Mission: Work as Mission

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grand Parkway.

We are thankful that we were purchased, that we were bought with a price.

That Jesus, through your sacrifice, God, through you sending your son to atone for us, to make payment for us.

Because there is no amount of religion and morality and girding up our energy and our will can make us right with you.

And so you've given us your son, and for that we're thankful.

God, we're thankful for this morning.

We're thankful for a mandolin and a good word.

God, we're thankful for a long weekend.

God, we're thankful that you love us so well.

And God, if we don't find ourselves here thankful this morning, God, we pray that you would speak.

God, I pray that if any point, I heard a good word this morning, that if any point in this past week we felt or we believed or we entertained the thought that we were outside of your presence and we have missed who you are.

Because you were always present and you were always working, and you are always speaking to us and inviting us into what you're doing.

And for that we want to be thankful.

For that we are thankful.

For that we want to be challenged, encouraged by your word this morning.

That's our prayer.

We praise things your name.

Amen.

My name is Wade Collier, and I am the missions pastor here at Grand Parkway Missions and Outreach, and I am glad to be in front of you this last Sunday of August, the Labor Day weekend, fitting that we wrap up our if you look on the front of the uh uh worship folder you were handed when you walked in, it says mission.

Um we have been going through the core values of our church, mission being one of those, as Neil has said, week in and week out, that is not missions, that is mission.

Um, and so this morning we get to wrap up, again, like I said on the Labor Day weekend, um, work as mission, and we'll unpack what that looks like.

Um I was uh curious as to what Labor Day, um, what what what different thoughts we have about Labor Day.

I have one that always um for the last 20 years has come up, and I'll share that in a minute, but I I got so curious I went on the Department of Labor website.

Don't do that, you'll just get depressed.

But today is Labor Day, which the government defines as constituting a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

So you have a government-mandated day of rest tomorrow.

So if you glean nothing else from today's sermon, not only God, but your government wants you to take a nap tomorrow.

Amen?

Amen.

Um so uh this morning we are um going to talk about work as mission.

And as as it falls on uh the this holiday weekend, I think about labor day.

I have the same thought every Labor Day.

And when I was 15, I had my first real job.

You know, when I was a kid, we it was slave labor, but it was my parents just called it childhood.

Um so I did a lot of that.

And then I got my first job when I was 15, where I actually got a paycheck, and I went to work for a company called Lone Star Uh Tile and Carpet.

I can say that name freely because they are no longer in existence.

Um but when I was 15, I went to work for them.

This was in the early 90s when everybody was ridding their house of old linoleum in their floor on their floors, and um as the low man on the totem pole, I was charged with the scraper and the high traffic areas of linoleum, um, which I'm pretty sure there's gonna be a part of hell where you have to do that.

Um and so I would do that, and my boss's name was Rudy, and Rudy barely spoke any English.

Um, but Rudy knew every word and would sing all day, every day, Rapid Roy the Stock Car Boy by Jim Croce.

Anybody?

Jim Crocey fans?

Anybody?

Rapid Roy Stock Car Boy, fastest dog on the land?

Learn, run and shine out of Alabama, thank you.

Um and he would sing that song every day.

And um, and I remember one day we get paid every two weeks, and it was um it was right, it was right after Labor Day.

It was, I think it was the first, that was back when school would start, right after the Tuesday after Labor Day, and my dad was gonna take me to pick up my paycheck.

I was earning money um to buy a pickup.

Um, this is what we'll hear a little bit about my dad because when I think about work, I think about the hardest working man I know.

Um and so I wanted to buy a truck.

I'd been saving up some money, and so uh I looked at a few trucks, I even drug him along, and he's like, No, we're not gonna do that.

We're gonna you're you're gonna buy my truck from me.

Okay.

And so um, no negotiating the price with my old man, by the way.

And so um we went to um pick up my paycheck.

It was about, man, it was summer, so I mean it was 90, 100 hours over two weeks.

It was I was looking forward to that paycheck and pulled into the storefront where Lone Star Tile and Carpet should be, and Lone Star Tile and Carpet was no longer there.

Sign was off the build.

Yes, oh is correct.

Uh sign was off the building, no more samples inside, all that was left was some trash and some dust, and a lot of guys that didn't speak any English who were standing there looking at me, hoping for answers from the 15-year-old um suburban white kid.

Uh and um and so I got back in the truck, told my dad what happened, and he didn't really say anything, and we just drove.

Um, I grew up over in Northwest Houston, we just drove right up Jones Road in 1960, where there was a Kmart, and he pulled in and he goes, Well, go get an application.

I was like, What?

But Dad, I I I worked all that, and he's like, Well, what's next?

Go get an application.

So I got an application, I started my next job as a stock boy at Kmart.

And the reason I share that with you this morning, the reason I share that that resonates with me is there is this constant question from God saying, Well, what's next?

What's next?

And here's what I mean by this as we wrap up this series of mission this morning, we're gonna talk about viewing our work as mission.

Um when Neil uh told me at the beginning of the month, he said, Hey, I want you to take this last Sunday, I want you to talk about work as mission.

I started reading a ton.

Um, and I found myself reading a sermon about a 30-year-old sermon by a pastor in Minnesota named John Piper.

Um, and he had a sermon on this very exact topic, and he was actually um preaching from the passage that I read to you from the from the beginning of the um the service out of 1 Corinthians 7.

And when I read his sermon, I came to the conclusion that I shouldn't preach that passage for two reasons.

One, I could never preach it near as well as he did.

Um, and two, there was a there was a um uh a quote that I want to read you from his sermon that drove me to where we are going to be, that God used to drive me where we are this morning.

And that is this.

And what we all need to hear is that what lies most on the heart of God is not whether we move from one job to another, but whether in our present work we are enjoying God's promised presence.

I'm gonna read that again.

But whether in our present work we are enjoying God's promised presence and obeying his commands in the way that we do our work.

It was that phrase, enjoying God's promised presence and obeying his commands that God used to drive me right into the passage this morning.

As we read early in our service, as we had scripture reading, we read that in God's creation, read the read the creation narrative, read Genesis 1 through 3, and the only ones given a charge are us.

God's created people that he gives a charge, and he gives us a charge to take and and and and and and to take control over the things that God has done, he says, um, for us to subdue and have dominion over the earth.

That is work.

That is work, church.

And whether church, whether work rather for you is sitting behind a desk or it's building calluses on your hand, it's running your business, it is working for someone else, it is teaching tomorrow's generation and shaping tomorrow's generation, if it is serving your house and running your household, that is a work.

That is what God has put us in.

That's all we read in 1 Corinthians 7 that where we are, God has a purpose.

So you could find yourself this morning at the best your life has ever been, at the height of your career.

Your kids are actually doing what they're supposed to do and they're acting the way that you raised them to actually behave, or you can find yourself looking down the barrel of you are not where you want to be, this is not where you plan to be.

Your kids have left the rails, you don't know what's going on.

In both of those scenarios, hear this, church, that God is present and he is there, and he has a work for you in the midst of that.

And so when you hear work, don't just hear nine to five.

Hear what God is calling you to.

If you're a student, that is work.

And that is what God has called you to, and that's what God has a purpose for.

So in our passage this morning, if you want to turn with me to Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse 9.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, the scripture will be on the screens behind me.

If you um would like a Bible and you don't own one, look to your left and your right, and there's some hardcover Bibles as a gift from us this morning.

I don't think we say that enough.

Um, take that Bible, and we as Grand Parkway will buy more Bibles.

Amen?

Thank you.

Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse 9, says this as we begin to understand what it is to enjoy God's promised presence, obeying his commands in the way that we do our work.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Let love be genuine.

Ahoor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.

Love one another with brotherly affection, outdo one another in showing honor.

Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you, and bless and do not curse them.

Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

Verse 16 live in harmony with one another.

Do not be howdy, but associate with the lowly.

Never be wise in your own sight.

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Revengeance is mine, which I will repay, says the Lord.

To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.

If he's thirsty, give him something to drink.

For both by so doing, you will heap burning coals on his head.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with this with good.

It's in this passage that God uses Paul's instruction right here to teach us how to enjoy God's promised presence as we obey his commands through work.

I think this passage gives us a lot as it pertains to our efforts, what is taking our mental and our physical and our emotional and our spiritual energy.

But there are four that I want to highlight for us this morning as we take this posture, as we set a trajectory for ourselves, if we ask God, God guide me and give me discernment and lead me in this way, I think there are four things that God is going to show us how to make work mission.

And the first one is to be genuine.

To be genuine.

We hear that word genuine, we hear it in the framework or in reference to work, and we think about the people we know that give Christianity a bad name, and we allow that to scare us out of being Christians.

We allow that to scare us out of outing ourselves as believers in a public platform.

We've seen people that take their own morality, their own politics, their own opinions, and they throw Jesus' name on it doesn't represent Christ well.

And so we've convinced ourselves, well, I don't want everybody else to think I'm a hypocrite.

Let me challenge you, but bigger than that, church, let the word and the truth of God challenge you that being genuine drives out any threat of you being called a hypocrite, and true, genuine following Christ buries hypocrisy six feet under.

And here's what I mean by that.

Um turn there, this is gonna come on the screen.

Here's a list from 1 Peter 1 that is a great, just comprehensive.

This is what it looks like to be genuine.

Uh don't be overwhelmed by that list.

I'm not gonna preach all that.

And the church said, Amen.

I'm not gonna preach all that.

I do want to buzz a tower on just a couple.

We'll leave it up there if you want to if you want to go back and look at that.

I do encourage you to go back and read 1 Peter 1 and take a look at what this says.

This is what it looks like to be genuine.

Redeemed and sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

That you know and you have assurance because you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, that it is just natural within you.

It should be natural within us as we are believers in Jesus Christ, that it just overflows.

And I know I'm a member at Grand Parkway.

I say this almost every time.

I'm a member here as well as the pastor here.

And I know what it is to sit in the pulpit and hear really gifted men and women come up and talk, and you're like, I could never do that.

And and what the calling on God and what should be innate in us as believers is when we hear, it's not standing up and preaching, it's when we hear people talking about life, and we hear them talking about purpose, and we hear them talking about what everything is all about, and then we just have this that's not right.

That doesn't smell like, taste like, sound like anything of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so in us it wells up, it's not to yell and win an argument, but to begin to be um someone that says, you know what, I'm sanctified and I'm genuine, and so that means that I can't have any part of this, and it might mean sometimes that you need to stand up for that in your family, at your school, in your work, and where you're expending your effort.

That we call on the name of the Lord.

We're gonna talk about that more, that we are people that as a genuine um believer in Jesus Christ, as we are seeking to be genuine and making our work mission, that we constantly call on the name of the Lord.

I was almost going to have a section in our in our service where we just sat in silence and just spent time calling on the name of the Lord, and we might still do that, to see what it looks like to set a pattern in our life, that when we begin our day and throughout the day, we call on the name of the Lord, which leads into the next one where we become more obedient.

That when God is leading and the Holy Spirit is moving in us, and that there's that holy discontentment that I was talking about when we hear people talking about things that do not line up with God's purpose and God's message and God's will, that we become obedient to respond to that and what God is doing.

And we do that by standing on the truth.

Standing on the truth.

And by standing on the truth and being obedient, it says, if you were to read, it says that you seek to be holy as God is holy.

You strive to be holy, maybe your translation says.

You're never going to arrive there.

That is every day, death to self, sanctification, obedience.

God, I want to be holy like you are holy.

And that pushes us and pulls us and short ropes us up the mountain to being genuine.

And we hold on to the living hope of Christ.

And we are sober and level-headed.

Uh I saw a great example of this on Friday on my day off.

I was playing golf with some men from our church, and um one of the guys um uh looked at his golf ball and he had crosses etched on his golf ball.

And one of the other guys said, So is that so you if you lose it, someone knows it's yours?

Because if you play golf a lot, you play in the same place, people know your initials, they'll return your balls to you.

Charles Barkley, if you've never seen that cat, he hits balls eight miles off the golf course.

He's got neighbors bringing them to him.

Um and the guy that's playing golf with a cross on he says, No, it just reminds me of who I am when I'm playing golf.

It's not that big of a deal.

Reminds me of my character and who I represent when I'm out here.

Reminds me that my integrity isn't worth cheating at golf.

Let that sink in.

Some of y'all will have an altar call for all you lying golfers up here afterwards.

Lance Williams will be leading that.

Level headed.

Purifies their soul.

We're gonna talk about that.

Love loves others sincerely and on an undignified level.

Now, I wrote that and then uh circled back around to it last night and just got, just if I can be honest with you, just horribly convicted.

And it brought up a question in me, and the Holy Spirit brought up a question.

I know we're two weeks out from community groups where we normally offer questions.

Here's a question for you and a question for me.

When's the last time, bless you, when's the last time that you loved in an undignified manner?

That you love God in an undignified way, that you love someone else for the sake of God in an undignified way.

Here's what I mean by that.

When I was dating my wife when we were in um college, um, I was I was more than poor.

I was what they call broke.

All right, there was a whole other level beyond poor, and I was broke, and I had no money, and I was desperately in love with this girl, and I knew there was literally a line of guys waiting to ask her out, and I was like, I gotta figure this out somehow, and I'm not a very creative person, so I ran that well dry pretty quick of how to do creative dates with no money, and I was like, I gotta take her on a real date.

And this is before students don't do this, most of our students are in the warehouse, so I can get away with this.

It's before I discovered that you can sell your plasma for about 120 bucks a month.

So I courted my wife, don't do that, teenagers, by the way, when you go to college.

Um, you'll get sick all the time.

And so um there was a restaurant in Bryan College Station.

It was called the Blue Baker.

And at the Blue Baker, if you wore like a blue shirt or you wore a blue hat, you say, Hey, I'm representing the restaurant, they give you some free chips, so they give you a free drink.

And then I saw a poster one day that if you covered yourself in blue, they would give you a free meal.

And so I had a really good friend.

This is a good friend, by the way.

Uh, and is is and I knew that I was like, hey man, I really need to take Sally out.

And he's like, I got your back.

What do we gotta do?

I was like, we gotta we gotta paint ourselves blue.

He's like, I had you until paint yourselves blue, but let's do it.

And so I had a I had a couple friends that were in their last year of uh of getting their elementary ed degree and they had paint.

I didn't know at the time there's a difference between paint that you put on paper and there's paint that you put on your body.

Read the label.

I put the blue paint all over my body, blue hat, blue shirt, brought my friend Frank with me, walked into Blue Baker, got our pictures taken, we were a little celebrities, and then I had uh sandwich chips and a drink.

Take my wife out on a picnic.

Um this was back in the days of mixtape.

Yeah, get excited.

We listened to a mixtape and ate cold sandwiches.

Sorry, ladies, I'm taken.

So that is where this conviction began to weigh on me as one is I I need to get more creative.

Not that I have a lot of money, but there's just an easy answer in love with my wife now, and I can take her on a date and I can do all the things, is I don't have to strive to be undignified in the way that I serve my wife, and then I started to think, man, is have I allowed myself to be comfortable in the way that I love my God and I serve my God.

And where is the genuine undignified chasing after making my effort and all that I do look like the mission of God?

Um, and that causes us to be sojourners.

And sojourner is just a big word for saying you live well in a place you don't belong.

And here, this church, this isn't it.

Where we are right now, this isn't the end.

Thank you.

And we're this isn't the end.

And so we live purposefully and intentionally here, but we also live knowing what's on the other side.

We know what's promised by the Father.

We know that if we stand on the truth and we're obedient to his word and his call and his promise and his salvation, that there is more.

And so we are sojourners, so we do that well, and that allows us to do the next one, which is suffer well.

And we suffer well, and we're gonna I wanna I'm I'm not skipping over that, we're gonna circle back around to that in a minute, because we fear God.

And we hear that term fear God, and for a lot of us, if you're like me, you grew up in a church where sometimes I think really well-intentioned men misrepresented God, and you hear fear God, and you hear this angry, thor like God up in the sky.

And that's not what fearing God finds its root in.

Fearing God finds its root in trusting and knowing who God is and what his purpose is.

And that comes from right from this list, 1 Peter 1, 3 through 5.

Don't turn there.

But it says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

You take that, and you take Hebrews 10, where it says, You don't want to be in the hands of God who on the wrong side of God, and you say, No, I don't have to be on the wrong side of God because he has made things right, and I now have that in me, and now I can be genuine about that faith, and I can tell people about this is the consequences of falling into the hands of an angry God, and don't let that scare you into heaven or making a decision that is not real.

Let my efforts of work be representative of the God who loved us so much that he sent his son to die on the cross so that we could have new life in him.

And in that we have this message that drives us to be genuine, and beyond that, it calls us to be empathetic.

And before we get to empathetic, which is our next point, I want to make sure not to miss this.

As we um talk about being genuine, let me be your pastor, one of your pastors for a moment and say that there is a threat that we do face, there is a temptation that we do face, have faced, and will continue to face, and that is to try to change the message.

And we have this this inclination as to change the message to make it more consumable, or to make it less offensive, or to make it to where it doesn't make us feel awkward that we have to say the hard things that God says about himself and that he's called us to.

Many of you are aware of this.

More of you emailed it to me, and I'm sure the other pastors we haven't had a meeting and talk about your email habits yet.

But um Victoria Osteen at Lakewood Church and the train wreck that happened down there, um, it was caught on video and it's now gone viral.

If you're over 65 years old, viral means it's on the World Wide Web a lot.

Um and uh and and basically said that uh God cares more about your happiness than his own glory.

Um and so now we sit here and you have one of about three responses.

One of those is you're really mad at me for calling her out by name.

Um you taking way too much joy in me calling her out by name.

Um, some of you had fallen asleep until this point, and now you're like, oh, what happened?

Let me be as bold to say I think the proper response to this should just be sadness.

Sadness that someone with that kind Platform has so lost confidence in the true message of Jesus Christ that they are now changing, attempting to change, but representing a changed gospel that is the Bible would say about itself it's no gospel at all.

And then is misleading thousands upon thousands of people because miss the genuine message that we are called to.

And so I would challenge you, I didn't do, I didn't say this in the first service, but I'll say it here because I think this is the Holy Spirit.

I would challenge you to watch the way in which you represent disdain with things, things that maybe don't represent well.

I'm not saying don't take a stand, I say do take a stand.

But I would, I would, I would check your posture on those things and your motivation.

Is it to get over on someone you don't like, or is it a general grieving of your spirit because that doesn't look like the gospel that saved you?

And so let's be genuine and let's um let's let's be our next point is empathetic.

Now, some of you, I had you, I had you for genuine.

We got we got to bash Lakewood Church and everything, but now I'm talking about feelings, and you're like, ah, you lost me, I'm gone.

But hang with me for empathetic.

Let's read in verse 14 of our passage.

It says, Bless those who persecute you.

Bless and do not curse them.

Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

We were sitting around our lunch table yesterday, and um my wife was trying to explain to our kids that I was going to be preaching today, which is I don't I don't I don't do that all the time here.

Um I have a five and a half-year-old daughter, I have a two and a half-year-old son, and trying to explain to them exactly what dad does doesn't always translate well.

Um you ask my two and a half-year-old son, what does daddy do?

Um, you can get anything from he fixes stuff.

He sees me sometimes, I'll throw jeans and t-shirts, come up here, fix something with the church, or go to someone's house and do something.

Uh, what does daddy do?

He fixes stuff.

Or my favorite, he talks on the microphone.

Um and then my my five and a half year old, she gets it a little bit more.

What does daddy do?

Well, he goes, he travels the world and tells people about Jesus.

He goes and visits sick people in the hospital, and if he's gone more than one sleep, he brings me a toy.

That's a that's a pretty sweet gig.

Uh but she says, Well, what what Bible story are you teaching tomorrow?

And I said, Well, we're gonna be talking about how God wants us to work hard and he gives us all that we do to work, all that we need to work hard, and he also wants us to be empathetic.

And at that point, I just lost her at the word empathetic.

She's like, I got no idea what you're talking about.

And apparently, my um my my explanation of it's an intentional incarnational ministry, when you want to just my wife just patted me a little condescending pat, and's like, I got this.

And she just looks at our daughter and she says, empathy means that we love people so much that we care deeply about their lives.

Sophie's like, Oh, okay.

I was like, Yeah, that's what I was saying.

That's all I was saying the whole time.

So when we read that God wants us to rejoice with those who rejoice in verse 15, weep with those who weep, God is saying to genuinely love people so much that you care deeply about their lives.

Now you could be sitting here going, Wade, you don't know the kind of jerks I work with.

I can empathize.

I'm showing and you might be um, Wade, you don't you don't know the kind of jerks that I go to school with.

You don't know the kind of jerks that live in my house, right?

Um as as Marcy McClendon says, um, and it and it and it stings uh just as much every time is there's a story behind every face.

Um and so when we think about empathy, when we think about genuine, when we think about taking this thing work that we put our effort towards, and we look at it as mission, representative of a genuine God, of a genuine message, it requires empathy.

And here's where it requires empathy is the people that you can't stand.

If God is present and God is, hang with me, I just lost some of you.

Come back.

If God is present and God is calling and God is working, then that means in everywhere, every time, and everyone.

And it could be those people that just wear you out.

And there's a reason they wear you out, and there's a reason that they are so abrasive.

There's a story behind that face.

Let me lay myself on the altar of this to understand empathy because I think it is that serious.

Before I knew Jesus, I was one of the angriest, most ruthless people you have ever met.

Um, so much so that people who knew me before I knew Jesus have found their way to this church, either visiting with family.

Um, some of them go to church here now and are members.

Um, and some of those people have reached out to Neil, either through email, phone call, meeting, and saying, Hey, you need to know who this wave guy is.

Um, to that level, um to the level which I went to my high school reunion several years back, and when word got around that I was a Christian and a pastor, um the general conception was that I was just running a long scam on the church.

Um I'm not.

Um and so um one of my favorite pastimes as growing up as a church kid uh was just to drive church people crazy till they leave me alone.

Um just angry, just ruthless.

Um and there was one guy though, his name was Matt Coleman, and I can't tell you um how we ended up getting connected.

Matt was four years older than me, he was in college.

Um and Matt would um pursue me and repeatedly tell me, he's like, hey, number one, I'm not afraid of you.

And number two, I am radically not impressed by you.

Um and he would do crazy things like come into my house and walk into my room on a Sunday morning and drag me out of bed and make me go to church when I couldn't even walk.

Are we all tracking why I couldn't walk early on a Sunday morning?

Um he would drag me to church and he would show up, and I just I don't know what deal he had struck with my parents where he could come in my house all the time, but he was constantly in my room and having hard conversations with me and taking me to church.

And I remember he drove this late 70s um uh 280z.

Remember those little dots and 280z things?

And it had a hatchback on it.

I remember one time he came out and his girlfriend was sitting in the front seat and he goes, Well, climb in the back.

And his little hatchback.

And you have to know that at this point in my life and where I was, and I was so low and so angry and so prone to rage and just ridiculous immature behavior, that if anybody else had asked me to do that, I would have thought the best course of action was to inflict physical harm on them for disrespecting me.

That's what I would have thought.

But there was something about this guy that was so compelling and so genuine that I took my big Sasquatch frame and folded up in the back of his hatchback 280z and rode to church all cramped up.

And he wasn't only genuine and he was and he is, um, but he was also empathetic.

And um in April of 1996, um, a friend of mine um was inebriated, walked out in front of his sister's car, she didn't see him, and she hit him and killed him.

And that was my third friend I had lost in 11 months.

Um and I didn't know what to do.

I didn't have the maturity, I didn't have the faculties, and I definitely didn't have Jesus.

Um, and my normal course of action would be to go crawl inside of a bottle and then um go pick a fight with somebody and hurt them so they could feel the pain that I felt because that's what I did.

Um Matt found out, and he drove home all the way from Marshall, Texas in the middle of the night and came into my house and sat with me and cried with me and um talked with me and cried with me some more.

And um and then in August of 1996, this is um the guy that God used to lead me to him and um and and and pray with me to become a believer.

There's fruit and empathy.

If you want to see someone that no one wanted to be around, I'm standing right here.

And maybe that's still true.

You you want to look.

Ushers, can y'all go ahead and escort him?

But there's there's there's fruit, there's fruit and and and and listening to God and genuine and empathy.

Um So when we read that God wants us to rejoice with those in verse 15 and weep with those who weep, God is saying, genuinely love people so much that you care deeply about their lives.

What a call, church.

What a call to be so compelled by the hope, the truth, the life found in the message of Christ, that we are so empathetic with those we do life with day in and day out that we cannot help but cry out and strive to be what Neil preached about last week, to be ambassadors of reconciliation.

Because here, this church, God is drawing people to him and he wants to use you.

God is in the business, reconciliation, he is in the business of making people right with him.

Because apart from Christ, we are not right with God.

But what God has done is he has sent his son and he has allowed us and he has invited us in to be part of making things right.

So people you work with, God wants to make things right with them and he wants to use you.

And people you go to school with students, God is in the business of making things right with them, and he wants to use you.

And in your families, you don't get to clock out when you go to the family reunion.

And you don't get to clock out when you're around your family members that you know don't know Jesus because God is in the business of making things right, and he wants to use you for that.

And that's through being genuine, and that's through being empathetic.

It's also through being honorable.

Verse 16.

You still with me?

Live in harmony with one another.

Do not be howdy, but associate with the lowly.

Never be wise in your own sight.

Repay no evil, no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.

What does honor look like?

Well, the Bible tells us it looks like never being wise in your own sight.

Never thinking you have arrived, never thinking you were holy, never thinking you have all the answers, but understanding that you know the one who does.

I had lunch with some men on Friday that go to our church, and um, all these men older than me, all these men that have lived way more life than me.

Um my dad um always said, Hey, when you're around men that have lived more life than you, shut up and you might learn something.

Um my dad's a lot like Mr.

Rogers.

Off the cardigan.

No, he's not.

Um shut up, neighbor.

Um this is and this is why um when I'm asked by guys, and I'm not that old, but I'm I'm I'm I'm kind of up there as far as guys that are starting out of ministry.

And so when guys that are younger than me ask me um how to finish well in ministry, I say marry well.

Um, surround yourself with just extreme accountability, people that have access to every area of your life.

And surround yourself with people that are not impressed by you.

And those people have gray hair.

And those people have lived life.

And as Neil says, those people have gold wedding bands and not the hip silver ones like us young guys.

And be around those people who've been married and Christians longer than you've been alive.

And so I was sitting at a table with some guys that were like that, and one of them um began to share a story about being laid off for the first time in his career.

And um, he said that he found himself just not knowing what to do and wanting to update the LinkedIn and make phone calls and make it happen.

He said he was reminded of this, and I was so struck and it's so echoed that I reached out to him late Friday night and I said, I want to quote you correctly.

And work is a divinely appointed place where we are given more than we get.

That's so good, I gotta read it again.

Work is a divinely appointed place where we give more than we get.

What does it look like to be honorable?

If we strive to be honorable when we pursue work is mission, we will time and time again be reminded that work is a divinely appointed place where we give more than we get.

And I know, much like empathy, this is an easy thing to say and maybe not an easy thing to put in action because some of us find ourselves in a stage of life, whether it's work or school or home or whatever the season of work that God has for us where the best part of the day is the end of the day.

It's not lost on me.

I'd love to come home and play with my kids.

I love to come home and have a conversation with my wife.

I love to come home and just be home.

But if if if if everything leads towards us just putting our head down and tolerating and just getting through the day, then we miss the most consequential thing that God might have for us.

Great opportunities to be genuine as we view work as a mission.

Incredible opportunities to be empathetic, to weep, to laugh, to cry with others, to pay good for evil, and to be honorable.

Or as the illustrious Augustus McCrae says in Lonesome Dove, it's not dying, I'm talking about Woodrow, it's living.

I had dinner with a guy on Thursday night whose house had been broken into the day before, and somehow Lonesome Dove came up in the conversation.

He's like, I've never seen that movie, I've never read that book.

And I said, I did feel bad that your house got broken into, but now I don't.

Maybe I'm still ruthless, Tommy Hammer.

Pray for me.

Um but God is telling us through Paul's words: if we work honorably, we live in harmony with one another, if we do not be howdy or haughty, but associate with the lowly, never be wise in our own sight, repay no evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all that will work to the fullest.

That will work for peace, we'll be representatives and ambassadors of peace and reconciliation, we'll be ambassadors of salvation, we will work harder and with more energy than anybody else.

And it's not because at the finish line there's a 401k grandkids and a travel trailer.

Nothing's wrong with any of that, but that's not the greatest reward.

The reason that we strive to be genuine, the reason we strive to be empathetic, the reason we strive to be honorable is because all that is good.

That brings us to our last point, and I'm done.

Are you still with me?

Just got a minute or two left.

Famous last words of a pastor.

Just another minute.

Hang with me.

Um and here's what I mean by it's good.

It's not out here in the foyer and how you doing.

I'm good, brother.

Good.

Life's good.

No.

Look at what scripture says about this kind of good.

Look at verse 21.

It says, Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

That's a powerful good right there, my friends.

That's more than I'm good, brother.

What are you, Hulk Hogan?

Brother.

No, there's a good that needs to be reclaimed.

There's a good that overcomes evil.

There's a good that we need to move past our concept of evil.

Church, we need to move past our concept of evil, just people doing mean things to us or seeing saying mean things about us.

There is a true evil that is overcome by good that would hate and will do everything to keep from happening the kingdom of God setting down where you work.

There is a good that overcomes an evil, an evil that wants to prevent you from being an ambassador of reconciliation at your school and in your family and at work.

And wants to prevent you from empathizing.

And being kind to those who are mean to you.

And loving the unlovable.

There is an evil there that can only be overcome by the goodness of Christ.

The word says about itself that there is a good, that no weapon form can prosper against it.

And the way that we find that is trusting God.

How are you honorable?

Because of God.

Because there is a good and honorable God.

How are you empathetic?

Because there is a good and empathetic God who is not like a highly prayed pre high high priest who does not know us.

How are you genuine?

Because you serve a genuine God.

There is a good that is only found in Christ, a good that triumphs in the face of all evil.

A good that no weapon formed against it can prosper.

There is a good that is only found in Christ.

Here's what this looks like, and I truly will be done.

Back when I was in college, I was sharing back before when I was in college, there was a girl whose name was Holly.

I knew Holly for um the four years that I was in college station.

And every time you saw Holly on campus, you say, Holly, how am I?

And she goes, I'm so blessed.

And I know this will surprise you about me, but I'm very sarcastic and cynical.

Um and so when she would say blessed, I always had some kind of sarcastic thought rolling around in my head.

I'm not proud of this.

I probably made jokes about her to my friends who were also jerks.

Um, and we would say things, and so and then I would she would say, I'm blessed, how are you?

And I'd be like, I'm just convicted, you know, and just an idiot.

And um, and so I never really believed that.

I'm like, no one can ever feel that way all the time.

No one can really believe that.

Um, and then what I find out later is that um Holly had um severe debilitating crohnes.

And as Holly was walking around campus, every step was agony.

But she so believed in the message of Christ, and she so believed that in this season at Texas AM that God had something for her, and that God had something and was in the business of making things right with the people that she would encounter, and he wanted to use her.

And so wherever she went, I'm blessed.

And so um in a in a in a in a moment of conviction, and um I I Google stalked her and looked her up a couple years ago and uh found out that she is the vice president of an orphan mission organization in Africa.

Been to Africa lately?

Can you imagine being there with Crohn's?

Blessed.

We're called to be genuine, we're called to be empathetic, we're called to be honorable, we're called to be good, we're called to be blessed.

Do me a favor and stand to your feet as we close.

If you could hold your hands out like this, um, I'd like to speak a blessing over you, and this is um this is a blessing I'd like for you to read.

And more than a blessing, it's a quote um from an incredible pastor in New York named Tim Keller that I think is very fitting for us this morning.

Work has dignity because it is something that God does, because we do it in God's place as his representatives.

We learn not only that work has dignity in itself, but also that all kinds of work have dignity.

Go and be his representatives.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.