Meekness and Monday

August 22, 2011 By 2 Comments

Today at Covenant Life Church Joshua Harris delivered a timely and convicting message (for me at least) entitled “Let the Peace of Christ Rule.” It made me aware yet again of my own tendency to want to force outcomes in my own strength, rather than to trust God and submit any strength I have to the leading of His Word and His Spirit.

In the message Joshua highlighted the trait of meekness and its importance in the Christian life. He used a great analogy–the large dog letting the little child pull his ears and smoosh his face. The dog has the strength to really hurt the child, but meekness is the dog restraining himself, thus showing even greater strength than the power to harm.

We need meekness in every area of our lives, and this is true for our work as much as it is for our personal lives. At Gospelway.com there is a very helpful resource for understanding meekness Biblically. One particular quote stood out to me, based on Deuteronomy 8:1-5, 15-16:

God allows circumstances that chasten us in order to keep us humble, submissive to His will, and dependent on Him. This will do us good in the end. We want to control our own lives. I get panicky when I feel unable to do anything about problems I don’t want to face. But facing hardships, that we cannot solve alone, helps make us humble. We see our weakness and we turn to God for help. Then we appreciate Him and see our need for Him.

There is a clear connection between meekness and our study of Scripture, as James 1:21 calls us to “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.”

Kicking Off the Week Wisely

As Monday arrives, how do you interpret the circumstances that you return to work to face? Feeling panicky?

Perhaps you are in the middle of a complex challenge right now, and you feel like events are spinning out of your control. I know many people who are tempted to feel this way right now. Maybe you are a little worried about this situation? If so, letting the peace of Christ rule in your heart may begin with taking time this day to humble yourself before God and confess to Him that you don’t much like feeling out of control.

He knows that it is hard to be dependent on Him, even for the most seasoned believer. To trust God is, by definition, to not trust in yourself. But the heart of the gospel is that we cannot save ourselves from our bondage to sin and death, and God was willing to offer up His greatest treasure–His own Son Jesus–to solve this our greatest problem.

This should impart fresh faith as Monday kicks off a new week. If God has solved our greatest problem, do we trust Him to solve whatever we are facing, as complex as it may be?

Can I suggest a simple prayer of meekness and faith as a great way to start your week–the Lord’s prayer?

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.[1]

Isn’t praying this meekness? And ironically, there is nothing better we can do for our lives. Imagine the kingdom of God coming to earth any other way than by the meekness of a humble but faith-filled people. It’s absurd.

Be that meek dog this week and go inherit the earth!

(that last bit is an update)

Filed Under: Meekness

What does God have to do with work?

August 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

We are used to hearing people say faith has no place in the office. We are constantly told not to talk about religion and politics at work, and so many people either intentionally or unintentionally shy away from connecting faith to work. But if God is truly God then he should have supremacy over everything, work included.

The Russian writer Fyodor Doestevsky famously said “If God does not exist then all things are possible.” That is, if God does not exist we can and should do whatever we want. There are no consequences. We came from nothingness and return to nothingness, and there are no penalties for wrongdoing and no reward for rightdoing. We may as well do whatever we want, because there are no ramifications for our actions. It is easy to see how people can go from denying God or denying God’s relevance to committing all kinds of atrocities.

Richard Wumbrand was a pastor and holocaust survivor who was tortured for his faith and has spoke of how his torturers faith, or lack thereof, led them to do what they did. He said the following:

The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when a man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said “There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.” I have heard one torturer even say, “I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.” He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners.[1]

My intentions for quoting Wurmbrand here is not to say that we commit atrocities equal to what was suffered in a concentration camp. That would trivialize Wurmbrand’s suffering and exaggerate our actions. But rather the intention is to show what is possible when God is removed from the picture. When God is no longer revered or relevant, all manner of things become possible.

Our Beliefs Have Implications

The role of the soldier and government, which is intended to do good to others (Rom 13:4), can become a vehicle of destruction. People can justify all manner of things if God does not exist or does not matter. Politicians mismanage the budget, lawyers sacrifice justice for profit, and salesmen lie to persuade customers.

There is no doubt then that a person’s view of God has a direct effect on how they work. What we think and believe about God dictates so much of what we do and do not do. Have you ever evaluated how much you think about God when you work? What does that say about your faith and your work?

If the God of the Bible exists, then he should have Lordship over every part of our life. All things are from him and to him and through him (Rom 11:34). Thus, we are to live and work for his glory, and this has consequences both in this life and the life to come.

Why This Blog

Unfortunately, for many reasons God has been severed from the workplace, and this has left many people wondering how to honor him in the specific situations they find themselves at work. This is the reason for this blog and ministry. It is to help encourage and equip men and women to know how to serve and honor God in the workplace, so that everything is done for him and through him.

Because we believe Jesus Christ is God become man, He alone is qualified as the one mediator between God and man (1 Timothy 2:5).  The work of Jesus Christ enables us to experience God’s work in our work.  Our goal here is to explore together with you how best to apply a right view of God to serve others and be increasingly effective in the daily tasks before us.

 

[1] William Lane Craig, “On Guard” (Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2010), p34.

Filed Under: Content, Diligence, Justice, Work, Worldview

Sebastian Traeger Speaks at CLC on Friday

August 18, 2011 By 1 Comment

This Friday August 19th at Covenant Life Church my friend Sebastian Traeger will be speaking at our monthly Marketplace Ambassadors meeting at 7am.  Last year I had the immense pleasure of meeting and spending a week with Sebastian and over thirty other young men and women at the MarketplaceOne leadership forum, the One Institute.  Sebastian was a standout there for all the right reasons.

He will speak on “Avoiding the Idol and Idle of Work.” We’ll post the audio as soon as we have it.

Sebastian has spent the last 13 years starting and building various businesses. Most recently, he co-founded and served as CEO of Razoo.com, a social fundraising platform that has raised over $47 million dollars for over 8,000 causes. He also co-founded, built, and sold the web-based businesses Christianity.com, a popular portal featuring news and resources and Silas Partners, a web consulting company that helps organizations with online strategy, marketing and fund raising. In 1998, Sebastian helped launch Village Phone, taking the lead for their operations in El Salvador. He started his career at the management-consulting firm Dean & Company where he took a quantitative approach to solving strategic business problems.

Sebastian attended Princeton University, where he played baseball, served as an RA, ran a campus cafe and carpet business, was active in Athletes-in-Action and studied politics.   He lives on Capitol Hill where he is married, has three children and serves as an Elder at Capitol Hill Baptist Church. When he isn’t working he likes to eat comfort food, travel and compete in just about anything.

Filed Under: Event, Speaker, Work

Introducing Marketplace Ambassadors

August 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A woman buys bananas. Photograph from The Royal Library, Denmark

We buy. We sell. We work. We collect our pay.  We solve problems.  We face more problems.  And so it goes.

Is it the rat race?  Or is it the free market?  Does our work really matter at all?

These are honest questions that arise from working in a diverse marketplace.  They become much more pointed in a troubled or volatile economy.  It is very easy to live “in the weeds” of these challenges and our task lists each day.  But we believe God has more for us in our work than life in the weeds.

The implications of a God-centered view of work include more than personal fulfillment.  Much more.  The simple act of working to provide for a family represents God the Father as provider.  But should faithful provision be our exclusive goal?  Can we do that effectively and more?

I believe so.  This blog is an attempt to experience more of God in our work, and to better serve others and the broader marketplace with our labors each day.

Marketplace Ambassadors begins this journey with the recognition that God is a worker, and that the Bible as the authoritative Word of God has much to say about our work and about the global marketplace in which we operate.  Imago Dei and Sola Scriptura are two of our most fundamental principles here.

Marketplace Ambassadors is, as the name suggests, a collective and a representative effort.  This blog is an extension of Covenant of Life Church’s ministry of the same name.  It is primarily the creation of Keith Welton and Mark Fedeli, two members of Covenant Life who help lead this ministry. And it is a two-way street: our Christian faith fundamentally informs our work and all our interactions with the marketplace, and the realities of our work significantly impact our prayers and our pursuit of God as Christians.

We have two feet in the marketplace and two feet in the church. We thank God for the privilege to work, we want to be diligent and effective, and we want to see the grace of Jesus Christ flourish through our meager efforts.

In short, we pray that God will work in and through our work.  And we offer this blog as an invitation for you to join us in this amazing journey of learning how to better serve others and experience God’s work through our work each day.

Filed Under: Content, Work
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