Well listen, it is good to see if you have your Bible. I would love for you to join me in Matthew chapter number five.
Matthew chapter number five. We are beginning a brand new series today and I'm super excited about this. I really believe the next four weeks of this series are going to be some of the most practical sermons that we really could ever talk about.
And I think this will be extremely helpful to every single one of you. But I'll tell you this, like many of you who have been here, you understand my story. I was saved at a young age. I became a Christ follower at the age of five. And so I've been a part of church my entire life.
That's kind of all that I know. And one thing that I've learned about church and about relationship with God and being around church people a lot, is one thing that we do from time to time is we compartmentalize our relationship with God. Think about it this way. This is how a lot of us treat our relationship with God as just like a priority on our list. In other words, it's just one of the many things that we have on our list of things to do. And so what we essentially do is we compartmentalize our relationship with God to really be something that we only do on Sunday. Or a place that we go on Sunday, but we really don't understand how that, our relationship with God, really should be woven into every aspect of our life.
Think about it like this way. If you were to list all of the priorities that you have in life, and so for me, some of the main ones that I have in life would be this. I am a husband, right? I am a dad, right? I'm a Christ follower. I'm a Christian. I'm a coach in our rec leagues. I help coach basketball and things like that.
And we can go all the way down this list. I'm a friend. You know, I got all these different things.
I'm a neighbor. You got everything. If you really look at every responsibility and every relationship that you have, a lot of times what we do is we put our relationship with God as a priority on our list, and you should. But here's the point of this series, God in the Details, is this. Is that God should not just be one of the priorities on your list.
He should actually be the central thing of everything on your list. And that's what we're going to look at over the next four weeks. And so we're going to look today at God in our work. And so in our work life, our career, God should be the center of your career. We're going to look at our choices, our decision making, just the everyday decisions that we make and sometimes big, sometimes small decisions. And we're going to look at God should be the center of your decision making and how you come up with making the right decision. God should be the center of that. Your family life. We're going to look at your family and how God should be the center of your family. And then we're going to look at your community, how God should be the center of the community and circles that you are in. And so he's not a priority on your list. He's the center of every priority on your list. God in the details. So today we're going to talk about this one. God and my work.
God and my my work. So let me just say this up front, that if you are young and here and you think, wow, he's talking about work. He's talking about career.
I can just tune out or something like that. I don't have a career. I'm too young for that. I don't work yet.
I haven't experienced my first job. So everything he's going to say does not apply to me. I want to encourage you to really listen in and tune in really close. Here's why. It's because you one day will have a job. All right. And here's what I want you to know.
The person sitting next to you, probably your mom or dad, wants you to have a job one day. OK, that's one of those things. And so it's going to happen. So if you're in here and you kind of are like, man, this doesn't apply to me.
Hey, one day it will. And it's good that we learn some of these principles from scripture about how we can interact in our workplace. Now, there's some of you that have already lived your career and you're in the retired space and you're in the retired space. Well, listen, there's still some applicable things that you can do taking from today that you need to apply to your every day life. Well, I thought it would be fitting for us to get this series rolling with God in our work to for you to go back and think about your very first job. You remember your very first job. And, you know, I can go back to my first job. I'm going to give you a little bit of my resume and and kind of where I was. So my first job wasn't an official job.
But here's what I will tell you. My parents, they kind of instilled in me as a young age the idea of work ethic and and things like that. It's just something my dad always saw him and he was always making sure that we had good work ethic and different things like that. And so as a kid, one of the things I had to do, and this is literally when I was young, like six to 10, 11 years old or whatever.
One of the things that I had to do with my mom is I had to go to the grocery store and I had to spend time with her there. And this is actually back when the era of our lives where you would actually go into a grocery store and you grab a buggy and you go aisle by aisle and you take an hour of your time and and you kind of figure that out. Now, how many of you would say, no, for us, we don't do that anymore. We actually order our groceries online and they are delivered to our house. How many of you do that?
OK. And if you raise your hand, I want you to know that all the other people are looking at us and judging us for our lazy generation and stuff. So that's kind of what we do. And but back then, this is before online shopping. This was before, you know, they would deliver your groceries to your front door and things like that. So what you had to do is my mom would make this really long list, really long list. And she would go into Food Lion and and we would go and she would go aisle by aisle. And it would take her sometimes an hour or more to go aisle by aisle to make sure she had everything that we needed from the grocery store. And so for me, I would go with her and my sister would go with her and my sister was way more helpful than I was. And so I would do and seriously, I was not made to do this. But this is where kind of, you know, my OC, if you've been around me for any length of time, you'd know that I'm OCD. I'm very type A and everything has to be in its place and everything has to be neat and everything has to be perfect. And so as a kid, this is where it all started.
I'm dead serious. I would go in there with her and I started doing something when I was about six years old at the Food Lion. I would walk in and my mom, she knew exactly where to find me when she was done shopping. I would go straight to the school supplies aisle. Now, it's not because I liked school.
I actually didn't like school. But one thing that's always bothered me is when people can't put the right thing on the right little thing at the at the store. And and so what I would do for the hour that my mom was in there shopping, I would go to the school supplies aisle and I would organize all of their stuff for them.
Dead serious. Like their staff would come by and be like, man, you're doing such a good job. And later I'm like, man, I should have been on the payroll at age six, but I wasn't. And so I worked hard.
I loved it and everything. But fast forward a few years when I turned 15, my dad, he told me he wanted me to get a job. And so I was 15 years old.
Not a lot of people are going to hire a 15 years old kid. And so what he made me do was he had some mutual friends that had a greenhouse and they ran a greenhouse and they were willing to hire me at age. Now, I want you to know, just because I work to the greenhouse, I really don't want you to come up and ask me about landscaping or ask me about your plants, because I forgot everything that I I learned at my very first job. OK, but I ended up working at this greenhouse. And and so I was a part of I did the sales and stuff as people came in. I helped them load stuff to their car.
And then I kind of just made sure things were organized around the greenhouses and things like that. And so I did that from age 15 up until I graduated high school. I worked at that job and then I went to college. And when I went to college, here's what my dad told me.
He said, hey, you need to get a job while you're down in Florida for college. So I went down there and there was a Christian school right there at our college that we were at. And so I got a job there working there after school program. So they had like a daycare after school program. So I ended up being in charge of that for like 300 students. And so I went and I was in charge of their after school program. And I did that all the way until I graduated college.
And then I became a pastor. I say all that to say we all have our job stories. But here's what I have learned about working and dealing with people in careers.
Here's what I've learned is that many times and you're probably no different to this. We look at our work life and we look at our career with these really mindsets in mind. How much money are we going to make? And making money is important. I get that.
I'm not downplaying it. But a lot of times we look at our career with salary or if you're hourly, how much money you're going to make. And then we look at it with I want to be successful and I want to prove to everybody around us that we are successful. And then I want to move up the ladder and I want to be promoted.
And what I learned about working is those three mindsets in a lot of ways drive how we treat our work life. Now, I want you to know up front, there is absolutely nothing wrong with being successful. There's nothing wrong with making a lot of money. There's nothing wrong with wanting to achieve things and reach promotions and stuff like that.
Those things are great. And I'm for all of those things. But if that is how you view your purpose at your career, you have missed some valuable principles of what Jesus wants to teach us about how we are to impact and influence our work. And so what Jesus is saying here in Matthew chapter number five, he gives us some principles about how we can really we can take these principles into our workplace, into our career and apply them to our daily life. So I want to give you the big idea and then we're going to jump into God's word.
It's this. The big idea is this. And I want you to understand this about your work. Your work matters to God because the people you work with matter to God. It's very simple.
Today's thing is very simple. Your work matters to God because the people you work with matter to God. So real quick, let's personalize this a little bit further, because it's easy to read that and and point to everybody else. You know, pastor, your work or whatever.
Let's personalize it. My work matters to God because the people I work with matter to God. My work matters to God because the people I work with matter to God. And in Matthew chapter number five, Jesus is going to give us some principles that I think we can contextualize about our workplace and our work environments to make a difference.
The first thing I want you to learn is this. It's found in Matthew 5 13 is this. We are called to salt up our workplace.
You are called to salt up our workplace. Look what he says in Matthew 5 13. Now, remember, this is Jesus's famous Sermon on the Mount.
He is on a hillside and he's gathered tons of people and they are all listening to him teach about different things. And they were probably no different than you and no different than I, where they would compartmentalize their faith, where their faith was just something that they did on Sunday. It was just a place that they went on Sunday and what they did at their job, what they did in their family, what they did in their community.
Those things were completely separate priorities. And what Jesus is going to speak to is, no, your relationship with God should actually impact all of the different relationships that we have at work, at our schools, you know, in our family, in our community. In fact, our relationship with God should impact all of those things. And so he talks about salting up our workplace. Look what he says in verse 13.
Ye are the salt of the earth. Now, before we move on, there's something very important that he does here, is that he starts with identity before activity. He didn't start with what you're supposed to do. He actually started with who you are.
And so it's very important that you understand this. So for you, if you're in here and you say, Pastor, I don't know Jesus as my Savior. I'm not a Christ follower. I've never trusted him as my Savior.
Then it would be crazy for you to start with your activity. Where you need to start today is your identity. You need to say, I need to stop trusting in myself and I need to start trusting in what Jesus has done on the cross for me and the victory that he's given me. And when you trust in that, then you become salt of the earth. And now he's going to tell us how that's supposed to be lived out in everyday life. So he says, You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt of lost its savor, that is the flavor and the taste wherewith shall it be salted.
It is thenceforth good for nothing, useless, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men. In other words, what he's saying is this, is that you're the salt of the earth. But if you've kind of lost your salt a little bit and here's just to be very clear with you, because I don't want to be confusing, whatever. He's not talking about like losing your salvation.
Because that would be contrary to other scripture. You know, Christ says that once you're saved, when you pray to receive Jesus as your savior, you start trusting what Jesus did and not in yourself. Here's what he says. You are firmly in the Father's hand and there's nothing that you can do to pluck them out. Not a doubt, not a fear, not a sin, not a bad thought.
Nothing can pluck you out of the Father's hand. OK, so he can't be talking about that. Here's what he's saying, that if you're the salt of the earth and you've kind of lost some of your flavor, you're good for nothing. In other words, what he's saying is that salt without being used actually becomes useless.
Think about it. You know, salt, when you cook, salt's a preservative. Salt is there to provide flavor. I mean, many of you are going to sit in a place here in a little while and they're going to bring you a dish of food and you're going to look for the salt and look for the pepper and you're going to put that on there. I mean, this morning when I made my traditional sausage and egg, something I do every single day because I'm a creature of habit, I made that and I salted that stuff up. I love it because it adds additional flavor. How many of you love salt? You're not scared to admit that. How many of you know somebody that salts their stuff way too much, though? Let's just be honest, OK?
There's some of us out here. But here's what I'll tell you is that what he's saying is salt is a preservative. It provides flavor. It helps things taste better. But salt by itself doesn't taste good, does it?
Like, think about it. Like, if you just grab the salt shaker at lunch and just put salt in your hand and ate it, that's kind of gross, isn't it? Salt by itself isn't good. Well, what he's saying is this, is that you and I, we are salt. We are salt. But if we are not being used, if we are not being used, and we are not going out of here and salting up around us, then we are useless.
We're useless. And if you think about it in the analogy that Jesus mentioned, you're like a salt shaker sitting on the table, not being used. Because here's what I'll tell you, is that your lunch today, if you want to add salt, it sitting on the table is not going to impact your food at all.
It's not going to make things taste better. The only way it's going to make things taste better is if you pick up the salt and you scatter the salt on what you're eating. What Jesus is saying is that when you go out into the world, into your workplace, and you have salt, because you've trusted Jesus as your Savior, you are the salt of the earth. When you leave here and you keep that salt to yourself, and you leave your salt right here in this room, that's what compartmentalization looks like, and you just say, nope, that's just something I do on Sunday, and you don't take it with you, then he's saying that you are a useless Christian. You're a useless Christian.
You're not fulfilling the purpose that he has given you to fulfill. And so what he's saying is this, is that followers of Christ, salt, should make the world a better place. That's our role in the world. We are salt. And if you think about this in context, we'll contextualize it throughout the series. Followers of Christ, salt, should make the workplace a better place. We should make the workplace a better place.
So think about this. If you think that we are salt, what that means when I say, hey, go out of here and be salt, here's what I think Jesus means. You, when you leave here, you give people a taste of what Jesus is like. In other words, your life should give those around you a taste of what Jesus is like. So your relationships with your family, the way you treat your family should give them a taste of what Jesus is like. The way that you treat people at work and the way that you interact with people at work, you know what you should be doing? You should be giving people a taste of what Jesus is like.
Why? Because you're the salt of the earth. You're the salt of the earth. The only people at your workplace, the only way that they're going to know what Jesus is like could perhaps be through your life. And so that's why Jesus is saying you are the salt of the earth.
So when you go into your workplace, salt it up. That means that when you go to your workplace, you forgive the way that Jesus forgives you because he forgives us. You love like Jesus. You're kind like Jesus. You're joyful like Jesus. You're helpful like Jesus. You're compassionate like Jesus. You serve people like Jesus.
You speak his word like Jesus spoke his word. You see, the point is, Jesus is saying God did not save and salt you just so that you can sit around and leave your salt here. The reason why he saved and salted you is so that you can leave here and go into your community and go into your family and go into your place of employment and salt it up. That's the point.
That's what he's trying to tell us. By the way, that's why I think if you think about what salt is, salt is scattered on your food and it preserves it. It helps things taste better. Salt works best when scattered. Here's why if you really think about Jesus' analogy here, salt works best when it's scattered. In other words, we are all like this is a really corny analogy. Don't judge me, but I am a dad so I have corny moments in my life. Here's what I'll tell you.
Picture us. We're all salt shakers. You're a salt shaker. Look to your neighbor and say you're a salt shaker. We're all salt shakers. What Jesus is saying is this.
He did not save you. He did not salt you so that you can just stay here with your salt. By the way, this is the easiest place to salt up. It's real easy for you to just salt up things when you're here with a bunch of people that are like you, a bunch of people that believe like you, a bunch of people that are here for the same thing.
It's really easy for our salt to be on display in this room. But where the rubber meets the road of your faith is this, is when you leave those doors and you go into your community and you go into your neighborhood and you go into your family and you go into your place of employment. It's a way different animal for you to actually take your salt with you and salt those places up. Because when you go to those places, not everybody believes like you. Not everybody views life like you.
Not everybody behaves like you. And so Jesus says you are the salt of the earth, but if you leave your salt here with the rest of us and don't go out there and salt up the environments around you, we're like useless Christians. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be a useless Christian.
I want to be a useful Christian, somebody that takes my salt with me. But he not only says that, but he calls us. He says we're called to not only salt up our workplace, we're called to light up our workplace.
Look at what he says in verse 14. You're the light of the world. So he calls us the salt of the earth. Now he's saying you are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick. And it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Notice once again, he says you're the light of the world.
Before he talks about activity, he talks about identity. You have to become this. You have to trust in Jesus and he will make you salt and he will make you light. But he says you are the light of the world. So if we contextualize this, we are the light of the world, here's what I'll tell you.
Make it personal. You are the light of the workplace. You are the light of the workplace. If you're a follower of Jesus, you are the light of the workplace. And he mentions this idea that light brightens the dark. Now you know that.
All of us would know that. But he uses an analogy and an illustration about a candlestick. Now for the Jewish people that were in Jesus' audience here during his Sermon on the Mount is Jesus used the idea of the candlestick. For the Jewish people, this was no new thing to them. They understood the candlestick.
It made sense to them. Because for them, the candlestick was a reminder of the candlestick that was in the Old Testament tabernacle and in the temple. And what the candlestick's purpose was is when the priest would go in to make sacrifice and to meet with God, the candlestick, which was lit all of the time, it was to illuminate because there were no windows in the tabernacle and so it was very dark in there. So there was a candlestick that would always be burning which would light up everything else in the tabernacle so that the priest could know what to do. So when Jesus says it's like a candlestick, and they're thinking, yeah, they're nodding.
They're like, yeah, we're with you. We understand the candlestick. That's what it does. It lightens up the room. It lightens up things.
He's like, but here's the thing. If you're the light of the world, the problem with a lot of us is we are taking like a bushel, which is like a basket, and we're putting it over the candlestick. And you can imagine if you were in the audience, here's how you would respond to that. Whoa, whoa, whoa, if you put a bushel over the candlestick, how are you going to see?
You're not going to be able to see. How is the priest going to even know what to do? Because he can't see without the candlestick because the candlestick illuminates. The candlestick provides light. Think about it in your life. Have you ever got up in the middle of the night maybe thirsty, and you've lived in your house a long time, and you just assume that because you've lived in your house a very long time, you know how to navigate your house?
Well, guess what? We're really good at navigating our houses until it's pitch black in our house, right? And there's been times where I'll get up, and the house that we live in is going into our kitchen. There's a couple stairs. So it's a couple stairs up from where our living room is. So when I come out of our bedroom, I walk down the hallway, life's good. And I just assume like I've lived there long enough to understand that in my house, I'm going to remember even in the dark that there is a step there. But there's been some times where I kind of mosey my way in there in the middle of the night. I don't need to turn on the light. I've lived here long enough to know. And then I stub my toe or I trip over this stair that's there, right?
Why? Because if I had turned on the light, I would have seen the stair. I would have remembered that because light illuminates light.
It brightens things so that you can see what is happening. And so you say, what's Jesus saying? Jesus is saying he has lit you up so that you can go out of here and light up the world, so that you can go out of here and light up your place of employment.
You know, think about it this way. We talk a lot of negative sometimes about the darkness around us, right? I've heard some of you talk to me about the darkness around us, and perhaps you have darkness at your job or darkness at your school or darkness in your community or darkness wherever. There's darkness all around us. And sometimes we get real frustrated about the darkness, don't we?
And we post on Facebook about it. We're mad about how dark the world in which we live in. You know what? It blows my mind how much we complain about how dark the world is when Jesus gave us the recipe for lightening it up. You know what that is? It's you.
It's you. If the world is dark, the only way to light it up would be for all of us to take our light, your candlestick, and to go into the dark and light that place up, right? That's what we're called to do. And so what Jesus is saying is that when you leave here, remember, it's easy to let your light shine in here. Remember that song we used to sing as kids, This Little Light of Mine?
Remember that? You would say, this little light of mine. And I don't know why we used to do that with it, but we did.
And I don't know. I mean, I don't see any lights that rotate, but I mean, we did. Just as soon, I thought every light rotated when I was a kid. And so, you know, you would hold your little finger up, this little light of mine and that kind of thing. And then it would say, hide it under a bushel. And then you would be like, no.
The teacher would say, no, don't do that. And so you would hide it. Here's the thing. What he's saying is for us, it's easy for our light to shine bright in here. It's easy for you to say amen in here. It's easy for you to talk about Jesus in here. It's easy for you to sing out loud in here.
It's easy to do all of those things in here. Where it gets difficult is when you go into your workplace and you're supposed to light that up. You're supposed to take your light there.
And you say, wow, now it's not popular. So what he's saying is, here's the problem. We are light, and when we leave here, we're supposed to take our light into our workplace, into our family, into our community, and here's what he says we do.
We hide it under a bushel when we leave here. You say, what does that mean? What does that mean? Here's what I think it means.
Some bushels and baskets that we put over it. When you go into your workplace and you realize, like, talking about Jesus is not the most popular thing to everybody. So you keep it to yourself.
That's a basket over your light. Or you go there and you start being fearful about giving God glory at your workplace. You start being fearful about what everybody's going to think. Are they going to think I'm weird? Are they going to think I'm strange?
Are they going to think I'm crazy? Fear. That's a bushel. That's a basket that you have placed over your life. Or perhaps, student, if you go to your school and living for Jesus, you know is not the most popular thing with all the other kids, so what you do is you just say, hey, I'm going to keep that to myself. That's going to be something that I do on Sunday. I'm going to compartmentalize it because I'm fearful and I'm going for popularity and stuff. Here's what I'm going to tell you. Your popularity is like a bushel over your light. And so many of us, you can put in whatever fear you have when you leave here and whatever fear you have that doesn't make you take your light into your place of work, that is a bushel. And Jesus is saying is that when you put a bushel, a basket over your light, it covers the light and it makes you a useless Christian.
Good for nothing. And he's saying don't be like that. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.
Take it with you into your community and light up things about you. Because here's the problem. Here's where a lot of us are and I want you to understand this. This is a pretty crazy statement, but I think that this is true because I've been around church my whole life so I've seen it. So many believers are what I would call theologically Christian in what they believe and what they say they believe here, but practical atheist when you leave.
That means you hide it. So you come here when everybody's good and everybody's for you and everybody's for Jesus in the church. So you come here and it's great. And so you're theologically Christian in what you say you believe here, but when you leave here and you kind of hide it, you would be called like a practical atheist. This is exactly why, have you ever talked to somebody and you invited them to church and they say absolutely not because there are way too many hypocrites at that church.
Right? You ever heard people say that? Here's why they say that. Because all of us know somebody that is in a church every week, every time those doors are open, but when they go out there, they're like the worst to sit with at a ball game. They'll kind of connive their way at their job. And they have a terrible reputation and terrible character when they get out of here.
Right? But you know that on Sunday, man, they're just here at church and life's good and they're amen and things good. And you're thinking, they go to church?
Ever had somebody like maybe you sat with them at a game and they said a lot of choice words and their attitude and the whole deal is terrible. And then you find out that they go to a church in the community. You're like, really, that person?
Out of all the people, right? That's what I'm saying. That is too common for church people. That's way too normal for church people. And you say, why is it like that?
Here's why. It's because too many of us are theologically Christian in the way that we worship here, but we're practical atheists when we leave there because we put everything over our light. And we've kept our salt to ourself.
And so we're not doing anything with it. And so what Jesus is saying, if that's you, you're a useless Christian, good for nothing. He says you are salt.
You are light. Take what you believe into your place of work and light it up. Then number three, he says that we are to light up our workplace, we're to salt up our workplace, but then number three, we're called to glorify our Father in our workplace. Look at what he says in the end of verse 16.
He says, not only let your light so shine, but he says, and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. You know, we're always talking about purpose or thinking about purpose, especially when we talk about work. Like, what's my purpose?
Like, if you have an older teenager in your home, you're probably already having these conversations about, hey, what are you going to be when you grow up and what's your purpose in life and stuff? Well, listen, real quick, I want to tell you what every one of our purposes are here in life. We think that our purpose is a career. We think our purpose is what we study in college.
We think our purpose is what school we attend. We think our purpose is what job we get. We think our purpose is the family that we build. We think that our purpose is the house and our community that we build. And we think our purpose is all of these different things. Our purpose is success.
Our purpose is, you know, to make a good name for your family, right? All these different things. And here's what I want you to know. All those things are good things.
None of those things are bad. But what I want you to understand is we have all a unified purpose in this world, and it's not any of those things. That's why what I said in my introduction, when we view work, here's how we view work. How much money do we make? That's how we make decisions most of the time about our work.
We look at our work and how can we get promoted? How can we be successful when everybody around us think that we're so successful? That's what we are driven by a lot of times. And Jesus comes and he says, listen, there's a whole different way of living.
We would call it a kingdom way of living that is so much deeper and better than any of that. He said, here's what you are to live like if you know Jesus. Your purpose is to glorify him. That's your ultimate purpose. So your purpose is to glorify him. So if we contextualize this to work, your purpose at your job is not to be promoted. Your purpose at your job is not so that everybody thinks that you work harder than everybody else. Your purpose at your job is not just success. Your purpose at your job is not just to make as much money as you can. Your purpose at your job is to glorify your Father, which is in heaven.
That's the point. And so when we think about this idea, you know, the word glorify here, it means to extol. It means to praise. When we think about our jobs and our places of employment, here's what this means. You should extol Christ in those places. You should praise him in those places.
But so many of us miss it because we're focused on all these earthly things that are going to rot and decay one day. Like money and career and success and to be seen and to get promoted and to be recognized and things like this. And so I was looking at this because, you know, I'm built just like many of you in here. I want to be successful.
I want our church to be successful. And so for me, I look at these things and sometimes this drives me. I want everybody around me to think I work the hardest. And sometimes I really feel that way. I'm like, man, that's what I drive.
That's what I want. And so, you know, the reason why we talk about how busy we are all the time is because we're trying to prove things to everybody else most of the time. Right? You're no different than I am. And so we talk about, man, I'm so busy. Why don't we even say stuff like that? Because you want them to believe that you're successful and you want them to believe that you work really hard and stuff like that. And what Jesus is saying is this, is that none of those things matter here in life. Those things don't matter. What matters is that you go into your place of work and you sort it up. What matters is that you go into your place of work and you light it up. And what matters is that you go into your place of work and you glorify Him.
So for me, this was really practical. Here's what I wrote down about myself when I was studying this. So for me, I need to be on time at work, not to impress anybody, but for the glory of God. Because if you're like me, you do these extra things to impress everybody around you. No, you do that for the glory of God. You do your best for the glory of God, not for the praise of men. You work really hard, not so that you can be recognized, but for the glory of God. You try to be efficient and productive, not to impress anybody, but for the glory of God.
You're responsible, not to impress the people around you and depress your boss, but for the glory of God. You be diligent, not to impress anybody around you, but for the glory of God. You're kind, not to impress anybody, but for the glory of God.
I need to be respectful not to impress anybody, but for the glory of God I need to be patient not to impress anybody, but for the glory of God. I need to use my voice at my workplace For the glory of God, that's the point and so for us when we look at this at our place of employment It's this it's you walking in every day saying hey, I am salt. I I am light and my ultimate purpose while I'm here is not to make a whole lot of money And I hope that happens for you But listen, it's to bring him glory and if I bring him glory and I make a whole lot of money then I'm successful Not because of the money, but because I brought him glory or if I bring him glory and I don't make a whole lot of money I'm still successful. Why not because of money, but because I've brought him glory You see that's your ultimate purpose in life That's my purpose in life. And here's what I'll tell you the world would be such a different place If we all committed to glorify God at our places of work or think about it your work Would be a different place You come home from your work and you stressed about it. I feel you I am too I mean, I know you think I'm a pastor and everything's great. Like I get stressed about what I do too and I get stressed and I get Frustrated and I get discouraged and all these kind of things and here's what I'm gonna tell you when I was studying this I was thinking about this the whole time, whatever if I Walked into my job every day as salt light and to bring him glory It takes all the pressure off of me at that point So, you know, the stress of your work might totally go away if you start Changing the reason why you're there If you start looking at your job as for his purpose his glory and not your own Perhaps maybe some of that stress level goes down Perhaps the people that really frustrate you at work now I can't say this because I work with some of the best people in the world and one of the people that I work with Is sitting over to my left. And so but here's what I'll tell you is this it's like perhaps the people that frustrate you at your jobs Perhaps that frustration even goes down because your purpose at your job changed You see it goes back to what we're saying. We look at work through the lens of promotions money and success and Jesus is saying those things are great, but they're not the ultimate purpose in your life Ultimate purpose in your life. The ultimate purpose in your life is to give him glory And so I want you to know as we leave here today this this this idea your work matters to God Because the people around you the people you work with matter to him and those that are dark at your place Here's the thing don't complain about them Realize that God placed you in their environment so that you can hopefully light it up Don't complain about the darkness at your work and don't complain about the people No perhaps God placed you in that relationship with them so that you could reach them because you are the salt of the earth because you Are the light of the world and maybe perhaps if your motives change where now you're there just to give him glory at your work Perhaps maybe you could see your whole work environment change because your purpose changed You see that's what we need to do It's God in the details God in the everyday life that we live Can you bow your heads with me?
