Hey, podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. Now here's today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory. Thanks to the horrific attack on Israel. I've written a brand new book called, Are We Living in the End Times?
Go to ptv.org to order your copy. Let me suggest three important questions I hope you're able to answer. Number one, have you discovered your life work? Second question, are you able to come to the end of the day and said, I gave my job my very best efforts today? And number three, is your work really in balance with every other area of your life? Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. You know, every day millions of Americans wake up, get in their cars and commute to their nine to five.
Then after a long day's work, they return home feeling tired and in a lot of cases, really empty. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress describes how to turn the daily grind into a source of purpose and satisfaction. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. There's something glorious about the open sea, a starry night and the majesty of mountains. The awesome beauty of Alaska causes me to revel in God's glory.
And I want you to see this masterpiece of God's creation with your own eyes. I'll be hosting the Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska, June 15th through 22nd. And I'd love to have you join us. I promise you'll come home from this Christian vacation relaxed and refreshed. You'll enjoy the Christian music of Rebecca St. James and Michael O'Brien, the comedy of Dennis Swanberg, and we'll open God's Word together as well. While there's still time, be sure to check out the details and reserve your spot by going to ptv.org.
The cabins are going quickly. It would be good for you to contact us right away. Now during the month of January, a lot of us spend time daydreaming about the new year. We think about our lives and we evaluate the way we spend our valuable time.
Some of us make resolutions to make sure the new year turns out better than the last one. Well, the ambition to upgrade our lifestyle is noble unless, of course, you get bogged down by regrets. Regret, you see, is a painful and unnecessary emotion.
I wrote a bestselling book on this topic, and I'd love to send one to your home today. It's called Say Goodbye to Regret, and it's yours when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. Again, the book's title is Say Goodbye to Regret. David and I will share more details with you later in today's program, but right now, let's give our attention to the next category in this practical series of regrets. I titled today's message Say Goodbye to Career Regrets.
May I let you in on a poorly kept secret? Most people hate their jobs. Maybe hate's a little too strong of a word. Most people are dissatisfied with their jobs. That's not my opinion.
It's a fact. One major university did a survey of 250,000 workers in every field of work imaginable and found that 80% of them said they were dissatisfied with their jobs, which is tragic when you consider that most people spend 60% of their waking hours at their job, which means that our jobs are fertile fields of regret. Today, as we continue our series, Say Goodbye to Regrets, we're going to talk about how to say goodbye to regrets about our jobs, our careers. Now, you have to ask the question, and it's a legitimate question, does God even care about this topic? Does God care about what we do? Does God care about how we feel about our jobs?
You know, it's interesting. Some people, Christians, have such a warped idea of work, an unbiblical idea. Some Christians view work as a curse from God. They say, boy, if Adam hadn't sinned in the garden, we could just be relaxing and eating bonbons forever, you know? But oh, Adam fell, and so we got to work as a curse. That's not biblical. God's plan for work began before the fall.
God put Adam and Eve in the garden to keep it and to what? To work, to cultivate it. Some people are wrong to view work as a curse. Other people say, well, okay, my job has value to the extent it gives me the opportunity to share the gospel. If it gives me a platform, if only once every month I have a chance to share with a coworker, that makes my work valuable. But what about all the other time?
Those opportunities are few and far between. No, I believe the Bible says our work, our vocation, whatever it is, is a calling from God. It's not just pastors, evangelists, and missionaries who are called by God.
We all have a call from God, and we're going to talk about that today. But before we talk about how to minimize regrets about work, let's talk about some reasons people are dissatisfied with their job. What is it that causes regrets? First of all, the wrong choice of a career. The wrong choice of a career. In another survey, 693 workers were polled, and over half of them said they had chosen the wrong job. Now, there are a lot of reasons people end up choosing the wrong job or think they have. A major reason is they have felt pressured into a job by somebody they respect. A well-meaning parent, teacher, counselor, pastor might say to us at some point, you know, I can really see you doing such and such. And people wanting to please their authority figure end up going into a line of work they're really not called to do.
You know, I want to be real clear about this. As parents, we do have a responsibility to help our children discover their gifts and the best use of that gift. In Proverbs 22, 6, remember Solomon's words, train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Most people misinterpret that verse. That phrase in the way he should go is not talking about his moral or spiritual direction. If you teach children the right thing, they'll do the right thing.
That's not what that verse is talking about. That Hebrew phrase in the way he should go literally means train up a child according to his individual bent, his interest, his giftedness, because ultimately that's the way he will end up going. Practically speaking, if you have a child who's interested in dance, let her give up her piano lessons if she hits the piano and pursue ballet. If you've got somebody, a child who is mesmerized by a computer, sits in front of a computer for hours at a time, don't tell him he has to go be on a football team if he has no interest in that.
Help him maximize his technological pursuits. That's what the Bible is saying. As parents, we ought to train our children according to their giftedness, but we shouldn't pressure them into a job. One of the things I appreciate about my parents is they did not pressure me to become a pastor. For the first 15 years of my life, almost out of the womb, I knew what I was going to do or thought I was going to do.
I was going in a particular direction, and when I got where I could read, I would read every journal, every book on the topic I could read about. But when I was 15, God had a different plan for me, he told me. He called me to be a pastor, completely different from anything I had planned to do. I remember telling my dad first and telling my mom, not knowing how they would respond at all to that.
They both independently said the same thing when I told them. They said, Robert, we knew from the day you were born this was God's plan for your life, but we never said anything to you about it because we wanted to make sure it was the Holy Spirit calling you and not us. So there's a balance there, parents, but a lot of people choose the wrong careers because they have been pressured into it, and that can cause regrets about their job. A second cause of regrets is the lack of perceived success. If somebody isn't experiencing much success in their career, they start to regret it, and sometimes that lack of success is because of the wrong definition of success, but it can also be because of a lack of diligence in the job that they're doing, and we'll talk about that more in just a moment. A third reason for regrets about work is excessive time spent at work.
Now I'm going to say this several times in the next 25 minutes so nobody misunderstands it. It's possible to spend too much time at your job, but it's also possible to spend too little time at your job. You shouldn't over-inflate the time you spend at work, but you shouldn't under-inflate either.
It needs to be in balance with other life activities, but there are some people who spend too much time at their job to the neglect of other areas. Listen to this little poem. As Christmases come and go, leaving footprints of time in the snow, I despair for the year spent without joy or tears with my children I'll now never know.
Isn't that a depressing poem? It was written by a guy named Robin Koskinen. He composed that poem while driving home late one December night. He had just taken the new job at the large Massachusetts brokerage financial institution. His job was bonds, and his job required him to leave work at 5.45 every morning to get home at 10.30 at night long after his two little girls had gone to sleep. And he said, I'm not going to do this anymore. He shocked his employers when he quit. His motivation, this is what he said, I sort of felt like that if I was struck by a bus and my tombstone read, he did bonds good.
What does that bring to the table at the end of the day? Now, he eventually found another job, one that allowed him to maintain a balance in his work. But excessive time at work can be a cause of regret. Fourth, some people regret their jobs and their careers because of a failure to take a risk. They never went that next step. They never took that exam that would qualify them for a higher position in their job. Or they never made that cold sales call on a prospective customer. Or they never took an opportunity to start their own business.
They thought, you know, I could fail and therefore I would regret it so I won't try at all. It may interest you to know that most people regret risk they didn't take instead of risk that they did and fail that. By the way, the whole topic of taking a risk is a biblical theme. Did you know that? Did you know the Bible teaches we ought to be willing to take risk?
Not reckless ones, but measured risk. You say, where do you find that in the Bible? I'm so glad you ask. Ecclesiastes chapter 11, verse 1. Remember what Solomon said? Cast your bread on the surface of the waters, for you will find it after many days. Remember what that verse means?
We saw it in our study of Ecclesiastes. Doesn't mean you get a loaf of Mrs. Baird's white bread and go out to White Rock Lake and start, you know, picking it off and throwing it in the water. That phrase, cast your bread on the waters, referred to in Solomon's day of kings that would take ships, empty vessels, and send them to foreign lands to discover treasure. Now, some of the boats would come back completely empty, but some would come back filled with treasures. And the fact was, the more boats you sent out, yes, the more that would come back empty, but the more that would come back with treasure as well.
And that's what he's saying. He's saying we need to be willing to take risk. Not all of them will pan out, but some of them will. Ralph Keyes has interviewed thousands of people about the subject of risk taking, and he found those who take risk and fail had fewer regrets than those who didn't. Because those who did fail at a risk they took were able to say, well, at least I tried.
But those who never took a risk always wondered what could have been had I taken that step. Now, these are just some of the sources of regrets about work. Is it possible to eliminate all of our regrets about our jobs? Of course not. It's like somebody said, the only worker in America who has all of his problems behind him is a school bus driver.
I know that's corny, but it is true. I mean, because we live in a sin-infected world and we are sin-infected people ourselves, there's always going to be problems with whatever job that we have. But there are some ways to minimize the regrets about our work, which is such an important part of our life.
And let me share a few of those ways straight from God's Word. First of all, and start this three times on your outline, discover your life work. The greatest important thing you can do about your job is to make sure you've discovered what your life work is.
I first got acquainted with this term life work from my friend Bob Beale, who is such a help to our church. And Bob says and defines life work as that work which is the best use of the rest of your life. Bob goes on to point out, when people first start working in their 20s, they're worried about one thing, and that is survival. They're just trying to survive when they start out. But when they get into their 30s, they move beyond survival to success. They want to be successful, and so they try to start climbing the ladder to success. But somewhere in their mid 40s to early 50s, people move beyond survival or even success to significance.
They want to do something that matters, that makes a difference, that provides them with satisfaction. And that's what our life work is all about. How do you discover your life work? Let me share with you four principles to discovering your life work. First of all, your life work, whatever it is, should utilize both your gifts and your interests.
It ought to be utilizing your gifts and your interests. Listen to me, God will never call you to do something for which he's not given you a passion, first of all, to do. And second of all, he hasn't given you the gifts to do it. God will never do that. You say, where do you find that in the Bible?
Philippians 2 13, this is a good verse to memorize. Paul said, for it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve his purpose. How do you find God's purpose? First of all, it's what he's given you the will to do. You could use the word passion there. For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the passion. But he also will not just give you the passion, he'll give you the power, the gifts to achieve God's purpose for you. And so your life work should be the intersection of where your passion and your giftedness cross. You know, I remember when I was a little boy, my grandfather, who had such an influence on my life, decided that I needed to be a doctor. And he told me that he would send me to the finest medical school in the country if I would become a doctor.
Now there are just two problems with that. First of all, when I was very young, I had a science bypass operation. I had no interest in biology or science whatsoever. When everybody in high school biology would be looking into the microscope trying to see something, I would be dazing out the window.
I didn't care what was under the microscope. And not only that, I didn't have the gifts needed to be a successful doctor. I mean, can you imagine me with my hyperkinetic personality trying to be still enough to perform a delicate operation?
I'd be in a malpractice suit before I could blink. I mean, I'm not gifted to be a doctor. When God calls us to do something, he gives us a passion and the giftedness to do it. How do you know what your passion is?
Here's one way to know it. Ask yourself the question, when I look around the world, what needs do I see that I feel passionate about meeting? If God's calling you to do something, it's going to be to meet a legitimate need in the world. Not to fill your greed, but to meet somebody else's need.
When you look around, what do you see that makes you passionate? I think about a pastor I know who, when he was in junior high school, took a friend of his, a non-Christian, to church to try to witness to him. And he said, it was such a horrible experience. The sermon was boring, the soloist was off-key, the bulletins had misprinted words in them.
It was a terrible experience, and my friend never came back again. He had a passion to change that, to make churches places of excellence in everything they did. And he started a movement based on that. I think about a woman whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver. Her name was Candace Leitner. And she had a passion from that point on to remove drunk drivers from being the menace that they are. She founded the organization MAD, Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. If we're called to do something, I see Dee Simmons down there. She feels passionately about meeting the needs, not just physical but emotional and spiritual needs, of those going through cancer and who have other needs.
And she's giving her time to meeting those needs. If God calls you to do something, it's going to be something you have a passion to do. But secondly, it's something you have a gift in this to do, so ask yourself the question, what is my single greatest strength?
What is my single greatest strength? Maybe it's organization. Maybe it's leadership.
Maybe it's communication. But the intersection of your passion and your giftedness is your life calling, your life work. Secondly, your life work ought to be something you enjoy doing.
It ought to be something you love doing. Now let's be honest, everybody has parts of their job they don't like. I mean, for a teacher, it might be faculty meetings. For a doctor, it might be dealing with insurance companies. For a pastor, it might be going to the hospital. That's understandable, but none of those functions is the major component of those professions. But if you have a teacher who says, you know, I just love teaching. It's the students. I can't stand. Or you have a pastor who says, oh, I just love being a pastor, but I hate preaching.
Or you have a doctor who faints at the sight of blood. They probably need to reconsider their life work. Your life work ought to be something you love doing. Thirdly, your life work ought to be something that provides you with an adequate income to take care of yourself and your family.
It ought to provide something that gives you an adequate income. That means you have to separate your life work from your hobbies. I mean, we all have things we're interested in, but just because you're interested in doesn't mean you can make a living at it. You all know I grew up playing the accordion. That was a hobby of mine. And in high school and college, I learned, earned all my spending money by playing for bar mitzvahs and polka festivals and weddings and funerals. But I would hate today to try to make a living out of playing the accordion.
The interest in polka music isn't what it used to be. So I can do that as a hobby, but that's not going to be my life career. Some of you are saying amen to that.
It ought to be something you can make a living at. You say, well, where do you find that in the Bible? Again, listen to 1 Timothy 5-8. If anyone does not provide for his own, especially those of his own household, he is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. God has given us the responsibility to provide financially for ourselves and those who depend upon us.
That's his will. How does God provide that income? It's through the jobs he calls us to do.
Our job, our work is the means by which God provides our needs. And number four, your life work should be confirmed by other people. If you're really in your life work, you're going to have some positive affirmation from people. People are going to say things like, man, you were born to do that.
Or you make that look so easy. Or you look like you really are enjoying what you're doing. You'll have that confirmation from others. Conversely, if you don't get that kind of confirmation, it may be that you're not in your life work. I know that someone is listening right now who is thinking about their career choice. You're asking God to help you discern the path that's right for you.
Please keep listening because the Bible has more to say about finding your life work. As an additional resource, I wrote a book that includes this topic as well. My book is titled Say Goodbye to Regret.
It's for anyone who's struggling with disappointment, whether it's frustration with your job, your relationships, or trying to silence your bad memories. The subtitle of the book is Living Beyond the Would-Haves, Could-Haves, and Should-Haves. Many are choosing my book for their small group Bible study or as a gift to share with their young adult children or grandchildren. When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, I'll say thanks by sending a copy to your home right away.
Be sure to get in touch with us right away because the deadline for receiving the book is Thursday, when this teaching series will conclude. In closing, I'm inviting you today to become a member of an influential circle of friends. We call them our Pathway Partners. A Pathway Partner is someone who agrees to give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory every month. This month, we are specifically praying that God would raise up an army of Pathway Partners to help us push back the forces of evil in our times. Please listen carefully because I've asked David to explain how you can become a Pathway Partner today.
David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. You can become a Pathway Partner by following the easy steps online at ptv.org. Now this month, we're aiming to sign up 1,200 Pathway Partners, and we need your help to reach that goal. And when you give your first monthly gift or when you give a generous one-time gift in support of Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request the bestselling book, Say Goodbye to Regret, by Dr. Robert Jeffress.
And when you give $75 or more, you'll also receive the complete collection of audio and video discs for this month's teaching series, Say Goodbye to Regret. Call 866-999-2965. Again, that's 866-999-2965. Or go to ptv.org. You could write to us if you'd like. Here's that mailing address. P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222.
Again, that's P.O. Box 223-609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins.
To many people, work is a source of pain and frustration, but God never intended for it to be that way. Join us for Part 2 of the message, Say Goodbye to Career Regret. That's Wednesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway partner, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click on the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.
