A Mind to Work Q&A

Automated transcript of the sermon audio, generated with OpenAI Whisper (small.en). It has not been checked against the recording and may contain errors, especially in names and Scripture references.

When we had the Q&A for the Downhill Apologetics Series, I don’t even remember how it got started, but basically nobody asked any questions initially and then we just talked all the time and then we were out of time and then people later were like, we didn’t have any time to ask questions. So if you do have questions, you should be getting them ready and I have just a couple that I have thought of that I can ask if nobody else has some. But we’ll start with you. Do you have questions? Obviously, you know, the most recent series, the most recent message in the series was last Sunday night with Dave. Who was first in the series?

Were you first? Yeah. Which would have been a while ago, like ages ago. So it’s been a while. Somebody got a question. Yeah, Max. Okay, so I’m gonna repeat the question for sake of the recording, and then to make sure that we know what we’re asking. So what are things that keep Christians in particular from having that mind to work, from being diligent and laboring for the Lord? What are things that are keeping Christians from that? And then what are some ways to get them over that, to encourage them to do better? I’ll go first. Young and pestious, whatever. We’re gonna do a series called A Mind to Work. That’s one of the solutions.

And so also for the record, don’t feel as though if you ask a question that was already addressed in one of the talks that we’re going to be insulted. We can at least justify that in terms of wanting to revisit some concept. So it’s completely okay. So if it is something that one of the elders said in one of our talks that you think would bear repeating or clarification, that’s completely fair game. So with that said, I would want to take a stab at Max’s question by going back to what I tried to communicate in my talk. I think that a lot of Christians today fail to work unto the Lord in two ways. One is, or at least for two reasons, one is just sheer ignorance.

We don’t realize that our work has value. Or if we do, we don’t realize the true value of our work. We don’t realize that work is the work of faithful people, even unbelievers, is a means that God is using to bless humanity. And it is part of why the West and Christian influence has been so life-giving to humanity. And a lot of Christians don’t realize that because they’re not taught or any number of reasons, but they’re just ignorant of the value of what they do. So they don’t have as much appreciation for their work as God does for their work. And then another would be more informed but misinformed, and that would be dualism.

That is the notion that there really is a very important sacred and secular distinction. And the work that we do on a week in and week out basis only has value insofar as it can help to thicken our wallets to equip the real ministers or those who are maybe vocational ministers. And there’s a lot of reasons for that and for our thinking that way. But it is, and yet there are lots, but I would just point to one, and that is the fairly pervasive notion that it’s just all gonna burn.

And which of course comes from the Bible, but it is misapplied in many of our circles to say that the works that we do here and now are gonna burn, therefore they don’t matter. And the reality is that the works that we do here and now do matter, and they are being used by God to bring good to others. So I would just point to two things quickly, and one would then be just ignorance of the true value of our work, and another would be intentional dualism. What I do during the week has echoes of Gnosticism too. It doesn’t really matter what really matters what happens on Sunday mornings. Piggie back in on Jonathan’s comments.

Another aspect I think I brought out of my talk was that we forget that work was not a consequence of the fall. Work pre-existed the fall. All that happened after the fall was that work got hard, harder. And so we have to make sure that we understand that that is a good thing. It was a part of the ideal garden condition was work. Secondly, we see a cultural effect going on today, even started back with the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and carries on to today. And that has increased the leisure opportunity. We can get our work done quicker. And so there’s that pressure that the normal thing, I’m gonna be 63 here in a few days.

And so the culture tells me two more years and I can check out, I can retire, right? And so we have that cultural pressure to just view work as sort of that necessary evil that we have to do till we’re 65 and then we get out. And then thirdly, it’s just the issue of just sin. You know, well, most of us, many of us, contend towards laziness and just wanna get out of work. And so I guess, you know, if you wanna illiterate it, is that the word? Yeah, recognize that work is good. Resist the pressure that the culture brings upon us to conform to their idea of work and that it’s a bad thing. And then repent of any issues like laziness that are blocking you from embracing work.

I agree with all that. I would just have one more and that is I think that at times there are some people who do start getting a glimpse of their work could matter to the Lord and then they’re like whoa that means I have a lot to give account to for the Lord and then they’re like actually I think I prefer feeling guilty that I’m not having enough quiet time and then I can just go do my stuff the rest of the time. They’d actually prefer a mild guilt for not doing enough spiritual things, and then the rest of the time can just be theirs. And they might not state it so boldly, but even when we started talking about some of these things near to the beginning of the start of the church, I would say it actually scared some people. I thought that some people who were frustrated would be super excited about the idea that what they did God was interested in.

Like, as interested in what they were doing, as interested in their Bible reading, or as interested in a missionary’s work, you know, the real ministers that we tried to laugh at that idea because that’s not legit. What is God interested in? And I thought people would be like liberated by that. And it’s so liberating that it’s overwhelming.

so freeing that we actually don’t want that freedom. Where then I actually am going to have to answer to the Lord for what I did at the water cooler at work and all the other things around it. So it is actually a good kind of overwhelming that we live, you know, in the view of God all the time and that he is actually interested in all of those things and and it is also a brutal reality if we would prefer to just kind of ignore that fact other times. So I actually think that we have had people leave the church not only for that reason, but they wanted to keep, they saw the door opened into the rest of the world outside of the church walls that God cared about. And then they were like, no, because that’s needing to think too much, too, about too many things, too much of the time, that I’ve got to please the Lord over here? Like just let me please the Lord for half an hour in the morning. You know, I’ll leave an Instagram it, but then I’m out here. I got other stuff to do. So I think it is a weighty burden. How to fix that is, you know, all

of the Rs that Jim mentioned. Remember, repent. What was the middle one? Recognize. recognize, resist, and repent. Yeah, I mean, grow up. And it’s one of those concepts that’s not whether or not, you know, it’s not whether or not the Lord cares about what happens outside. It’s how he cares. So, like, just continuing to grow up and learn that it’s true that he’s interested in all those things outside of the doors, whether we are paying attention to it or not. So we’re gonna give an answer for what we did, recognizing that sometimes that discipleship takes time. And then, I mean it was kind of funny, my initial answer of teach a series on it, but continuing to explicitly talk about how the Lord cares about it, as opposed to 20 messages on missions.

And does the Lord care about the lost hearing the gospel? Absolutely. Does the Lord care about you doing your work? Absolutely. I mean, I think all of us, our experience has not been hearing 20 sermons on the Lord cares what you do at work. But you don’t have the business person come in and talk, you have the missionary come in and talk. And there’s a statement that’s made about what God cares about even if it’s not explicitly stated, he doesn’t care about work. So we keep trying to talk about what we may be weak at in our thinking to get it deep down. I’m going to repeat it again for the recording and for sake of making sure I got it right.

So a post-millennial reconstructionist who sees this kind of discussion about work and making life better in the culture, changing the culture to represent and be either be the kingdom or some element of that, in light of the cultural mandate or whatever we want to call that in Genesis 1.28. Some people take that and see it all the way to the end of if we are successful in that process, then Jesus comes back at the end of it. So how would we guard against thinking that we’re going to have that kind of success? Because at least we, we for state that we don’t have post-millennial reconstructionist theology. So how would we, what parts of that would we embrace?

How would we keep from encouraging somebody to embrace it the whole way? Is that a good rephrasing of the question? Okay. I like that one. I didn’t say that Gary DeMar, that one of the guys I mentioned in one of those viewpoints, he is one of those people. And they were all, my understanding is, Ruchus Roostuni was the guy that really gave them the seeds of that in his writings. I think that they had the concept right. They just didn’t read the Bible right in the thing. So the idea is that we do want to work because Christ overviews it, and we understand what Kuyper’s talking about, there’s not one thumbs with that we’re dealing with.

So if we deal with that in the proper way, We are building the base in which all these things that God is going to have happen happen and he can bless us temporarily or temporarily At the time of making those things to an excellence In he may allow us to have a generation to enjoy them and all the rest of that before He comes back to judge so we can work work gladly and excitedly to build and fix and alter things to make it way better during that time and still work as unto the Lord. And yet we’re still not building the kingdom. I think they go off the track. It’s almost, I read those things and I realize in the back here I construct this and this is not a theological thing. But they’re doing these works to gain God’s approval. And because the rest of you don’t understand, we’re doing this to make it that much better so he can come back. It’s kind of weird. It’s kind of like work salvation to me. It’s not really in that theological camp, but that’s one of those things I spin off on them. But they’re interesting to read.

So like in Hebrews 11, near the end, it gives a bunch of details, but I think it could be divided into two categories. So what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Berwick, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who, through faith, conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight, women received back their dead by resurrection.” Now, if you stop there, well, I like that kind of faith work. That is awesome.

That’s like winning, hashtag winning. But women received back their dead by resurrection is not even the end of that verse. were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that this is all the same paragraph, initiated by what people were doing through faith. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword, they went about in skins of sheep and goats destitute, afflicted, mistreated.” What a cultural mandate effort that is right there. Sawn in two for Jesus. Filling the earth and taking dominion and subduing it in my sheepskins. But the conclusion after all of that was, of whom the world was not worthy. And then finishes the bad, you know, what we would say is less successful, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.

And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God has provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect. So I would tag on to the, you got to read all of the verses, which is what Dave was saying, and all of the verses don’t actually promise obvious success the way the world defines success. Though also there are verses, and like I tried to hammer on that in some of the Psalms, because like I don’t, I would say that our people could use some reconstructionist e-thinking, like oh actually if we obeyed God could bless it and it could work, as opposed to oh Oh, we’re going to just keep obeying and it’s never going to accomplish anything.

But in heaven, we’ll know someday. So having actual hope that God, if God blesses it, it could actually make a real difference. While also acknowledging that the blessing and what kind of difference it makes is in his hands, which could mean martyrdom. And that’s just a different victory.

That’s a different ultimate victory in the story that doesn’t have a place in post-millennialism ultimately. It’s not a whole bunch of martyrs in post-millennialism that brings Jesus back. It’s a bunch of more like we would more easily defined winning. Whereas, I would say, it’s probably going to be a lot more sufferers who of whom the world is not worthy when Jesus still then when he comes back then and fixes it and makes it right and I would actually rather I get that he is using us and and he doesn’t have to whether that’s making disciples or that’s making products or making businesses or running governments or whatever it is he doesn’t need us he he does use us and even use us to bring about the blessing like Jonathan said in the first answer, but I’m really excited for him to finish the remodel job rather than, you know, us do that even in his name though there’s part of it. So yeah, I would agree that the Bible describes that Christians please him and are winning and affecting the culture in

in ways that are not always obvious, you know, with some kind of immediate feedback, so even generational. Your comments this morning about we wouldn’t be the United States of America the way that we are, apart from the work of Martin Luther, is not necessarily even because Martin Luther taught a whole bunch of things about work, though he did. He did, you know, you were recently reading about some of his stuff on vocation and labor like that.

But when a whole bunch of people believe the gospel, the society should look different. And keeping them from getting triumphalistic, I would say, is largely helped by just right worship. Because there’s always a humility before him and even a, you know, confession of sin. and that we’re worshiping Him, He is not worshiping us into our work for Him. So that’s why out of worship can come politics, but as soon as we start worshiping politics, which obviously some Christians have done, you know, then we’re in trouble, which so starting with worship, keeping that first and then reading all the verses. Yeah, I think it’s interesting.

I think Phillip would be a good example that as he has built his business and worked with other guys that are interested in that, he quickly, you know, he likes to use that word reconstruction or be part of the building of a new thing. And I think that once you understand if God’s involved and He’s blessing your work, you can slide into that reconstruction mindset pretty quickly. And if you read Damar or Roosh Dooni or those kind of people, you realize their vision was, let’s make it happen all now. I started reading them in about 86. And it was interesting because the father-in-law of our pastor was Roosh Dooni.

And I got to know his writings through Gordon Kirk. And it was interesting because Gordon felt that he should have gone into business. He felt his skills were better to be like a corporate manager than a Christian church manager. And he told me that several times. And it’s interesting, I do not know if he’s still even in the ministry. He left our church to go into a bigger corporate model church and then that church went broke and he disappeared from my knowledge of that. But his dad in law, Roosh Dooney, that’s the kind of thing that they would make you think.

And I don’t think it’s wrong to think that way that God is blessing my work and my little kingdom that I’m making, whether it be me selling parts for pumps or whatever you’re doing if you’re coding or fixing things or whatever it is, God is superintending that because it is part of the big machinery and if more Christians are doing that I think the society will be better. I think there’s a lot of truth in what those guys say but as far as bringing him back in a way we’re part of that but it’s not I don’t think it theologically hangs together but I I I don’t think we should be afraid of that. That’s probably what I’m trying to say.

Yeah, pastorally, like, shepherd thinking, when I think about our flock and where most of us have come from, I think that most of us have, most of us need to be challenged to stop being pessimistic and afraid and isolated. So like where our sheep overall are is needing to get out more and thinking about what God’s blessing would look like, you know, even as Chuck prayed, bless the work of our hands. What does that actually mean?

Does just mean I feel good about it. Or you know I have met peace about it So I could totally see because it’s not always possible when trying to correct one thing To swing it too far back the other way and get into the other error At least from my standpoint I don’t think that we have swung too far that way at the moment While acknowledging that that’s totally a possibility Yeah, I think we’re a long way from that other That of the ditch, that of the pit.

So to return to Jeff’s question, part of your question if I caught it was how do we even keep our, as you talk about, how this church body tries to do work and life, why wouldn’t we embrace that mentality. I think the mentality is fine. I think if we want to, I’ll speak for myself, this may sound uncharitable. Actually I’ll say something charitable first and then I can back into it. I wouldn’t agree with one of the comments that Dave made moments ago that the the labors of those reconstructionists, almost smack of a works righteousness trying to please God. I look at more as the freight trains in motion and it’s actually going downhill all aboard.

So because that cultural freight train, even with a lot of track ahead of it, is going to only pick up steam As the world is conquered by the gospel, then there’s a sense in which our work is guaranteed to succeed. That is, God will use it, and I think that application of post-millennialism is insanely compelling. But I don’t find it theologically satisfying. So I don’t believe that post-millennialism has an answer for God’s plans for Israel. And so there are, so I would say you take them to the Bible. And I know that there are some who are way smarter than me who totally subscribe to that. I have not been compelled by it as yet.

I think that the, I would say the Kuyperian dispensational camp that we’re kind of a part of knowingly or otherwise is. The camp that we define that nobody else in the world knows about. That a lot of, that some people actually argue can’t necessarily exist. I think that that is every bit as compelling as the applying the eschatology unto cultural conquest post-millennialists. And it has the added benefit of squaring with the Bible. So as we, the Bible does have a decidedly different view of victory than many of us do. It often looks like death. But as we go about our work, we are bringing good to humanity. We are bringing good to our local communities, our households, our neighborhoods, and the rest.

We are, as we go about our work and go about our lives, leading blessed lives. and we ought to be leading compelling blessed lives. And that is, even though there is a sense in which things will go from bad to worse, at the same time it will happen that as faithful Christians are applying the one and others in the New Testament and they are being faithful, God is going to use them to bless the world. And I would say unto the completed number of the salvation of the elect prior to the rapture. So it is not because we believe that the world is going to be conquered by the gospel. We believe it’s going to be conquered by Jesus.

It’s not going to be conquered by the gospel and the work of Christians. Christians faithful work and living and testimonies, it is going to be conquered by him. However, as those who do believe that the rapture is imminent, there’s nothing biblically that needs to happen before that happens. So all that needs to happen is what happens in the spiritual realm behind, like in the councils of God, that is more people need to be saved to be a part of the church that Christ is going to remove from the earth. We don’t know who they are, we don’t know how many there are, we know what our job is, and that is to lead insanely blessed and happy lives that would cause the world around us to ask us for a reason for the testimony that we have.

And that is going to happen as we are faithful and as we do our work. It should be compelling to unbelievers to look and say, there’s a particular aroma to this row of businesses on this street and they don’t know that they’re Christian owned and that as they are trying to apply the golden rule in their business practices God is blessing that that that business and on and on and on so on the ground at the dinner table City Council meetings and the rest it has profound application and it is because the rapture is imminent it is yeah it is because our our living is going to be what is going to be an instrument, a means that God is going to use to complete the number of the redeemed, to complete the number of the elect. So I would hedge against it by just taking them to the Bible and then saying, and now on the ground one of the reasons why I really like visiting Moscow, Idaho is because of what Doug Wilson and Christ Church are doing. It’s It’s awesome.

It really is great to see what a generation of faithful Christians working to take over a community looks like. And there’s no reason why we couldn’t apply the same thing all over our country, and even starting here, even if the eschatological reasons for it are decidedly different. On the ground, it will look very similar. We’re trying to take over this community because as we are faithful, we are going to be, well, we’re going to be employing good business practices. We’re going to be raising up Christians to live Christianly in the community, and it is going to be a tremendous blessing to this place. But not because we believe that that is going to itself conquer unto Christ’s return.

So that’s a lot of words. The important part too is that we want the next generation to understand this way better than we do and allow them to be more excited, more energetic in it because they understand the foundation in which to do that work.

So they, because like Morgan, when she got saved and about 13 years old, she figured it out and she went, oh my goodness, now about the only thing I can do is become a missionary because I’m a woman and I don’t want to be a pastor so that’s pretty much all I have to do and you know when you realize that you realize oh my goodness what happened here and luckily she was clever enough to figure out well that was a wrong attitude but yeah well and it wasn’t that’s how she got her points so it’s it’s fascinating though but now now to be excited to have a new idea, build a new business, have an idea to invent something, have, you know, make something better, serve people more. I mean I think it’s interesting Chuck talking about working with his hands. What is Chuck doing? He’s always making deals. He’s putting people together and having them talk and interact and all of that. Through those interactions he meets all kinds of people, can give them the gospel at the right time, can live Christianly even if they don’t know it,

when things go south and the deals go bad, that’s when they really find out what your character is. And that’s when you’re out in the world, in your job, and things are bad, you know, the weld breaks or whatever, they find out what you’re made of. And that’s where you have a real chance of honoring God and making it better.

Yeah, because we’re supposed to make disciples not converts, so what does a complete and Christ disciple look like? And even in churches that have used Making Disciples as an idea, the Making Disciples process still pretty much just got to what you did with your Bible, your prayer life, and evangelism, slash church. So obeying what Jesus commanded didn’t really relate to your business work other than not stealing or lying. avoidance. So, in trying to take whatever making disciples looks like, because even, you know, Jonathan’s comment trying to take over this community is not TEC taking, and this is not what you said, I’m just clarifying, it’s not TEC taking over the community, it is Christians flooding it, living obediently as disciples, and potentially even doing that with some kind of coordination, has effect on people who see it.

So that’s not a church, and that is not the elders who then run that. That is equipping the saints for the work of ministry, which is building up the body, which is learning how to be interested in all the things Jesus is interested in all the time, all those places. But we should probably let a whole third question be asked. Kelly, yeah. Okay, so how, if you got a new job hypothetically, the hypothetical is key, right? Yeah. Hypothetically, if a person got a new job and they actually enjoyed their work and were diligent at their work and had a reason for why they were diligent and happy at their work and it seemed like it was really annoying all their coworkers, how could that person who was diligent and enjoying it and making a difference not be an arrogant jerk not come across that way?

Okay. Okay. Yeah, just a crack about the union because sadly that is a caricature of the grumbly complaining employee who says slow down, you’re going too fast, make us look bad. But as long as you’re not conveying an attitude of superiority, you know, if it’s not an attitude of boastfulness, you know, you do it as unto the Lord, with gladness and joy. going to be two kind of people you’re going to run into out there. One is those who are being saved and the other is those who are perishing. To the one you’re going to be a sweet fragrance, a pleasant aroma, and to the others you’re going to smell like death. And you can’t control that.

And so you just do what is right for the Lord. And yeah, I mean there are the employees who are clearly trying to garner the bosses attention and favor, you know, and those are irritating. But if you’re just nose to the grindstone doing your job in a cheerful way, producing what they’re asking you to produce, then don’t worry about whether or not it’s making the guy next to you irritated or not. You know, that’s his deal. I mean if you’re working hard and joyfully and that’s driven by the Spirit, then probably the Spirit is also bringing humility with that. So like the same Spirit that produces diligence and joy, faithfulness also is the one who brings us humility and love and patience and kindness. So that same spirit still can totally annoy somebody, but if the person is diligent and you know, Z snapping Jesus all the time, then potentially it’s a mixed motive or the motive is something other than actually serving the Lord. If it’s actually serving the Lord driven by the Spirit, then I would

think oftentimes the whole package comes together which still can be criticized. I mean meek people are still criticized but at least you know their conscience would be clear and it’s not it’s not just rejecting you for jerkishness. And when it’s time to build widgets build widgets don’t be sharing the four spiritual laws you know if they’ll let you do that during lunch great but there are those Christians that keep forcing a gospel presentation when they should be doing what they were hired to do. And hypothetically if this new employee was you, hypothetically, like you do obnoxious better than you attitude very poorly. Like you just don’t do that good.

So there are our personalities and people that are harder to ignore and get along with. And I at least wouldn’t hypothetically, I wouldn’t consider you to be in that category.

Most of the time in those situations when you’re in a difficult situation, if you just do the golden rule in your job, immediately in that situation when the guy’s cripping at you, you didn’t do it right or whatever, treat him as you would want to be treated if you were reversed, settles that that kind of situation. And then to remember too that meekness is strength under control. So you don’t have to be a wuss, but you can be kind and gentle with a settledness about it. Chuck. So we’re talking about getting the blessings from our work. Those blessings don’t always come in immediate or the way we had hoped they would come. They don’t fit the expectations we had for what God blessing this was going to be. But what are then some of the ways to identify the blessings that came in the out of our expectation ways? Is that a good read? Luther. Luther was left-handed glory, left-handed blessing.

Okay. Yeah, I look back on things that I’ve been involved in that didn’t work out as a believer that I thought, this is going to go this way. And sometimes it might take a decade or sometimes you won’t get the answer. And it’s like the tapestry book where God is weaving this perfect tapestry on the front that’s beautiful with all these cross threads in the back. we’re looking at all these cross threads trying to figure out how it’s going to come together. We may not know. But I think he gives us enough glimpses at things that we thought went wrong after a period of time to see, oh, that worked that way so that that guy could meet that guy and this could happen. And sometimes it’s a better business. Sometimes Sometimes it’s somebody’s salvation.

Sometimes you just don’t know. There is no easy answer to that one. What comes to mind, Eric Little, you remember the famous runner, he was being challenged at one time, like, why are you wasting your life doing that? You should be doing the missionary work. And one of his responses was, when I run, I feel the pleasure of God.

knew that God had made him to run. And so I think part of the answer is again, doing what we believe we’re called to do for his good pleasure and let, you know, I always like to think of success not necessarily about the outcome but about the process. What is my attitude in the process? You know, am I doing this on to the Lord. And if you have that mindset then you can, I guess the blessing or the benefit is just knowing that you feel God’s pleasure and that ought to be enough. And then should He ordain it, it will potentially have tangible fruits that we can see. But when we hear, well done, thou good and faithful servant, He’s not going to say, He’s not going to measure that in terms of how many souls you won or how many businesses you started or he’s not gonna quantify it that way he’s gonna quantify it you know what why did you do what you did you know was it for the right reasons we’re doing the right thing for the right reasons not he’s not gonna talk just about what was the end product that that’s you know back to his

tapestry illustration that that’s up to God. In the normal order of things when we do what God tells us to do and we’re obedient to His word, He blesses. And again, when it comes to business in our current context thematically, in the normal order of things, when you run your business according to sound, even biblical business practices and principles, God will bless that. The end is not a lot of money because that can be contrived and manufactured and hacked by exploitation of other people.

But if your end is bringing good to others, then don’t be surprised if along the way you make a lot of money. Again, in the normal order of things. Now with that said, just as the Bible has different definitions of victory than most of us do, likewise, the types of blessings that we would prefer to sign up for are not always the kind of blessings that God gives. And so it can be, there’s actually a thousand blessings that may not show up on a profit or loss statement that accompany faithfulness in our work and among them is actually going to bed at night with a clear conscience. So returning to Shawn’s counsel to Kelly, hypothetically. Or who knows, as Dave said, what sorts of weaving of the tapestry might be going on when we can only see the backside of it.

Who knows how? I look at your situation, Chuck. Which job that you’ve had prepared you for where you are now? Right. So now, you’re mentioning him being a realtor, whatever. So here he is, a people person, and engaging, engaging buyers and sellers, and doing so as a dyed in the wool lover of Christ who can’t do otherwise.

It should come as a little surprise that he’s respected and trusted, which are helpful when you’re dealing with a real estate broker. So when… Yeah, when I ironed on a beach one time, I looked back and there was only one set of footprints. And I asked Lord, I needed your help for ironing. He said, I was ironing. I thought with the tapestry comment and it’s not the end, it’s the process. I wanted to get my footprints.

in there. Well, so I mentioned at the Youth Retreat from Psalm 128, Bless the Man that Fears Jehovah, and the line in there about like, all the plants thy children compass sing thy table round. And I remember when we first started singing that as a family because it was an easy it was like the easiest intro into singing Psalms only has two verses and you know melody is easy to figure out and even the harmony easier and compassing my table around I I pictured my table and I was like, what would that table be like if it was not encircled with children? It would be a lot cleaner.

There would not be like somebody had done their math too strenuously through the paper and now that math is on table and somebody else had pushed their three-ring binder they wouldn’t have pushed their three-ring binder across the table to scrape into against the grain and they wouldn’t and if there wasn’t encompassing around the table there would be no six-month-old dried spaghetti sauce that had gone unnoticed you know when we had done the cleaning six months earlier and like those those pieces are not in and of themselves the blessing but the blessings come along with real life and even you know we’re not good at slowing down to be thankful in the moment for when I put on a freshly and well ironed shirt. Like that is kind of crazy that five to ten minutes on this shirt with a hot piece of metal can make this look like tight.

Like my mother-in-law does mostly ironing at our house and like she makes my shirts look tight. Like, Jesus never, I mean, he could have imagined that, but he didn’t imagine getting to wear that when he came. And so, trying to stop and see some of those things, like sniffing a kid who smells good because they’re wearing clean clothes is something maybe we ought to do. I get there, you’re a kid, I’m not saying, try to sniff all the kids on the way out. But you know, like a baby who is smelly is not as fun to hold.

But a baby who can’t clean itself, but the mom is faithful to give it a bath and put on new, fresh clothes, like as long as they’re not Calvin and super angry, cranky baby, people wanna hold them. So, and now he has not outgrown it. Yeah, so trying to learn to get our eyes opened to seeing those, to seeing more blessings. And even in Psalm 119, there’s a couple verses about how afflictions helped him see God’s word and understand it differently. So there are certain kinds of blessings that be heavy things that become blessings themselves as they open our eyes to appreciate a lot of the good that we do have even if that good is simple.

That’s not as bad as it could be but that it is actually also just good in and of itself. So wisdom is a blessing and man, wisdom is hard. Wisdom is not as easy as reading chicken soup for the soul and then having something good to say to somebody. So is it a blessing to have wisdom?

I mean, to the person who needs you to share the wisdom it at least is. But to get some of those blessings, and for that matter, money is a blessing, because to the person who needs that, that is also a way to be generous and help them. So succeeding in business when God enables that, And enables us to serve so does wisdom so does compassion, you know your your heart being broken either for your own sin or some other situation that’s troubling enabling you to To look the other person in the face and say That that would hurt Like that that that’s a blessing to be able to do that even though they’re hard Yeah, we have to avoid the trap of believing that every action is going to have an immediate tangible measurable blessing with it.

When an adult child stands up and calls their mother blessed, you know, Proverbs 31 woman, what diaper change caused that? You know, what lunch sack, you know, prepared caused that? What late night talk, you know, what bandied on the boo-boo caused that child to stand up and cause mother blessed? You know, it’s a whole host of activities, so the blessing may be something that’s downstream in some cases where you don’t even see the blessing for a long time. Now, hopefully in that case, the parent sees the blessing along the way as well. So just try and don’t assume that everything you do is going to give evidence of an immediate blessing. But trust that God is compiling it all into something that is a blessing.

Well should we be done? Should we give one more? So how does our work now on earth relate to our work in the Millennial Kingdom in particular on on earth? Does it relate? How does it relate? What would that kind of work look like? Yeah. Will anybody care about your major in college in the Millennial Kingdom compared to your work. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know for sure. So I’ll go first. I don’t know for sure. Other than to say the seed that gets planted to get a resurrected body, the seed is, and I know that that’s just an illustration, but it does, it doesn’t change that it’s a seed into that plant.

And there does seem to be an expectation that there’s part of our personality that then is made complete in Christ, but not different in Christ. It’s made holy in Christ, it’s made full in Christ, but it’s not… I suppose whatever personality problems I have, I would like Jesus to fix those, not just, you know, know, sin ones, but whatever parts of me that he made and whatever gifts he gave to me, it wouldn’t be surprising to me if that is related to then the assignment that I get later on.

So without, because obviously, lots of people change professions and lots of people are interested in a lot of things and maybe even one of the ways that that being glorified is you know the person realizes they were interested in all the wrong things when they were on earth and so their glorification is is a is not just holy firing them but also exposing them to the things they they could have been or even should have been paying more attention to and so they get an assignment to fix that. You know, they spent all of their time working on the recorder, but actually a stringed instrument was more, would have worked well for them. Maybe instruments, maybe, I mean imagine the apps in the kingdom. They don’t ever have to control, delete them, have to control alt delete them they just keep working no rebooting maybe maybe maybe rebooting is not a result of the fall maybe rebooting is just like that’s how the world works but all that to say I would not be surprised and even none of us are gonna be disappointed but I would not be

surprised if there’s a good amount of overlap in how God made us now to then when he glorifies us the kinds of things he wants us to keep doing for him, because being complete in Christ as an individual looks different for every individual while also having a lot of similarity to Christ. So the body analogy, you know, different members, but one body, you know, a society, God’s people, the holy temple, I mean, all those kinds of images that are used, each is a different part. So I would totally think there is likely to be good relation. And that what we have done now is not wasted. And not just because we could say, well I was faithful with that. Yeah. Yeah. And the floating around Casper the Ghost-like singing and playing our harps all the time, right? That is a… that’s not even good children’s literature about heaven, and it definitely does give us a false picture of the good work we’ll get to do then, you know.

Yeah Okay, so which one of you wants to pray we can be done. Thank you guys for asking some questions that for coming and Obviously this is this is a subject that we’re gonna keep repeating Maybe for eternity, but Jesus will be repeating it then for us. So Father, we are grateful that you have not left us to figure this out on our own, but your word has been clear and we are generally unfamiliar with your word and just don’t know enough of it. Please increase our appetites for it and then grow our faith that we would go ahead and do what we know, that we would understand and we would be faithful to apply it. And may we do good work, and by so doing, bring you honor and bring good to our people, even when we can’t see all the work that you are doing through our efforts. We thank you. We pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.

Yeah Okay, so which one of you wants to pray we can be done. Thank you guys for asking some questions that for coming and Obviously this is this is a subject that we’re gonna keep repeating Maybe for eternity, but Jesus will be repeating it then for us. So Father, we are grateful that you have not left us to figure this out on our own, but your word has been clear and we are generally unfamiliar with your word and just don’t know enough of it. Please increase our appetites for it and then grow our faith that we would go ahead and do what we know, that we would understand and we would be faithful to apply it. And may we do good work, and by so doing, bring you honor and bring good to our people, even when we can’t see all the work that you are doing through our efforts.