A Vision for Your Work
Vision

Transcript

Good morning, church. It's great seeing all of you here this morning. We're happy to have you here on this day. I was up early this morning thinking if people would just panic because the weather said it was going to be bad. But you're here, and I'm thankful for you.

Good to see all of you here this morning. Before we continue our sermon series today, I want to address the bulletin insert that you see today from Choices Women's Center. Today is the third Sunday of January. It's a day that many churches, including ours, remember the sanctity of human life. It's the Sunday we call the “Sanctity of Human Life” Sunday.

And we remember what God's word teaches us in the book of Psalms 139 as we read, Psalm 139:13-14 (NIV) “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.” And so we believe in God's word, and we believe that we were made in God's image and that we believe the unborn deserve life. And so we support that. But we not only just support that as a theoretical thing, but we support the local Choices Women's Center, which is a service to those women who might have an unplanned pregnancy, and they need help with how to make a decision about that. And so our church supports them financially.

We also have people from our church that volunteer there. So we not only want to help women make a decision for life and support them financially and help them do that, but we also support women who may have gone through this earlier in life and made a different decision. And we recognize that there are women, even in my hearing right now, as I am preaching, that may have made a different decision about this. And often they have a brokenness about them that really needs forgiveness and healing so they can forgive themselves and receive forgiveness from the Lord.

And so Choices Women Center also offers counseling. And we care about both the mother and the unborn, and we care about the difficulty of that decision for many. And so we want to support you in that, and we want to support them. So if you want to know more about this, you can see the insert in your bulletin. You can also stop off at the table in the lobby where we have baby bottles there.

We do this every year where you can put loose change in the baby bottles and then turn them back in. We give this as financial support in addition to the support we normally do. So if you want to know more, stop off at the table. Our own Valerie Hawley is the director of the Choices Women's Center.

She's a member at our church. I was a little late in inviting her to come and speak for us today. She's speaking at another church this morning. But when you see Valerie, make sure you let her know that we support her hard and diligent work there. Well, let's dig in.

We're continuing going through the book of Philippians, pulling a little bit out of each of the four chapters in these four messages. We're in chapter three today, and we're continuing this series we're calling, “Vision - Seeing Yourself in God's Story.” Rather than seeking your own vision, but to seek rather a vision from God for your life. And many of us, as we think about our work, in the past weeks, we've talked about our heart and vision. For me personally, last week we talked about home, a vision for my family and my friends, my relationships.

But today I want us to kind of zero in about our vocation. And many of us view our vocation, our work, kind of like our identity. In fact, if men are talking to each other, I'm not sure if women do this, but men certainly do. We'll say, hey, what's your name? When we're meeting somebody, hey, I'm Gary.

Oh, nice to meet you, John. And then what do you do? That's like the second question after the name is that's your identity. What do you do? And so your vocation is very important.

And maybe women go from that to family. I'm not sure. I'll have to ask my wife when I get home. Hey, I forgot to ask you about this. What do women do when they first meet each other?

But men tend to do that. And so we get our identity often instead of from relationships, we get it from our resume. And so we care about that. And so how many of you remember having to turn in a resume applying for a job? Or in order to get into a certain college, you had to turn in an application along with your transcript from your high school. That's kind of scary, you know.

And so you turn in this record of your life hoping to get into a good school, to get a good job. Why? So that you can achieve your vision for life. Which is what? To have the biggest house, the biggest car, the biggest family, the most successful, the American dream.

And we aim at these things. We think that's what we need to do. And so we ultimately go, how much money can I make? What’s the best resume I can have in order to make the most money and the most success? So recently I was watching this documentary on Netflix.

It's about the life of the quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and it's called “Aaron Rodgers Enigma.” And I've only seen the first episode, but in this first episode, Rodgers reflects on the aftermath of winning Super Bowl 45 back in 2011, and it was his first and only super bowl win so far. And he had reached the literal pinnacle of success for an athlete. He won the Super Bowl.

Not only that, he was awarded the MVP, Most Valuable Player. So it's the pinnacle of the pinnacle. And at the after party, he noticed, he said he kind of got quiet and realized he wasn't feeling right. He wasn't feeling like he thought it would feel. And this is a quote from the documentary.

He says, "Now what?… Who am I? I’ve accomplished this thing that I always wanted to accomplish and I’m not as happy as I thought I was going to be, so what is missing?" And he kind of went through a season of being lost in his own head.

Since he was in the eighth grade, he had seen Joe Montana win a Super Bowl, and he turned to his dad. He was a California kid, turned to his dad and said, that's what I'm going to be. I'm going to be a quarterback, and I'm going to win a Super Bowl. And he said he got it. He hit the pinnacle, and it didn't feel like he thought it was going to feel.

Now what he said, if a Super bowl ring, a promotion, a bigger paycheck, a bigger house, a bigger car can't fulfill that need that you have inside for fulfillment, something meaningful, something lasting, what will happen if your vision is only for your resume? The word of God teaches us that it will always fall short. Because we were made, we were built for worship and for worship other than things of the creation instead, worship of the Creator.

We were made for it. So what do you do when you hit the wall? Well, about 2,000 years ago, a man named the Apostle Paul gave us the answer. We'll be in the book of Philippians this morning

in chapter three. Writing from a Roman prison, the Apostle Paul testified to the Philippian believers how he had counted his past achievements, his past vocation as loss, and redirected his vision toward pursuing his upward calling in Christ Jesus. And I believe today that we can do that through faith in Jesus, that we can redirect our vision to the upward call in Christ. And so that our vocation, whether it's in the shop, the classroom, the factory, the business, whatever it is we're doing, we can elevate our vision for our work to following Jesus in the workplace. And as we look at the text today, I think we'll see three essentials for this, for redirecting our vision on Jesus.

So let's go to chapter three. We're going to pick up at verse seven through 14. Philippians 3:7-14 (ESV) 7 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

This is God's word. Amen. We're looking for three essentials for having God's vision, for our work, for our service, our vocation. Here's the first essential:

1. A new perspective.

Paul invites the church at Philippi and invites us today to get a new perspective on our work and on what we value and our purpose in life. Notice in the first couple of verses, in verses 7, 8, he has this phrase, “I counted” and then “I count.” It's there three times. Paul is using the language of a ledger. It's an accounting term.

In fact, it's a marketplace term. “I count.” “I counted.” He talks about gains and losses, except he's not talking about a business. He's talking about his spiritual life.

Here he's talking about how he has a new perspective because he has encountered the living God through the person of Jesus Christ, has a new way of looking at his purpose in life, his resume, his vocation. Everything he does, he now looks at it differently. “I count.” “I counted” back in verse seven. He says it in the past tense.

Notice what it says in verse seven, 7 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.” In the past tense. In the Greek language, it's a verb form that we don't really have. In English, it's in the perfect tense. And the Greek perfect has this idea that there was an action that was completed in the past that has ongoing results.

Here's what Paul is saying when I encounter Jesus and he appears to me on the road to Damascus and speaks to me and even blinds me for three days. When I encountered Jesus, whenever Ananias was appointed to come and heal me of my blindness and to speak to me about Jesus, when my eyes were open to Jesus, I counted. At that very moment, I decided to value him above my resume, to value him above my pedigree, to count my former life as loss in order to gain Jesus. He says, I did it back there. Now, do you remember the story?

You would need to read the book of Acts in order to catch up with this story. But Paul wasn't always called Paul. He was called Saul. And he was a persecutor. He was Saul the persecutor in modern language.

He was a terrorist. He was a Jewish terrorist against Christians. And he was so adamant about dealing with this upstart group called Christianity that we know he guarded the garments as they stoned Stephen to death, the first martyr of the Christian Church. He was there approving that and that he was so adamant about it, so passionate about it, that he received letters from the authorities and he was headed to Damascus to arrest some more people, more Christians.

But Jesus got a hold of him. And he said that when Jesus got a hold of him, he did an accounting. I went to my mental ledger and I counted him versus my whole life previous. And I counted one and done and it is still ongoing. And I count now he's got in present tense twice in verse eight,

“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” I keep on counting. Every time I look at this world and compare it to the beauty and wonder and tremendous supremacy and excellence of Jesus, I keep on counting him as greater than all things.

Now when he talks about what he let go of, he says that whatever gain I had. And then he goes on, indeed, everything. Verse eight, I count everything. But we have to remember what he had said earlier, what he used to count, his pedigree, his resume. Here's what he had said earlier.

He says, Philippians 3:4-6 (ESV) “ … If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

He says, you think you're a good Jew? I'm a better Jew than you. He says to his people that have a Jewish background, he says, if you want to brag about worldly stuff, I've got three PhDs. I got one from Jewish Harvard from the Rabbi Gamaliel, the number one rabbi in Jerusalem.

He says, but you know what I decided? I decided to count that in my ledger as loss. In verse 8, he goes on to say, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”

I've looked at the beauty and wonder, the promise of Jesus is the best. It's better than everything. It's more excellent. Knowing him. Christ Jesus, my Lord. “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish…” Now, if you'd have been there in the church at Philippi when they first got this letter, the preacher got up and

said, hey, we got a new letter from the Apostle Paul straight from Rome, from a Roman cell. Would y' all want to hear it? And they were like, yeah, let's hear it. And he got to this part and he says, I count it all as rubbish. Except that's not what he said.

In the local language of that time, the King James comes closer to a correct translation. “I count it all as dung,” The King James version says, literally in the Greek, it's animal excrement. You know the word he said, right? You know the word he would have said today.

And here's what would have happened in the church at Philippi, and it probably would happen here if I would say it. I'm not going to, for those of you that are nervous, but I guarantee you there was an older gray haired woman that whenever the preacher read that letter from Paul, she gasped. Was Paul cursing?

No, he wasn't cursing. He was just describing, with as graphically as he could, how worthless a life without Jesus is.

To gain the whole world and to lose Christ would to gain only a thing that's as valuable as animal dung. That's what he says. Let's not forget what he says. He's done a new accounting. He has a new perspective.

He values Jesus above all things. Jesus has surpassing worth. And he goes on in verse nine and he says, “and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—” “and being found in him,” because by the way, Christ found Paul. Paul didn't find Christ. He was on his way to arrest people

when Jesus arrested him. He was on his way there. He says, “and being found in him, not having a righteousness of my own,” which I used to be aimed at, poised for righteousness under the law, he goes, not that kind of righteousness, because that's insufficient. Instead, I have the kind that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God. That depends on faith. Hey, I've got a new identity. I've got a new perspective now it's Christ in me, the hope of glory.

I've got a new way of looking at everything now. Everything in my former life I now count as rubbish compared to gaining Christ, knowing Christ being found in Christ. Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:21 (ESV) “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

You see, whatever we treasure is what we truly worship. What you thought of probably right before you went to sleep last night, or maybe you got up this morning worrying about is probably closer to your treasure. That thing that you want, I really want this. I desire this. And the truth is, we're in a constant battle for our worship.

A constant accounting, a constant mental math needs to be done of reminding ourselves of the surpassing worth of Jesus. Because we are given to idolatry, our hearts are given to the things we can see. And so true worship, as someone has said, is really pulling our affections off of our idols and putting them on God. It's just this constant going, no, that's not worth my treasure. That's not worth my worship.

Jesus is the only one worthy of my worship, making this decision constantly, because we're constantly bombarded to do and worship lesser things. Recently, a member of our church asked me to pray for an opportunity he'd been offered. He didn't say more than that; he didn't give any detail. Later, he thanked me for the prayers and said he'd finally made his decision.

He said he'd been offered a huge promotion, but it would require moving.

And he said, I've moved many times for money. It's the first time I've made a decision based on prayer and asking God what to do. That's the first time I've made a decision based on God. He said, and after I prayed, and after I had you pray, and after I considered the way my wife and I have been so touched by being involved with this church family and how much we love this church family and how much we love our community group that we're in, and frankly, the way that we've grown closer to our children and our grandchildren because of Jesus. I decided not to take the promotion because when I weighed it against what Christ is doing in my life here, I made a decision based on Him rather than money.

This is the first time I've ever done that. I just want to be a better servant and witness to Jesus. What do you think is going to happen to this man's life? I think God's going to open up the heavens and bless him because he made a decision, like he said, for the first time in his life, based on valuing Christ above a promotion or money.

Christ could have told him something different. He could have made a different decision. What mattered was the way he made the decision. That's a new perspective, isn't it? Putting Jesus first in a work decision, saying, I'm going to put you first in the way I take this test at work.

I'm going to put you first in the way I make a decision about this potential promotion that I'm seeking. I'm going to put you first. This is a new, essential way of having God's vision for your life, for your vocation. Get a new perspective, valuing Christ above all things.

2. A sustaining power.

And that's a sustaining power that in Christ we have a new vision. The vision is to be filled with Jesus, aimed at Jesus, following him. But we have a new power to do it, and that's to be filled with Christ, to have him fully formed in our lives. Paul moves from accounting to empowerment.

And it isn't willpower. It isn't pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It's resurrection power. Let's keep reading. We're at verse 10.

He says, “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,”
I want to know him, and I want to know the power that comes from living in him and him living in me. The Greek word is dunamis. I want to know the dunamis of the resurrection.

That's where we get the word dynamite, dynamic. I want to know the explosive power, the resurrection power of Jesus in my life. The kind of power that raises dead things to life.

What's dead in your life today? What seems dead in your life today? Is it your marriage? Is it a relationship with your teenager? Is it your finances?

Is it your body? You've gotten bad news from the doctor. What seems hopeless? Paul says, “that I may know;” the word here is not intellectual knowledge so much as it is experiential knowledge.

I want to experience the resurrection power of Jesus in my life so that dead things come alive. That's what Paul says. I want a sustaining power that I can't produce myself. I want dunamis power, dynamite power. And then he goes on;

he surprises us. I'm surprised every time I read it because it afflicts my will. “and may share in his sufferings,” He says, I want to know his power that I might share in his sufferings. It's in the Greek subjunctive that means the possibility of.

Now, some of you may have made it your vision, your life's goal to avoid suffering, to stay in your comfort zone, to avoid hurt. That's a fearful place to live and you'll never achieve it. Jesus has promised in this world there will be trouble, there will be suffering. We live in a fallen world. There will be death, there will be suffering, there will be loss, there will be bad news.

He doesn't promise us as we come to faith in Jesus, he doesn't say, well, put on those rose colored glasses and just think positive about everything. He says, no, there'll be suffering. Paul says, I want to know you and I want to know you through suffering because you came and suffered for us and I want to know you. He really wants to know Jesus. And here's the thing.

Jesus doesn't promise that there won't be sufferings. In fact, he promises that there will be. But he does promise that “I'll never leave you nor forsake you,” and I'll be with you. And he's already been through it, so he knows what it's like and he can empower you through what you're going through today. And by the way, he has the power of resurrecting life so that dead things come alive.

I'm still in verse 10, “...becoming like him in his death.” Paul's in prison. He hasn't died yet. He's wrestling with it a little bit earlier in the book, he writes to the Church of Philippi, “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”

As if he's weighing that one, like,Lord, if it's time for me to come home, just come get me. But I guess if I'm still alive, if I'm still breathing, I guess there's something else for me to do. Let me kind of paraphrase, to live as Christ, I'm empowered by Christ to die as gain, which is even better. Boy, he's not afraid.

I haven't died yet. I feel fine, I'm still here, but as long as I'm alive, he goes, but what I'm really focused on is that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Now, he's not saying this with doubt, as somehow he has to earn resurrection from the dead. No, he knows better than that. His language is more like the idea of I'm not there yet.

I'm still here, but I'm aiming at this goal of someday getting a new body. He's talking about the whole enchilada, if you will. He's not just talking about the resurrection, but being with Jesus. I think that's ultimately what he's really talking about. We see it more clearly in verse 14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

He goes, the one I've been loving and adoring and worshiping. I want to be with him face to face for eternity.

That by any means possible, I'm going to lay aside every encumbrance, everything that would slow me down. I'm chasing after that goal. I want to be with you, Jesus. I want to have Christ fully formed in me.

In Galatians, he writes about this. He says, in Galatians 2:20 (ESV) “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” I've got the spirit of Christ that lives within me and empowers me.

My old life, I've counted it as dead. I've been crucified with Christ. I changed my name from Saul to Paul. I went from being the persecutor to the prophet. I went from the persecutor to being the preacher for Jesus.

This past year, in the 2025 Boston Marathon, we had a beautiful scene. A man, a runner, one of the elite runners named Pedro Arieta was near the end of the grueling 26.2 mile race. And just as he was approaching the finish line, there was a runner that was ahead of him who just collapsed and fell on the pavement. Maybe you've seen the video. You can Google it and see it.

And you've seen videos perhaps like this, where he was so spent that he got legs like rubber and his legs just wouldn't function. You could see him, and he just passed out, hit the pavement, and Pedro came up beside him. He was running well. He looked strong.

There's the finish line. And he stops and he lifts this man. It took great effort because the man could not regain his strength even to stand. He literally had to put his arms under his armpits and walk him across the finish line.

And as he's doing it, other runners are getting ahead of him and winning the race. But he's the one who really won the race.

What I see there, when I saw this little reel on Facebook, how I found out about this story and what I was thinking was how Jesus has put his arms around me and how when I think about the finish line and think about whether I'm worthy, I know I'm going to collapse, but I don't have to worry about it because he's already finished the race. And he finished the race in me and for me. And he'll have his arms around me and you.

And as the author of Hebrews writes in Hebrews 12:2 (ESV) “…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith…” Oh, we're in a race. And like any race, there's suffering, there's difficulty, there's highs and lows, then there's the finish line. For some of us, the finish line is closer than it is for others.

You know who you are.

Have you got your vision set on Jesus? This is the second essential for God's vision. For your work is to depend on your service and on your effort, not on your own strength, but on the sustaining power of Christ in you. Which leads us to the third essential:

3. A focused pursuit.

We've talked about a new perspective, a sustaining power. And there's a focused pursuit now as we get to verse 12 and following. And you'll notice that he says this twice. He says, “I press on” twice.

If you were listening earlier as we were singing, I think it was the second song in our worship earlier today. That was a song my son Stephen wrote back, I think around 2007, 8 or 9, somewhere in there. I was preaching through Philippians then and we were calling the series, “One Thing.” We even made t-shirts. Some people call us the t-shirt church.

We have a lot of T-shirts here. We made T-shirts that said one thing. And he wrote the song and. And it was good to sing it again. We haven't sung that song in years.

I enjoyed it; we benefited by singing that together this morning. I press on. I will pursue. The press on has the idea to chase after in order to take hold of. Paul says it twice.

Here's what he says, “not that I have already obtained this.” What's this? Well, he's talking back there about the resurrection from the dead. He hasn't died yet.

He hasn't achieved being with Christ. He hasn't even achieved the fullness of Christ in him. Because he's still wanting to know more about Jesus, right? But he wants the fullness of Christ. And he knows that someday the fullness of Christ will be his.

But he's not going to be passive about it. He's admitting here to the Church of Philippi and us too, I'm still imperfect. I still haven’t got it.

There he goes, “not that I've already obtained this.” I haven't already been raised. I haven't already been perfected. I'm not already perfect, but I press on to make it my own.

That didn't stop me, because grace is opposed to earning, not effort. So you can't earn salvation, but having salvation is not opposed to you pressing on. In fact, it's encouraged, earnings, an attitude, thinking, I deserve this or I can earn this. Effort is an action. It's a response to what Jesus has done for us.

And so he says, “I'm pressing on.” I hadn't got it yet, but I'm pressing on to make it my own. The fullness of Christ fully formed in me seeing him face to face someday. I'm pressing on, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. I want to make him my own because he's already made me his own.

I was on the way to Damascus to arrest some Christians. Instead, I got arrested by Jesus. The King James says he was “apprehended.”

Jesus apprehended Paul. See, you thought you were looking for Jesus. You were looking for something. Actually, it was Jesus looking for you. He found you.

You thought you found him. He found you first, believer. He found Paul, and he says he's already apprehended me. And I want to fully apprehend him into every arena of my life.

Not partial, but the whole. Having surrendered every area of my life to him, counting it all as nothing, even as dung compared to the surpassing worth of having Jesus completely in my life.

Because I press on, brothers, verse 13, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,” I do not consider that I have made it my own. He doesn't want you to think he's got the spiritual big head. He's just talking about his pursuit. But one thing I do; not these 100 things I dabble in.

One thing I do, he says, forgetting what lies behind. Paul doesn't drive his car while peering into the rear view mirror. That's how you end up in a ditch. He doesn't spend his whole life going, well, I can't believe God let that happen to me back there. And just constantly, woe is me because I had this loss. I went through this.

If only I'd have had a better… And no, Paul says, no forgetting it. But it's not finished. And straining forward to what lies ahead. Not just passively.

Like a runner straining so that at the finish line, he wins by a nose. He's straining for what? What's he straining for?

The upward call, verse 14, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” That's synonymous with verse 11, the resurrection of the dead and the upward call. He's repeating it with different language. That someday, not just the resurrection, but

the reunion, the whole thing of finally being with Jesus for eternity. He's longing for that now. He says in First Corinthians, chapter 13:12, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

I want to know. I want to know it all in Jesus. I want to experience his presence for eternity. I want to chase after the upward call. One preacher says that it's God's sovereign summons to the believer, as if God is somehow summoning from heaven,

come home, come home. Come home. This is his pursuit. Everywhere he goes, whether he's making tents or whether he's preaching in a synagogue, wherever he goes, he's pursuing Jesus. Paul's pursuit is an echo of David's.

We read in Psalm 27, David writes, Psalm 27:4 (NIV) “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” David's pursuit and Paul's are the same. There's a story in the book of Luke where Jesus visited a household in a city called Bethany, about eight miles from Jerusalem. There was a family there that he dearly loved. He had a brother and two sisters, Lazarus, Martha and Mary.

Martha's the firstborn. You can tell I'm a firstborn. I can spot a firstborn.

Jesus pulls up in that house. He's in there with his twelve disciples and Lazarus, and he's teaching. Martha's in the kitchen. She had to order out for extra groceries. I'm sure she's cooking.

She's sweating. And she keeps looking for baby sister. I know it's my baby sister. I can tell. I can spot her, too.

Her name's Mary. Where is Mary? She looks in the room with the men folk and there she sits at the feet of Jesus.

Lord, don't you care that I'm in here working hard? And here's Mary. Tell her to come in here and help me. She tried to “sic” Jesus on her sister.

She couldn't get her sister to do what she said. She saved it. I think it's God's will for you to come in here and help me. She tried to get spiritual. It's hard to get little sisters to do what big sisters say sometimes.

Here's how Jesus responded, Luke 10:41-42 (NKJV) 41 And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. 42 But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” One thing is needed, and she chose the better thing.

She chose me.

And so even your work is not the goal work. And the Bible does say in Colossians 3:23 (ESV), “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,” So work hard, whatever God puts in front of you, but do it not for yourself, but for Jesus. Do it for one thing. Not ten things, not everything.

One thing. Our culture tells us to multitask. Our culture tells us not to put all your eggs in one basket, but the Bible says to put all your eggs in Jesus' basket. Put him as your one thing. He talks to us in this passage about how following Jesus is not about building a better resume.

It's about having a personal relationship with Jesus. Whether you work in an office, a classroom, a hospital, a home. He calls us to put him first in all that we do. We have a saying in our church. We have it on the wall as you're leaving.

You might notice it on the walls in the lobby. We say that we are a church that exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ who have a heart for God, heart for each other, and heart for our world. And I would draw your attention to that third statement, heart for our world, because we emphasize there in that statement that we have a heart for our world, emphasizing our personal evangelism and our sacrificial service. As you think about your workplace, I would leave you with a couple of thoughts. One is to think of your workplace as the place that God has given you a platform to declare the glory of Jesus and the gospel and the good news, that it's a blessing, that whatever he gives you, you're to use it for his glory.

And so if you're in the classroom, if you're in the workplace, and you get a promotion or you get noticed, tell people, I give God all the glory. Watch out, because some people will make fun of you and judge you, but others will come to you and say, can you tell me more about that? And when they do, be prepared to give them Jesus; to introduce them to Jesus. Would you think about Jesus being your one thing in your vocation? And then sacrificial service,

are you serving God's kingdom? Are you using what God has entrusted to you, your talent, your treasure, your time for Jesus? We have a saying in our church because we have two services. Serve one, attend one or attend one, serve one, depending on your preference. And so we say, hey, you can do all three heart statements in one Sunday morning.

It's like a one stop shop. You can come to first service and work in the children's department next door. You could work in the nursery. You could be on the greeter team, you could be on the tech team. I could go on through the list of things.

You could let us know if you're interested. We'll help you connect according to your talent, according to the service opportunities. But you don't even have to miss adult worship. You could do both. Serve one, attend one or attend one, serve one.

Have you tried that? You should try that. And guess what? You make more fellowship opportunities as you serve. And so I am just giving you some tidbits, some things to think about.

Why not offer your hands to the hands of Jesus and say, I want to serve you, I want to work for you wherever I go. And so I want a new perspective. I want your power to sustain me and I want to pursue Jesus in all things. This morning I got up early. This morning I woke up at 3am the first time, and I thought, that's too early.

And I said, lord, help me sleep a little longer. And I finally got up at 5 and I said, you know, Lord, I've prepared this sermon already, but if you don't show up, nothing happens. Would you tell me any additional information or how you want me to preach this, so it has your stamp of approval, not mine, that you would fill up the difference because there's a big gap between me and what the people need. And as I was praying, I felt myself starting to sing, which is how the Holy Spirit often works with me.

He works differently with different people, but He brings to mind songs I already know. It was already early and I started singing, “In the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise…” That old spiritual song. “In the morning when I rise, give me, Jesus. Give me Jesus.

Give me Jesus. You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.” I was thinking about Paul as I was studying this morning. “And when I come to die.

Oh, and when I come to die. And when I come to die, Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. You can have all this world, but give me Jesus.”

Can you say that now? I'm not there yet. I've not obtained it yet, but I'm pressing on. Will you press on with me? Let's press on and let's pray and let's talk to the God of the universe through his son, Jesus.

Dear Lord, we come to you now. We're thankful for your word. And we know that by your spirit you've been speaking to hearts and minds. And I pray for that one today that you are apprehending, that you're taking hold of. Because we know whenever your word is preached that your spirit moves.

Is it you, my friend, right in your seat? Is it you that he's taking hold of? He's stirring your heart, he's calling you to himself? Would you say yes, right where you're at? Pray with me, dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner.

Pray like that. Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. And I believe you died on the cross for my sin, that you were raised from the grave, that you live today. Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sin.

Adopt me into your family. Make me a child of God. I want to follow you all the days of my life as my Lord and Savior. If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, confessing Jesus as Lord, believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Others are here today. You've given your life to Jesus, but there are certain areas of your life that you've held back. Maybe it's because of fear, because of desire for comfort. Maybe it's some area that you've treasured. Would you do mental accounting right now?

Would you do spiritual accounting and say, lord forgive me, I value you above all things. I put you first. I want you to be number one in my life in all areas. I surrender my life entirely to you, afresh, today.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.