Categories
Serving Others

Your Mission if You Choose to Accept It… Is At The Office

“”Your Mission if You Choose to Accept It… Is At The Office”
      by brian rushing

…or at the factory or school or hospital or wherever you work.

the mission impossible logo symbolizing our mission is at our office
I am about to wrap up these thoughts on being a witness in your workplace, but I think this idea is so very important for each one of us. I think that we too often believe that our work can only be considered a benefit to God’s Kingdom if we are in a church-related occupation. Nothing could be further from the truth. God has placed you where you can benefit His kingdom in the work you are presently in.

John Piper says that you should – “Stay In Your Job With God”:

The call to be a Christian was not a call to leave your secular vocation. Paul said: “So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.” Paul’s view was that God had sovereignly “assigned” or “called” unbelievers to positions in life where their conversion would have significant impact for his glory. “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him.” Paul does not mean that changing jobs is wrong in the Christian life. What Paul does mean is that when we are converted we should not jump to the conclusion: “my job must change.” Rather our thought should be, God has put me here, and I should now display his worth in this job. Therefore, the burning question for most Christians should be: How can my life count for the glory of God in my secular vocation?



Many people in the secular world enjoy their work and have spent much time learning how to be effective in their field. Why feel that you must step out of the area where you are effective and which you enjoy. You can learn to “make much of God” by how you work in your secular job. Piper says the Bible gives us at least six ways in which a person can make much of God through their secular job:

1. through the fellowship that we enjoy with him throughout the day while at work.
“In other words, we enjoy God’s being there for us as we listen to his voice, and talk to him, and cast all our burdens on him, and experience his guidance and care. Christians do not just go to work. They go to work “with God.” They do not just do a job. They do their job “with God.” God is with them.

2. by imitating God in our creativity and industry.
God is at work and God is a creating, creative God. And He created us in His image to work and to create. As we do so with joy and satisfaction, we make much of Him.

3. by enhancing the portrait of Christ that people hear in the spoken Gospel.
As we share that we are Christians, our fellow employees will be watching to see what that means. How we conduct ourselves at work shows others a glimpse of the picture of Jesus.

4. by earning enough money to keep us from depending on others, while also focusing on how our work helps others.
“This is paradoxical. I am saying, yes, we should earn enough money to meet our needs. But, no, we should not make that the primary focus of why we work. Don’t labor merely with a view to the things you can buy with your earnings. Work with an eye not mainly to your money, but your usefulness. Work with a view to benefiting people with what you make or do. Labor to love people and honor God. Think of new ways that your work can bless people. Stop thinking mainly of profitability, and think mainly of how helpful your product or service can become.”

5. by earning money with the desire to use our money to make others glad in God.
God tells us to work to meet the needs of others. And here is one of my favorite lines about why we should work:
“You can steal to have. Or you can work to have. Or you can work to have to give. When the third option comes from joy in God’s goodness, it makes him look great in the world.”

6. by treating the web of relationships at work as a gift of God and to whom we share the Gospel and offer practical help.
God has placed people around you who need your love and help. Make Him look great to them by loving them and helping them as their workplace pastor.

Your place of employment is your mission field. Will you choose to accept your mission?


        (Quotes in today’s post are from Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper)


Categories
Serving Others

Your Job Is Your Mission Field

“Your Job Is Your Mission Field”
      by brian rushing

No matter who you are, where you live, or the type of work you do, God has a mission for you.

Mission From God

The “Blues Brothers” were on a mission from God, and so are you!

And you don’t have to be ordained, licensed, or commissioned during a church service in order to complete your mission. In fact, where you work – in the secular job you have – you have a mission to complete.

John Piper reminds us:

“Please don’t hear in the phrase “secular vocation” any unspiritual or inferior comparison to “church vocation” or “mission vocation” or “spiritual vocation.” I simply mean the vocations that are not structurally connected to the church. There is such a thing as being in the world but not of the world…. Jesus’ intention is that his disciples remain in the world (which is what I mean by “secular jobs”), but that they not be “of the world” (which is why I say we are in a war).”


 So being in a secular job is a strategic place of battle for God’s kingdom work, and you have been placed there to do that work – as the workplace pastor for those around you. You are to care for them, pray for them, give them spiritual counsel, shepherd them toward the Lord – using your speech, your attitude, and your actions to point them toward God.

Martin Luther said it this way:

It is pure invention that pope, bishops, priests and monks are the only ones to be called the “spiritual estate”; while princes, lords, artisans and farmers the “temporal estate.” That is indeed a fine bit of lying and hypocrisy…. All Christians are truly of the “spiritual estate,” and there is among them no difference at all but that of office…. To make it still clearer. If a little group of pious Christian laymen were taken captive and set down in a wilderness, and had among them no priest consecrated by a bishop, and if there in the wilderness they were to agree in choosing one of themselves, married or unmarried, and were to charge him with the office of baptizing, saying mass, absolving and preaching, such a man would be as truly a priest as though all bishops and popes had consecrated him…. There is really no difference between laymen and priests, princes and bishops, “spirituals” and “temporals,” as they call them, except that of office and work…. A cobbler, a smith, a farmer, each has the work and office of his trade, and yet they are all alike consecrated priests and bishops, and everyone by means of his own work or office must benefit and serve every other, that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community, even as all the members of the body serve one another.”


So even back in the 1500s, this man of God realized that where you work wasn’t important. It was how and why you work. You are called to work for the Lord as a workplace pastor to those around you to “benefit and serve” them in order to help them better know Jesus Christ.

“The Bible makes it plain that God’s will is for his people to be scattered like salt and light among the whole range of secular vocations. Clusters of Christians living only with Christians and working only with Christians would not accomplish God’s whole purpose in the world. That does not mean Christian orders or ministries or mission outposts are wrong. It means they are exceptional. The vast majority of Christians are meant to live in the world and work among unbelievers. This is their “office,” their “calling,” as Luther would say.”

My prayer is that as you go out into your workplace today, you won’t think of your work as secular, but as strategic. That you would consider where God has placed you and how He wants to use you to make a difference in the lives of those you will encounter today as their workplace pastor.


        (Quotes in today’s post are from Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper)


Categories
Relationships

Taking Jesus With You…All the Way to the Office

Today, I want to revisit the idea of your needing to be a pastor to the people who you work with each day. I am a pastor of a church family, and so some of my roles or duties to my church members include:

  • being an example of godliness,
  • speaking the truths of God,
  • providing comfort during times of crisis, and
  • giving godly guidance to those needing direction.

And to be honest, everyone in this world needs someone who will do these things for them. But there are people who work with you who do not go to church… so who will provide these things to them? I will never have the opportunity to pray for them, share with them, or guide them. So God placed you there to tackle this role! He wants you to take on the role of being a workplace pastor for the people you work with each and every day.

a photo of four skyscraper window washers who are at work at the office
though exchanging a pulpit for rappelling gear, one of these guys needs to serve as a workplace pastor to the rest of his team… I know I would want someone saying an extra prayer for me!

I want to share with you some thoughts over the next few days about how to start doing this in your place of employment, whether you sit behind a desk or on a piece of heavy machinery instead of standing behind a pulpit. But both the professional preacher and you have the same roles – it is just that our “congregations” are different. Let’s start with this idea:

“Secular vocations are not bad, when we make them strategic.”

Sometimes some of you may hear a pastor urging more people into ministry-related vocations. Certainly we need more pastors, more ministers. But that doesn’t mean that a secular vocation cannot also be a ministry. It just has to be intentional and strategic to take place. How intentional and strategic are you in taking Jesus with you to work?

“You don’t waste your life by where you work, but by how you work and why you work.”

John Piper calls this: “Making Much of Christ from 8-5.” He says:

“The “war” is being fought along the line between sin and righteousness in every family. It is being fought along the line between truth and falsehood in every school
. . . between justice and injustice in every legislature
. . . between integrity and corruption in every office
. . . between love and hate in every ethnic group
. . . between pride and humility in every sport
. . . between the beautiful and the ugly in every art
. . . between right doctrine and wrong doctrine in every church
. . . and between sloth and diligence between coffee breaks.

It is not a waste to fight the battle for truth and faith and love on any of these fronts.

The war is not primarily spatial or physical—though its successes and failures have physical effects.

Therefore, the secular vocations of Christians are a war zone. There are spiritual adversaries to be defeated (that is, evil spirits and sins, not people); and there is beautiful moral high ground to be gained for the glory of God. You don’t waste your life by where you work, but how and why.”

You have a role to play in the spiritual warfare that is taking place all around you – especially at your work with your fellow employees. As you step into the secular workforce, you are stepping into a spiritual warzone. It is your role to strategically and intentionally battle for truth, faith, and love on the frontlines as a workplace pastor. How well have you prepared for this frontline battle?

Have you ever seen someone else do a good job of taking Jesus to work with them and serving as a workplace pastor?
What made them effective?

— brian rushing

        (Quotes in today’s post are from Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper)

Categories
Christian Living

How You Handle Winning and Losing Speaks Volumes

Yes, we’ve all been there…watching someone win poorly…
         …and watching someone lose poorly.
And it can be miserable to watch either one!

That is why a few cities have posted signs like this one…
a sign at a city park reminding parents how to behave regarding losing and proper behavior

Ha! I love this sign.
And we know it is needed because we all know “that parent” who needs reminders of how to handle himself (or herself) at the ballfield.
         In fact you might even be “that parent!”

The sign is a clear reminder that our behavior speaks volumes to those around us. And here is the spiritual truth that we can connect to this ballfield sign:
          “How we handle loss shows where our treasure is.”

And not just loss in a little-league ballgame, but real loss in life… loss of a job, loss of health, loss of a relationship, or the death of someone close to you. How you deal with these real losses in life – with real losing – it speaks volumes about where your treasure is. John Piper explains the idea more fully:

“What I know even more surely is that the greatest joy in God comes from giving his gifts away, not in hoarding them for ourselves. It is good to work and have. It is better to work and have in order to give. God’s glory shines more brightly when he satisfies us in times of loss than when he provides for us in times of plenty.

The health, wealth, and prosperity “gospel” swallows up the beauty of Christ in the beauty of his gifts and turns the gifts into idols. The world is not impressed when Christians get rich and say thanks to God. They are impressed when God is so satisfying that we give our riches away for Christ’s sake and count it gain.

No one ever said that they learned their deepest lessons of life, or had their sweetest encounters with God, on the sunny days. People go deep with God when the drought comes. That is the way God designed it. Christ aims to be magnified in life most clearly by the way we experience him in our losses.

Paul is our example: “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). The design of Paul’s suffering was to make radically clear for his own soul, and for ours, that God and God alone is the only treasure who lasts.

When everything in life is stripped away except God, and we trust him more because of it, this is gain, and he is glorified.”

I pray that we will trust God and keep Him as our greatest Treasure in the midst of losing any and all other things.

— brian rushing

         (Quotes in today’s post are from Don’t Waste Your Life by John Piper)

Categories
Christian Living

Avoiding the Fear of Death

We all have fears…
            …heights, confined spaces, flying, spiders, alien abductions!

Or maybe one of your big fears is that ugly, old Grim Reaper.
Are you afraid of death?
photo of a scythe symbolizing fear of death
I have spent time with people who are extremely brave in the face of danger, yet who are afraid to die. I’ve been asked the question: “How do you get to a place where you have no fear of death?”

My belief is that our way out of every fear (even fear of death) is increased trust in God. He tells me that He has this thing called “my life” in His hands and under control. The question is whether I trust that to be true. Because the more I trust Him and believe His Word, the less fear I have – even of that moment when I’ll take my last breath.

In fact, Jesus calls us into a weird paradox – to embrace death when we choose life with Him – death to self. “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” He tells us: To live is Christ; & to die is gain. Simply meaning that for every Christian, when we leave this earth, we will get to be with Him – and that is going to be better than anything we’ve ever experienced on this life…
           …Better than the moment of saying “I do” and kissing your spouse on your wedding day; better than the moment of holding your tiny newborn baby in your arms for the first time. Death will still be better because the next moment after death I’ll be with Jesus. I think a lot of us still have doubts about the truth of this idea, but until we trust it to be true, we will be afraid of death.

“Fleeing from death is the shortest path to a wasted life.”

We are all called to die to self, such that even if our very lives are taken due to our belief in Christ, it does not matter to us. But we wonder, if I truly have to die for Christ, then how does that benefit anyone? How does that make God look great to others?

“If being a Christian costs you your life, how will that help you make much of Christ? Many have made God look great through their death. When the hour comes for everything to be taken from us but Christ, we magnify Him by saying: “In Him I have everything and more. To die is gain.” If we learn to die like that, we will be ready to live. And if we don’t learn this, we waste our lives.”

What are you afraid of?
And how have you gotten past the fear of death? (even if you are still afraid of snakes!)


— brian rushing
(quotes by Jon Piper in Don’t Waste Your Life)