Sunday, June 7, 2009: Work Versus Worship

Work Versus Worship
1 Samuel 8: 1 – 22 and Colossians 3: 22 – 24.

I. Introduction.

Last Sunday, my brother and his family visited our church. After church, we drove to New Braunfels for a week of vacation. On Monday, we spent an entire day riding the water slides at Schlitterbahn with five children. At the end of the day, we were worn out! On Tuesday, we drove to San Antonio and spent the day at Sea World. By the end of the day, we were worn out. On Wednesday, we drove back to San Antonio to see everything we had missed the day before at Sea World. Then, we toured the Alamo, strolled along the River Walk and ate supper at the Rainforest Café. When we got home, we were worn out. On Thursday, we went back to Schlitterbahn to visit the two parks we had missed on Monday. Again, by the end of the day, we were worn out. On Friday, we could barely get out of bed. After a week of vacation, I am ready to get back to work!

No matter what you do for a living or what social circles you find yourself in, one thing we all have in common is the way we meet people for the first time. Typically, we ask someone, “What do you do?” We rarely ask other people who they are. We ask what they do.

There is a difference between what you do and who you are; just as there is a difference in your being and your doing. Yet, you can learn a lot about someone by asking what they do. Where a person spends their day to day working life often reveals something about that person’s experience, priorities and even their character.

The one side of being a minister that I haven’t gotten used to is the way some people respond when they first discover what I do for a living. When I meet someone for the first time, I often try to avoid talking about being a minister for as long as I can. But the inevitable question always comes up at some point in the conversation…What do you do?

It’s not that I am embarrassed to be a minister. But, I often find myself getting embarrassed for other people when they find out that I am a minister and then feel like they have to say something spiritual. Once I met a married couple at a football game. When the wife found out that I was a Baptist minister, she said, “We used to go to a Baptist church in Alabama, but we haven’t found a church in Texas.” I found out later that they had left Alabama seven years earlier.

Then there was the time that Shauna and I moved from an apartment in Waco to a duplex. She was seven months pregnant and couldn’t help move anything heavy. I asked some of the college students to help us move and had only a couple of guys respond. The night before, one of those guys called to ask if we needed any more help. He was in a fraternity and thought it would be a good idea to make the new pledges come and help his college minister move. The next morning I had 15 new pledges show up whom I had never seen before and never saw again. I was riding in the truck with one of those guys when he found out I was the college minister of First Baptist, Woodway. He said, “I go to Calvary Baptist.” I said, “I have not been here very long, but I recently had the opportunity to meet Ken Massey. He seems like a great guy.” He said, “Who is Ken Massey?” I said, “He is the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church.”

In January 2006, I spent a week in Nashville with 18,000 college students from all over the world. We were challenged by John Piper, Beth Moore and Louie Giglio to declare God’s renown to the nations. But Louie made a very important point in the final session. He said that many of the 18,000 students at Passion wanted to be ministers and missionaries, but there were some students who perhaps felt guilty that God had not called them to go to the nations.

Maybe that is your story. Maybe you have heard a lot about mission and ministry, and you have gotten excited about what God is doing, but that just hasn’t been what you felt God calling you to do. Does that make your calling and direction in life less important than what other people are called to do?

Work is an important part of our lives. On one hand, work can give us a sense of dignity and importance and purpose and even a sense of satisfaction. But this brings with it a great temptation. Our work can give us a false sense of security by tempting us to become less dependent on God and more dependent on ourselves.

The story of Israel and its first king illustrates this very danger. We can become so interested in work that we begin to think that we do not need God. Our work can replace our worship.

Read 1 Samuel 8: 1 – 22.

This story gives us an important insight into human nature—Or at least it gives us a key insight into the way God has chosen to deal with human beings. God gives us freedom to choose, and the freedom to suffer the consequences for the choices we make.

Samuel’s sons chose not to follow in their father’s footsteps and obey God’s commands…This is another sermon in this passage of Scripture that I preached on Fathers’ Day a couple of years ago…Notice that Samuel is always held up as a godly example in the Bible…Nothing is ever mentioned about Samuel, criticizing him for disobedience or failing in his spiritual life…Yet, Samuel’s sons did not grow up to serve and follow and obey God…His sons had the freedom to choose not to serve God and thus had the freedom to face the consequences…Samuel was never held responsible for the disobedience of his children…

The people of Israel chose to turn their backs on God’s leadership by asking for a human king…just like the nations around them…

In the book of Exodus, we read the story of how God used Moses to release God’s people from slavery in Egypt and to lead them into the Promised Land. During their forty years in the wilderness, God made his covenant with the Hebrews and established them as a nation. This is the only nation in world history that was set up as what we call a Theocracy—meaning, “Ruled by God.” (Our nation is set up as a Democracy—meaning, “Ruled by the People.”)

Theocracy was based on one very important element…Someone has to listen to God and speak God’s will to the nation. That person was Samuel. However, when Samuel’s sons stopped listening to God and began to rebel against God, the people of Israel got concerned. They could no longer trust their priests to lead them and to show them God’s will. So they made their own choice…They asked the aging Samuel for a King…They chose to abandon the Theocracy in favor of the human system that seemed to work for all the neighboring countries.

Israel faced two choices…To do things God’s way…OR…To do things like the world around them…Ultimately, every choice comes down to the same two categories…

We know how this story eventually played out…God told Samuel to give in to the people’s wishes and anoint Saul as the first King over Israel…

And Saul started out as a great king…He was tall, good-looking, he was a real charmer, and he was a military genius…But eventually Saul’s gifts and abilities began to work to his disadvantage…He began to depend less on God and more on himself…

The first time this happened was in 1 Samuel 13…Saul was at war with the Philistines at Micmash and were greatly outnumbered…Saul and Samuel had an arrangement that Samuel would lead the army in worship and burnt offerings before every battle…This was a way of searching for God’s will and assuring that Israel’s army was fighting God’s battles and not their own…On this particular occasion, Samuel had told Saul that he would join Saul and the troops on the battlefield after seven days…However, before Samuel arrived, Saul became anxious and decided to take matters into his own hands…Instead of waiting for the priest to come and offer sacrifices, Saul offered the sacrifices himself…Samuel arrived just as Saul had finished the ritual and pronounced God’s judgment on Saul and his kingdom…

The second time this happened was in 1 Samuel 15…God had spoken to Samuel about the Amalekites…These were the same people who had “waylaid” the Israelites as they moved into the Promised Land…God had a special plan for the Amalekites…He planned to use King Saul to utterly and completely wipe them off the face of the earth…However, Saul refused to listen to the Word of the Lord as spoken by Samuel…Instead of destroying these people, Saul spared the life of their King, Agag…Instead of killing all the flocks and herds of animals, Saul kept the best animals for his own coffers…The Word of the Lord came to Samuel again, informing him that Saul had disobeyed God’s commands…So, Samuel went to Saul the next morning…As Samuel approached, Saul greeted him by describing how he had done exactly as the Lord had commanded him to do…Samuel responded, “Then why do I hear the bleating of sheep?”…So, Saul told another lie—If you lie once, you have to keep telling lies to cover all that you’ve told before… “We kept the best sheep and goats in order to offer a big sacrifice to your God.”…Once again, Samuel pronounced the Lord’s judgment on Saul and his Kingdom…

Notice how both times Saul got in trouble it was about worship…Both times were at the height of Saul’s accomplishments as King…Defeat of the Philistines and Defeat of the Amalekites…In both cases, Saul had become so self-confident and self-reliant, that he refused to listen to God and follow God’s direction…He allowed his work to replace his worship…

In some ways, this reminds me of the Experiencing God materials written by Henry Blackaby…The greatest point of that Bible study is found in the two points…God is already at work in our world…We should join God in what he is already doing…

Saul worked contrary to God’s work in the world…And refused to listen to the Word of the Lord in worship…

My favorite Pastor-Theologian is a Presbyterian minister Eugene Peterson. Peterson helped me make this connection between work and worship in his book Leap Over a Wall. He points out that God is a worker…We first see God at work Creating everything in heaven and earth…Then we see God at work Redeeming his people through Moses, the Judges, the Prophets and ultimately in Jesus…This leads us to think of our own work as making us God-like…In other words, when we are creative and doing good work it is only a small step to jump from thinking of our selves as God-like to begin thinking that we are actually god…

This is a problem that the Apostle Paul addressed in the New Testament when he gave instructions to Christian slaves…

Read Colossians 3: 22 – 24

I like to say that when we work as if we are working for the Lord Christ, our work actually becomes an expression of our worship…And then we are less likely to allow our work to stand in the way of our relationship with God…

Not every kind of work is good work that can be offered up to Christ as an act of worship…Just because you have exerted energy and draw a nice paycheck and come home feeling tired at the end of the day does NOT mean that you have done good work in the name of Jesus Christ…

II. Good Work Brings Dignity.

To bring honor to self and to other people…

Just as God values all human life, so our work ought never to devalue or to shame or to bring dishonor to any other person…




III. Good Work Gives Life.

Compare our work to God’s work in creation…

Just as God gave life in creation, so our work ought never to kill or destroy or tear apart the life of another person…

This includes destroying the life of your own family…




IV. Good Work Glorifies God.

Can you do your job in the name of Jesus Christ?…

Name is a reference to character…Can your job be done according to the character of Jesus?…Would Jesus do your job?…Or are there some things about your job that Jesus could not be comfortable with?…




V. Good Work Joins God’s Work.

God’s work is ultimately about salvation of humanity and restoring creation to its original intent…Good human work participates in God’s plan of salvation for all of creation…If you have never made the free choice to accept God’s offer of salvation, then you cannot participate in what God is doing in the world…To bring salvation to humanity and to restore creation to its original intent…




VI. Conclusion.

In France in the 1600’s, a man named Lawrence entered into a Carmelite Monastery. He was a very spiritual man, but he was not very educated. Since he was not educated, he had no hope of ever becoming a priest. Yet, he wanted to enter into the Monastery to grow closer to God.
Since Lawrence was a layman, he didn’t get one of the “cool” jobs in the Monastery. He was assigned to kitchen duty. Every morning after breakfast was served, Lawrence would go into the kitchen to wash the pots. As soon as the pots were cleaned, it was time to reuse the pots to cook lunch. Then, after lunch, Lawrence would return to his work of washing the pots. Again, as soon as the pots were cleaned, it was time to use them again to cook supper. (Does this sound familiar to anyone?) And after supper, Lawrence would once again wash the pots.

Lawrence thought that he would have more time to spend with God in the Monastery, but all his time was spent washing pots. This led Lawrence to a great spiritual discovery. Washing the pots was a way for him to spend time with God. He was not washing pots for himself, he was washing pots for others. He was not only washing pots for the Monastery, he was washing pots for God. (Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, [Springdale, PA: Whitaker House, 1982])