Work Ethics

We are in a series on work. We've been on a series now for about five weeks and we have just a couple more left. And what we've been looking at is how God has designed us for work, how He created us in His image. And He is a working God, therefore we are created to work. And our dignity is actually tied into whether or not we work. We've looked at how God created the world with a need for work. He created the world with untapped potential and put us here to bring it to its full potential. And bring Him glory through it. And we've looked at how work kind of uncovers some of our deepest idols and our passions and how we need to take those to Jesus. That's what I actually preached on last week. Y'all all missed it because it got snowed out. But I'm sure you've listened to the podcast. That was a joke and you didn't laugh. You're not very funny this morning. What's going on? Am I not funny this morning? Who's not funny here? Is it me or you? Because one of us needs to loosen up. Today we're going to talk about work ethics. And when I say that, I don't mean how hard you work. That's what we think of when we think of a good work ethic. And I hope you do work hard. What I mean about work ethics is the ethics that you take with you into the workplace. Because I think there's a very dangerous misconception. And that conception is that we can be one person at work. And that person needs to be hard-nosed, even ruthless at times. And we can be another person when we're not at work. And who we really are is who we are around our family and at home and on weekends. And I need you to just do some simple mathematics with me for a second. You are probably, if you include the amount of time that you spend getting ready to go to work, going to work and being at work and getting home. I would dare say no one who works full time is doing that less than 10 hours a day. You sleep six to eight hours a day. So just speaking mathematically, the overwhelming number, the overwhelming percentage of your time is spent at work. Therefore, the person that you are at work, that's who you really are. The person you are at home, it's easy to fake that for a couple hours, watch TV, you know, be nice, go to bed early. The person you are at work is who you are. And we need to bring our ethic with us, our Christian ethic with us, the defines who we are in a way that is honoring to God and is molding us into his image. Because there's a real threat. And the threat is that we're going to cross a line into ungodliness and unbelief and do great damage to our own souls, even threaten our own souls. And certainly threaten those around us and create a false culture by kind of separating who we are at work from the rest of us. I told you before, one of my favorite movies, clearly my favorite Western movie is Lonesome Dove. And in that movie, there's this great scene where they catch a buddy of theirs, riding with outlaws. And they're going to punish him with the rest of the outlaws and he begins pleading for his life. You know me, you know what I'm like. And I never actually shot anybody. I was just with these guys to get across the territory and Gus played by Robert DeVol. The kind of star of the show says, well, I'm sure all that's true, Jake, but somewhere somehow you cross the line. And Jake starts pleading saying, I never saw the line. I never saw the line. I think it's a real temptation for us at school, at work. Even in the home, when that's where we work, I think it's very tempting for us to cross lines that we never see if we're not vigilant and self-aware and careful to mold ourselves and to cooperate with God's spirit working in us to conform us to the image of His Son. So that's what we're going to work on today. What has got expected us to be like when we're at work? And we're going to, for that, we're going to read from Ephesians chapter six. Senator Bolton verses five through nine says,

this will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bond servant or is free. Masters do the same to them and stop your threatening knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven. And there is no partiality with him as far the reading of God's word. I want my point for us today is that we have to exercise constant diligence to monitor and to mold who we are. And in the first way we have to do that is we have to keep an objective standard out in front of us. You have to have a standard. Standards are hard, but if you don't have that objective standard, then you end up just kind of living by feeling and that never works. You know what I mean? I feel just wonderfully thin right now. I have bought new clothes over Christmas, they fit. I feel thin, but when I step on the scale, that's the objective standard. And it says, no, you're not. Right? When I play golf, I don't keep scoring. No, I don't keep score because I like to feel like I'm playing well. When I keep score, I see that I am not. So it's important to keep that objective standard because if you don't, if you don't have some just rules, then you'll just do whatever comes naturally at the time. Basically what we do if we don't have objective kind of laws in place, we're just going to do what everybody else is doing. We're going to do is the rule for people in the workplace today is if it's not as long as it's legal and it's making money do it. And that's, that's just not our rule. God tells bond servants to obey as though they are, they're working directly for Christ. And that's how we're expected to work. It's a first. I mean, this is just, you know, kindergarten stuff. Really just simple ABCs. You just have to have some certain laws in place. Things that you're not going to do. Just things you won't do. I think, you know, these are just mine. I think they're pretty standard. They ought to be for everybody. Well, be it for me to press, to press my morality upon you. One of my first one is, is this, I just refuse to lie for money. That seems obvious. But it's tempting. It's tempting all the time. I know the first time I did do it. I was, I was just got, just gotten married and I was going to get renters insurance for my, you know, 50 dollars. Where the stuff that I had in my little apartment. And I wanted to pay $70 a year to ensure it. And the question is to start flying. And I remember, gosh, I remember like yesterday, standing across the desk from Janice Fallon, getting insurance from alpha insurance. She starts throwing those questions out. Do you have smoke detectors? Yes. Do you have a fire extinguisher? Yes. You know, they're on the way home. I stopped my warm heart and bought smoke detectors in a fire extinguisher. And I got back in the car and I was driving home going, I just lied for money. That's the kind of person I am. I'm the kind of person who would lie for money. I know that because I just lied for money. And I don't want to be that kind of person. So I'm not going to do that anymore. We have to be careful about what our view of money, how it, how it affects us. You have to be careful about how much you have to be absolutely vigilant on asking yourself whether you love money too much. You have to be vigilant to not steal. That sounds obvious. Is it is a pastor stepping over the line when he says don't steal? I don't think I'm stepping over the line, but you know, we're tempted to do it. It's so easy to do it. It's so easy to do it. I, you know, target just messed up my life. You know, they ruined three credit cards of ours because we shop there every day. And so basically any credit card you use at Target in the month of December, you have to get a new one. It's just frustrating. You just kind of one of those little annoyances. You don't want to check your reports all the time. And so Target sends us this letter and they say we're so sorry we gave you, we're sorry we gave you a credit card and pen number away. And if there's anything on your credit report, you know, if there's anything on your any charges on your card that you didn't make, we will refund you for it. Okay, am I the only one tempted by that? I mean, really? You just told me basically that I could go into any target, use a credit card, go home and say I didn't buy that and I'm free. And Target deserves it. Don't they? I mean, shouldn't we punish him a little bit for this hassle? Admit it. It's a little tempting. It's not worth going to hell for, but it's tempting, except for that hole do not steal. You have to have that out in front of you. You really do. One of the temptations that I'm faced with, you're in your out every time, every year. And this is due to me just kind of my position is I'm tempted to give myself a raise every year and all I have to do to give myself a raise is stop tithing. 10% raise. Damn. And anytime somebody in the church gives me just the slightest bit of pushback or I'm not feeling encouraged like all to be, I'm just like, I don't make enough money for this job. I could give myself a raise tomorrow. It's a real temptation. And it has nothing to do with how much I'm paid, which is wildly overpaid. It has nothing to do with how much I'm appreciating because I get way too much appreciation has everything to do with how much I love money. And how my insecurities about life push up against me. And in order for me to deal with those, it's not simply having a rule to follow. There is the rule you've got to have the rules. But it has to be more than that. I have to be able to go beyond the rule and say, why do I want it so badly? What is it about this money that I think it's going to give me that would make it worth compromising my ethics? Is it a scorecard for me? Am I looking for a greater status? Is it a security blanket for me? And I have to find what that issue is and I have to take that to Jesus and say, Jesus, you're just not enough. I need you and money. Will you free me from that? I have to receive his love right there in the midst of that embarrassing place where I am on my knees, confessing my sins and saying, Jesus, I love money and not tell myself if I could just stop loving it, he would like me more, but just receive his love right there. It's right there, a sinner condemned unclean and asking to change that. And the problem with trying to push you to confession and faith like that is this, it sounds easy. It is not easy. It is not a magic wand. You're not going to confess your sin one time and I'm Mr. Generosity now. It's going to be an everyday battle and you know it is harder to confess a sin than it is to be punished for it. It's harder to receive love right in your sin than it is to be punished for it. It's hard, but we have to get beyond just the superficial sin itself and get to the sin behind the sin and confess that and get God to ask into our lives to begin to change us and to mold us. And when he does that, he makes us in different people. He takes away our desire to use charm or good looks or intelligence to manipulate people and he actually enables us to begin to love people. And if he does that, he pushes us into the second place where our ethic has to come out and that is not good enough to just selfishly, with a self interest, not sin, we actually have to practice love toward the people that we live with. We have to treat them like humans. Listen to what he says to the masters. Masters do the same to them. Stop your threatening knowing that he who is both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with them. What temptation is Paul addressing there? He's saying, masters, I know you see these servants as ways for you to profit, but they are not steps for you to walk across. These people are not tools for you to use. They are humans. And you're going to use love them like humans. You're going to love them. And that is a huge threat that comes with a huge temptation that affects us in school, to see our teachers as obstacles, to see our classmates as challengers, as threats. It's an obstacle at work to see our bosses as obstacles, trying to keep us from being happy, to see co-workers as obstacles to getting to where we want to be. And what God is commanding us to do is to see these all as people who are not there for you to manipulate, they are not there for you to use, they are there for you to love. This message came just zinging home to me and my wife several years ago. Bianca began making these towels for babies when they were born to take to baby showers. This name of the store was so cute, I never forget it. There's a store where she would take the towels to get embroidered. It's called embroider me. And the baby shower was coming and she had taken this towel to get embroidered and the woman who ran the store would never get it finished. And she kept going. Is it done yet? No, it's not done. So I know I promised it by the day. It's not done. And she went back and the store was closed at weird hours. Why would you be closed at 10 in the morning? This is when you should be open. Why would you be closed at 2 in the afternoon? This is when you should be open. And the shower came and went and we were never able to get the towel back and you know how embarrassing it is to show up in the shower without a towel. Boy, I've done that. And that's kind of a funny little pun. I didn't even intend that. Oh well, so finally she gets in and she goes to pick up the gift and the woman behind the counter looks at her and says, I'm so sorry. This is like my husband passed away last week. This battling cancer. And just the reality came crashing through that, oh, you exist when I don't see you. Isn't that weird reality to come crashing through to you sometimes? Like this waiter who's waiting on me exists when I'm not here. This boss who is breathing down my neck and is always on my back on my case, he exists. He has people and he answers to you. He exists when I'm not here. It's a human here. And that's what God is commanding us to do. He's saying to the masters, your bonds are humans. Treat them as such. And that's hard. We don't even see it. The best way we see it when we're forgetting that is when we get angry with people. When you get really angry with somebody, it's usually because they've gotten in the way between you and something that you want. And you're not seeing them as a human anymore. You're seeing them as an obstacle. It's very easy to get angry with your co-workers when they're preventing you from doing, you know, giving the service that you need to serve or making the sale that you need to make. You see them as obstacles and they're, it's very easy to yell at them at that point or get furious with them and you forget that they're humans. And God is calling us to not simply use people or treat people as inanimate objects but to love them. That's the easiest line it is to cross and never see it. That's why we have this haunting, haunting story from Matthew, chapter 25, when Jesus is talking about the judgment day and he's talking about people who will be cast into outer darkness because they saw him hungry and they did not feed him. And they all will answer saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry? When did we see you thirsty? When did we see you a stranger or naked or sick and prison? When did we yell at you? When did we curse you? When did we blow you off and not even make eye contact with you? You'll say, when you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it to me. Everybody you come into contact with, we're called to treat them as Jesus. And that's hard. It's not enough to have certain rules that you won't break. You need that. But you have to go step further and have the law of love. You're going to love the people around you. You're going to love them. You're going to treat them like humans with the story. You're going to love them. And it doesn't stop. That law of love doesn't stop with the customers that you serve. That law of love extends into the world where you live. It's the entire world. We do serve the greater good. We are Christians. We are children of God. And we serve the greater good. God calls us. He says in verse 7 of chapter 6, we serve with a good will as to the Lord and not to man. We have got to be able to honestly stand up and say, I have done my job today as to the Lord. We just need to talk. We just need to talk. Christians have a terrible reputation at this. Because it's hard. It's not any worse than anybody else's reputation. Nobody else has even tried. It's just hard to honestly ask ourselves a question. And we say we are serving the Lord in this job. You don't have to go very far back in history just to have a blaring example of it. If you were to go back to the pre-civil war south, some of you would be absolutely shocked to find out that there were a lot of Christians living there. A lot of Christians who own slaves. And they would actually use this very passage and say, see, it's okay to own slaves because Paul is just telling us to love our slaves. And nobody ever stopped to ask the question, but is that the same kind of slavery? Aren't these bond servants? Aren't these more like indentured servants who just kind of sold themselves in this slavery for a short time to pay off debt? I don't think the slaves in the New Testament were people who were kidnapped on a far continent and shipped across the world. And actually, and this is tremendously sad, but I've read more than one article from that time period where people would say, yes, you're right, the slave trade is evil, but it's okay to own slaves. I love people loving my slaves being treated them the way I would want to be treated if I were their slave. I'm honest with them, I care for them, but it would be able to kidnap people, it's able to sell people, but it's okay to own them. And I'm not breaking any rules in owning them. And that just terrible evil blindness, that unwillingness to ask the question, is the system I'm a part of, is that okay? It's allowed an evil to go on unchecked for hundreds of years in a Christian society, and that's wrong. And if you think we're just fundamentally better than them, go read your Bible, you're not. And it's just as hard today to ask ourselves the questions, are we part of something that is fundamentally flawed? And that's a question that we're almost not allowed to ask. I want to make this very clear, we are responsible for the jobs that we do. Not only are our personal responsibility of what that kind to the people I saw, did I lie to that sheet or steal today, we're responsible for the greater good, the greater culture that we're producing, we're responsible for it. We need to be able to answer the question, yes, I am doing this as unto the Lord, and he would be thankful for it. That's not easy, but it's necessary, because in our culture, we've developed, I mean, it's fascinating, it's almost catch 22, I don't know if you read the book, catch 22, but when they described the catch 22, the guy says, wow, that's so beautiful, you just have to admire it. We have such a beautiful way of avoiding any ethical responsibility, you just have to admire it. Wow, nobody is responsible for the greater evils that are being done, I give you a great example. I was reading this yesterday, and I'm not making this up, this quote really exists. The primary stockholder in Marriott was being asked about pornography. Marriott is basically the biggest distributor of pornography in the country, not because they're anymore evil than anybody else, just because they have more hotel rooms than anybody else, and they distribute pornography to every hotel room. The second biggest distributor would be Hilton, right? I mean, it's not anything different than them. But they were being asked, because Marriott is very family-friendly, owned by Mormons for the Book of Mormon in every room, very moral, and when they were being asked if they were going to change that, he actually said that. I can't remember if it was a president or who it was, but he actually said it would be unethical to stop selling the pornography because that would cost our shareholders money. Isn't that genius? Isn't that great? You said it, I love it when you give me a good quote like that. It would be unethical to stop distributing pornography because it would cost the shareholders money. You see, if you look it up, you can trace it back to different people. Some people call it Fisher's Separation Theory. Other people say it was Milton Friedman who came up with the idea. But the idea there is that the business manager's only responsibility is to make profit for the shareholders, and the job of what's ethical and not that's either the shareholders deal, or that's up to public outcry. Isn't that just beautiful? I can just kind of push it off on other people. Isn't that my responsibility? Isn't that my responsibility whether or not owning this slave trade is evil? That's the government's job to stop that. It's just my job to be good to my slaves. Isn't that great? I should admire just the unassailability of it. I want you to know the guys not going to buy that, by the way. And when those shareholders go before the judgment seat, they're going to be held responsible for what their companies did, and they would probably want, at that point, want to go back to their business managers and go, well, hey, you could have protected me from this. But God makes very clear that he expects us to consider the greater good in our work. He says in Exodus 23, this is a great text. It's actually repeated throughout the Old Testament. I just chose one example. He's talking to people about how they will use their land. This is the economy, the most by far, the overwhelmingly most important tool of the economy in their day. And he says this for six years, you shall sow your land and gather in its yield. But in the seventh year, you shall let it rest in life, follow that the poor of your people may eat and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You should do likewise with your vineyard and your olive orchard says, it's not about profit. You will not only conduct your business with regard to profit. It's never okay for that to be the only thing that you can earn. What does he say? He says, you're going to cut one seventh of your profits out. You're going to restrict yourself for the good of the poor, for the good of the animals and take a deep breath for about said bad word here. Don't do it with me. The good of the environment for the land. And you think, well that was the end and they didn't have, you know, it was okay to do it back then. I want you to know they didn't never do it. They never did it. They never did it. And we know they never did it because you see the reason why they would have never done is what? Well, they're thinking, I'm not going to live long enough to wear this land out. Maybe there's some benefit long term benefit, but I'm only going to be here a few years. People didn't live that long back then. I can't afford to do that this year. Did you see God brought Israel's people into this land intending on them to live there forever? And he didn't want to wear it out. And so you know what? After 490 years there, he sent them into exile. And if you look at the last chapter of 2 Chronicles, it details all the Israelites being shipped off to Babylon and the exile. And it says this, and the Lord gave his land its Sabbath. For 70 years, they had skipped 70 Sabbaths and he gave the land its Sabbath.

It's hard. It's very hard. But we are responsible for the greater good that we're coming into. We are responsible for the culture our jobs produce. And as Christians, we have to stop hiding behind stock answers of, well, you know, everybody else is doing it. We have to stop hiding behind, well, the culture is so big, I can't change it. And we have to start coming together and thinking about and discussing better answers to produce a better culture. And I'm not an expert. And if you know me, you know this, there is nothing that bothers me more than people pretending to be experts about things that they don't know. I just, and preachers because we get our little stages here, it's very tempting for us to act like we're experts on things. I am not. I'm not an expert on medical ethics. I'm not an expert on economics. I'm not an expert on politics. I'm certainly not that. And so I want to give you 4 principles that I think are very clearly biblical and then tell you to go have fun with those. One of the principles that we have to take into account when considering our jobs is this, the Bible tells us we cannot exploit the poor. Specifically, the Bible tells us we cannot lend out money at usury. Now, I have a friend who was a banker in Mississippi and he quit the bank because he thought that that was making his money off of interest. And I think he was wrong. That was a misinterpretation of this text. Usury and interest are not the same thing. Interest, making loans at interest is a great way to help people. Right? Yes, somebody wants a house. Yes, somebody who wants to sell a house, you have a bank that has the money. The bank loans the money to the guy who we can buy the house, the homeowners happy, the home builders happy, the banks happy, everybody is better off. That's a great service to the world. It really is. Usury is loaning money to people who are poor and usually dumb. Let's just be honest, usually ignorant. In such a way that it keeps them in a perpetual cycle of poverty, they will never be able to pay off the interest. And that happens a lot. Someone I know very well bought a semi-truck at 20% interest, drove it for seven years and was utterly flabbergasted to find out that after he sold it, he still owns owes the bank $20,000. I mean all my payments. Well, yes, I mean, don't get the wrong idea. He's an idiot. Okay, I mean, he should not have done that. And I'm not in any way coming to his defense. That's not my job. But the bank or who made that loan did not love him. He did not try to help him. And I don't know, you know, I don't know the rules about whether you can turn down loans or not. But if you're, you know, if it's your job to give people loans that you know, we're going to keep them in poverty. I lovingly say you need to get another job. We cannot exploit the poor. Secondly, we cannot exploit the desperate. The Bible says that someone gives you their coat as a down payment basically. And then when that night comes, you need to give them the coat back. It's not okay to exploit the poor. I mean, the desperate. It's not okay to exploit the desperate. When Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi, there was a half the state was under blackout. And what that means is you can't get gas out of pumps. If you know this, you have to have electricity to gas out of pumps. So there was a shortage of gas. Well, there was a gas station owner in Tupelo who heard this. I mean, everybody, a second, you heard that, you know, they heard they ran to the gas station. And there's a gas station owner in Tupelo started charging $10 a gallon. I mean, he didn't pay that much to get it in there. And nobody told him to raise his price that much. But he's like, these folks are desperate. I'm making some cash. And I'm thankful to tell you he went to jail for that. I'm sure that there's good laws against profiteering in Mississippi. But we have to be careful that we're not exploiting the desperate. And I think the industry that really has the examination is hard. I'm not saying it's simple. We at least have to start the conversation, right? We just have to ask the conversation. If we're telling people that their life depends upon this, what's a fair amount to charge them? That's a very hard issue in the medical industry today, isn't it? I mean, their life depends on it, so what's a fair amount to charge you? It's hard. We need a community that's making those decisions. It's not okay to profit here. It's not okay to exploit the desperate. Third thing is we have to consider the long-term impact of our decisions. Again, rate date. We do have to consider the environment. We are Christians. And as a biblical Christian, we believe that we're going to go to heaven for a little while when we die. And so God has finished redeeming all the people he's going to redeem. And then there's going to be the resurrection. And we're going to come back and live on this planet forever. And I don't want to spend the first thousand years of forever cleaning it up. Let's clean it up now. Come on. We really do. We have to consider the environment. God was concerned about the land. He was concerned about the animals. And I don't, I am not an expert on ecology and I don't want to be. But we have to make decisions that are that care about the land, that care about the world. And sometimes some beautiful things come out of that. Back in the 80s, those of us who are old enough to remember, remember the whole acid rain thing or something's acid rain. We haven't heard about acid rain in a long time because somebody, some genius figured out that basically if you combine, form a mist out of baking soda and water and you mix it with the stuff that's coming out of these dirty plants, these dirty factories, then it gets all the bad stuff out of the air. The problem then becomes what are you going to do with this nasty baking soda water sludge? What are you going to do with the air pollution? You know what they did? They made it into drywall. That awesome. We're building houses out of air pollution. That cool? That's great. That's great technology. That's caring about the land and coming up with long-term solutions. That's what we need to, that's the kind of fault we need to stimulate. Because we're going to be here forever. You need to consider the long-term impact of the, what are we doing? Is what I'm doing now something that can be sustained? Is it hurting the place that we live? The place that we're going to live forever? And finally, we have to consider the large scale impact. If everybody does what I'm doing, is it going to be okay? Do you hate it when your teachers used to say that? Being a little ADD boy like I was, they used to blurt things out and jump up and go to the pencil sharpener. I was trying to go to the pencil sharpener and every day at some point I would hear the teacher say, Ricky, if everybody did what you're doing, what would happen? And my response every day was, but they're not. I'm the only one who needed to go to the pencil sharpener, so it's okay. That didn't work then, it doesn't work now. We really do have to take into consideration the broad scale impact of our actions. If everybody did what you're doing, would it be okay? You know, I hope this isn't a cheap shot. I try not to take it, but I'm just going to say something. You've got to come up with examples, right? The first person who filed a malpractice lawsuit, I'm sure they had a really good case. Do you think they had any idea how much that was going to affect medical practice worldwide when everybody started doing it? We have to take that into consideration. I'm not saying it's easy. We have to ask ourselves a question, is it okay if everybody does what we do? Is it going to be healthy? Is it going to make this world into a better place? God is concerned about the land. And that's hard. It's never been okay to just consider profit. Whether it makes you money or not. Chick-fil-A has decided that it's unhealthy for people to work seven days a week, and they're going to close on Sunday. I'm so mad at them about that. When you love going to Chick-fil-A after church, I just think it would be the best place to go. The clothes on Sunday. And they seem to be making money hand over fist. Chick-fil-A and Big Speed seems like a money printing machine to me. I don't think it's hurting them. On the other hand, Hobby Lobby has decided they're not going to buy health care that pays for people to have abortions. Even though the government's threatening to sue them a million dollars a day. If they stand by that resolution, they're going to lose that's a lot of money in my book. That's nothing to watch. They're going to stand by it. Sometimes it'll pay off, and sometimes it won't. There's no guarantee that it's going to be more profitable to be ethical. That's not true. But we at least have to ask ourselves a question. It's what I'm doing okay. And I'm part of a bigger cultural problem. And sometimes it wouldn't at least have funny solutions. I have a friend who was a blogger. And she used to blog about community a lot, talking about community. She started blogging about how blogging isn't good for community. Because it's not real community. People think they have friends, and it's okay to say whatever you want to in the comments. And you think that you have community, but you don't. And then one day, just kind of hit her. Wait a minute. I can't blog about how blogging is not good. And out of convictions, she stopped. You just stopped. Sometimes our convictions are going to lead us to uncomfortable places. Because the Lord holds us responsible for the bigger picture. Please pray with me. Father in heaven, I pray that you give us the grace to be willing to ask the question. Are we part of something that's unfair? That's not right. It's hard. It's just easier to go to work and let somebody else worry about the big picture. Honestly, Lord is not even easy to get to work. Sometimes it's just hard to get through a day honestly. I pray that you give us the grace to honor you. To honor you in school tomorrow. To honor you at work tomorrow. To honor you as we talk about and think about what our work means for tomorrow. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. I've preached a little long. I apologize for that. But we're going to just have a little time for question answers. People enjoy it when we did that this summer. So, if you have any questions about the entire series, not just today's sermon, then we would invite you to text them to that number. What was the standard of the seventh year also affect those who had other jobs. There wasn't more of a God tax or one specific industry. It would affect everybody because what God was giving people was the land. You have to go into an agrarian mindset when everybody, whether you were a, they didn't have it like stores. Everybody was a farmer. It was just a completely different world. Everybody lived off the land to some degree or other. Even if they had, they would have cattle and they would have land to eat on. So, there was no cougar that you could run to and get food. That affected everybody. And again, nobody ever did it. It was like the law of Jubilee. It was never kept. That's one of the big lessons for us that in the New Testament, it says that the Sabbath was a shadow of things to come, a shadow of the Christ, that he's the fulfillment of our rest. And ultimately, when we have Christ, we can finally rest. In him, both rest in our sense of our purpose. We no longer have that nagging sense of worthlessness if we don't work. We can rest in sense of our security and our anxiety. We don't believe we're going to fall apart and starve to death if we don't work. We can trust him and have rest in that. That's my best answer for that one. Isn't there going to be a new heaven and a new earth in the future? Well, yes. And if you were in Christ, you were a new you. Direct quote from Galatians. If anyone is in Christ, he has a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. And so I would ask you, is there a very organic relationship between the old you and the new you? Yes. That's still your body, right? The very same language is spoken of as the renewal. And just like when Jesus came after his resurrection, he was recognizable to the disciples. He still had scars until Thomas hears the scars in my hands. Here's the scars in my side. Our bodies to some degree will be recognizable. There will be there will be an organic relationship between our body now and our body then. Though it's hard for us to imagine what that's going to be. The Apostle Paul says it's like the relationship between a seed and the flower. So it will be on the earth. It's going to be this earth that's groaning. Remember Romans 8 when we talked about that. This earth that we're living on right now is groaning for the future. When this true beauty will be revealed, it's longing for that day. The entire creation is longing for that day. It's not longing to be destroyed and replaced. It's longing to be released. And so that is what the Bible means when it says a newer. Are there practical things you can do to figure out your calling? Yes, I'm going to talk about that next week. Roll. Next. That's it. Let's throw the mom thing up there. I thought that was a good question. Okay. I was asked last time. I am going to talk about that next week. The whole sermon next week is on discerning your calling. So I was asked in the first service. Is there any ethics involved for stay at home moms? And then I was also asked is it okay to be a stay at home dad? And so I want to answer both of those. I think they're important questions. The first question, the first thing to get out of the way is. The definition stay at home. Was meaningless until about 125 or 150 years ago. And it's very important to keep that in mind. For all of history, humans just worked together to make things roll. That's just kind of how it looked. So if you were a blacksmith, you would have a blacksmith shop in one part of your house. You would have the other part of your house where you lived. You would have a farm out back where you formed. And it wasn't like, you know, the husband got up and said, all right, honey, you enjoy the kids today. And I'm going to go and do the blacksmithing and the farming. Everybody just did what had to be done to make life happen. And that's the same as going on now. There's not a biblical, I'm going to, some people are going to want to shoot me over this. But there is not a biblical mandate that you have to stay home with the kids. It's just not in there right the whole thing. And it is always required an entire community to raise children. I think the idea that you have to be a certain kind of mom puts a great undue stress on women. Not only do you have to stay at home, but you have to be perfect and you have to love it. You don't only have to stay at home with your kids. You have to love being there with them or you're a bad human. And a terrible Christian. And that's just not in the Bible. It's all hard. And some people need to work. And some people have the blessing of not having to do that. But that doesn't mean that you're a bad person if you find it hard to be at home. It doesn't mean you're a bad mom if you're not a chemist and you can't homeschool all the way through college. Those kind of standards we import and then bring a ton of guilt with them. As far as the home, stay at home dad, it concerns really the same thing. There's no command on who has to work and who has to stay at home. I do think being a stay at home dad is hard in our culture because you don't get the kind of support both emotionally and culturally that you do if you're stay at home mom. And that's a big deal. That makes it hard. I don't think the Bible forbids it. I just think it would be hard and would require a lot of teamwork. But it's certainly not forbidden. That's good enough probably. That's not generally the other way. So in the environment of corporations, hospitals, systems that allow abortions. Casinos taking money from people by speculation. Yeah, there's a lot of bad things. QT, selling cigarettes. How do we evaluate our employment at such an entity in the face of our beliefs and in considering the necessity of income or necessary income? That's a great question. There are places where you just can't work. Let's start with the obvious and work our way back. I mean, you just can't work at a strip joint. You don't get away with it. You can't work at a brothel. I don't care if you're the receptionist and you never do anything bad. You can't work there. Let's start there. So there is a place where you can't work. At that point, we begin to work our way backwards. Is there a perfect place? No. And beyond that, I think those are questions that you have to answer in light of your own contents and in the light of community. Roma's 12 says that you think that you cannot do in faith will not please the Lord. And that's really the way we answer a lot of questions that are a questionable ethics. You know, can you sell cigarettes? I probably could, but I probably wouldn't. But if I worked for a company that did and I was expected to, I don't think I would quit over that one. But I don't know. You see enough people. See enough children with asthma. You start to have different views, don't you? So, you know, those are questions you have to answer in light of community. I will say this. I don't know anybody who's quit their job over a Christian principle who suffered for it. Who regretted it? Let's put it that way. Even when they were wrong, even my friend who I think was wrong when he quit the bank, I think it's fine to be a banker. I think it's an important service. But he quit the bank and then he got hit again because he quit the bank to go work at a video store. And you know, he bought the video store based on what he was told the profits were. And then as he took over the video store, he found out that more than half the profits were made running pornography. And he refused to do that. He took two huge hits. He threw away all the porn and that was another big economic hit. He would even sell it. And so, and even that, I mean, he, the Lord blessed him in it. And that requires faith. It requires, you know, real concrete. Jesus, I believe I'm doing this for you. Please protect me. And I just don't know anybody ever done that. Who's not survived it and spiritually and otherwise thrived for it. And the Lord promises us that the children of a righteous man will never be begging for bread. So, you know, I can't answer all the possible questions right now. But I will say that you need to be asking them. And I will say that the Lord is real and he's going to provide for you. And if you feel like he's calling you to quit your job, he will provide for you. Thank you.