As the parents take the children out to children's church and the lobby I want to welcome you my name is Ricky Jones and the pastor here at River Oaks The senior lead pastor whatever at River Oaks Presbyterian Church We are a church that is founded on the desire the intention of bringing rest and Restoration to Tulsa or a story Tulsa From a false belief and unbelief and all their effects I'm so thankful that you are here to worship with us today. I hope the Lord blesses you meet you here and Restores you with his grace We are Gonna continue our series. We started series last week on work Basically what we do the other six days of the week and I've been really encouraged by the response to it We'll jump right into that but first let's let's let's spend a minute in prayer. Please pray with me Father heaven, we do come to you asking you to give us your grace to speak to us very words of life feed our souls and encourage our hearts lift up our faces Give us the true rest that comes from knowing And our identity and our value are safe in you give us The deep deep Courage that can only come from knowing That we are loved and we are important we are blessed in your eyes I pray these things in Jesus name Amen I After Christmas last week I went and I went and bought some new shoes. All I'm gonna shoes. That's a cool My wife wanted me to have these kind of shoes. What are they called bucks? I think is that what they're all bucks? Sort of not really She wanted me to have these for years and so I finally got on so proud and then I got these shoes and I did what old people have to do when you get shoes You throw the insoles away and you put special insoles in them. That's what happened your feet are the first thing to go and I have the little half insoles that you use when you're arches have fallen They're supposed to help the planner fasciitis or fasciitis or however you say that and So I have the had those and we be on and I went off to Atlanta Thursday and I was so proud to be going through to Atlanta and my new shoes But this is what happens when you have those half insoles sometimes I was walking around and we're stuck like we're there for four days and we're gonna do a lot of walking and The first day walking to the airport I realized that my insoles are sliding toward the front and so every time I heal comes down It's coming down the back of that insol And it's uncomfortable, but it's more than just uncomfortable and this is It hurts and it's bruising and you know a bruise on your heel doesn't go away Ever and just like I don't want that right. It's not a huge deal. It's not like appendicitis But you want to get it fixed and so while we were there I saw a DSW, which is where I bought my insoles and and I went there and I asked the manager flag and down I said is there anything I can do for this? I mean is there something I'm missing? Is there a step? I'm missing? Is there tape or something that's supposed to keep it in place and he said no That's just really a bad product. You shouldn't buy those. They don't stay in place and He walked off and I was like that is not what I wanted to hear and I'm just I'm kind of staring at it just thinking is this is gonna be a $20 stupid tax And I have to just throw these away and buy more it's mad and All of a sudden he walks all the way back across the store and he says are you a member of our Members club members rewards club and I said well, yeah, and he said we can take those back right now And I said well, I didn't buy them here. He says I don't it doesn't matter where you bought them I said well, I don't have the receipt. It doesn't matter. I don't have the box. It doesn't matter and And he you know, he exchanged them so that I got to full size and so which is infinitely more comfortable and He gave me 28 cents to boot now. I want you to think for a second about what he does there There were a lot of things that he could have done. He could have just ignored me We shouldn't find that's kind of what you expect You could have just kind of left me there to figure my own way out He could have tried to sell me something else. He could have said well I'm sorry. There were probably 20 reasons to not give me my money back You know, I didn't have the receipt. I didn't have the box. I had been wearing them. Nobody's gonna buy that stuff He could have just sold me another product. He could have made money for his store instead. He lost a set of insults and he lost 28 cents But at that point he was being more than a store owner. He was being more than a manager He served me He glorified God and he was being to me a friend He was far exceeding just to his identity wasn't just sunk down to how much money He made for his store that day. He didn't get anything out of this I'm not he didn't get customer loyalty. I'm never going back there. I couldn't find it if I tried But he glorified God. He got dignity from it. He blessed me. He blessed himself. He blessed the Lord That's what I want you to see today when I want to talk about today is how why you work what what God wants us to do through our work and Our the answer is this our work is our way of serving the world You serve the world you glorify God you establish your own dignity and most importantly you serve the world by doing competent good work David Brooks is a writer for New York Times and he comments a lot on kind of modern trends And he studied young people a lot college graduates a lot and he said this about Ivy League graduates. He says Ivy League graduates Think there's only two kinds of careers in the world. They can go off into the financial industry and make just tons of money You'd be Exorbitantly wealthy or they can go into Non-profit organizations and make no money, but actually be doing some good for the world He says for them there is no category in their mind for how they could serve the world by being in the financial industry Now think about for a second And if you see if you know that there there's a need there's a group that has a need and There's another group that has an idea or the ability to meet that need but they don't have the resources to help And there's another group that has the resources and you were able to get the resources to the people with the Ability and the idea and that enable them to get to meet that need would you not be helping Everybody would you not be making the world a better place? That's essentially what investment bankers do They get resources to people who can meet a need They're making the world a better place now. I'm not naive. I am naive, but not about that I know that not every investment banker goes into the business thinking I'm gonna make the world a better place today A lot of them go and go to work just thinking how am I gonna get a paycheck today? But that's not the jobs fault There's a lot of school teachers that go to school thinking I'm gonna get a paycheck today There's a lot of nurses that go to work thinking I'm gonna get a check today There's a lot of people who go to work for no desire to make the world a better place That's not the jobs fault. That's not works fault That's our fault There's a lot of pastors who preaching for paychecks. I preach for paychecks a lot I'm not today, but I have in the past our work is how God has designed us to serve the world That's what I want you to see today and and wherever you serve it. However you serve it You are a glorifying God. You're establishing your dignity. You are being what God created you to be Please read with me from Genesis chapter 1 verse 26 to 28 This is after God has created the world the Bible tells us the world was without form and void It was chaotic. There was darkness on the face of the deep and God begins to separate the light from the darkness and the the
Dry land from the water and the skies from the seas and he he's bringing order. He's bringing beauty. He's bringing Cosmos out of the chaos and then after the end of all those days of creation and separation and in ordering he says this Then God said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth So God created man in his own image and the image of God he created him male and female He created them and God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and Subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth We love God. We serve the world and we fulfill our dignity When we work when we do competent work The first thing I want you to see is that God created us to be fruit for a reason He created us to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over And over every living thing that moves on the earth. He created us to subdue the earth and have dominion. Now, what does that mean? Subduing is not Conquering. Subduing is not exploiting. Subduing is taking something that is wild, that is out of order and bringing it into order, bringing it into beauty. Science tells us that entropy never decreases, that the natural order of things is chaos, and wherever you see order, wherever you see a plan, wherever you see beauty God's image has been there God's image is at work And that's why he created this so that we would bring order and beauty and In heavenly beings, wherever you saw us doing our work, he would get glory. People would know God has been here You can think of it in the most simple things. You can think of it in the most complex things. What does your hair look like in the morning? What's the natural state of hair? Chaos, right? And when you comment, when you straighten it, when you make it beautiful, you are bringing order out of the chaos. And you're shipping a glory to God, wherever you see order and health and beauty, you know God's image has been there It takes all kinds of different forms Think about waking up in the morning. I woke up this morning on steel coils Somebody has taken steel. I don't even know how you make it. You get it out of the ground somehow. You heat it up You twist it around. You make springs. They've covered it with some synthetic fabric that forms to my body And it's the same that one time one the same time allows me to sink into it and it holds me up And I've taken steel I mean steel and in a synthetic fabric and they made a mattress And it's amazing That's taking control over the world And that's subduing it and that's glorifying God and I go into my kitchen and I have a granite countertop That's lava rocks that some volcano spat out thousands of years ago And somebody looked on the beach and saw these huge stones in the water and thought countertops And cut them and polish them and make something beautiful out of a big nasty rock and The beauty was all raised there Cultivated the beauty That's that's what we're doing We're cultivating the beauty that's already there by bringing out and in doing that we're glorifying God My favorite example of this I told you all last week. I've gotten into what not to wear and
I really like to show it's fun and the funny thing about it I'm not really into the clothes things you can probably tell where whatever Bianca buys for me and it's fine But I love the makeup and the hair artists. I just love them. I just love Ted and Carmen D so much and What I love about Carmen D. She does the makeup And when you think of makeup when I think of makeup artists I think somebody's like gonna paint something onto a blank slate, right? Like you're gonna paint a face up there like Tammy Faye, but what Carmen D does is she makes these women look in the mirror So she had this woman on there the one I watched this last week her name was Dolly. She was sexually abused as a young girl She doesn't want to look like a woman She doesn't want to stand out. She doesn't want anybody to see her But but she's getting she wants she's changing and she wants her outward appearance to reflect her inner beauty now And so Carmen he makes turns her toward the mirror and says we just look at your face. You've got beautiful cheeks And and Dolly says now I've got fat cheeks and Carmen he says no, no, no, you have cherub cheeks You've got gorgeous lips She takes off her glasses says you have hazel eyes people would kill for these eyes And she begins to to decorate her to Highlight her face in a way that brings out the features that are already there And and when she turns her back around Dolly sees the mirror after the makeup is gonna apply. She says that's me That's what we're doing. We brought we're bringing beauty that was already there. We're bringing it out She doesn't say all that you made me look like someone else. She said that's me That's our job That's what God's image does You see it in the financial industry. What what what are the financial advisors do? He takes your just your absolute chaos of spending And puts it into a budget and makes sense out of it and They don't increase your income any they actually charge you a little bit so they decrease your income slightly But your income all of a sudden goes way further and now all of a sudden you have a plan for retirement and you're They're actually feel like you have more freedom. You feel like you have more money because you know where your money is going You're bringing order to the disorder you're bringing God's image to this order the deacons Uh last week man, they just tremendously blessed me it was it was shocking meeting Tuesday night We're talking about kind of where we're going with the church and we began talking about um, you know Replacing shame after shame leaves who we're gonna hire and finally one of the deacons goes way Well, well stop we can't talk about who we're gonna hire We don't even have a plan for the future yet And he said you know we have to draw out a five-year plan. What do we want to look like in five years What is our income going to be like in five years? Let's this project our growth Let's make a plan and let's look at what all the things that we're going to need to be in in three years and five years So that we can go backwards from that and develop a job description and we'll then we'll know to hire And I was just seeing there was my mouth open going you can do that
What's this magic called And he said it's called a business plan. What can I get one of those? I mean I'm making fun of myself I want you to get like I didn't know that people did that And he blessed me tremendously by bringing order out of the chaos in my head all these ideas and hopes and plans that were just Like a burden on my shoulders. How do you need to do with them? Like we can put them on paper
God that's what we're God is calling us to do. He's gifted all of us differently some of us are called to take A words just jointed words and make them into a story some of us are called to take just joints Spending and make them into a financial plan some of us are called to take just jointed bodies and make them healthy again But wherever we see order and health and beauty we know God's image has been That's what he's calling us to do and that cultivation serves the world that is God at work serving the world making it better making it better It's a big job In order to understand your play in order to understand the the bigness of the job in order for you to be encouraged by your You're calling in this job You have to see yourself as part of it You're not the whole thing It takes it takes an entire community to redeem the world the idea of being a self-made man or being independent It's just laughable at this point in history Honestly, I mean you know when people talk about being self-made I shouldn't go really Because I wake up on a mattress that somebody else made I can't even imagine making it I'm woken up by an alarm clock. I have no idea how they made that I can't make a simple clock much less a digital clock. I call people on a cell phone I make phone calls all day on cell phones. Do you know how to make a cell you made your own cell phone You drove to work in a car that you built You drove on roads that you paved your self-made that's fascinating I can't make a Lincoln log house much less a real log house I mean we all are dependent upon everybody But together if you see your part, we're doing a phenomenal work the idea That on its own chaos never decreases It should really encourage you because there's a lot of order out there There's a lot of beauty God has been at work And we're part of it So where do you begin? Where do you begin digging in and finding your place and being part of this world of this work of making the world Organized and cultivated in beauty You begin with the first garden that God has given you and the first garden that God has given you to cultivate is yourself Is the garden of getting up in the morning of Taking stock of yourself and taking care of yourself and being what God is creating you to be Whether if you're 12 years old that means school is not babysitting time College is not camp It's a time to be developing yourself and learning and finding out what God is calling you to be finding your strengths Finding your abilities and being cultivated so that you can be useful It means that you're not going to waste your beauty You're going to cultivate yourself and you're going to you're going to let your externals Reflect what's going on inside of you. You're not going to waste your health It means I don't sit around eating jelly beans by the pound anymore. I eat them by the handful. That's a big progress for me It means we're going to cultivate the garden where we start We're going to cultivate who we are And we're going to bring order and we're going to bring glory to God That's what God's called us to do first of all to subdue and to cultivate and secondly He's called us to populate the earth to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth now And at the time of innocence, Friday, many this meant having children All they had to do is have children because there was no sin There was no original sin. There was no total depravity Have children. God's being glorified. Well Doesn't work at eight way anymore. You know that Bringing more centers into the world is not helping stop it. They're just gay um But it does mean that when when a child is born, he is not a perfected final product. You know that right He's got to be evangelized. He's got to hear the gospel. He's got to be cultivated. He's got to be civilized He's got to learn what it means to be adjusted To love other people that child has to learn that other humans exist first It's important than to learn that And all of those things require more than just a parent It requires a community a community of people who are um Keeping our children healthy who are educating our children and who are holding our children up to a higher higher standard I grew up in a small town and I think there's something still very beautiful today about small towns In the way they they we all raise each other's children I told you all before I grew up just terribly profane Just I've I've worked in profanity the way some artists work in clay. I mean, I can just do I could do magnificent things And um, I'll never forget being in high school and I was like I graduated high school at 118 pounds And so they only like the only thing I had going for me was my brains and my profane tongue That's not really getting you very far, but uh, you know, cussing is what got people to pay attention to me and my creative insults And uh, I was sitting in the park you doing my creative profanity to get people's attention And the guy who had coached me in little league five years before six years before He just he turned around to me. He turned right he heard me and he turned around and he just let me have it
What was he doing? He was cultivating He was doing the earth and populating it with with godly with god's image He was refashioning me into god's image It takes an entire community to to populate the earth with god's children That's why we're gonna baptize some children here in a minute and we're all gonna take vows Everybody's gonna take the vow to do what we can To raise these children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord because parents can't do it on their own And somehow we've gotten into this Absolutely false idea that parents used to do everything on their own And good parents will do everything on their own now. That's just crazy Parents never did everything on their own. They used to live in the same house with their grandparents And their parents and their aunts and their uncles And they always shared the work No one's ever raised children by themselves. It's too big of a job except for the pioneer kids and two-thirds of them died We don't want that Our job is that's true I said it funny, but it's true. We cultivate the earth we populate the earth And it is okay to do that in a secular way. What do I mean? Historically people have always kind of divided the world into secular non-church jobs and church jobs And what I want you to see is we are serving the earth by every job We're serving the world through every job Uh listen what Paul says about work. He says to the one It does not work but believes in him he justifies the ungodly His faith is counted as righteousness Just as David also speaks to the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works Now I know what you're thinking you're thinking wait a minute. You're using work in two different fashions One is talking about working to earn God's approval The other one's talking about working to earn God's paycheck or paycheck from the world And I'm saying I want both of the I want you to see that I'm not talking about either one of those work is your way of serving the world and Work is not earning God's approval because God has already given us his approval through Jesus And if you don't get that Jesus has done everything necessary to earn your value to earn God's smile To earn his pride so when he sees you he is overwhelmingly thankful for you And he sees whatever you're doing as a gift to him and he receives it thankfully He didn't look at your school. He didn't look at your work. It's in the day and go The way your parents used to do and I saw your report card That yet He looked at you and he says thank you that you did great Because you're in Jesus and Jesus has earned his smile for you. He's earned his his approval for you And if you don't get that If you don't understand that then yes, you do not need to be in secular work If God if Jesus has not completely earned God's approval for you then you need to be serving God You need to be in the church. You need to be doing spiritual work and that counts more So I'm getting more credit than you are today But if Jesus has already done everything To earn G. God's approval then that frees us to go out and find our individual calling And to serve God however he's called us to do it And you can serve God by doing competent work You don't have to find a way to make your work also a ministry And that's the slavery that so many people live under like how can I make them work into a ministry And sometimes it's just goofy like you know painting slogans on your van And sometimes it's just All full. I don't know what's that awful. I'm not over as way in the work A few years ago, Miyake and I were going on vacation And so we call the taxi And I'm debating whether or not to tell you what this taxi service is because I want you to never call them I don't want anybody to be subjected to this He picked us up at five in the morning to get to the airport for a flight that was leaving at 630 And he preached to us the entire way He was a terrible driver Twice I thought we were going to die The van itself was an awful disrepair. It was uncomfortable and it smelled And all he did was preach the his version which the bad version of the gospel the whole way And I'm not even a morning person like Sleep was what I was wanting to do Right, but he's trying to glorify God in his job and he didn't If I hadn't been a Christian, I sure wouldn't have become one because of that I would have gotten out of that van going I didn't believe him anything. He says he was terrible He didn't glorify God. He didn't really serve me. He kind of helped me Maybe feel like a prisoner not glorify God in your work. We glorify God in our work by doing good work That's how we serve the Lord Look at what the apostle Paul says and first Corinthians 7 He says let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him And to do what the Lord has called him and to which God has called him That is my rule in all the churches Find what God has called you to do and do it. It's really interesting to look at this word called Paul uses it three different times. He says for me, I've been called to preach to the Gentiles And so he goes out and his life is dedicated preaching to the Gentiles And to the Thessalonians he says let each one of you work with his own hands and keep a quiet life You're not you're calling he's not the priest of the Gentile. You're calling as if do your job good Well sorry do your job well some English teacher didn't do her job well um Do your job well glorify God by doing a great job And receive a smile at the end of it understand that you're playing a part Of redeeming this entire earth in a beautiful way And do your job well And if we understand that if we allow ourselves to have different callings But this one purpose of redeeming and perfecting the earth Then doing competent work takes on a whole new meaning There's so much about this world. It's just fascinating And you could you Our appreciation for people goes up amazingly high But there's nobody who's just a plumber You understand that we use pipes every day that Take away human reviews and take the miles away to a place where the they can be discharged safely. That's a phenomenal It's amazing just a plumber Our lives depend upon plumbing When for a while without it Everybody becomes so dignified and beautiful there There's so much more than a paycheck you or so much more than a paycheck When you see that this calling doing your work as God has called you to do it It's an amazing thing work is kind of like sex in this way when It's designed as your way to serve someone else And sexuality When it's done as God has designed it to be done You're trying to show someone else how much you love them. You're trying to to please someone else to bless someone else And it's a beautiful thing But if you're just doing it to please yourself then it's dirty And it's selfish and you're you're degenerating of both people When the same way your work If you already understand that your value as a human is secure your identity is secure Then your work as you make a good table or as you teach a good lesson. It's beautiful And it brings value to you and it brings value to the people that you're serving But if all you're doing is trying to get a paycheck If your value as a human is dependent upon how much money you have Then all you're trying to do is get a paycheck if your value as a human is based upon your status Then all you're doing is trying to get a title And that becomes all you are you you're devaluing yourself. You're just a paycheck You're not trying to help anybody bless anybody make the world a better place. You're just a paycheck You're not God's image You're just a title But when we do our work well to please God to glorify God it gives us this great freedom I And then that is a is an achievable goal and it's a blessing to the community And I'm gonna I know about you use it all my time a timer just run out. Sorry. I got three Way don't want you to see this make this very helpful and practical to you when you make your goal Your goal for tomorrow when you get them go to work or get them go to school. If you get them go to school Your goal is to learn the subject It's not to get a grade. Don't reduce yourself to a grade Learn the subject that's your goal if you get them go to work your job is to do competent work Do it well It's not to find a way to preach the gospel in it secretly It's not a way it's not to find a way to make as much money out of it as you can It's to do the job well and when you do that you're doing you have three things that protects you from being Obsessed with your achievement. It protects you from being results oriented What do I mean by that? A lot of us just kind of all we know to look at on whether we've done good working out of the results You can't be responsible for the results. It's not anything that's important A friend of mine was once a judge at a science fair There's like a third grade science fair. It wasn't nuclear physics and so he was walking around And this one kid had three cups of dirt on his table And It's not the Brian Reagan joke to think it is hey He comes up to the cups of dirt and in front of them. There's a sign that says Some seeds don't grow Well the kid had done good work. He had learned an important lesson some seeds don't grow That's the lessons you not might need to learn Some I preached yesterday to a room full of women with young children And when I look at them and said you were all good mothers Four of them just dissolved in the tears right there I mean moms walk around with this incredible amount of guilt because you think somehow you're responsible for the results And so if your children aren't healthy and happy if your children ever get harmed or hurt if your children ever This so bad you think I'm out your fault and you're a failure Where in the world did you get that idea? You can't do that You can't you're trying to be Jesus And Jesus is already been Jesus and he's not looking for a replacement You're called to be a mom Give your kids a safe stable place to grow up and to come back to that's about all you can do Feed them Give them a bed get them too bad Don't beat them My kidding. I mean y'all are good parents Don't scream at them. Don't you know ever now and then understand but just a general rule Don't make it a daily practice to scream at them and you're doing good
Take this burden of the results off of you a friend of mine Uh The seven hours of surgery run removing a cancer one day Fascinatingly good work. I mean he was so it was proud of himself and a godly way He looked at his work and said that was good work Like I did good surgery out Years and years and years of learning and practice and training all came out and he was really thankful for the work that he did And he went in to tell the family after you know after the surgery and of course the only question that the kid the the the family had was what Did you get all the cancer? Well the answer was no That was no And they started crying which is understandable of course. That's all you care about it. You're the family Now if the doctor if his approval if his view of himself is all wrapped up in results well newsflash A doctor is gonna be the last person to see all of us one day you know that right. I mean They're all gonna die If the doctors view of himself is wrapped up in Approval like I wanted to kid the family to jump up them said thank you so much. Well hitting at that If the doctors understanding is you're calling us to do good work today Then he can go on and be thankful be joyful be filled with the joy of the Lord. He did good work You're calling us to do good work that protects you from perfection that protects you from approval And finally and invites you to celebration You're calling to see yourself as part of something big and beautiful Bigger than yourself. It's great work of redeeming the earth and invite you to celebrate You and introduces you to this glorious world that you're part of and you can celebrate the victories and enjoy the Community and be saved from the shame when you let Jesus be the savior of the world And you see yourself as part of something big and beautiful It makes you important it makes you important It makes you happy. I don't love people who get this I'll be honest and I don't say this uh as a I don't think it's a boast in the way and if it is I don't think it's a simple boast This is a healthy church. It really is And I know that because I've been in unhealthy churches And one of the ways you know you're in an unhealthy church is you have a lot of people who are just working for the paycheck I was in an unhealthy church in Mississippi where the church secretary worked for years for the paycheck And every time we tried it she was the only administrator and every time we tried to do something There would be dozens of things that would fall through the cracks And the whole Office was just in disarray. Bianca and I went snuck up there and let ourselves in and cleaned for like six hours Just to because I couldn't stand going up there to study it was in such disarray And And everything just kind of felt ragged hagg and thrown together And when I love about this church is our support staff. They just love it And so when we try to do something like today, we're having this class from three to six And there are all these things that I don't even think about like oh yeah, I guess some parents if they're going to be somewhere for three hours need a nursery I Don't thought about that But Shannon who runs our nursery loves us and she's like oh, we're having new members class great. How many people do you need in the nursery? I don't know I didn't think about that And and it makes our support staff not only are they they're wonderful, but they're important to us Yeah, you have to understand you know the most important person in this church is it is not me I'm in a seven services a year at least and you'll be fine I come back and people are like oh wait, I thought you changed. Yeah, you were here last week. Where are you? Yeah, I'm not I'm not in the hot 10 probably Shannon in the nursery is extremely important But she misses and we have great substitutes who fill in easy up front is extremely important Probably couldn't be replaced, but anyway when he's not there. I'm not here. So I wouldn't know how it goes But the one person that everybody panics when they miss Is Jim and Maggie I mean when Jim and Maggie who set up our communion to clean or the first people here in the mornings The last week to leave in the afternoon when Jim and Maggie said tell us they're not gonna be here one Sunday people freak out Email start firing up satellites are linking My sermons get shorter ricky. You can't do communion this week. We don't know how we're upset it up You understand Jim and Maggie who's gonna get there and turn on the lights? How do you turn on lights? We don't know And the beautiful thing is they're that important not because of the job they do, but because of the way they do it They love us They love us and I know that because two years ago Christmas is on the Sunday morning And I was driving to church and I thought first my first thought was oh, they'd better be there And my second thought was we should have made them work on Christmas
But they'd better be there And so I pull it into the parking lot and there's a car and I open the door and there's Maggie wearing a sweater that had Christmas lights on I remember that and Jim with his huge smile married Christmas We're excited. It's been Christmas with you Where your family That's the joy that you get from seeing yourself as part of something important You are part of the redemption of the earth That's important and I want you to have that joy Please pray with me Father in heaven. We do pray that you would give us a glimpse of your wonderful work Your wonderful work of turning the chaos back And bringing order and beauty and value I pray that we would rest in the work that Jesus has done for us And I pray that we would see our work as a continual continuing of what you have already started And I pray that you would fill us with a joy for that We pray this in Jesus name