sunday mornings, not just connect groups, not just church away days. All things. So that has to include our work.
[00:09:16] Given the amount of time we spend there, maybe 70% of our waking lives is part of what's being reconciled through Christ.
[00:09:27] And also as we look at the Bible, we see that there are lots of workers. Not every biblical example is a priest.
[00:09:37] We have Jacob, a livestock farmer and his grandfather was a merchant.
[00:09:44] We have Joseph, who started out in a very rich family. He's what you now call a Nepo baby. Is that right? Nepo baby didn't have to work. And then stuff happened and he was a slave. Then he was Egyptian prime minister David, a shepherd, a soldier, head of state Daniel, head of the Babylonian civil service.
[00:10:06] Lydia, she made fabrics for rich people. And Jesus, before he became a rabbi, if I can put it that way, carpenter and builder. Now all of these people are more beside didn't have a personality where they sort of did their work over there and then they did their spiritual stuff over. It was integrated.
[00:10:25] All of them proved God followed God, went through many, many challenges where they needed God in their work.
[00:10:34] And even when we consider Jesus, for three years he taught as a rabbi, just think of the parables. They're full of work. There's farmers, there's merchants, there's money, there's kings, there's all sorts of things.
[00:10:48] All things are being reconciled to him.
[00:10:54] But it feels like a curse. Okay, so you can think, well, that's wonderful bit of theology here, but when I go to work, it really is hard. And work is hard, isn't it?
[00:11:05] And work has many challenges.
[00:11:08] At work we can encounter bad attitudes, laziness, petty quarreling, disrespect and, and gossip. And I'm not talking about the people out there, I'm just talking about us in here.
[00:11:23] One of the great things that work does for us is it starts to show us some of the character things that God needs to work on in us. I like to think of work as a spiritual gym.
[00:11:38] You can't develop patience unless you're put with people who make you impatient.
[00:11:46] You can't develop kindness unless you're put with people that challenge kindness.
[00:11:53] So it's a place where we need to learn. Now what I'm about to say next might sound a little bit harsh, but stick with me.
[00:12:01] Hebrews 12, 5, 6. My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline. But don't be crushed by either.
[00:12:10] It's the child he loves that he disciplines.
[00:12:13] The child he embraces, he also corrects.
[00:12:17] Now, I know there'll be many of us here who will have experienced the real horrible, tough side of being at work.
[00:12:26] Grievances, disciplinaries, performance improvement plans, appraisals that go wrong, or even restructures that lead to redundancy.
[00:12:39] And at the extreme, those things hurt. I mean, they hurt bad and they can bring mental health problems. Right? That is just the truth of it. And if it's not happened to you, you'll know someone who's maybe had to go off of work. Because some of those things at the extremes, right?
[00:12:59] If we don't integrate our work personality with our church person, we cut ourselves off from the resources that we need to get through those things. And I'm not saying that getting through those things is just say a happy prayer and it all goes away. It really isn't. Okay.
[00:13:17] But sometimes, maybe when it's not at those extremes, we're being challenged. When some things come up, not about some demonic attack from people around us, but what's going on in our heart.
[00:13:32] Are we falling into selfish ambition, jealousy, bitterness, or whatever it might be?
[00:13:41] It can be very, very painful.
[00:13:44] And it's not always our fault.
[00:13:47] But sometimes we need to ask, what is God trying to do in these things? How is he asking me to integrate those two things? And especially if we allow ourselves some latitude to say, well, we can actually behave in this way at work, because it doesn't really matter.
[00:14:04] But, oh, when I'm at church, I've got to be all nice, graceful and forgiving and lovely.
[00:14:10] It's our spiritual gym.
[00:14:13] Let's go to bad work.
[00:14:16] So again, Tim Keller, he says if there's a spiritual sickness in the developed part of the world, the Western world, it's idolatry.
[00:14:26] People worshiping things that are not God. And we can worship work.
[00:14:33] Now, an idol is something that takes the place of God.
[00:14:36] And so an idol can be something that. Because in God we have an identity that makes sense.
[00:14:43] In God, we have a purpose to live.
[00:14:47] And if we make that all about our job, then that becomes an idol. Okay? Our identity in work becomes our God. And it starts to explain my place in the world. You know, promotion, ambition and all those sorts of things.
[00:15:05] And the word says that one day we'll have to stand before Jesus and give an account of our lives. Yeah, I'm pretty sure when I'm standing there, he's not going to Be flicking through my business cards.
[00:15:15] That is the wrong identity.
[00:15:19] So we need to test ourselves. If we are at work at the moment, what is our motivation?
[00:15:27] Most people say as a bit of a joke, I'm doing it for the money.
[00:15:33] Proverbs 23, verses 4 and 5. Do not wear yourself out to get rich.
[00:15:39] Have the wisdom to show some restraint.
[00:15:42] Cast but a glance at riches and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. I Are we doing it just for the money?
[00:15:53] That's a personality that's not integrated. If it's just for the money. But there's other reasons. There's ambition.
[00:16:00] In Philippians it says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
[00:16:05] Rather in humility. Value others above yourselves.
[00:16:10] Is it just ambition or is it status anxiety? Have you heard of status anxiety or Instagram anxiety?
[00:16:20] That fear that somebody else is doing better?
[00:16:24] The American writer Gore Vidal said, when one of my friends succeeds, a little bit of me dies.
[00:16:33] Are we working maybe hard to. And our motivation is we want to impress a parent or we want to impress a partner.
[00:16:42] Is that our motivation?
[00:16:44] Or are we doing it just because we want to prove somebody wrong?
[00:16:49] Our teachers never said we'd amount to anything. We'll prove them wrong.
[00:16:54] My family never said I'd amount to anything. I'll prove them wrong.
[00:16:58] That's pretty lame motivation when we stand before Jesus one day. Or is it sheer pride?
[00:17:06] All of these are bad foundations. All of these will create a personality that sooner or later is going to get us into trouble. And. And it's not integrated.
[00:17:18] If our response to success at work is self congratulation, that's idolatry.
[00:17:26] If our response is thankfulness, then we're understanding where that job has come from.
[00:17:32] If our reaction to failure is despair, then we are feeling the hollowness of a broken idol.
[00:17:41] And if you haven't failed at work, you probably haven't worked long enough.
[00:17:47] But if our reaction to failure is perseverance, then we are experiencing the gracious power of God. This is why I think work is such a spiritual gym. Because when those things come along, they really test us. Success tests your integrity.
[00:18:05] Failure tests your faith.
[00:18:08] And those things come to us often in the workplace.
[00:18:13] So how do we measure our success at work? Is it money?
[00:18:17] Is it promotion?
[00:18:20] Is it comparing ourselves to other people?
[00:18:23] Or is it validation of other people?
[00:18:27] You know, once I was working on a project with a man called Leo.
[00:18:30] Great guy. And I was working very, very hard on this project, working early and late. We often had to travel far out of London. So I was home very late.
[00:18:39] And never once did he tell me I was doing a good job. And he was getting to me. I'll be honest with you, it was really annoying me because I was working very hard.
[00:18:49] We were coming back from Harrogate on the train. We're having a cup of tea, and he said, it's really great to have people like you on this project.
[00:18:58] I thought, hallelujah.
[00:19:00] Did it kill you to have to say that?
[00:19:03] Didn't say that out loud.
[00:19:06] And then I realized what a bad attitude I had.
[00:19:09] So I started trying to redeem myself. You should never try and redeem yourself. It's the Lord who redeems.
[00:19:15] So I said to him, oh, yes, it's great. We've got Carsten now. Carsten was amazing. Carsten would fly in from Copenhagen just for the day to be on this project.
[00:19:26] And we had Jack, and Jack did brilliant work on the numbers. And we also had a man called Hugh.
[00:19:34] Very interesting thing about the name Hugh.
[00:19:38] It sounds like you.
[00:19:41] Leo said, it's great to have people like Huw on this project.
[00:19:48] Yeah.
[00:19:49] I went from there to there.
[00:19:52] I was crushed.
[00:19:54] And I needed to be crushed because I'd put too much of my identity in being validated by that guy. Do you see what I'm saying?
[00:20:04] So what is the right motivation?
[00:20:08] Mark Green, hopefully you can see that in yellow. Mark Green, he works for London Institute Contemporary Christianity, and he's looked at the scripture, talked to lots of people, and he thought, what are different motivations to do good work? Okay, not so that you have a personality over here that does it for selfish ambition or the money or validation. And in another way over here, and these are godly spiritual motivations. Have a look at them. Where do you put yourself?
[00:20:39] Even if you are feeling bad that you've got a bad motivation, there'll be a good motivation in there. It will be one of these.
[00:20:49] And if it's one of these, maybe there's a second one that you could aspire to.
[00:20:55] Part of the problem, if I can put it that way, is sometimes we pick up from the church, it's all about the last one.
[00:21:04] And if you don't do the last one, you're actually not being a good Christian at work. But remember, all things are being reconciled. And doing the first four there, as well as the last one is about reconciling all things to Christ.
[00:21:26] Let's look then at how work is God's.
[00:21:31] So put up another list here and I've tried to list every sort of job you could do. Now, if you can't see your job in there, the job you used to do, the job you're doing now, please forgive me, but I've tried to list them all.
[00:21:48] Have a look. Find your one on the list.
[00:21:53] Does anyone notice anything about the way I've ordered that list?
[00:22:00] It's a hierarchy. Thank you.
[00:22:02] I've put the most spiritual in inverted commas at the top and the most disgusting and corrupt at the bottom.
[00:22:12] Okay, full transparency. I'm at the bottom.
[00:22:16] I've worked for Big Pharma. Boo.
[00:22:19] I've worked for a bank. Really.
[00:22:22] I've even worked for recruitment agencies.
[00:22:26] And do not take this bit. I've worked for estate agencies.
[00:22:30] I mean, it's a miracle I turn up on a Sunday, isn't it? And I'm accepted here.
[00:22:35] But this is what happens in the Christian mind. In the Christian mind, they say, well, those jobs at the top, they're the spiritual ones.
[00:22:42] And then as you go down, well, you know, charity, that's almost as good as working for the church. Social care, that's caring. Health. Yep, that's good. And maybe our social care people in here and our health people in here will have fisticuffs over where they are in that list. Education, great. You're educating people.
[00:23:03] Government, it'll fall apart without government.
[00:23:06] Arts.
[00:23:07] Christians are a bit funny about arts, aren't they? Not sure about that. And then business.
[00:23:14] Business.
[00:23:19] You know, sometimes I sit with people and meet different colleagues and they say, oh, do you know what's happened to Bill? I say, oh, no. And Bill would be a, you know, colleague from business. Oh, he's going to work for a charity.
[00:23:32] Good for Bill. He's giving something back.
[00:23:35] And I'm thinking, what was he stealing?
[00:23:41] And the idea is there's spiritual jobs and unspiritual jobs. Now, unless it's organized crime or a job that's on the edge of organized crime, there is no difference. There are no spiritual jobs. There are no unspiritual jobs. And I just showed in the list earlier, the Bible is full of people who work in all sorts of different jobs.
[00:24:01] It's the way we bring a godly personality that's important to it. So let me just amplify that a little bit with Mark Green again. Now, Mark Green, you need to know, is a little bit naughty. He's a little bit challenging.
[00:24:14] And he went to the World Council of Churches on evangelization and he put up this mission statement. Now, if you're not into irony or sarcasm, you won't quite get this, okay? But he was being provocative.
[00:24:29] He said to all these ministers and vicars and he said, it's our job to recruit the people of God to use some of their leisure activity to join the mission initiatives of the church paid workers.
[00:24:42] He was basically bringing it to light, saying, look, the way a lot of us think is that all of our people in the church, as all of us here, would just use some of our leisure time to do churchy stuff and then we can go and have our work personality over here.
[00:24:59] That cannot be right. All things cannot be reconciled.
[00:25:04] Unless we are working in all things, even in our jobs, then we have a responsibility to our jobs, okay? All of us who work and even those of us who don't work, there are people relying on us.
[00:25:19] Your line manager relies on you. Your colleagues rely on you. Your customers rely on you. Your patients, your suppliers, your students. People are relying on us.
[00:25:32] So we have to do the job well.
[00:25:36] And doing the job well is part of reconciling all things to himself.
[00:25:42] Let's look at one example before I go to the final slide.
[00:25:47] Solomon.
[00:25:50] The example of Solomon.
[00:25:53] Solomon's request to God, give me wisdom and knowledge to govern this people of yours. God answered, solomon, because of this was in your heart and you've not asked for possessions, wealth, honour or the life of those who hate you, and not even asked for long life, but have asked for wisdom and knowledge that, that you yourself may govern my people.
[00:26:16] I have granted you riches, possessions and honour as well. So Solomon was given a job, right? God gave him a job. This is your job. You're going to be king. What do you want?
[00:26:29] And Solomon says, I want wisdom and knowledge to do the job well.
[00:26:33] Now he could have said, I want to be the rich king, I want to be the biggest king ever and I want a long life and I want all of my enemies killed off.
[00:26:44] Now, in a sort of modern term, imagine you had a new job on Monday and Sunday night, God appears to you, says, what do you want?
[00:26:52] Right, I want my salary doubled, I want bonuses, I want to be in that job as long as I want to be in that job. I don't want that job to change unless I want to change it. I don't want any redundancy or restructuring. And if there's anybody at work that annoys me, God, I want you to deal with them.
[00:27:09] That's the equivalent with Solomon, but he didn't. He asked for wisdom and knowledge so he could do the job well.
[00:27:19] That's the motivation in whatever job that we're in. Spiritual one very commas or non spiritual, because there's people relying on us and because all things are being reconciled to Christ.
[00:27:35] Let me just finish then, with this one verse. Now, if you've been in church a long time or know your Bible particularly well, you will know this one.
[00:27:46] Obey your earthly masters in everything, and do it not only when their eye is on you and to win their favour.
[00:27:55] Okay? Obey your earthly masters in everything and do it not only when their eye is on you and to win their favour.
[00:28:06] Now, Colossians actually starts to the people in Colossi and all the saints there.
[00:28:12] And a recent translation says that what Paul had actually written was, to all the saints in Colossi, and those of you who work from home or have a hybrid working contract, obey your earthly masters in everything and do it not only when their eye is on you, not only when you're on the zoom call that's in the original Greek.
[00:28:37] And to win their favour with a sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.
[00:28:42] Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for men. Since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward, it's the Lord Christ you are serving. Now, if you know this verse well, goes straight over the head.
[00:28:59] But when I look at that verse, I wrestle with it. I think, maybe my youth leaders weren't that wrong because they said to me, be honest, don't steal and witness.
[00:29:15] And as I wrestle with this, I think, well, am I working as if I'm working for the Lord? Because that's honesty.
[00:29:22] Am I stealing by not giving 100% of my input?
[00:29:31] And if I'm not doing this, I'm not setting a good example. I'm actually not witnessing.
[00:29:37] And I invite all of us to wrestle with this.
[00:29:40] Now, if you believe working from home makes you more productive, there are lots of research papers that will prove that's true.
[00:29:48] If you believe that it makes everybody unproductive, there's lots of research papers that will prove that's true as well.
[00:29:55] But we have to wrestle with this. If we have those sorts of jobs, and especially for those of us who have a portfolio of jobs, right, a mixture of jobs where we're having to split our time between different things, are we living up to the truth to this verse? Are we working as hard for all of those things?
[00:30:15] Are we wrestling with this and being really practical about it, Are we wrestling with our employment contract?
[00:30:23] Because some employment contracts say, this is your main job. You cannot have another job unless you get the approval of the directors in this job or whatever it might be.
[00:30:34] We need to wrestle with this, because if we don't, we'll develop a personality over here that has all sorts of behaviors and attitudes and things that are not particularly godly, but it doesn't really matter.
[00:30:48] And then we'll have a church personality here, and they will be far apart.
[00:30:53] And in that, there's no integrity.
[00:30:57] Well, I hope you found some of that useful, especially want to call out to anybody who's having really difficult time at work right now. Please, please reach out to your Christian friends.
[00:31:10] Come and ask any of us for prayer or whatever, please. But don't cut yourself off from the resources that there are in Christ to deal with those problems, no matter how tough they are.
[00:31:20] The resources are there.
