The Word Before Work

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Proverbs 16:33 (NIV)As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, trusting is the difficult yet simple act of recognizing that we are not responsible for producing results through our work—God is. Once we have taken this critical first step, it is certainly right to hustle, to use our God-given talents to fulfill our calling. But how do we know if we are both trusting and hustling? Hustling is easy to spot. It’s found in our email inboxes, our to-do lists, and our cluttered minds. But how do we know if we are truly trusting in God, rather than ourselves, to produce results? Perhaps the best indicator is whether or not we are at rest.Rest is what we are all craving. It doesn’t take long to realize that rest means more than simply spending time out of the office. With the lines between work and home almost totally blurred, it can seem impossible to disconnect physically and mentally from the demands of incessant productivity. Even when we are at home, we are checking email, Instagram, calendars, etc. We are always doing. We are restless.How can we find the rest we all so desperately long for? St. Augustine provides the answer: “Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in You.” We will be restless until we rest in Christ alone. This means that while we should certainly hustle, we must first trust in God who, throughout history, has been faithful to provide for His people. If we trust in God’s character, and steward the talents He has given us well, we can rest knowing that the results are in His hands, that He is in control and is working everything for our good. In the words of Solomon in Proverbs 16:33, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”This is the only path to true and deep rest behaviorally, mentally, and spiritually, and it begins with our submission to the God-designed art of Sabbath. In the words of Timothy Keller: “We are to think of Sabbath as an act of trust. God appointed the Sabbath to remind us that he is working and resting. To practice Sabbath is a disciplined and faithful way to remember that you are not the one who keeps the world running, who provides for your family, not even the one who keeps your work projects moving forward.”Why is it so critical that we manage the tension between trusting and hustling well? Because at the end of the day, when we rely on our hustling without trusting in God, we are either trying to play God or steal His glory, either of which leads to restlessness. Christian, take heart! These Biblical commands are not in conflict with each other. You have been called to trust your God and work hard. And when we embrace this tension, we can rest well knowing we are in right partnership with our Caller.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (NIV)Over the past couple of weeks, we have been exploring the tension we Christians must embrace in our work, between trusting in God and hustling to make things happen in our chosen work. As we saw last week, Solomon lays out a sequence to guide our thinking on this topic, beginning with committing our work to the Lord (Proverbs 16:3). In verse nine of the same chapter, Solomon urges us to hustle, saying, “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”Yes, God has called us to trust in Him, but He has also graciously given us minds to plan and execute. Once we have committed our works to the Lord, we are called to hustle, to work “with all our heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23).Too often, I’m afraid that we Christians focus too much on either trusting or hustling. Some Christians use “waiting on the Lord” as a license for unbiblical laziness, while others hustle so hard that they are unhealthy physically, spiritually, and emotionally. The beauty of Proverbs 16:9 is that it clearly blesses embracing the tension between these two truths. Yes, we must recognize that “the Lord establishes our steps,” but it is also right and good for us to “plan our own course,” to design, build, wireframe, develop, paint, innovate, write, advertise, and sell.Our work is one of the primary ways in which we love our neighbors and serve the world. Remember, work existed prior to the Fall in the Garden of Eden. Work is an inherently good thing designed by God to reveal His character and love and serve others. Because of this, ambition for our work which drives our hustle can be a good thing. But as we will see in next week’s devotional, it is only when our hustle is accompanied by trusting in God that we will find true rest.

This podcast discusses the biblical perspective on work and highlights the importance of trusting God in our endeavors. It emphasizes the need to commit our work to Him while also putting in the necessary effort.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.” Deuteronomy 8:17-18 (NIV)“Hustle” has got to be one of the most popular buzzwords in startup culture today. Shark Tank investors press entrepreneurs to “hustle” harder to generate sales. Everyone seems to be working on their “side-hustle” while keeping their 9-to-5 job. But what does the Bible have to say about our hustle? On the one hand, Scripture clearly celebrates hard work. Colossians 3:23 commands “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart.” But while Christians can join in culture’s celebration of hard work, we must also wrestle with the Biblical truth that it is God, not us or our hustle, that produces results (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). As Christians, we must embrace the tension between hard work and trusting God in order to find true rest.Joshua 6 provides an excellent case study for what it looks like to embrace this tension well. While the Israelites were being led by Joshua to the Promised Land, they came upon a major impasse: the seemingly impenetrable city of Jericho. As Joshua 6:2 records, “The Lord said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands,’” but instead of giving Joshua and the Israelites superhuman strength and agility to take Jericho on their own, God required them to place an inordinate amount of trust in Him. God instructed Joshua to lead the Israelites in a seven day march around Jericho, concluding with an ear-splitting shout at the city’s walls.Like so many other times in history, God chose to use “the foolish things of the world to shame the wise.” Rather than allowing Joshua and the Israelites to win the battle on their own strength, God laid out a plan to ensure that He alone would get the glory. Before giving the Israelites victory, God asked them to trust Him to provide. Without blinking, Joshua did just that. The Israelites trusted in God’s plan. Then, they hustled: marching, blowing their trumpets, and shouting until Jericho’s walls collapsed.Of course, it wasn’t the Israelites’ marching, shouting, and hustling that brought the walls of Jericho tumbling down. It was God. And that’s exactly what I think God wanted the Israelites and us to see. Our hard work is a good thing! But believing that our hustle is what is responsible for producing results in our work would be like the Israelites believing that shouting brought an impenetrable fortress crumbling to the ground.As Joshua and the Israelites show us, we shouldn’t seek to resolve the tension between trusting and hustling; instead, we should embrace it. These ideas aren’t in conflict with one another, they are meant to be married together. But as Solomon shares in Proverbs 16, there is a sequence to trusting and hustling that honors the Lord and brings us true rest. It is that passage that we will focus on over the next three weeks.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3:26-27 (NIV)Immediately before Jesus spent forty days in the desert resisting relentless temptation by the adversary, he was baptised in the Jordan River. The last two verses of Matthew 3 recount the event: “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’”The very next verse (Matthew 4:1) says, “Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.” The fact that these events are found back-to-back aren’t coincidental. Before Jesus kicks-off his public ministry with what must have been an agonizing forty days alone in the wilderness with Satan, God the Father audibly speaks to Jesus, reminding him that he is the Son of God, that he is loved, and that his father is “well pleased” with him.Even for divine Jesus, it must have felt pretty amazing to hear those words spoken over him in public. You and I know the rest of the story. Jesus goes on to boldly launch his ministry, resist temptation, reveal his divinity, and save the world through his sacrifice on the cross.So, what does this account have to do with how you and I respond to adversity and failure? Everything! Galatians 3:27 reminds us that “So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Paul is pointing us back to Jesus’ baptism, saying that, through our faith in Jesus, we are symbolically joined up with Jesus in his baptism. Because of the work of Christ on the cross, we can hear the Father speaking the same words he spoke to Jesus to us: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”Cling tightly to those words, not because you are at risk of losing them, but because they give you and me the same boldness Jesus exhibited when he stepped out of the Jordan River. Whatever failure you are experiencing, remember that you are a son or daughter of the King. You are loved. The King is well pleased with you. God’s words are true and unchanging. No amount of success or failure is going to change who he declares you to be. Let that give you the boldness to respond well to failure, to be transparent about your shortcomings for the sake of the gospel, and to be eternally hopeful because you are “clothed with Christ.”

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28 (NIV)In the booming Chicago of the 1860s, there lived a young Christian family of six whose patriarch was a prominent lawyer and investor. All was going well for the young man and his family until the Great Chicago Fire destroyed much of his real estate. The loss was significant, but it paled in comparison to the tragedy the man would experience just two years later when his wife and daughters were in a shipwreck as they sailed from New York to England. All four daughters died in the crash. Upon arriving in England, the mother telegrammed her husband in Chicago. “Saved alone,” she said.The husband left Chicago right away, sailing off to England to meet his grieving wife. We don’t know much about his journey across the Atlantic, but I have to imagine the man spent his days alone, grieving his loss and questioning his God. I can see him staring out the window at the sea, reading the biblical account of Job, a man like him who had been blessed with so much, only to see it all taken away from him in the blink of an eye. We don’t know much about what happened on that ship, but we do know this: As the ship crossed over the spot where the man’s daughters were now resting in peace, Horatio Spafford wrote these words:When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,When sorrows like sea billows roll;Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,It is well, it is well with my soulSpafford had a hope that wasn’t rooted in himself, his ability to push through his suffering, or even the fact that his wife miraculously survived the crash and was waiting for him across the sea. No, as his classic hymn shows us, Spafford’s hope was rooted in something far deeper: Jesus Christ and His work on the cross. As he wrote in verse two:Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,Let this blest assurance control,That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,And hath shed His own blood for my soulAs he was sailing across the ocean mourning the loss of his children, Spafford was writing about the cross. Why? Because his hope was rooted in a God who understood his pain, a God who watched His own innocent Son die on a cross and used that event for His glory and our eternal good.The trials you and I face personally and professionally will almost certainly pale in comparison to Spafford’s. But our source of hope is the same. If you lose your job, if you’re late to ship your newest product, if you’re forced to lay-off an employee, even if your endeavor fails entirely, you can look to the cross as Spafford did and say, “It is well, it is well with my soul.” Romans 8:28 reminds us that “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” As we go about taking risks to create culture, failure and adversity are inevitable. But we, like Spafford, have hope that God is working everything for His glory and our good.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 (NIV)Contrary to what some “spiritual self-help gurus” preach, the God of the Bible does not promise us success. If anything, Scripture makes clear that Christians are all-but guaranteed adversity and failure. From Paul to Peter, from Joseph to Job, the Bible is filled with stories of men and women who experienced great failures both personally and professionally. Throughout these stories, Scripture reveals a God who isn’t concerned with our “success,” but is very much concerned with our sanctification and how our failures can be used to mold us into His image.Today, more and more Christians are embracing the call to create, taking risks to bring about new businesses, ministries, art, books, music, and other forms of culture as a means of serving others. It’s never been easier to follow God’s call to create! But we must remember that the nature of creating new things is that it is risky. Failure and adversity—at least at some level—are inevitable for the Christian who is working to create things that didn’t exist before. Knowing this, how can we Christians respond to failure in a way that preaches the gospel to ourselves and others?It all starts with transparency—a principle that the Church is severely lacking in today. We come to church on Sunday mornings, put on a happy face, and pray that we never have to progress past small talk. “Hey, how are you? I loved the picture you posted on Instagram last night! Did you watch the game?” Instead of treating our fellow Church members as brothers and sisters in Christ, our conversations are not much deeper than those we carry on with the barista at our favorite coffee shop. For many of us, church has become a country club to showcase our best selves rather than a community that gathers to honestly share our struggles and failures, secure in the grace of our brothers and sisters, and ultimately, God.Why aren’t we more vulnerable? Because at the end of the day, we aren’t fully tapping into the gospel of Jesus Christ for our day-to-day functional salvation. Sure, we understand that it is “by grace [we] have been saved through faith,” relying on Jesus for our ticket to Heaven. But we live as if we still have something to prove, someone to impress, or something we need to do to demonstrate our worth. We treat the gospel as a “fire suit,” great for keeping us out of Hell, but not much else. In reality, the gospel is the only thing that will allow us to face struggles and failures with true peace. In the words of Timothy Keller, “Christians should be known to be calm and poised in the face of difficulty or failure. This may be the most telling way to judge if a person is drawing on the resources of the gospel in the development of personal character.”When we are transparent about our failures, we are preaching a sermon to ourselves and the world that says our identity is rooted in Christ alone. Don’t miss this opportunity to allow God to use your failure for His glory and the good of others!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'” Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV)Over the past three weeks, we have been exploring the biblical truth that every Christian is a “full-time missionary” and unpacking what I’m calling the Three Myths of Missions which block us from really embracing our roles as disciple-makers. The third and final myth of missions that we will unpack this week is that in order to fulfill the Great Commission, you must “go” away from your current vocation and location.A few years ago, I heard one of the most life-changing sermons preached on the Great Commission by Dr. Kennon Vaughan. Focusing on the word “Go” in Jesus’s command in Matthew 28:19, Dr. Vaughan said, “The word ‘go’ will “unlock the meaning for us as to when we are to carry out the Great Commission. The word ‘Go’ literally means ‘having gone.’ ‘Go’ is not a command, [Jesus] is not commanding them to go, as much as He’s saying, ‘Having gone…turn men into disciples!’ The going is assumed. In other words, Jesus is saying, ‘Having gone from here, as we go, as you go, turn men into disciples.’ Jesus didn’t go more than 200 miles away from His own hometown, and yet He is saying go make disciples of all nations, and I would venture to say Jesus is the greatest disciple maker in the history of the world. It wasn’t about how far He went. It was about what He did while He was going. The same is true for you and me.”I don’t know about you, but until a few years ago, I had never heard the Great Commission preached like this. “As you are going…make disciples.” That changes everything.While God may indeed be calling you to change your vocation or your location, that is certainly not a requirement for fulfilling the Great Commission. The truth is that Jesus has called each and every one of us to be a full-time missionary, making disciples as we go throughout our work and our lives.When we understand that work is inherently good and meaningful, that the calling of the clergy is no higher than the calling of the congregation, and that Jesus has commanded us to make disciples as we are going throughout life…that changes everything.Now it doesn’t matter what your job title is—you are commanded to make disciples.It doesn’t matter if you live in New York or New Delhi—you are commanded to make disciples.It doesn’t matter if you are an entrepreneur, an artist, pastor, a student, a stay-at-home-mom, an accountant, or a barista—you are commanded to make disciples.Not at some point in the distant future. Not when you retire from your current vocation. Not just on the next short-term missions trip. Today. You are a full-time missionary. What an awesome privilege. What an incredible responsibility.

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?” Mark 6:3 (NIV)In order to embrace the idea that every Christian is a full-time missionary, there’s a second myth of missions that we need to look to Scripture to refute. Here it is: The calling of pastors and “full-time missionaries” is somehow “higher” than the call to other vocations.As we saw in last week’s devotional. God called human beings to work, giving all work inherent meaning; thus, there should be no sense that one person’s vocational calling is higher, more meaningful, or more eternally significant than another.But the fact is, there is an unspoken hierarchy of callings in the Church today that says that if you are really sold out for Jesus, you will abandon your current work and spiritually “level-up” to the role of a pastor or donor-supported missionary.This idea isn’t new. It’s a myth the Church has been fighting for centuries. Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other leaders of the Protestant Reformation fought vehemently against this man-made hierarchy of callings, arguing that all work is as much a calling from God as the work of a pastor or priest.What’s particularly laughable about this myth is the fact that we worship a God who spent the majority of his time on earth working as a carpenter! The Bible gives us very little detail of Jesus’ life between the ages of twelve and thirty, when He began his public ministry. One of the only things Scripture notes about this significant period of time is that He was known in His community for His work as a carpenter (see Mark 6:3)!Think about this for a moment: From the very beginning of time, God knew that He would have to send Jesus to earth to ransom humankind. Knowing this—and knowing the ultimate purpose of Jesus’ life on earth—the fact that God chose for Jesus to grow-up in the home of a carpenter named Joseph should stop us in our tracks.God could have placed Jesus in a priestly household, like the prophet Samuel or John the Baptist. He could have grown-up in the household of a Pharisee like the Apostle Paul. But no, God placed Jesus in the household of a carpenter where He would spend more than half of his life ministering to others by making what we have to imagine would have been some really exceptional tables.To act as if the calling of the clergy is higher than any other calling is nothing less than a slight at Jesus Christ. It is an unbiblical myth that there is some sort of hierarchy of callings. The truth is that we worship a God who works and that gives dignity and meaning to all vocations.Thank God for the work He has given you to do today!

Sign-up for my free 20 day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'” Genesis 1:28 (NIV)The idea that every Christian is a full-time missionary may sound new or at least like a fresh perspective. Why is that? As we will see throughout this devotional series, God’s Word makes crystal clear that each of us is called to make disciples of Jesus Christ no matter what job we have or where we live. So why does this concept sound new? I believe it’s because the Church has bought into three myths of missions which we will look to Scripture to refute over the next three weeks.The first myth that the Church has subscribed to for some time now is that work is largely meaningless unless you work as a “full-time missionary.”Have you ever felt like your work is less important or eternally meaningful than that of a pastor or “full-time missionary”? This feeling is so prevalent today, but the good news is that it is totally unbiblical.Genesis 1:26-31 reminds us that work was a part of God’s original, perfect design for the world. In this passage, we see God commanding humankind to co-create with Him—to “be fruitful”—to “fill the earth and subdue it.” This is a call to more than just procreation. This is a call to civilization. It’s a call to cultural creation, to follow God’s lead in working to bring about things that were not there before.If you open up Genesis 2:15, you will see that God put Adam in the Garden of Eden and called him to “work it and take care of it.” In verse 2:19, He invites Adam to give names to every living creature. God is calling Adam to be a ruler, a gardener, a branding agent—jobs that today we might be tempted to call “secular” or at least view as less meaningful than the jobs of a pastor or missionary overseas.But here’s the truth: God called human beings to work prior to the Fall. Thus, all work is inherently meaningful and is a primary means by which we reveal the character of our Creator God and serve others.Your work matters. Deeply matters. Do it with excellence today for the glory of God and the good of others.