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Guidance and Work. Part 4 By Greg Lee

Now, it's the last morning of the conference and we spoke the other evening about the fact
that we have friends who used to be at NCS and are no longer with us and who are going
to be receiving the tapes, our graduates.
Now I want us all, I'm going to be holding the microphone to you, I want us all to say
hello graduates.
Are you ready?
One, two, three.
Hello graduates!
It was actually the other microphone that I went into, but anyway.
I'm sick, give me a break.
My mother is a brilliant lady, after all, consider her progeny.
But long before she gave birth to my brother and I, she was always brilliant.
My mother actually made the 1960 Olympic team for Australia.
Not many people you know could say that about, could you?
My mother made it for swimming and even now, when she's 55, she still destroys me in
the pool.
But from first class onwards, she was also the brightest kid in her class.
I have at home her medal for being the ducks of her primary school.
Now her dream, apart from making the Summer Olympic team for swimming, her dream was to
be a veterinary surgeon.
And growing up, our house was always full of pets.
And as I've watched her, she's actually brilliant with animals.
And I think she would have made a wonderful vet.
And for years 7 and 8, she was the top of her school academically.
And so nothing really stood in her way.
And yet, at 55, my mum has never been a vet.
She's been a secretary, she worked for a while for a company that cleans telephones, she's
been a mum and now she's an office manager and her dream to be a vet has never come true.
And really, she's always regretted it.
Now why didn't she become a vet?
Well the answer is, the choice was never given to her.
You see, for one, her father was a paraplegic.
He had polio as a child and so my mother and her brother and sister and family lived on
a government pension which those days put them below the poverty line.
For two, she came from an era when very few women actually got to go on to university,
the place of the woman was still considered to be in the home.
But for three, nobody really got to choose their career.
You see, the idea that you can choose your career is a really very modern invention.
For the people of our parents age, or at least Andrew and my parents age, so people born
in the 30s and 40s, for people of that age, the idea that you would choose your career
is actually very strange.
Generally you just did what your parents did and if you didn't do what your parents did,
you just take any job that came along.
My father was one of a hundred boys in his suburb who applied for the apprenticeship
that he got.
You see, the idea that any job is open to us is really a very modern idea and when you
think about it, it's really a very Western idea, isn't it?
See if I was to be giving this talk in Ethiopia or Nigeria, the idea that we'd be talking
about choosing your career, they'd be laughing at me.
Very few people in the world have ever gotten to choose their career.
That we do is an extraordinary privilege.
Now I have to say, I always took it for granted.
My mother was determined to give us the opportunity she never had and so basically from the womb
she instilled in us the expectation that we'd go to uni.
I thought the reason my mother didn't go to uni was because she never wanted to.
It never occurred to me that she couldn't.
So this morning, as we consider guidance and work, it leads us to remember the extraordinary
privilege that we have.
It's not something to feel guilty about, I don't want you to feel guilty, it's
something to really praise God for, it's something to really rejoice in.
On Monday night, we saw that God is in control.
On Tuesday night, we saw that God guides us through the Scriptures.
On Wednesday night, we saw that God is guiding us to look like Jesus and to glorify Jesus,
and this morning we're going to pull those notions together as we look at work.
That is, how do we decide about work and where is God guiding us to in our work?
Why don't we pray and then we'll begin.
Let's pray, shall we?
Our great God, we thank you for the privilege of choosing our careers.
We thank you for the privilege of working as you work.
We praise you that you are the working God and that your Son is the working man.
We pray this morning, as we think about work and our futures, that you would lead us to
choose wisely and to work wisely.
Father, we pray that you would show us what's important about work and what's unimportant,
that we might honour you, glorify Jesus and look like Him in work.
Amen.
Well, the first thing that we saw in our model, and the first thing I want you to look at
in terms of a model, you'll need to have the outline open, is that in any situation
we need to remember that God is in control.
That's where we started for this week, and so as we approach any major decision in life,
the first thing to remember is that God is working all things according to His purpose.
Now, James 4 is a wonderful passage for people like us, so come with me to James 4 and look
in verse 13.
James 4, verse 13.
Look in James 4, verse 13, after the book of Hebrews, when you reach the John's who
have gone too far, James 4, verse 13, now listen, you who say today or tomorrow will
go to this or that city, spend a year there and carry on business and make money, why
you don't even know what will happen tomorrow.
What's your life?
You're a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Instead you ought to say, if it's God's will, we'll live and do this or that.
Because it is, you boast and you brag, all such boasting is evil.
You see, I make a decision to be an engineer, and I make the decision fully confident that
I'll carry it out.
I will be an engineer, but what am I?
I'm a mist, I'm like the haze that forms on the bathroom mirror after you have a shower.
Here one minute, gone the next, I've got no idea what's going to happen tomorrow.
One of my great friends at university topped the state in the HSC.
That is, he didn't just get a hundred, he got a hundred plus.
He got the very, very top mark in the HSC and so he went to the University of New South
Wales, because which other uni would you go to, frankly, he went to the University of
New South Wales and he studied aeronautical engineering.
But halfway through his second year, he was drunk and he fell out the second floor balcony
of the college that we lived in, and he ended up with brain damage.
You see, he's incredibly intelligent.
He had everything under his feet, but we plan making the assumption that we'll be able
to carry it out.
But what we ought to say is, if it's God's will, I'll be an engineer.
Now that's not such a bad thing, is it?
The idea that God's in control is actually a wonderful thing, it's a wonderful relief.
Because God will do whatever is best for me in that situation.
The wonderful thing about my friend was, he'd been brought up in a Christian home.
His parents are wonderful, godly Christian people and involved with AFES, but he, when
he went to university, was trusting in his own intelligence and had fallen away from
Christ, getting brain damage led him to consider his life.
And he was converted and actually came back to university to study psychology, because
Andrew Ornstein will tell you, it takes no intelligence to study psychology.
Actually my wife is a psychologist, so he came back to university to study psychology
in order to help people, and has been a solid Christian ever since.
You see, the fact that we're not in control of our life, rather than being a threat to
us, is a wonderful thing.
For those of us who worry and vacillate and change our mind and our courses, this is wonderful
news.
We can relax about our future.
God is in control of my career.
God has his plan and whether I spend a week or a month or a minute on the decision, God's
will will be done.
Which doesn't mean that I can be flippant.
After all, God's plan might be to teach me the painful lesson of not being flippant.
But it does mean I can relax.
Relax about your career.
God's in total control and he will give you the best job to fit you exactly when you need
it.
You can relax entirely when your plans get turned upside down.
I went to university with a very firm, either-or plan.
I was either going to race pushbikes in Europe as a professional—that's what I'd done
as a teenager, I'd race bikes—or I was going to be a marine biologist, and I chose
the university that would fit both of those.
I thought, I'll go to uni and for a year I'll try the cycling thing.
If it doesn't work, I'll transfer and go up to James Cook University, finish my marine
biology up there, and it'll be wonderful.
Now clearly, neither of those things happened.
Six months into my first year, I damaged the ligaments in my right knee and my cycling
career was over.
At the same time, I met the girl I was going to marry and there was no way I was ever going
to leave New South Wales University, and praise God for it.
My life is so much better.
You see, I had my plans, but God was in control.
And fourteen years later, I wouldn't have it any other way.
So that's the first thing—remember, God is sovereign for our good.
But secondly, as we make our plans, we're to look for scripture.
We saw on Tuesday night that all scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking,
correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped
for every good work.
Whatever decision you have to make in life, the Bible is everything you need, and the
Bible, you'll see in your outline there, will help me to see that there are three aspects
to every decision I have to make.
Firstly, the Bible will show me the aspects of my decision that fall into the right-wrong
category.
Secondly, the Bible will show me aspects of the decision which are really about wisdom
or folly.
And lastly, the Bible will show me which aspects of the decision fit into the category of they're
just trivial.
There are three basic aspects to every decision, and my question—well, for instance, if my
question is, should I take a job as a thief, well, the Bible gives me very clear guidance
about that, doesn't it?
Remember Ephesians chapter 4 verse 28?
He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work doing something useful with
his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.
That is, stealing is a right-wrong issue when it comes to work.
You'll see that there are actually others as well.
I'll tell you about a career that I embarked on but had to leave because it was sinful.
That'll get you curious, won't it?
But there are some issues that the Bible doesn't see as right or wrong, they're actually
more in the nature of wisdom or folly.
You see, there are some decisions where I have freedom morally to go one way or the
other.
That is, neither decision is actually wrong.
Wrong is the wrong category for it, but one way will be wiser than the other.
Now, the reason it could be wiser might be financial reasons or that there are better
gospel opportunities or one is more risky to my godliness or whatever it is.
For instance, is it wrong for me to watch the Jerry Springer show?
Well, no, not really.
The Bible never mentions Jerry Springer as far as I can tell.
He's not in the Bible.
But is it wise for me to watch the Jerry Springer show?
Well, probably not when you think about it, isn't it?
I mean, 90% of the things that are on that show are fundamentally evil.
And so as I remember 1 Corinthians 6 verse 18, which tells me to flee sexual immorality,
and as I remember Philippians chapter 4 verse 8, which says that I should think about things
which are true and noble and right and lovely, as I remember those things I can see that
it's foolish for me to watch that show in that it could lead me to make other decisions
that are actually in the right wrong category.
Now this is why, friends, some people choose not to drink alcohol.
There's nothing in the Bible which says that drinking alcohol is wrong.
That is, the choice to drink or not drink is not a right wrong decision.
Psalm 104 says that God made wine to make our hearts glad.
However, given the alcohol abuse on our campus, given the high price of alcohol compared to
other drinks, given the fact that pubs are often places where all sorts of evil things
happen, you can see why some people say, well, it's wiser not to drink.
And see, friends, that's the thing about wise, foolish decisions.
They're about wisdom.
They require wisdom to make the decision.
Now where does that wisdom come from?
Well, we saw on Wednesday night, it comes from a renewed mind, that as we continue on
in life, as we read the Bible, as we take God's Word in, the Holy Spirit works within
us to transform our way of thinking so that we think as God thinks, and then we become
more capable of making the wise decisions.
We can see folly for what it is.
You see, friends, God does not want people who are continually putting out fleeces every
minute of the day or searching for open doors or trying to figure out whether or not we're
at peace.
God wants Christians who have absorbed the Word of God and been changed by the Holy Spirit
so that we think as He thinks.
And that way, we don't need the fleeces.
We don't need to look for the open and closed doors.
We think God's thoughts after Him.
That's how we make wise decisions.
You see, the idea of the open doors and the fleeces and those sorts of things just breeds
immature Christians, Christians who are unable to think for themselves.
Well, friends, that's not what God wants for us.
The reason God hasn't given us rules for every moment in life is because He wants our
characters to change, He wants our thoughts to change, our minds to change so that in
maturity we'll know His will already.
You see, wise foolish decisions require wise Christians.
But there's a third group of decisions which are just utterly trivial.
Should I wear blue socks today or should I wear red socks today?
Is that a right-wrong decision?
Well, hard to see it.
Is it a wise foolish decision?
It doesn't appear to be, does it?
It just seems to be utterly trivial.
You see, on those sorts of things, I don't think God really cares which you choose.
Whether you wear blue socks or red socks is an issue of complete irrelevance.
There's no law against red socks, there's usually no chance of being tempted to sin
or leading other people to sin because of your red socks.
Girls, I don't think your red socks are likely to lead the fellows to lust.
Red socks seem to me to be a triviality.
So the Bible helps us to see the three aspects of the decisions, aspects where there's
definitely a right and a wrong, aspects where there is a wisdom or folly involved, and aspects
where I think God sees it as being basically trivial, you have complete freedom.
And in fact, on any one decision, there will be all three aspects.
Now we're going to see that as we look at work.
But here's the thing.
It's crucial in life that we learn to discern which is which.
It's crucial in life that we learn to spot the right-wrong aspects, the wisdom-foolish
aspects and the trivial aspects.
We need to know which part of the decision falls into which basket, because remember
right-wrong and wise-foolish are two different categories, very different categories.
If I continue to do something that's wrong, well then I'm doing grave damage to my faith
in Christ, aren't I?
If I continue to sin, my eternal salvation is on the line.
If I do something that's foolish on the other hand, I may damage myself, I may damage
other people, but this isn't a moral decision.
This isn't something for which God will judge me.
God may have a preference, but this isn't about right or wrong.
But if I confuse the two, I can do real damage to my Christian life and other people's.
I have a friend, for instance, I have a friend named Simon who chooses not to watch R-rated
or M-rated movies.
He's set the cap for him at PG-rated movies, not because he thinks it's wrong, he just
thinks it's unwise.
He thinks that he'll be more godly if he watches less violent and less suggestive movies.
Now I personally think he's right, and I generally follow the same sort of pattern.
But if Simon was to come to you and say, look you must repent of watching R-rated movies,
you are sinning and God will judge you for it, well friends at that point he's turning
a wisdom issue into a right or wrong issue, isn't he?
In fact, he is hanging my salvation on whether or not I watch R-rated movies, something that
God's neither here nor there about.
Now friends, this has happened in the past.
Christians have turned wise, foolish issues into right or wrong issues.
So for instance, issues like drinking, or dancing, or even wearing makeup.
Christians have thought in the past that it was evil to go to the movies or to wear makeup.
Now friends, those aren't issues of right or wrong, at the best they're wise and foolish.
Whether I go to a movie or not is utterly trivial in God's eyes, but when we turn
it into a right or wrong issue, we create commands that God has never created and we
damage people's faith.
So we need to learn to discern which it is.
One question people ask is, as you're making a wise, foolish decision, what's the criteria?
How do you figure out what's wise and how do you figure out what's foolish?
Now friends, what I want to say to you on the basis of Wednesday night is, wisdom is
God's plan.
You see, as we make our plans for the universe, as we consider marriage, as we consider work,
as we consider where we'll live, the criteria for wisdom is where God is taking the universe.
Remember what God's big plan for you was in Ephesians?
God's big plan for you is that you will be the one who glorifies Jesus in heaven.
That when Jesus returns to be marvelled at among the saints, that you will be there.
And more than that, that you will look like Jesus.
That's God's big plan for the universe.
Remember God is renovating you on the inside so that in your character you look more and
more like Jesus.
And so when we've got the choice as to which decision we make, what we want to be asking
is what's best for Jesus' glory?
What brings most honour to Jesus?
What's best for my personal godliness?
Which gives me most opportunity to serve Jesus?
Now you see Paul do that in 1 Corinthians 7.
In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul's talking about marriage and he says, look, marriage is neither
here nor there.
It's not a right wrong decision to get married.
However it is a wise foolish decision to get married.
You see Jesus is returning soon and so wisdom says it's better to stay single.
Time's short.
People need to be saved.
I can do more ministry when I'm single than I can when I'm married.
Therefore Paul says it's wise to stay unmarried.
You see it's God's plan that determines wisdom or folly.
Now I'll give you a subtle example that Christians have made mistakes on.
The question of who you marry.
We know the right and the wrong.
We know that you can't marry someone of the same sex, you can't marry someone who's
already married, you can't marry someone who's closely related to you and you can't
marry someone who's not a Christian.
That's the right wrong aspect and generally most Christians get that right.
However where we really struggle is the wisdom issue.
You see God's plan is that I will bring glory and honor to Jesus.
God's plan is that I will look like Jesus.
So who is the wisest person for me to marry?
Well obviously the most godly person will have you.
You see if God's plan is for me to look like Jesus and if I'm going to live with
this person for maybe 50 years, I ought to choose the person who's going to help me
look most like Jesus.
And I ought to choose the person who wants to look most like Jesus.
That's wisdom isn't it?
Because that's what God's plan is.
But friends usually we forget God's plan.
We remember the right wrong bit but we assume that if someone's a Christian then it's
perfectly fine to go out with them.
And now it's not simple to go out with an immature Christian but is it wise?
No.
It's not wise to go out with an immature Christian.
It's never wise to go out with someone who you don't think is an immature Christian.
Find the most mature Christian who will have you.
And yet we constantly find people going out with immature Christians and saying yes but
they're a Christian.
Yes they are a Christian but you're a fool for going out with them.
Because they're not going to make you godly.
Choose the most godly Christian who will have you.
So we need to remember God's plan when it comes to working out wisdom.
Usually after we've done all of that we need to pray.
Prayer is an expression of recognising God's sovereignty.
When we pray to God to ask Him to give us wisdom we're expressing our trust in God's
sovereignty.
We're recognising that God will do what He will do.
Okay so what have we seen?
To make decisions, 1.
Remember God is in control.
2.
Read your Bible to figure out what's right, wrong, wise, foolish or just plain trivial.
3.
Prayerfully make your decision.
Alright we're going to move into work in just a moment but why don't you stand up and have
a bit of a stretch.
The Bible gives us lots of advice about work and I think it challenges us.
And what we're going to do now is we're going to think through where God guides us with
regard to work.
But before we get there I want to explore four attitudes that the world has about work
because generally you'll find they're your attitudes too.
The first one is work equals identity.
That is we generally assume that someone's identity and their status in life revolves
around their work.
Think about it.
The first thing we do within a couple of minutes of meeting someone is we ask well what do
you do?
Because we think that when we know what someone does for work we know a crucial piece of information
about them.
Oh you're a brain surgeon.
Well that means I know you're clever.
That means I know you can work hard, you're meticulous and you had absolutely no life
between 16 and 30.
Oh you're a garbage man.
Well that means I know you're not very bright.
You dropped out of school early and now I know where the smell's coming from.
But friends I could have said an engineer and I would have had the same point.
Now friends we know that's rubbish isn't it?
There are any number of reasons why someone would become a garbage man.
I worked as a garbage man and I can tell you I've never been paid as well as I did when
I worked as a garbage man.
You see whether or not the reasons for working as a garbage man may have nothing to do with
intellect or even education, two of the guys that I worked with as garbage men actually
had degrees.
They were arts degrees but they had degrees.
But a far more insidious factor in the whole work identity thing is that we actually begin
to see our worth as being based on what we do.
You see when you call someone Dr. Jones they immediately get more respect.
That's why every mother wants her child to be a doctor.
That's why dentists and veterinarians are now called doctor.
That's why so many ministers are going off to do dodgy PhDs at little obscure universities
in America because they want to be called doctor.
Because we assume identity and worth is a product of work.
But our second assumption is related to the first.
We assume that work leads to satisfaction.
Work is where I get fulfilled through building a better bridge or fixing someone's perforated
coal a night.
I get satisfaction.
I get fulfillment.
I get to go home at the end of the day knowing that I've done something worthwhile.
Often it's about fulfilling potential.
Those of you who especially are about to graduate with degrees in accounting or economics or
business, you'll hear it from people like Anderson Consulting or Ernst & Young.
All the big companies will come and say, we see a lot of potential in you and it would
be a crime for you to waste that potential.
You owe it to yourself to fulfill your potential.
You owe it to yourself to rise to the top, to get your MBA, to get ahead.
You owe it to yourself to fulfill your potential.
To be honest, satisfaction and potential is why you've come to university, isn't it?
You've come to university because you figure getting a job as a teacher or as an engineer
or as a social worker or as a graphic designer, you figure those things will be more satisfying
and fulfilling than working as a secretary or a labourer, perhaps more enjoyable.
Often we assume in fact that I must enjoy my work.
Any job that I do but I don't enjoy is a job I should leave because work is about satisfaction.
The third assumption though is that work equals power.
Those of you who recently graduated are getting your first taste of this, aren't you?
When I work, I get money.
With money, I get power.
Power to get someone else to cook a meal for me.
Power to get someone else to do my cleaning for me.
One of the things that I understand is that Kerry Packer keeps several bars of gold bullion
in his safe.
His employees know that and they know that occasionally he'll give one away.
What impact would that have on you if you worked for Kerry Packer?
Well I'd be a brown moser.
You see, work equals money equals power.
As I go to work, I get the power to do all the things I want in my life.
I have power over circumstances, I can build a nest egg.
I have power over people.
I'm the boss, I get to tell you what to do, unless you're me because none of our staff
do anything that I want them to do.
I have power over my life.
That's the third assumption.
But the final assumption is actually a Christian one and that is that money is evil.
We often get warned, in fact we get warned so often about greed and worldliness and ambition
that we tend to think that anyone who's got money must be evil.
If I have money, that means I'm bound to fall away.
Money's the root of all evil, isn't it?
And so, when I get money I should feel guilty.
There are four assumptions about work that I want us to consider as we're thinking about
what the Bible has to say about work.
And so, let's think about work.
Just as with everything else, when it comes to getting a job, we want to start by remembering
that God is sovereign.
God controls the world, therefore God controls my work.
Which immediately blows completely out of the water our assumption about work being
equal to identity.
You see, the job that I do is not so much a reflection on me as it's a reflection on
God.
Because God is the one who gave me this job.
Now this really helps us when it comes to thinking through unemployment.
Because you see, unemployment has a terrible effect on our self-esteem.
There's a good chance that many of you, after you graduate, will go through at least some
period of unemployment.
And as you do, what begins to happen is you start to feel worthless.
Everybody else around you has money and is spending and is busy and is doing things,
but what have you got to get up for in the morning?
Well, often you feel like nothing.
One of my very best friends was out of work for about nine months after he graduated,
and what I saw was his morale and his self-esteem just plummet.
So that by the end of that nine months, it wasn't just work that he was feeling bad
about himself in, it was everything.
His general sense of self-esteem about what he could achieve in life and whether or not
he deserved things even, had just plummeted.
He really became incapacitated because he'd so bought the idea that work is wrapped up
in identity, but God controls the job we get.
Friends, it helps us to think through interviews as well.
When you go off for interviews after university, you will be terribly nervous, because all
of the time through your university career has been leading to this one interview.
And this is the test of whether or not you're a success or a failure, but friends, whether
or not you get the job is up to God.
And so remember God's sovereignty.
It also helps us to think, to think through the question of power, doesn't it?
You see, job equals money equals power, no it doesn't, God is the one who's powerful.
Come on with me to 1 Timothy 6 verse 17, 1 Timothy 6 verse 17, 1 Timothy 6 17, command
those who are rich, which is anyone who's got a job in the Western world, command those
who are rich in this present world, not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth,
which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything
for our enjoyment.
You see, where does certainty lie?
It's not in wealth.
You can lose it in an instant.
When I did recently a talk on 1 Corinthians 6, I dwelt on that verse for quite a while.
You see, before my father died, he was quite a wealthy man, but through a series of circumstances,
namely three horrendous divorces, he actually died fairly poor.
And so even though for a lot of my life I expected to inherit a fairly large amount
of money from my father, I actually inherited nothing, didn't get a cent.
You see, now what I should say is I'm very thankful for that, because what it means is
that I think of my father in entirely un-financial terms.
I remember him simply as the man who taught me to love, and who loved me.
But what it shows you is, friends, wealth is entirely uncertain.
It's here one day, it's gone the next, but God in His sovereignty is always there.
And so we put our hope in God.
So as we look at work, God's control shows us that He is the way we ought to be thinking
about work.
And as we turn to the Bible, the Bible has heaps to say about work.
The first thing the Bible says about work is that God works.
So come back with me to Genesis chapter 2.
We're going to spend a little bit of time in Genesis 2 and 3 now.
Genesis chapter 2.
Look in verses 1-3.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
By the seventh day, God had finished the work He'd been doing.
And so on the seventh day, He rested from all His work.
And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the
work of creating He had done.
You see, God is a working God.
He worked to create the world.
In fact, God continues to work even today.
In John 5.17, Jesus says, My Father is always at work, and so I too am working.
So there's not just God the Father who works, but God the Son as well.
This means that work, friends, is good.
You see, in the world of which the Bible was written, the ancient Greek culture, their
gods didn't work.
Their gods kind of lazed around on Mount Olympus.
They were indolent gods.
They were served by human beings and by semi-deities.
And so to work in the first century was actually a fairly lowly thing.
Only people who were of the very lowest classes had calluses on their hands.
But our Lord had calluses on His hands.
Our Lord was a laborer.
Our Lord was a carpenter, because God is a worker.
However, God also rests.
And rest is the climax of creation.
Not the creation of humanity, no, the great climax of Genesis 1 and 2 is God's rest.
So work is good, God works, but its goal is rest.
And because work is good, and because God works, and because we are in God's image,
we too also work.
Have a look in Genesis chapter 1 verse 26.
Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the
fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and
over all the creatures that move along the ground.
You see, just as God works and rules the world in His works, so do we.
So look in Genesis 2.15, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden
to work it and to take care of it.
You see, just as God works, so do we.
Just as God's work is to rule, so is ours.
But here's the thing, we also express our worship of God in work.
Have another look in verse 15 there of chapter 2.
The word that's used in Genesis 2 verse 15 is not the most usual word in the Old Testament
for work.
Generally, in the Old Testament, when work is talked about, the word malakah is used,
but here the word is the word eved.
And eved is actually the word for when a servant obeys and works for his master.
It's a servant word.
Eved is what Israel did as slaves in Egypt.
Their slave work is eved.
But eved is more than slave work, eved is worship work.
You see, to eved someone is actually to worship them.
It was the word that was used in the temple for when you sacrificed an animal to God.
You eved God.
So you see, Adam did more than work for God in the garden, Adam worshiped God in the garden.
In ruling the world under God by working, Adam worshiped God.
In fact, Adam's work was an offering up to God, it reflected his obedience to God, which
helps us to see why lots of Christians think that we worship God by doing the best work
we can.
You've often heard it, haven't you?
We worship God by being the best teacher that we can be, or being the best architect that
we can be, and somehow by aiming for perfection, we worship God, we honor God, we honor God
by being the best student we can be.
But you can see the point.
Eved is a worship word, Adam worshiped God in his work.
But of course the great problem was, Adam didn't worship God in his work.
No, in his work, Adam actually disobeys God.
Instead of tending the garden as he should have, Adam eats from the tree in the middle
of the garden the fruit that was off limits to him, and God's punishment affects Adam's
work.
Come and have a look in Genesis chapter 3 verses 17 to 20, and notice the punishment
meted out.
Genesis 3, 17 to 20, to Adam, God said, Because you listened to your wife and ate from the
tree about which I commanded you, you mustn't eat of it.
Cursed is the ground because of you.
Through painful toil you'll eat of it all the days of your life.
It'll provide thorns and thistles for you, and you'll eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your brow you'll eat your food until you return to the ground, since
from it you were taken.
For dust you are, and to dust you'll return.
Do you see the great fallout of sin?
The fallout of sin is that the ground is cursed, the ground that we worked and cared for in
Genesis chapter 2 verse 15.
This is now cursed, which shows you that our work is also cursed.
In fact, in chapter 3 verse 22 following, where we're removed from the garden altogether,
our work for God is scarred.
In fact, look in verse 17, our work is now painful toil.
Verse 19, it's by the sweat of our brow.
You see, instead of work being the pleasure of ruling the world like God rules the world
and worshiping God in our obedience and working with God, now we wrestle with the ground.
Now instead of tending the ground and being the guardians of the earth, now we wrestle
it.
It produces thorns and thistles for us.
No longer do we subdue the earth, from Genesis chapter 1, now we're locked in a battle
with the elements.
Which means it's exactly what we see today, isn't it?
We seem to be constantly at odds with the environment.
Instead of being the harmony where we care for it and it produces its bounty for us,
now we're constantly battling the elements of the wind and the rain and pests and erosion
and soil degradation and weeds and cyclones and vermin and hail and everything seems to
be against us in the drought.
In fact, we even see the effects of sin in our everyday work.
For one of them, it's simply the boredom and toil.
Friends, at the moment, you probably have a fairly ideal view of the career that you'll
have.
If you're a nurse, you're probably looking forward to being some Florence Nightingale
figure that patients will fall in love with you and it'll be all so easy and doctors
will treat you with such respect and courtesy.
Talk to Lisa.
She's been nursing for six months.
The view that we have of work as students is usually idealistic, but once you get out
there, friends, it's boring, it's hard, it's dissatisfying because we live in a
fallen world.
I want to say to you now, it's foolish to expect your work to be satisfying.
It's work.
By its nature, it's hard toil.
We live outside the garden.
Work is tedious and mundane and boring.
In my life, I have worked in and studied two of perhaps the most exciting jobs you could
ever possibly have.
One, I studied as a marine biologist and I got to work with the sharks at Sydney Aquarium.
The other was where I was a bicycle courier around the streets of Sydney.
Now, you don't get more action-packed than the two of those jobs.
Benny's job may come close.
He was a fighter pilot, but friends, they were both work and I'm sure if you ask Ben,
it was boring too for a lot of the time.
If it wasn't work, if it wasn't boring, why do you think they have to pay you to turn
up?
You see, work is just boring.
It's tedious.
So, do yourself a favour.
Give up searching for the job that will fulfill you now.
Outside the garden, it doesn't exist anymore.
In fact, I want to say, I will say later on, give up the idea of a career altogether.
Christians don't have careers.
Christians have jobs.
A career is something that fulfills you.
A career is something that fills the hole inside of you.
A career gives you identity, but Christians have jobs.
You also see sin now in burnout.
One of the things that I've most noticed of my friends who are approaching my age is
they're slowly burning out.
Their energy for this thing called a career is just disappearing.
Once you add the pressures of a wife or a husband and children and a mortgage and church
and family expectations and the fact that your career doesn't really thrill you anymore,
well, that's when work just is burnout territory.
But not even so much that.
Now we see sin in the workplace.
We see it in the stealing.
We see it in the sickies that people aren't meant to take.
We see it in the complaining about our bosses.
One of the women who goes to our church was telling me that she wants to change her job
because she grew up as a missionary kid.
She grew up surrounded by Christians and she said, the thing I hate so much about work
is I now come home with swear words in my head that I don't want there.
I never said those words but they're said constantly around me.
The people around me say horrible things all day long and I can't get it out of my brain.
I can't erase these words from my mind.
You see, work is dominated by sin and the effects of sin.
It's a one hard slog against sin and the elements and it's a battle that we eventually lose
because Adam who ruled the ground eventually returns to the ground.
Instead of being the ruler, he goes to the dust that he was made from.
Instead of subduing the world, the world subdues Adam.
In fact, even the goal of work becomes different.
You see, within the garden, Adam worshipped God in his work.
He evaded God but outside of the garden, work is about food.
Look in verse 17, through painful toil, we will eat.
Verse 18, the fields will produce thorns and will eat the plants.
Verse 19, by the sweat of our brow, we'll eat.
You see, work has lost its worship focus and been swamped by the need for food.
That's the picture of work outside the garden.
Until we reach Jesus Christ.
Because when we reach Jesus Christ, we discover that Jesus is a working man.
For one, he's a man.
Colossians 1, 15, Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
Just as we are the image of God, Jesus is the perfect image of God.
He's the true human being and in fact, Jesus does what we could never do.
He rules the world.
Come with me to the book of Hebrews.
The book of Hebrews chapter 2, Hebrews chapter 2, Hebrews 2, 5 following is a reflection
on Psalm 8.
Psalm 8 was the bit I read to you early in the conference, my Lord, our Lord, how majestic
is your name in all the earth.
And I can see the works of your hands, what am I?
And yet you made us the rulers over the heavens and the earth, God.
Why did you do that?
That's what Psalm 8 is about.
Now look in Hebrews 2 verse 5, it's not to angels that God has subjected the world
to come, but there is a place where someone has testified, what is man that you're mindful
of him?
The son of man that you care for him.
You made him a little lower than the angels, you crowned him with glory and honor and put
everything under his feet.
In putting everything under man, God left nothing that's not subject to him.
Yet at present, we don't see everything subject to man, but we do see Jesus who was
made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death
so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
Now there the author of Hebrews says, God has made man, humanity, you and I the rulers
of the world.
Then he says, but that's not what we see.
We don't rule the world because of sin, but what we do see is Jesus.
Jesus was made just like us, a little lower than the angels, he became a human being and
Jesus has tasted death for us, but God has raised Jesus from the dead and he now rules
the world as the perfect human being.
Jesus has been crowned with glory and honor, the glory and honor we were supposed to have,
but failed in.
In fact, Jesus rules in our place.
You see, Jesus is everything Adam and we were meant to be.
Jesus is the one, the perfect man who worships God and here is the thing.
In becoming Christians, we reach what God wanted us to be.
Since Jesus has tasted death for us, since Jesus has died for us, Jesus has given us
new life and see there he has brought many sons to glory.
Jesus has raised Genesis 3 for us, he's dealt with our sin so that in heaven we will share
in the glory of Jesus Christ.
The damage done by Adam in the garden will be gone and we will rule and worship with
Jesus forever so that Jesus is our new identity.
Whereas before we gained identity and we worshiped God in our work, now we gain identity and
worship God and rule by belonging to Jesus.
If you want to know how it is you rule the world, how it is you make your mark on the
world, what is your career, your career is to belong to Jesus.
That's how you now work.
Your work is to belong to Jesus.
You rule the world with Jesus so that in heaven then you will finally rest.
In heaven you will rest as the great ruler of the world because Jesus is the ruler with
you.
Okay, so that's the big picture of work in the Bible.
So what guidance does the Bible then give us about how we work and what work we do?
Well why don't you stand up and have a stretch.
What are the right-wrong issues when it comes to work?
Well come with me to 2 Thessalonians chapter 3, the passage that was read for us earlier.
Take a look in verse 6, 2 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 6.
In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we command you brothers to keep away from every brother
who's idle and doesn't live according to the teaching we received from us.
For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example.
We weren't idle when we were with you nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for
it.
On the contrary we worked night and day laboring and toiling so we wouldn't be a burden to
any of you.
We did this not because we don't have the right to such help but in order to make ourselves
a model for you to follow.
For even when we were with you we gave you this rule, if a man will not work he shall
not eat.
We hear that some among you are idle, they're not busy, they're busy bodies.
Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread
they eat.
And as for you brothers, never tire of doing what's right.
If anyone doesn't obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him.
Don't associate with him in order that he may feel ashamed.
You don't regard him as an enemy but warn him as a brother.
Notice the principle Paul gives here, we work to eat.
We'll work outside the garden, it's not about fulfilment, it's about eating.
But if you want to eat, verse 10, make sure you work.
Since we live outside the garden this is how we eat and Paul's command is don't be idle.
If you expect to work you ought to eat.
Now friends I think that goes for uni students too.
We ought not be idle.
If you're being paid to be at university either by your parents or the government, make sure
you earn the money they pay you, don't you?
I think it's right to look at uni as a 40 hour a week job.
I think if you work from 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, then pretty much you'll be able to
take the weekends off and that's a fair week's work, isn't it?
Especially because not working leads to sin.
Look in verse 11.
We hear that some among you are idle, they're not busy, they're busy bodies.
Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus to settle down and earn the bread they
eat.
You see, when we don't have enough business of our own to occupy us, we go looking for
other people's business.
We become busy bodies.
Paul says the same thing in 1 Timothy 5 about the younger widows.
The great danger of not working is the sin of becoming a busy body.
So what does Paul say?
The first right wrong issue is we must work.
Now what does that mean about unemployment?
I think it means that when you're unemployed, looking for work is your job.
You're still working, you're just not getting paid for it yet.
I think that's also true of motherhood, that even though you're not being paid, you're
working incredibly hard.
But Paul would give the same advice.
Don't be lazy as you do it.
Don't be lazy when you're looking for work.
But the second right wrong issue is we must work honestly.
So remember Ephesians chapter 4 verse 28, he who's been stealing must steal no longer,
but must work doing something useful with his hands that he may have something to share
with those in need.
You see, some jobs are out, the jobs that require dishonesty.
My father was a washing machine and refrigeration mechanic.
Now, until the point I became a Christian, I have to tell you, I had never yet met a
tradesman who was honest.
Every tradesman will rip you off if he can, and my father was probably better at it than
most of them.
In my year off from university, I worked for my father, and he fired me five times in the
course of a year because I refused to break the law.
In order to make money as a washing machine mechanic, he had to take those shortcuts.
He had to say that, well, this part's broken, even though it was actually another part,
but that other part's more expensive.
But what it meant was that I was constantly disappointing him as a Christian.
So I would constantly be standing up and saying, no, I will not tell that person that that
part's broken because I know that that one is, and he'd say, well, you're no good to
me, get lost.
And then I'd come back and he'd hire me again, and then we'd go through the whole show again.
Emma's father went through exactly the same scenario as an accountant.
Now, that's a much more honorable profession, isn't it?
That's much better than being a lawyer, but the thing with him was the company that he
worked for constantly wanted him to bill for more hours than he'd actually worked.
And he constantly was being told to say, well, really, I worked eight hours on you, but I
really only worked six, and you see, a lot of jobs actually require you to lie.
There are some jobs that require us to break the law.
In my part of whenever Dad fired me, I went off and I worked as a bicycle courier in Sydney.
Now, the way bicycle couriering works, in fact, the way all couriering works is the
quicker you get the product there, the better reputation your company gets, the more jobs
that come in, but also, the more jobs you can personally do in a day.
See, while you're delivering one parcel, you're not delivering another.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, it means that every bicycle courier will break the law.
They'll ride through Martin Place, they'll ride the wrong way down Pitt Street, and after
doing it for three or four months, I thought, I just can't do this.
It's destroying my Christian life.
I can't disobey the law and remain Christian because God tells me I have to obey the authorities.
You see, there are some jobs that are just out if you're a Christian.
But in fact, while we're in Ephesians 4, I think it gives us another reason for working,
and that is to be generous.
So he who's stealing must steal no longer, but must work doing something useful with
his hands that he may have something to share with those in need.
One of the best reasons to work, friends, is so that you can be generous.
In James 1-27, true religion is generosity.
Now, just as an aside on this, what I want to say to you is cultivate the practice of
generosity now.
You see, the great trap that you're in is currently most of you have very little money,
and so you have every reason not to give away.
You can justify it to yourself.
You can say, well, I don't have much to give away, so I won't give away anything.
I'll tell you what'll happen.
Once you get a job, you'll find all sorts of other reasons not to give it away.
Well, my costs have increased.
I've got to buy all the clothes to be able to go to work in.
And then you'll buy a car, and so will my costs have increased again.
And then you'll end up with a nicer house.
And friends, you'll never have enough money to give away.
And so cultivate the practice of generosity now.
In fact, what I'd want to say to you is learn to give away everything you don't need.
People have this practice of, what I'll do is I'll get my pay packet, and well, I really
should pay my rent out of that, and then I've got to pay the car loan, and I've got to put
money aside because I've got to buy a house.
And then I've got to have the spending money, and oh, well, I guess what's left I'll give
to God.
Friends, I think that's the wrong way around.
I think what you want to be doing is saying God owns my money.
God has given me this job, and He's given me this money to do with according to Jesus
glory.
I mean, that's what God's leading us to, Jesus glory.
So before you choose where it is you're going to live, before you choose which car it is
you're going to buy, before you take the loan and all of those other responsibilities, figure
out how much you're going to give away, and then make your lifestyle fit your generosity.
I think, friends, the great sin of Western culture is lack of generosity.
I think when our culture and when our generation stands before God, if He's to rebuke us for
anything, it'll be our lack of generosity.
Think about how much money you give away.
Work it out in your head at the moment.
Whatever church it is you go to, how much money in general do you put on the plate?
Now what's that as a percentage of your income?
I think most of you, if you're relatively poor, would say gross $6,000 a year, $8,000
to you.
Some of you will get a lot more than that, that's gross.
How much of that are you giving away?
Now my guess is for most of us it's 2 or 3% once you do the figures.
That means you're keeping 97%, $97 out of every $100 you get.
Is that really generosity?
Friends, I think we need to do some radical surgery on generosity.
If you give 10% – 10% is the figure that they say in the Old Testament and that often
people use.
You've got to give a tithe.
10%.
Friends, if you're giving 10% of your income, I think you should feel slightly ashamed of
yourself.
You see, 10% is what God asked Israel to give.
Think about Israel.
They didn't have the Holy Spirit, so they weren't regenerate.
They didn't have Jesus.
They had never seen Jesus Christ, the ultimate expression of God's generosity.
They didn't see the enormous needs of the Gospel to go out to the world, but you have.
You have God's Spirit in you, the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
You have seen Jesus Christ, God's enormous generosity, and you know the needs.
You can see the poverty in the third world.
You can see the number of people going to hell.
If you only give 10%, that means you're giving as much as God asked unregenerate pagans to
give.
You ought to feel ashamed of yourself.
If you're giving less than 10%, then I'll be honest, I think you're being greedy.
I think you're being selfish, and I think you need to repent, and you need to say, I'm
going to give up that hobby because it's costing me too much money, and I'm going to choose
to live in a poorer place, and this car frankly costs me too much.
Friends, do it now before you have to actually make a real stab at repentance by selling
your house.
When I was a catechist at Bible college, when you're at Bible college, you've got to work
for a church on the weekend.
I worked at Tarahumara.
You know what I saw?
I saw lots of lovely people who were some of the most selfish people I'd ever seen because
they'd decided to live in one of the most expensive suburbs in Sydney, and they had
tracked themselves into mortgages that were going to take the rest of their lives to pay
off.
Even if they wanted to, they couldn't be generous anymore because they were trapped in this
mortgage, and they simply did not have the maturity in Christ to say, all right, I'm
going to sell this house, and I'm going to go and live in Bankstown or wherever it is.
Make the decision early, friend.
It may mean you never get to buy a house, but who cares?
This isn't your home anyway.
Heaven is your home.
That means that you may never get to live in a nice suburb, but who cares?
Heaven is your home.
Friends, generosity I think is the biggest area that we really need to repent of.
Emma and I have had to do some hard, hard thinking in the last few years, but God's
done marvelous things in us.
It's been lovely to see our change because before this I think, well, when I was at university
I hardly gave any money, but now I'm learning.
So make sure you learn that lesson.
All right, what are the wise foolish issues when it comes to work?
Well, remember, wisdom is God's plan, and God's plan is for you to grow like Jesus and
for Jesus to be glorified, and so here is my wisdom.
Here is my take on it.
Here is what I think are the wise decisions.
One, a job that will leave you time to do ministry.
That is, choose a job that gives you enough time to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.
Choose a job that gives you the ability to get to Bible study on whatever night it is
and to go to church, but also to continue to do ministry.
It's great that we've got the graduates here because they can keep talking to you, and
one of the things that the graduates will tell you is one of the hardest things to keep
up once you finish university is the ministry is on top of going to church and going to
Bible study.
That is, we all go to church, we all go to Bible study, but one of the things that's
really hard to keep up is going as a Sunday school teacher or leading the youth group.
Friends, if at all possible, find a job that will give you time to do that.
Now what I should say is the first year or two out of university will be unusual.
I think teaching is a marvelous profession because it leaves you with that time, but
even teachers in the first year or two out have a hellish time.
The work involved in preparation and all those sorts of things is awful.
So the first year or two out are unusual, but find a job that gives you enough time
outside of work to be able to do ministry.
That's the first one.
Everyone, find a job that gives you opportunities to do ministry.
That is, some jobs within them give you wonderful opportunities for ministry.
Now you've got to be careful about stealing time from your boss.
When you're paid to work, you should work, but there are some jobs that actually give
you the opportunity to explain the Gospel even while you're working.
What job do you think gives you the most opportunities for Gospel preaching?
You tell me.
What do you reckon?
Missionary?
Missionary?
I reckon there's one that gives you more.
And besides, in the Bible, what I will say is, in the Bible, doing Gospel ministry isn't
work.
The Bible, as far as I can see, never sees what I do as work, but I'll talk to you about
that later.
Sorry?
Someone said hairdressing?
Checkout operator?
No.
Taxi driver?
No.
I never talk to taxi drivers.
Motherhood.
Sorry?
Motherhood.
Motherhood, yes.
The best career you can ever choose for Gospel preaching is motherhood.
So I want to say, at this point, if you have the opportunity to become a mother, which
is only about half of us here, but if you have the opportunity, take it with both hands.
This is something that we really need to hear, in that the world downplays the role
of motherhood, because the world revolves around money, and mums don't get paid.
And so everything about, all of your friends will be saying to you, when are you coming
back to work?
And you'll be watching your friends get on in their careers, and you're thinking, well,
I'm not really doing anything worthwhile.
Friends, that's so not true.
The opportunity to explain the Gospel to children, to your children, day after day, boy, what
That really is where God's plan is, isn't it?
The opportunity to shape the lives of the next generation of God's people.
Another one that I'm a big fan of is teaching.
Become teachers.
If you're not sure what job you can do, if you're not sure what to do with your degree,
which most, if you've done a science degree, your degree's almost useless, mine was.
If you've done a science degree or an arts degree, become a teacher.
Yeah, a graphic designer, an industrial designer, become a teacher.
What an opportunity, because as our society has abandoned proper parenting, as a society
has abandoned actually raising children, teachers are the ones who raise children.
Recently I went to a fundraising thing for AFES, and there were two of my ex-teachers
there that I never knew were Christians, but I wasn't even remotely surprised, because
they were the two people, two of the teachers that I most respected in all of the time that
I was at school.
I looked at their lives, and both of them I thought, you know, that doesn't surprise
me one bit, because they were both great, great people, and so the opportunities to
evangelise as a teacher, to shape and model lives, I'd say become a teacher.
The third piece of advice, first piece of wisdom, I think find a job that pays you well.
Money is not evil, and you can use money to build the kingdom, and so if you've got two
other jobs where all other things being equal, choose the one that pays well.
And lastly, again, choose the job you like. I think this is pretty low on the list of
priorities, and we'll never find our satisfaction in work, but some jobs will actually be easier
for us, because we'll like them. There's no great value in choosing a job that you hate.
Okay, what are the trivialities? Well, I think the trivialities are the particular job you
do. As long as it's godly, as long as it's legal, as long as you can be generous, as
long as it's wise, as long as it gives you time for opportunities for ministry, as long
as it offers opportunities for ministry, as long as it pays well, then I think what job
you do is really fairly trivial. Now, I'm going right against the idea of a call here,
aren't I? Notice I haven't mentioned that God calls you to a job. Friends, that's because
it's a lie. People who talk about being called to this job or that job are deceiving themselves.
There is no call in the Bible to a particular job. There's not even a call to ministry,
so far as I can tell in the Bible. What we are called to is obedience. What we are called
to is worship Jesus Christ. What we are called to is suffer for Jesus Christ. What we are
called to is become like Jesus Christ. It's worth looking up sometime all the uses of
the word call in the Bible. We're called to all sorts of things, but none of them are
to a particular job. The particular job you happen to do, I think, is fundamentally irrelevant.
However, given all of this, friends, there is one path you can take in life where you
don't even have to get a job at all. There's one path you can take in life where, basically,
you can be paid to worship God, and that is ministry, gospel ministry. You see, in the
Bible, there is one job you can do that's not actually work. In 1 Corinthians 9, in
2 Corinthians 3, in Luke 7, and in 1 Timothy 5, ministry, doing gospel ministry, is to
actually be relieved from work. That's because all of us are doing ministry. Every Christian
serves the Lord Jesus Christ. Every Christian builds the church. Your real job and my real
job aren't fundamentally different. All of us are to glorify Jesus, but there are some
people who are removed from the need to earn money in order to do that full time. Really,
it's a product of the last days. It's a product of the fact that Jesus is returning soon,
and it's helpful to have certain people come out of the workplace in order to teach us
the Bible full time. And friends, the need for ministry, for people in ministry, is absolutely
enormous. I don't know if you've been looking at the prayer sheets that we've been using
the last few nights, and the needs for the gospel around the world, they are just extraordinary.
The country of France, in fact, the city of Paris, has over 600,000 university students.
That's a third again, that's half again as many people who live in Newcastle, just for
university students. So add Newcastle and then a half of it again, that's how many university
students live in Paris. Do you know how many full time gospel workers there are? Eight.
That's as many people as Newcastle and a half again. Think of all the ministers, take all
the ministers out of Newcastle and replace them with eight people. Now think about how
many people those eight staff workers will reach in their entire career, not even a fraction.
Now the thing about the city of Paris is people come there from Africa, and they come to do
university and imagine the opportunities to see the African students get converted and
then sent home. Their need is enormous. The country of Venezuela, it has 600,000 university
students and not one staff worker. Not one. All of Newcastle plus half again, not one
person preaching the gospel among university students. Greece, an area that Paul himself
actually evangelised. 0.2% of the population is Christian. That's two people in a thousand
that you come across is a Christian. 400,000 university students, one staff worker. Friends,
you are so blessed. You don't even know it. We're a group of what, 130 students? We have
nine. We're enormously blessed, but even on our own campus, there are 15,000 full time
students on our own campus, and we're hardly touching them. Even with nine staff workers
working 70, 80 hours a week, flogging themselves, we're not even getting close to our campus.
The needs for the gospel around the world are just enormous. They're incredible. And
of all the people in the world to do this job of preaching the gospel, you guys have
the gifts. For one, you guys have the intelligence. I don't know if you realise it this week,
but the material you've been doing in the seminars is meatier than almost every theological
college in the world. We set it at the first year standard for more theological college,
which is in the top two or three Bible colleges in the world, and you guys have jumped the
hurdle. You've actually done it. You have a greater capacity for learning than most
ministers in the world will ever have. Jeremiah was telling me, most ministers in India, where
he's recently been, they would dream to study what you've done, but they don't have degrees
of theology. They don't have three years or four years of formal theological education.
They're running basically on just what they can pick up here and there. So already after
one winter con, two winter cons, three, four years at uni, you already know more of the
Bible than people who spend their entire lives doing it, and yet you live in a country that
– well, there are three or four Bible colleges in Australia that are in the top ten in the
world. We are so blessed, and you guys have the capacity. But you've also not just got
the intelligence, you're articulate enough to do it. I'm amazed at how well you guys
can express the gospel to each other and discuss theological issues and capture ideas and explain
the gospel, and you have all of the verbal gifts that are required. More than that, you're
in university, and you couldn't get into university unless you were. You have the capacity
to be organized and to be proactive, to achieve things, but even more than that, you've got
the opportunity. You see, we live in a country of incredible wealth where we get to choose
the career that we go into. We get to choose what we're going to do for a living. We've
got the wealth, we've got the health, we've got the fact that – well, Emma and I were
thinking when we were on MTS, we were thinking about going to Tanzania to work with university
students, and someone said to us, don't go to Tanzania to work with university students,
because in Tanzania, as soon as someone gets into a university, they then are the way the
rest of their family are going to live. One person in university will then provide for
their whole family, and so you're not going to get a university student in Tanzania to
go into gospel ministry. You just can't do it. They're too valuable. Whereas you guys,
you could drop out of your degree at any point, and your parents might be a little annoyed
with you, but they'll forgive you. You could leave your career at any point, and your friends
will laugh at you, but that's all right. You have such freedom of choice. The opportunity
to preach the gospel for the rest of your life stands before you, to walk away from
work and to spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ for a living. You've got the
intelligence, you've got the gifts. The one question is, do you have the desire? Have
you so imbibed the idea, that ethos, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the most important
thing in the universe, that the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ is the most important
thing in the universe, that people becoming like the Lord Jesus Christ is the most important
thing in the universe. Have you so grasped that idea that you're willing to put aside
being a teacher, that you're willing to put aside prestige, that you're willing to put
aside money, and you're willing to take up the opportunity to spend the rest of your
lives doing it because it stands before you right now. I don't think there is one
person in this room who couldn't make a fist of being in full-time ministry and
preaching the gospel. The fact that you're here shows that you have the
gifts. The question before you is, do you have the desire? Have you reached that
point where you understand the gospel with such clarity that you want to
preach it for the rest of your life? Now, there may be some reasons why you don't
go into full-time ministry and it might be that we will help you to understand
what those are. But for the rest of your life you have the opportunity to be a
part-time doctor but a full-time Christian. To spend 40 hours a week being
a doctor or a teacher but all of your heart as a gospel preacher. If you are
thinking about full-time ministry why don't you come and talk to us? There's a
conference called Club 5 in September that we'd love to talk to you
about. But more than that if you're really serious about seeing the gospel
go up why don't you come along to TNT? I think yesterday during the campus
planning seminar Andrew talked about TNT. That's where gospel preachers are made.
That's where people learn how to explain the gospel and how to help Christians
grow and friends time is short. We have so little time left before Jesus returns
and so many people to see saved and so many changes to make in lives. What
better would you spend your life on?