God in the Workplace

I didn't preach 1 Timothy 6:1-2 as planned this week because I couldn't reconcile talking about God in the Workplace with a text that was quite clearly talking about slavery. So I did what I always do when in a situation like this: fall back to the Master. What practices in work did Jesus have?

Matthew 14:15-21 (New International Version)
15As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food." 16Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." 17"We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish," they answered. 18"Bring them here to me," he said. 19And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve baskets full of broken pieces that were left over. 21The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

1. "Bring them here to me" / Take Responsibility For The Opportunity
It's so much easier to stand around and look for the person who is going to take charge of a difficult situation than it is to step up to the plate to swing. And how easily we get frustrated with the lack of resources. Jesus took in his own hands the resources that God made available, stepped up, and led the way.

Proverbs 22:29 says, "Do you see those who are skilled in their work, they will serve before kings, they will not serve before officials of low rank." People who take responsibility for the opportunity to serve will be given more responsibility and a greater scope of influence by God.

2. "Looking up to Heaven" / View Your Job From God's Perspective
God usually has a bigger purpose for our work than we do. Don't fall into the trap of "If just one person's life is touched, everything is worth it." I can't imagine God having this perspective about creation or Christ any more than I can for our own work and lives. God wants much more than that for the world.

What practices will help you "look up to heaven" and evaluate your work from God's perspective?

3. "He gave thanks" / Cultivate an Attitude Of Gratitude
We need people who focus on possibilities rather than problems, who are interesting in hunting down solutions. It's like the child who finds herself looking up at a big pile of manure and says, "I know there's a pony in here someplace!" If you have a clean barn, you probably don't have any horses. And if you have horses that are producing and doing work, you're going to have manure. You need manure to make things grow.

My friend Laura, single mother of three, has a great handwritten sign on her kitchen cabinet that says: "Someday my house will be clean." She has inspired me to put one of my own up: "Thank you, God, for this sinkful of dishes and my filthy floor, which is such a small price to pay for the three young ponies that I'm raising."

In all things, give thanks to God.

4. "He broke the bread" / Multiply The Good Stuff
How much of your time at your work, from parenting, to administrating, to selling pianos, do you spend working out of your strengths? How can you multiply the very best parts of the gifts, skills, natural inclinations, passions, abilities God gave you? If you are a leader, don't just lead people. Make more leaders. You have to think like a banker: How can you get maximum return on God's investment in you?

If there is something you are really good at, do it a LOT, not a little. Take what God's given you and multiply it.

5. "Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people." / Serve
Here's what it says about receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, "Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy." What if it's true that if you're not willing to serve, God will not use you?

What does God want in a leader?

By Matt Brown

Many come to leadership passages (especially 1 Tim chapter 3) and really drill down on the offices of the church, the context of the scripture (especially concerning the role of women), and the role of marriage in church leadership. Those ideas are important, but I want to broaden the scope a little and answer the question: What does God want in a leader? Building the Kingdom of God in this world means growing the love of Jesus in ourselves and sharing it with others. Sharing Jesus' love with others means leading. How should we lead?

Read 1 Tim 3:1-13
God wants our leaders to be loving, stable, and consistent.
We can look around us and see the presidential campaigns starting and see contradictions and obvious flaws in all of the candidates. Perhaps the most glaring flaw in any and all of our candidates is that they themselves seek and seemly covet the office that they aspire to. Godly leaders do not seek office, but instead serve and are raised to leadership by those around them. I have led from both vantage points. I have lead from a position that I coveted, fought for, and eventually acquired. Conversely, I have led from positions that I did not seek, but instead were granted because of service. It is in the latter position that I feel more effective and where I feel like I am serving the people I lead better. When I read about the qualities of leadership in 1 Timothy 3:1-13, it comes as no surprise that my best days (the days that I forget myself and my needs) result in the better leadership.

Read John 13:12 - 17
God wants leaders to be humble servants.
The world puts a low value on service. The follower of Jesus sees service to others as a bedrock condition of discipleship. When we serve others, we assume our true place in the world and become our true selves: we become people of love and light. That sounds like a dumb cliché, but it means is that we begin to bring the world, those around us, and ourselves into the true nature of God and creation through the redemptive power of Jesus. Jesus washed the disciple's feet – a slave's job – to make the point that redemption starts at meeting people's most basic needs. This act also demonstrates that we as Christians should hold not act of service as too lowly for ourselves.

Read 1 Tim 5:17-25
God wants leaders to be fair and to be treated fairly.
In the world, leaders are washed away with easy accusations or leaders can be brought before the law and found guilty and still not be punished. Our worldly leaders rise and fall almost solely on public opinion alone. You know what? A lot of us like it that way. Almost all of us WANT to be popular enough to be above the law – we covet power – we covet celebrity. Many times we might even like the leader who is in the wrong.

God has a higher standard for us when it comes to Kingdom leaders:

1. 1. An elder must be accused by two or three witnesses.
2. 2. A guilty elder must be rebuked publicly.
3. 3. We are to show no bias.

We must treat our leaders fairly – even when they fall under judgment. There is no free ride.

Our worldly leaders today rely and enjoy special treatment, but Kingdom leaders should expect the opposite. Is that a drag? No; it keeps a leader in a better state of mind because it allows a leader to understand those that he or she leads. Once again we must look at empathy as the root of good leadership. When leaders understand the least of their brothers and sisters, they adopt a vantage point that allows them to lead effectively because they understand the costs of their leadership decisions.

What to do with a "yikes" scripture

1 Timothy 2:9-12
9I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God. 11A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.

Not every passage in the Bible is crystal clear. Many times we argue over the unclear and ignore the crystal clear. And sometimes we get so angry at people who are anti-God or anti-us that we would rather wipe them out than win them over. It's hard to follow God if you are at war with the universe.

Here's a great text to keep this danger in check: "As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, (but rather that they turn from their ways and live.)" Ezekiel 33:11, NIV

Also, when considering the writings of Paul (and their high "yikes" factor), it's good to recall that even Paul's contemporaries knew that Paul was often hard to hear and understand: "[Paul's] letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction." 2 Peter 3:16 NIV

Three things to keep in mind when dealing with a "Yikes" text:

1. Scripture is best understood as a whole piece of fabric; not every thread can equally represent the whole. People love, of course, to pull out specific verses that they can use to "prove" or "disprove" things, but the best way to use it is as a whole, with an emphasis on the life and ministry of Jesus.

2. Scripture is best interpreted within a community of faith. The community of God's people provides accountability and support when discerning the truth of a particular interpretation of the Bible.

3. The power inherent in Scripture can best be identified by it's fruits (Matthew 7:16). Are people's lives transformed more into the image of Christ's by a particular understanding of scripture? Is God honored by the way a particular scripture is understood? Are people inspired to come to Jesus?

What to do if there is disagreement over a "Yikes" text:

1. If it’s a TIGER issue, and it's black and white and crystal clear – divide over it.
Tiger questions are those which lead directly to or away from one's salvation. They are about foundational issues of faith. Some examples are: Is Jesus the son of God? Does God love all creation? Is the Holy Spirit a real and active power? Is there such a thing as sin?

2. If it’s not a Tiger, and it isn't clear, unity is more important than uniformity.
"Avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless. 10Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. 11You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned." 1Titus 3:9-10

Loving one another, and jealously guarding the unity of the church can be a much more difficult task than deciding whether women should speak in church. Consider the witness of 1 Corinthians 13: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."

It is a great and noble task to love one another, and that's something worth staking your faith, your salvation, and your life on.

Three great quotes from today's worship

"There is no point in getting into an argument about this notion of loving. It is what Christianity is all about -- take it or leave it. Christianity is not about ritual and moral living except insofar as these two express the love that causes both of them. We must at least pray for the grace to become love." - Brennan Manning, "A Glimpse of Jesus," quoted by Matt Brown in his teaching today.

"Love is so boring to people who crave controversy." - Matt Brown

"Easter was our Independence Day from sin and death." - Matt Brown (who added, over lunch, "We should have fireworks on Easter!")

The Ingredients for a Miracle

INGREDIENT ONE: A Big Mess
If you are going to have a really big miracle in your life, the first ingredient is usually a big mess (everybody wants a miracle, but nobody wants the mess!). Luke 23 shows us a man rejected by his people, betrayed, tortured, and executed. The lives of Jesus' followers have turned tragic. It doesn't get worse than a dead savior.

INGREDIENT TWO: A Tiny Bit of Faith
The second thing you need for a miracle is NOT a solid, powerful, expansive faith! A tiny thread of faith is all we see in Luke 24; that's what God works with. Here are some of the "threads":

1. When the women can't find Jesus' body at the tomb, "they were puzzled, wondering what to make of this," (the Message, vs 4).

2. When the two men remind them of Jesus' own words that he would be raised after three days, they remember and run to tell the others BUT, "the apostles didn't believe a word of it," (the Message, vs 11).

3. Peter (who gets it right about half the time) runs to the tomb, sees the grave clothes, and walks away, "puzzled, shaking his head." (the Message, vs 12).

Don't forget: the promise of the resurrection was so clear that even Jesus' enemies were aware of it. In one of the other gospels, Jesus' enemies make sure there are guards and seals on the tomb so that no one steals the body and makes the claim of resurrection.

4. The same day two followers encounter the risen Jesus on the road "but they were not able to recognize who he was." (the Message, vs 16).

5. When they finally did recognize Jesus, they ran back to tell the others. Suddenly Jesus appeared among them (same guy they had just been talking about!) and "they thought they were seeing a ghost and were scared half to death," (the Message, vs 40-41).

INGREDIENT THREE: A Big God
The third thing you need for a miracle is a really big God. The power of God is not based on our faith. The power of God is based on how big God is. (You could have HUGE faith in a bogus god. There's no power in faith itself; the power is in the God.)

FOUR THINGS WE CAN TAKE FROM AN EMPTY TOMB
a. Nothing is too messed up for God.
b. God is usually at work long before we notice.
c. God shows up even when we've given up.
d. God's solutions are often far different than we expect.

what to expect from a king

Have you ever had a time in your journey where you thought Jesus and God were just not what you expected?

It's Sunday morning, we want to have our parade and move on to Easter. But first consider Mark 11:1-11.

When the text occurs, the Jewish people are celebrating God's having delivered them from slavery in Egypt. Now they are under Roman control. They are hopeful about the freedom from oppression that God can bring.

Jesus should not move publicly among the Jews, because the chief priests and Pharisees are looking to arrest and kill him. They also want to kill Lazarus, whom Jesus has just raised from the dead. There is talk of a dead girl raised, of a man who can walk on water. There's a reward offered for information leading to Jesus' death, money to be made for a bounty hunter.

There are at least two main issues in the text.

I. Obedience Issues
Obedience precedes blessings in God’s kingdom. I know the donkey sounds silly. But the donkey is a means of transportation and a way for people to make a living. You might think of it today as taking a car. What amazing obedience to a clear and simple command from God these two disciples showed.

If things aren't going in your life like you thought they would, maybe God expects some obedience from you on some very clear, very simple things, and you are hesitating.

II. Expectation Issues
The King will hear our expectations, but not necessarily give in to them. The disciples have brought Jesus the colt, and his many followers surround him. Their chants indicate that they want a warrior to save them, to overthrow the Romans, and to reinstate the power and glory the Jewish nation knew in the days of King David.

Jesus had told them he was going to Jerusalem, where he would die. He's giving them symbols: I'm coming in on a donkey, not a war stallion. I'm coming in peace, not battle. I'm coming to give myself over, not fight. There's a bounty on him, and he's going in very publicly. Either he's clueless, or this is one of the most calculated acts in history. He is calling the shots.

If you are going to invite Jesus to be your King, you have to know that he is often not going to do things your way. God may have a different picture for your life than you have for your life. Usually, it's because God's desire for us is bigger, more powerful, and world-shaking.

Things to Consider:
1. Is there an area in your life where God may be asking you to “untie a colt” and obey Him?
2. Remember that God is in charge. He's calling the shots. For our good, and the good of the world.

May Jesus' confidence become a gift to you in the mist of trying times. And as you walk this Easter road, may you find blessing.

does the future belong to those who plan for it?

Short answer: no. We don't own the future, God does. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11). God has plans for us, but our choices determine how well or poorly we participate in God's plans.

So why do we often settle for less than God's plan for our future?

1. We tend to think of our inadequacies and our past mistakes.
Maybe Moses was settling when he was tending a flock for his father-in-law (Exodus 3). He certainly had plenty of excuses for not choosing to move toward God's future. When we dwell on our inadequacies or our past failures, we are a house with the electricity gone, a car with the battery dead, or the cold ashes of a fire. As a people we need to look to the Holy Spirit to power us, to heal us, move us, and heat us. We need to decide to let God work in us and through us, rather than defining ourselves by what we lack.

2. We forget whose image we are made in.
We often don’t know our real, God-made selves very well. Our culture spends plenty of time trying to tell us who we are, or who we would be if we just had the right products. But how well do we know the shape God made us in? How well do we know our spiritual gifts? When we know how God intended us to operate we begin to understand where the Enemy will attack us, and we can build on our strengths and make wise (God-driven) decisions despite the many voices and forces attempting to mislead us.

What is the single thing to remember about God's plan for our future?
God does the planning; we do the preparation. We prepare to "live into" God's plan for our lives. Preparing requires God-inspired thought and Spirit-inspired movement.

And a final word from Matt:
We need to cast our crowns at the feet of God. We need to give God the honors we collect as we live into God's future for us. That keeps us humble. It reminds us that without God's help we would be off doing the wrong stuff! Giving our victories to God also helps us celebrate the building of God's Kingdom.

does a godly home guarantee godly children?

Short answer: No.

Why do parents feel overwhelmed today?
If you google "godly children" you get more than a million hits. On the top page a church from Illinois (their site meter lists over 3 million hits) will give you their seven keys for raising Godly children. The "Planning" key alone lists more than 50 scriptures and goes on for over four thousand words (14 pages in MS Word). ChristianParents.net gives 50 scripture references, then begins to tell parents in exhaustive detail all the goals we must set for our children, including salvation, confession, fellowship with God, daily growth, mental and psychological stability, respect for parental, political, and spiritual authority, mastery of the details of life (money, job, health, status, friends, social life, possessions, entertainments) INCLUDING "perfect inner happiness in the absence of one or more details of life." I feel tired just typing it in.

All these sites seem to teach that if we just master the seven keys, or fourteen principles, or forty scriptures, then yes, we will raise godly children.

Most Christian parenting resources name and claim Proverbs 22:6 as a central proof of this: "Train a child in the way he should go and he will not depart from it."

Why is this a problem?

1. It gives the authority of a "promise from God" to a proverb; the proverbs were meant to show "how life usually goes."
2. It doesn't take into account that rebellion happens.
3. It makes parents feel like failures (or lets us take credit that isn't fully ours).
4. It creates a false sense of hope for all those kids who don't return to God after running away.

The truth is: We have great influence, but not complete control.

A better scripture for parents is: Proverbs 21:30-31.
"There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord. The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rests with the Lord."

BF Skinner – type thinking makes us think we can completely control behavior. Scripture teaches us that victory belongs to God. No matter how well we prepare or plan, we can't completely control whether someone will choose to come to, or turn from, God.

ways to increase the odds of success in raising godly children

1. Work on having a great marriage. Not a kid-centered marriage, though: center your marriage on God.

2. Be present. (Churchy way to put it: incarnational parenting.) If you can pull it off, having one parent at home is an incredible investment in your children.

3. Build on your childrens' strengths (don't work so hard to shore up their weaknesses). Jesus came to fishermen and called them to fish for people. Jesus came to tax collectors, and called them to handle money in a spiritually responsible way. God gave each child particular gifts to be fanned into flame. No point in fanning the weaknesses.

4. Get help from the RIGHT people. I don't like the phrase "It takes a village to raise a child." I don't even like "It takes a church to raise a child." What you need is the RIGHT church to help raise your child. And never leave all responsibility for raising your children in the Way of Jesus with someone else (schools, churches, godparents, etc.).

what satan wants


"Satan is not concerned with how many people gather in a service if all they do is sit and listen and leave. Satan does not care how much seed is sown as long as he can steal it away." - W. Oscar Thompson Jr., Concentric Circles of Concern (Broadman, 1981)

does everything happen for a reason?

Yes, but not all reasons are good.

I think we sometimes ask this question because we are thinking, "Well, if God allowed it to happen, it must be good." And we convince ourselves to just wait long enough and it will be good.

The truth is that this (the post title) is not a good question!

A better question is: Why do bad things happen?
And: Is a bad thing ever a good thing?

So, see the next few posts!

why bad things happen

1. We live in a broken world.
The obvious choice of stories here is Genesis, but I also like 1 Peter 4:12: "Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you."

People: It's hard!
God: No kidding!

2. We mess up. Either accidentally, or by intentionally ignoring God's instruction (sin).
I always pray for my children to "make wise decisions," which has to do with them learning what God desires. But Paul says it of adults, too:

Romans 7:21-23 (The Message)
It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

3. We are caught in the wake of someone's else's mess-up or sin.
Jeremiah 31:29 says, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." There was an article in last week's paper about methamphetamine addicts, and how they become so focused on a single thing that they forget their children for weeks at a time. That's what this text is about.

See the next post for the most important reason why something that seems bad can actually be a good thing...

is there ever a time when a bad thing is actually a good thing?

4. When God shoves us out of the nest in order to make us fly.

These kinds of "bad things" are usually only visible with hindsight. I lost that job, but got a better one. God had to kick me out of that nest. The trick is that if God's in it, it works for the good (i.e., to make you "fly"). So if you lose that job and get a worse one, and your life begins to spiral out of control, it's probably not God but brokenness you're looking at.

The upshot is that it's easy to give God credit in hindsight for the good stuff, what's hard is discerning when God is creating (or allowing) the rough patches while it's happening. Certainly God can bring good out of horrible situations (consider Joseph, consider Daniel), but it's hard to understand why God might actually engineer a horrible situation. We're not always as far-sighted as God. We're myopic, God's hyperopic. New word for the day, kids!

Still: did God desire that a man be born blind, so that Jesus might happen along one day and heal him, bringing more people to follow in the Way? Did God desire that Lazarus die so that Jesus could raise him? Tough ones.

three good reasons to have hope

1. God is crazy in love with us
Romans 8:32-39 (The Message)
If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture… None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

2. There's heaven on earth (God is with us).
Heaven on earth happens when we actually accept and get in line with God's will for our lives. It's those places and events when God and God's people can hear each other! Of course, that's not all there is!

1 Corinthians 15:19 (The Message)
If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we're a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.

3. And there's heaven!
Planet Earth isn't heaven. I used to have a friend who always asked me to read about heaven from the book of Revelation whenever I visited him. He wished that things could be perfect, already. We would read, then I would remind him that God had work for him to do here on Earth. But the truth of the matter is that we are hard-wired to look toward eternity. It just isn't in healthy people to say, "Well, I guess this is all there is."

what should I do when things are a mess?

1. Figure out why you're there:

a. Did you mess up?
Yep, it happens to all of us. The church word for doing the wrong thing when we knew what the right thing was = sin.
b. Did you get caught up in someone else's mess up?
This is more subtle. Sometimes the people around us drag us into the wake of their sin or brokenness. A parent's bad choices affect their children. It's rare that sin only touches the sinner.
c. Did God call you (or push you) into a spiritual valley/desert?
If you were doing the right thing when you found yourself in the middle of a mess, God may have sent you into the valley for a purpose. Jesus was prodded by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness in order to be tested and strengthened. The Hebrew children were called by God out of slavery in Egypt, but they were pretty scared when they found their backs to the sea and the army of the Pharaoh pursuing them.

2. Five pieces of advice for the journey through a spiritual valley:

a. Don't take short cuts (do the wrong thing) in order to get out.
That may seem obvious, but sometimes we'll do anything to ease the pain. All suffering isn't wrong. Sometimes it's important for us to go through it in order to follow God.
b. If you sinned, accept the consequences and get to work cleaning up the mess.
Hebrews 12:11-13 (The Message) says, …discipline isn't much fun. It always feels like it's going against the grain. Later, of course, it pays off handsomely, for it's the well-trained who find themselves mature in their relationship with God. So don't sit around on your hands! No more dragging your feet! Clear the path for long-distance runners so no one will trip and fall, so no one will step in a hole and sprain an ankle. Help each other out. And run for it!
c. If it it's God-given (see 1c above), hang in there, and don't change direction.
Larry Osborne says, "What God shows you in the light, don't doubt in the darkness."
d. Keep your commitments, have concern for others, and have concern for God's reputation.
I know the list of "good ways to behave" could get oppressively long. But these few things will stand you in good stead. Try not to have an "all or nothing" attitude; people use that to get out of doing anything all all.
e. Try to learn something from it, and maybe even pass your learnings on.
If you gotta be in the middle of a wretched mess (for any reason), it's nice to be able to say that you at least learned something from it. When my marriage was in a really tough place, the most helpful people were those couples who had been through the same rough valleys and come out better on the other side. I was deeply grateful they shared their stories.