Leadership Seminar 5: Leadership in the Workplace - Chris Hamiton
00:00:00.000 | Well, we are going to talk tonight about leadership at work.
00:00:07.120 | This is part of a longer series, as you know.
00:00:10.320 | And I thought I would start off tonight with something that was pretty formative in my
00:00:15.160 | thinking and in my experience in my career.
00:00:18.200 | As a much younger man, much younger man, nearly 40 years ago, I was thrown into an environment
00:00:24.780 | of a Fortune 500 company and all the politics and the challenges and the opportunity that
00:00:30.960 | that brings.
00:00:33.120 | I loved it.
00:00:34.760 | I really enjoyed it.
00:00:35.880 | I had been assigned a role in senior management of that division where I served alongside
00:00:42.540 | some of the most capable and even brilliant people I've had the privilege to work with.
00:00:48.040 | And one of the senior executives in that company was a man, I'll call him Bill, who had achieved
00:00:54.600 | a position of significant authority and responsibility over hundreds of employees.
00:01:01.440 | My first and early impressions were that Bill was experienced, he was deeply respected,
00:01:11.400 | and that he was very much what I wanted to be, because to top it all off, he was an outspoken
00:01:18.880 | Christian.
00:01:19.880 | I say outspoken because he led staff meetings on a weekly basis in his department and he
00:01:25.140 | started off with prayer and a Bible study.
00:01:28.420 | And if you worked in his department, you were going to hear the gospel.
00:01:32.360 | In fact, if you went in his office for very long, you were going to hear the gospel.
00:01:38.080 | That's leadership at work, right?
00:01:41.560 | There's a guy I could follow, that I could admire, that I could emulate, and I began
00:01:47.520 | to think maybe I could ask him to disciple me because he seemed to be everything that
00:01:51.520 | I thought I wanted to be.
00:01:54.680 | Nope.
00:01:57.200 | It turned out that he had been directed several times to stop those Bible studies on company
00:02:01.760 | time and his resistance to submit to his employer was perhaps, in his mind, a strike for religious
00:02:11.160 | freedom and the Great Commission.
00:02:14.480 | But in reality, he was disobeying the commands in the Bible for employees, and that was a
00:02:19.680 | prelude as it usually is to other character issues.
00:02:25.640 | It turned out his weekly Bible study and office demeanor was flagrant hypocrisy.
00:02:32.680 | Employees began to confide in me that Bill was well known on business trips to be a philanderer
00:02:37.520 | and a hard drinker.
00:02:39.440 | And then in short order, similar behaviors came to light that was not limited to business
00:02:44.000 | trips.
00:02:46.400 | So in the end, I did learn a lot from Bill, just not the lessons I thought I was going
00:02:52.840 | to learn.
00:02:53.840 | I learned how not to conduct myself at work, and I learned in sad and stark lessons what
00:02:59.320 | leadership at work does not look like.
00:03:04.920 | Leadership at work is an area of great interest, particularly among young, ambitious men.
00:03:10.560 | And I don't say that as a negative.
00:03:13.100 | As we'll see, the venue of work and the opportunity to achieve leadership roles and added responsibility
00:03:19.880 | is not random.
00:03:22.640 | But to fully appreciate the task of leadership, we have to know and understand God's view
00:03:27.520 | of work and let that inform how we lead and how we define even what leadership is in the
00:03:34.680 | workplace.
00:03:36.800 | And we'll begin with the big picture, and I just want you to know tonight, we're doing
00:03:40.560 | a survey through Scripture.
00:03:42.920 | I pray I don't get in the way, because I want you to see from the Word of God, and it's
00:03:47.960 | reflected on your handout, that there's a lot in the Bible about work.
00:03:53.840 | And it starts in Genesis chapter 1.
00:03:58.200 | And in Genesis 1 verse 27, that great verse, "God created man in his own image, and the
00:04:03.520 | image of God he created, a male and female he created them."
00:04:08.360 | And then starting in verse 28 is a description of why he created you, why he created me,
00:04:16.400 | what was the task.
00:04:18.540 | And as I read through this, I want you to listen to this or read through this with an
00:04:22.840 | eye towards work.
00:04:27.080 | Because everything I'm about to read to you describes work.
00:04:33.080 | Verse 28, "God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill
00:04:39.000 | the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds
00:04:44.520 | of the sky, and over every living thing that creeps on the earth.'
00:04:48.040 | Then God said, 'Behold, I've given to you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface
00:04:51.840 | of the earth, and every tree which has the fruit of the tree yielding seed, it shall
00:04:58.560 | be food for you, and to every beast of the earth, and every bird of the sky, and to everything
00:05:04.560 | that creeps on the earth, which has life, I have given every green plant for food.'
00:05:10.000 | And it was so.
00:05:11.440 | And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good, and there was evening and
00:05:16.160 | there was morning the sixth day."
00:05:18.280 | And you say, "I didn't hear a lot of work there."
00:05:21.920 | Well, I want to help you see a lot of work there.
00:05:25.320 | Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
00:05:28.680 | That speaks to family.
00:05:31.920 | And all the men who have had children or have young children probably want to say amen.
00:05:36.120 | That's work.
00:05:38.680 | And in Genesis 1, before sin enters the world, right after he forms and creates man, he describes
00:05:46.800 | the work of man.
00:05:49.280 | To be married, to have children, to multiply and to fill the earth.
00:05:55.220 | That is work.
00:05:56.220 | He talks about, he goes on to say, "Subdue the earth.
00:06:01.000 | Don't just fill the earth with children, with offspring, but subdue it."
00:06:05.920 | And that word subdue connotes work.
00:06:08.960 | It's far removed from our culture today, but if you've ever been on a farm or you know
00:06:13.320 | a farmer, they can describe to you how much work it takes to subdue the earth.
00:06:20.000 | It takes work.
00:06:23.360 | And it goes on to say we're to have dominion over the fish and over the creeping and crawling
00:06:28.100 | things and over everything that grows that produces food and seeds to plant more.
00:06:34.580 | That's all work.
00:06:38.100 | Managing and ruling this earth is a laborious task.
00:06:41.580 | Converting animals and vegetation to food, clothing, and shelter requires work.
00:06:48.020 | And yes, that is what animals are for.
00:06:51.780 | The mandate for God's creation is that you and I work.
00:06:55.860 | Genesis 1 is not directed to just men.
00:06:58.700 | The work of a woman and a man by God's design is far more than just a job or your employment
00:07:04.820 | that dominates our life.
00:07:08.100 | Our employment is one part of the work we're called to do.
00:07:12.380 | Work is what every man and woman was created to do.
00:07:18.180 | So tonight, stepping down and back from that broad definition of work, I am going to refer
00:07:25.320 | from this point forward to your employment, to your leadership in the workplace.
00:07:31.580 | That's the aspect of work that we'll focus on.
00:07:35.140 | Leadership at work as God designed it has little to do with your title, with your responsibilities
00:07:41.620 | at work, or where you are on the org chart.
00:07:46.500 | There is no imperative in the Bible that the Christian must aspire to the office of the
00:07:51.220 | chief executive officer or whatever the top of the pyramid is where you work.
00:07:58.140 | The Bible does not say that such a pursuit is virtuous and the Bible doesn't prevent
00:08:04.480 | or speak ill of that pursuit.
00:08:08.140 | There is no biblical prerogative that you must lead at work in that sense.
00:08:14.940 | That even if you're the low man on the totem pole, the lowest of the low on the org chart,
00:08:21.340 | you are called to lead at work.
00:08:24.300 | You are to bring spiritual leadership to your job and we understand that every area of life
00:08:29.460 | is spiritual.
00:08:30.780 | Your work is not a secular area of your life.
00:08:34.800 | As we'll see, your work for an employer is a spiritual endeavor.
00:08:39.240 | For believers, work is a spiritual effort in a thoroughly, sometimes secular environment.
00:08:46.140 | And that secular environment, just to be clear, does not mean that your work is to be viewed
00:08:53.020 | as secular.
00:08:55.140 | To understand how we lead at work, we need to understand the nature of that secular environment
00:08:59.500 | and we've already covered this in another session.
00:09:02.520 | But just as a review, success in your job at its most basic level is results.
00:09:10.260 | You either produce or you won't be successful as they define successful and you may find
00:09:15.900 | yourself unemployed.
00:09:19.700 | With that reality in mind, let's talk about briefly what spiritual leadership is.
00:09:23.420 | And again, this is review from a previous session.
00:09:26.060 | But secular leadership in a secular work environment, it's all results, produce.
00:09:36.040 | Spiritual leadership in a secular work environment or whatever the work environment is, results
00:09:42.600 | with character.
00:09:45.800 | That's it.
00:09:46.800 | It's simple.
00:09:47.800 | To be very clear, you and I, we are not exempt from the requirement that we fulfill our employer's
00:09:53.880 | expectations for whatever it is we're trying to produce.
00:09:58.720 | We need to do that.
00:10:01.720 | Your spiritual status does not override that reality or the consequences of failure in
00:10:06.160 | that regard.
00:10:08.680 | The Bible makes clear, as we'll see tonight, that you and I are to work, we're to be good
00:10:13.720 | and even excellent at the work that we do, we are to be submissive to the rules and leadership
00:10:21.360 | in our workplace, and we're to do all of that with integrity and grace.
00:10:29.320 | In summary, that's leadership at work, regardless of your title.
00:10:36.040 | And there's an immediate problem when we start to talk about work and employment, and that
00:10:41.080 | is the natural inclination of sinful man towards laziness, self-interest, and sin.
00:10:49.600 | That conflict comes into play pretty quickly.
00:10:52.360 | In fact, in Proverbs 6, in the middle of a series of conversations that a father is having
00:10:58.040 | with his children, you read that famous passage, "Go to the aunt, oh what?
00:11:04.240 | He called his son a sluggard."
00:11:06.200 | Can you believe that?
00:11:08.880 | "Go to the aunt, oh sluggard, consider her ways and be wise," and this is a father training
00:11:14.400 | his son as quickly and early as possible to develop the disciplines that kill laziness.
00:11:22.280 | Unfortunately, our culture and the United States economy is now known for its millions
00:11:28.600 | of men who never learn the discipline of killing laziness and the disciplines of working hard.
00:11:38.540 | In 2016, Nicholas Eberstadt wrote a book called "Men Without Work, America's Invisible Crisis,"
00:11:46.840 | and he described in great detail the state of work for men in modern America from a purely
00:11:53.400 | statistical and even secular perspective.
00:11:57.920 | It was a stunning book at that time.
00:12:01.200 | I actually got to meet him and talk to him about his book, and I don't think he had any
00:12:06.280 | idea how biblical his book was.
00:12:08.760 | It wasn't his intent.
00:12:11.780 | His study concluded in 2016 that men were not going to work in record numbers.
00:12:17.820 | This was not because work was unavailable, it was because men had lost the imperative
00:12:22.920 | and the initiative to work.
00:12:26.540 | In 2016, in a booming economy, America had sunk to depression era work rates for men
00:12:33.260 | of what's called prime age, 25 to 54.
00:12:37.620 | In 2016, at that time, over 6 million healthy and capable prime age men were neither working
00:12:46.900 | nor even looking for work in an economy where there were millions of jobs available.
00:12:55.980 | And admittedly, the modern workplace since 2016 certainly hasn't made it any easier.
00:13:02.540 | If anything, it's gotten more complicated.
00:13:04.780 | Some of you have lived this since 2020.
00:13:08.420 | Your job is no longer where you just earn a living.
00:13:11.600 | The workplace has become a battleground for politics, wokeism, your worldview, on trial
00:13:18.640 | every day.
00:13:21.340 | In 2022, you may recall this, the Apple employees famously declared that being required to return
00:13:27.840 | to work was actually racist.
00:13:33.620 | While Nicholas Eberstadt updated and re-released his book in 2022, that's the light colored
00:13:40.500 | book, to capture the unfolding disaster imposed by the political and economic events of 2020
00:13:47.620 | and 2021.
00:13:50.420 | And this is his quote, "The truth is that fewer prime age American men are looking for
00:13:54.500 | readily available work than at any previous juncture in our history."
00:14:01.680 | This trend is being encouraged by a concept called guaranteed minimum income.
00:14:07.940 | It's a movement by liberals and even Marxists all over the world.
00:14:12.060 | And minimum income means that between unemployment benefits and other government handouts, increasing
00:14:18.020 | numbers of men cannot afford to work.
00:14:22.580 | They don't want to lose their benefits.
00:14:25.480 | They can't earn more than the government will give them to not work.
00:14:31.220 | Laziness has been elevated to her virtue and now it's seen by many as a financially wise
00:14:36.660 | decision.
00:14:40.260 | This is obviously an overwhelming evidence of a post-Christian nation if this ever was
00:14:45.260 | a Christian nation.
00:14:48.140 | Allowing men and even paying men to not work is a direct attack by Satan on the design
00:14:55.940 | of God for his creation and perhaps dramatic evidence of Romans 1 type judgment on this
00:15:05.140 | nation.
00:15:07.060 | The wealth of this nation is funding and accelerating men peacefully living the desires of their
00:15:14.540 | sinful hearts, leisure and a level of wealth with no expectation of work.
00:15:24.900 | Throughout the Bible, we see God's view of work.
00:15:27.980 | It is contrary to what I just described.
00:15:30.620 | We see why he created us to work and how we should approach work.
00:15:35.060 | It's what I call the theology of work and we're going to do an overview of this topic
00:15:40.020 | tonight and cover a lot of Scripture to see that theology of work and I believe the Bible
00:15:46.000 | preaches best and we need to see the mind of God on this topic.
00:15:52.780 | The Word of God needs to inform my thinking and your thinking and that thinking then drives
00:15:59.180 | our decisions and our attitudes toward work.
00:16:03.420 | We might expose tonight, maybe the Word of God might expose how much our thinking about
00:16:11.100 | our job and work has been conformed by and conformed to the world.
00:16:18.000 | So there's five pillars supporting a biblical worldview when it comes to work and I just
00:16:22.820 | want to work through these fairly quickly with you.
00:16:25.580 | The first one is that work is spiritual service of worship and I'm going to start in Romans
00:16:33.940 | 12, a passage you're familiar with and I think you'll see why, "Therefore, I exhort you brothers
00:16:39.740 | by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living, holy, pleasing to
00:16:47.260 | God which is your spiritual service of worship and do not be conformed to this world but
00:16:54.380 | be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may approve what the will of God
00:17:01.660 | is, that which is good and pleasing and perfect."
00:17:07.980 | And what is God's good, pleasing, and perfect will for your life?
00:17:13.420 | There's no doubt about it, there's no question, no ambiguity.
00:17:19.160 | His will is that you and I would work.
00:17:23.300 | This includes our job and so much more.
00:17:26.140 | Work is a pursuit that is ordained by our Creator before sin entered the world.
00:17:32.660 | It is not the curse, it is a blessing.
00:17:36.860 | Unless you're sick or injured, God's will is pretty clear.
00:17:42.500 | And when we look beyond Genesis 1 into the creation story, in Genesis 2, starting in
00:17:50.620 | verse 5, this is before man's been created, "Now no shrub of the field was yet in the
00:17:55.860 | earth and no plant of the field had yet sprouted for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the
00:18:02.100 | earth and there was no man to cultivate the ground."
00:18:07.440 | That word cultivate, I'm an accountant so remember this if you know Hebrew, but that
00:18:12.540 | word in the original language is a bad, okay?
00:18:18.180 | Work.
00:18:20.680 | Then the story is that Adam names the animals, or God creates man, later names the animals,
00:18:29.780 | and then it says, "The Lord God took the man, put him into the Garden of Eden to abod, cultivate
00:18:35.220 | it and keep it."
00:18:38.380 | Abod means to labor, to serve, and it's the same word that's used in two passages that
00:18:47.300 | you've heard before.
00:18:49.500 | Worship the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
00:18:54.460 | Psalm 211, that word worship is the same word, abod.
00:19:03.100 | Psalm 100 verse 2, "Serve the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful singing," it's
00:19:07.660 | the same word, serve, abod.
00:19:13.300 | Work was created by God, it was his idea from the very beginning, he created it, he defines
00:19:19.060 | it, he governs it, he establishes the purpose of it, and he is worshipped by it.
00:19:27.880 | Work is worship.
00:19:29.980 | And to show you that, there's two passages that are pretty central.
00:19:34.580 | If you're going to look for passages in the Bible that deal with the issue of work, you're
00:19:38.620 | probably going to go to Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3.
00:19:43.280 | And I want to read through these and I want to note something here.
00:19:45.820 | If you have a pen, I want you to mark all the references to God.
00:19:53.220 | A passage that on its face is about work, and I want to show you it's maybe not really.
00:20:00.820 | Verse 5, "Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with
00:20:05.940 | fear and trembling in the integrity of your heart as to Christ, not by way of eye service
00:20:14.580 | as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, serving
00:20:23.160 | with goodwill as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one
00:20:29.820 | does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.
00:20:36.200 | And masters do the same thing to them and give up threatening knowing that both their
00:20:40.400 | master," capital M, "their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with
00:20:48.160 | him."
00:20:51.320 | Passage all about work references God seven times by my count.
00:20:56.320 | There's a reason for that.
00:20:58.080 | There's three imperatives to the employee in that passage.
00:21:01.200 | We are to be obedient, we're to have integrity, and we're to serve with goodwill as to the
00:21:07.880 | Lord.
00:21:10.080 | Work is worship.
00:21:12.600 | Colossians 3, another go-to passage.
00:21:16.240 | It's on the screen.
00:21:17.240 | "Slaves in all things, obey those who are your masters according to the flesh, not with
00:21:21.480 | eye service as men pleasers, but with integrity of heart, fearing the Lord.
00:21:29.200 | Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing
00:21:34.520 | that from the Lord you will receive the reward of inheritance, serve the Lord Christ."
00:21:43.640 | By my count, there's four references in that short passage to the Lord, to our God, the
00:21:51.160 | one who gave us work, the one who created work.
00:21:55.720 | The same commands are in both passages, obey, serve with integrity, do your work, serve
00:22:02.840 | as to the Lord.
00:22:06.620 | Work is a spiritual service of worship to Christ.
00:22:09.960 | And we're not just to be obedient by working with that in mind, but we should learn the
00:22:14.920 | discipline and teach to our children the discipline of loving that work as an offering to Christ
00:22:24.760 | as worship and as a gift from God.
00:22:28.320 | And that's the second point I want to cover is that work is a gift from God.
00:22:35.200 | The truth and implication of this truth is one area that many of our minds might need
00:22:41.320 | to be transformed to consider, because I don't think many of you hear very often like I don't
00:22:47.720 | hear very often that work is a gift, do you?
00:22:53.280 | In our popular culture, we hear that it's a drudgery, it's a pain, it's something to
00:23:00.520 | be rid of, it's something to minimize, it's something to do as little as possible.
00:23:07.880 | I even hear some in the church say that work is the curse, and it's easy to fall into that.
00:23:15.440 | The Bible makes it pretty clear that work is a gift.
00:23:20.080 | Psalm 104 verse 13, "He, God, waters the mountains from his upper chambers.
00:23:25.840 | The earth is satisfied with the fruits of his work."
00:23:28.400 | And then it describes why.
00:23:30.640 | Verse 14, "He causes the grass to grow for the cattle and vegetation for the labor of
00:23:38.000 | man so that he may bring forth food from the earth."
00:23:44.100 | God creates work for us, do you see that?
00:23:48.000 | He is a work-making God because he gave work to us as a gift.
00:23:56.800 | Like food is for the cattle, work and labor is for the man.
00:24:02.160 | In Psalm 128, too, "When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy
00:24:05.920 | and it will be well with you."
00:24:07.640 | It's the blessing of God.
00:24:10.000 | Ecclesiastes 3, there's a lot of Ecclesiastes in here tonight.
00:24:13.720 | This is tying in with our study in Ecclesiastes, but verse 12, "I know that there is nothing
00:24:18.680 | better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one's lifetime.
00:24:24.000 | Moreover that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor, it is the," what?
00:24:31.680 | It's the gift of God.
00:24:36.120 | Ecclesiastes 5, 9 repeats that the labor is a gift from God.
00:24:41.760 | "Work was in the design of creation before sin entered the world and it is not punishment,
00:24:47.180 | it is not the curse.
00:24:48.180 | In fact, it is a gift to his entire creation."
00:24:52.360 | And there's some who in this room, for various reasons, cannot work, sickness, injury, forced
00:25:02.440 | retirement at a certain age, and I would expect that most of you who I just referenced have
00:25:08.960 | a different understanding of this aspect of work than you used to.
00:25:14.200 | I've talked to a lot of men who wish they could go back to work.
00:25:17.840 | I knew of a strong, healthy young man many years ago.
00:25:21.920 | We were both young fathers at the time.
00:25:25.080 | He went to work one morning, just like any other day.
00:25:29.840 | In mid-morning, he collapsed at work, and he never left his bed on his own even once
00:25:37.340 | from that moment until he died 20 years later.
00:25:43.600 | That young man might have gone to work that morning with a less than appreciative heart
00:25:49.320 | or perspective like we do.
00:25:53.320 | I don't know, but I do know this, he definitely came to appreciate work as a gift of God because
00:26:02.200 | he couldn't do it anymore.
00:26:05.400 | Our culture advertises and markets retirement as the goal.
00:26:11.040 | The world says that retirement is the finish line, it's the goal, no more work.
00:26:17.560 | Some of us here tonight have adopted that perspective for maybe all the wrong reasons.
00:26:22.360 | We buy the lie of the world that we can live life free from work.
00:26:30.080 | Retirement is so exalted as a goal in our culture that many labor unions and government
00:26:34.680 | agencies establish what they call a benefit, a mandatory retirement age.
00:26:42.520 | No more work.
00:26:44.980 | So many men buy into this.
00:26:47.720 | These are the men that live for Friday or live for the weekend, and the empty promise
00:26:53.040 | of retirement, and then they cross that finish line, and within days or weeks realize what
00:26:58.900 | a gift that work was.
00:27:02.960 | I know you young guys, it's hard for you to believe that.
00:27:07.600 | A biblical man sees retirement not as a finish line, but as a starting line.
00:27:15.280 | Time where he gets to do new work, different work, service to the family, service in the
00:27:22.880 | church, the neighborhood, whatever it might be, and of course that work might be slower
00:27:29.820 | and less productive because of the ravages of the aging process.
00:27:34.920 | That is a fact of life too, as we'll see in Ecclesiastes chapter 12.
00:27:40.360 | There's so many men in this room who I am so grateful for, they model what it's like
00:27:45.880 | to cross that finish line and not see it as a finish line, but as a starting point.
00:27:50.940 | They're among us, devoting themselves to the development of the next generation.
00:27:59.720 | Don't wait to grasp what a gift work is, and let that realization benefit you now while
00:28:05.900 | you're working rather than waiting until the point where this truth is when you wished
00:28:10.880 | you had understood when it would have benefited you, which is now.
00:28:17.920 | A man who leads at work understands that his work is worship, and he has an entirely different
00:28:24.120 | attitude than the rest of the employee force because he understands every day he gets to
00:28:30.440 | go to work.
00:28:32.880 | It's a gift from God.
00:28:35.280 | Work is also a fact of life.
00:28:38.680 | It's a fact of life from Genesis 1 and 2, we've seen that work was established way back
00:28:44.200 | at the beginning.
00:28:45.200 | I don't know how you could come to any other conclusion than that work is a fact of life.
00:28:53.120 | It is our lot on this earth.
00:28:55.700 | It's not optional.
00:28:57.340 | And one of the common deceptions of Satan and the evidences of the pride of man in many
00:29:02.400 | areas, but particularly in the area of work, is when we believe we have a choice where
00:29:08.560 | God has said, "You have no choice."
00:29:14.160 | Turning biblical imperatives into options demonstrates either ignorance of God's design
00:29:19.720 | or a rebellion and an arrogance against God.
00:29:24.800 | This is true individually, and it's true of a country.
00:29:29.880 | Our country right now is being intentionally, or the economy of our country is being intentionally
00:29:34.720 | dismantled by the notion that you can opt out of work.
00:29:41.360 | And the reality today is you can.
00:29:45.120 | You can live off the government today.
00:29:48.840 | It's a false option.
00:29:50.560 | You can live a life of leisure in this country without the demands of work, and this is a
00:29:55.720 | choice that's contrary to the immovable force of truth.
00:30:01.240 | God said, "Work."
00:30:04.840 | Sinful man says, "Don't work."
00:30:08.540 | It's as stark as that, and how do you think that ends?
00:30:12.960 | Job 7, 1 says, "Is not man forced to labor on the earth, and are not his days like the
00:30:20.200 | days of a hired man?"
00:30:24.580 | Some of you are...that's resonating with you right now.
00:30:27.880 | Psalm 104, "The young lions roar after their prey, and they seek their food from God."
00:30:36.000 | The lions are fed by God, is what that's saying.
00:30:38.320 | In verse 22, "When the sun rises, they withdraw, and they lie down in their dens."
00:30:42.160 | And guess what?
00:30:43.160 | It's our turn.
00:30:45.600 | Verse 23, "Man goes forth to his work and to his labor until evening.
00:30:49.280 | O Lord, how many are your works!
00:30:52.040 | In wisdom you have made them all.
00:30:54.200 | The earth is full of your possessions."
00:30:57.400 | Whatever your work is, you should embrace it as the gift of God and as a fact of life.
00:31:06.280 | That might dramatically change how you feel and what you think tomorrow morning when the
00:31:10.320 | alarm goes off and you put your feet on the floor one more time to head off to work.
00:31:18.480 | It's a fact of life.
00:31:21.480 | You're in God's will when you're doing that.
00:31:25.440 | And it's a gift and it's hard.
00:31:29.380 | Work is hard.
00:31:32.000 | Work is not optional and that work's going to be hard.
00:31:34.400 | And this point is not to wow you with some new information, but to put your difficulties
00:31:40.640 | at work into context.
00:31:43.620 | Work is hard for a reason and it's hard for everyone, not just you.
00:31:49.980 | In Genesis chapter 3 verse 17, again, we keep going back to Genesis because I want you to
00:31:55.880 | see that this is the design, the perfect design of our creator God in his creative process
00:32:04.720 | when he said, "This is good."
00:32:08.480 | And then sin entered the world in Genesis chapter 3 and in verse 17 he's pronounced
00:32:13.440 | a curse on Satan, he's pronounced a curse on the woman, and now he comes to the man.
00:32:19.800 | And to Adam he said, "Because you've listened to the voice of your wife and you've eaten
00:32:23.280 | from the tree about which I commanded you saying, 'You shall not eat from it, cursed
00:32:27.600 | is the ground because of you,' saying, 'You shall not eat from it,' excuse me, 'cursed
00:32:34.480 | is the ground because of you, entoil now, you will eat of it all the days of your life.
00:32:40.480 | Both thorns and thistles it will grow for you and you will eat the plants of the field.
00:32:45.640 | By the sweat of your face you will eat bread till you return to the ground."
00:32:52.960 | That word toil is izzibon, it means pain, labor, hardship, sorrow, sweat.
00:33:07.360 | Here's the curse.
00:33:09.640 | Before work was purely a gift and it was a fact of life, but it was not difficult.
00:33:17.440 | The curse is now you aren't going to eat unless you work, and that work is going to be hard.
00:33:28.200 | That word toil is the identical word in verse 16 when the curse is pronounced on Eve, the
00:33:35.640 | woman.
00:33:36.980 | You know this verse.
00:33:37.980 | He said to the woman, "I will greatly multiply your pain, izzibon."
00:33:42.920 | In childbirth, in pain, izzibon, you will bring forth children.
00:33:48.260 | Now I highly recommend you don't go rushing home.
00:33:50.680 | Don't be texting your wife right now saying, "I know what labor is like."
00:33:55.640 | That won't go over well.
00:33:59.020 | But I do think it's interesting that it's the same word that's used for a woman in labor
00:34:05.560 | in childbirth that is used to describe the work that we must do now because in the conditions
00:34:13.560 | of work because sin entered the world.
00:34:18.200 | God designed work and now He designed it to be hard.
00:34:22.880 | And I understand the confusion sometimes.
00:34:25.040 | Understand this.
00:34:26.040 | Work is not the curse.
00:34:28.440 | Work existed before the curse, but the nature of our work now is the curse.
00:34:36.680 | Ecclesiastes 2 talks a lot about the futility, frustration, and the fatigue of labor.
00:34:41.600 | We've covered it.
00:34:43.000 | Brad covered it really well, but in verse 22 of Ecclesiastes 2, it says, "For what does
00:34:48.680 | a man get in all his labor and striving with which he labors under the sun?
00:34:54.340 | Because all his days, his task is painful and grievous.
00:34:59.720 | Even at night, his mind does not rest.
00:35:02.600 | This too is vanity."
00:35:04.120 | I think we all can identify with the words of that verse.
00:35:09.660 | That is life.
00:35:12.500 | There's difficult days at work.
00:35:15.880 | Depending on what you do, there's sweat, there's toil, there's sleepless nights, all kinds
00:35:21.160 | of difficulties.
00:35:22.160 | And all of that should be a reminder to us of our fallenness and sin and the holiness
00:35:29.360 | of God.
00:35:30.680 | And if you're saved, it should remind you of the amazing grace of God in saving you
00:35:36.580 | in spite of your sin.
00:35:40.180 | So that what Solomon says in Ecclesiastes on his perspective of the difficulty of work
00:35:46.160 | can be your perspective.
00:35:49.040 | What a gift.
00:35:51.320 | So toils, thorns, thistles, sweat, labor, striving, pain, grief, hardship, have a good
00:35:57.960 | day at work tomorrow.
00:36:03.680 | The next point is that work has a purpose, all of that difficulty.
00:36:08.800 | Work has a purpose.
00:36:11.840 | Work brings undeserved blessing and joy to those who will submit to the reality that
00:36:16.080 | our creator made us to labor.
00:36:19.480 | And it's encouraging to remember the purpose of work.
00:36:22.600 | There is a stark contrast between those who understand the purpose of work and those who
00:36:26.880 | do not.
00:36:29.760 | There are those who work hard and diligently through an entire career and they never understand
00:36:36.000 | why.
00:36:38.640 | And in Ecclesiastes chapter 4, there is a description of such a man.
00:36:46.640 | Verse 7, and by the way, I think this describes a growing demographic in this country.
00:36:51.640 | Verse 7, I looked again at vanity under the sun.
00:36:56.320 | Verse 8, there was a certain man without any dependence, having neither a son nor a brother,
00:37:03.480 | yet there was no end to all of his labor.
00:37:06.000 | Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, "For whom am I laboring
00:37:12.920 | and depriving myself of pleasure?"
00:37:16.040 | This too is vanity and a grievous task.
00:37:20.320 | This is a portrait of a man who's a hard worker.
00:37:23.120 | He gets his purpose.
00:37:25.480 | He works hard.
00:37:26.720 | He's also financially astute because it says he's wealthy.
00:37:31.000 | He's saving his money.
00:37:32.680 | He is taking the results of his work and he is gathering it.
00:37:37.120 | He's also single.
00:37:39.560 | He has no family.
00:37:42.680 | And for whatever reason, he doesn't have his siblings are gone.
00:37:46.280 | He just has no family.
00:37:49.040 | That's his life.
00:37:51.360 | I can't tell you how many young people I talk to in our culture today say that's the ideal.
00:37:56.600 | Wealth, a good job, no children, and yet he never asked, "For whom am I laboring and depriving
00:38:08.920 | myself?"
00:38:09.920 | And the Bible says that that's grievous.
00:38:12.200 | Work without purpose is sad.
00:38:15.200 | It's grievous, it's defeating, and it's vanity.
00:38:20.520 | So who are you working for?
00:38:23.440 | Well we saw in Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3, you're working for who?
00:38:28.040 | Christ.
00:38:29.960 | You're also working to fulfill your God-given purpose on this earth.
00:38:35.320 | To be in God's will and you're working for family.
00:38:38.500 | You go back to Genesis 1, the work that's described there of multiplying and filling
00:38:44.600 | the earth and you're fulfilling God's design and knowing the purpose of work is a grace.
00:38:50.240 | It's a mercy to know why you work.
00:38:54.900 | And to lead at work, a godly biblical man walks into the workplace knowing why he's
00:39:01.080 | there.
00:39:03.160 | Understanding what work is and understanding what his role is in that workplace and letting
00:39:07.840 | that drive his day.
00:39:11.320 | Let me go through a few reasons why we work, and there could be a lot more.
00:39:17.600 | I'm going to go through these really quickly.
00:39:20.160 | But one is humility.
00:39:21.720 | Why do we work?
00:39:22.720 | What's the purpose of work?
00:39:23.720 | Well it keeps us humble.
00:39:26.040 | It keeps us humble.
00:39:27.040 | There's an interesting passage in Psalm 107.
00:39:30.960 | Listen to verse 10 through 12, "There were those who dwelt in darkness and in the shadow
00:39:35.160 | of death, prisoners in misery and chains, because they had rebelled against the words
00:39:40.720 | of God and spurned the counsel of the Most High."
00:39:46.560 | Verse 12, "Therefore, he humbled their heart with labor."
00:39:52.960 | I think the interesting point there is that the psalmist didn't say he punished them with
00:39:56.800 | work.
00:39:57.800 | If you have teenage sons, this might be a good principle to teach them.
00:40:03.280 | He didn't punish them with work.
00:40:05.120 | He humbled them with work.
00:40:08.520 | We need to be humbled.
00:40:09.520 | Work isn't a source of pride for a Christian.
00:40:11.880 | It's a daily reminder that we serve a good and a gracious God who gifted us with work.
00:40:20.440 | And without the work he provides, we do not eat.
00:40:24.560 | And there is a humility in that.
00:40:27.400 | Second, we're commanded to provide for others.
00:40:36.000 | We're to provide for others.
00:40:38.400 | 1 Timothy 5.8 says, "If anyone," and I'm going through these in a different order than what's
00:40:41.920 | on the screen.
00:40:42.920 | I'm sorry about that.
00:40:44.520 | "If anyone does not provide for his own and especially for those of his household, he
00:40:49.000 | has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."
00:40:52.280 | You're familiar with that verse.
00:40:54.720 | Well the way you provide for yourself and for your family is to what?
00:40:58.720 | Work.
00:40:59.720 | That was established in Genesis chapter 3.
00:41:02.920 | That's the connection.
00:41:04.600 | In Ephesians 4.28 says, "He who steals must steal no longer, but rather he must labor
00:41:09.880 | performing with his own hands what is good so that he will have something to share with
00:41:15.560 | one who has need.
00:41:17.320 | And the ones with need immediately in front of you are yourself and your family and then
00:41:21.320 | it goes from there."
00:41:24.680 | Another reason to work is to sleep well.
00:41:28.760 | Sleep well.
00:41:29.880 | Pretty practical.
00:41:30.880 | There's a pretty significant way to know that we're not God.
00:41:35.440 | We need sleep.
00:41:37.400 | God doesn't ever sleep.
00:41:38.920 | It's a reminder every day that God is God and we are not.
00:41:44.800 | In Ecclesiastes 5.12 says, "The sleep of a working man is pleasant whether he eats little
00:41:50.920 | or much, but the full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep."
00:41:57.520 | It's better to sleep well than to have wealth that prevents or eliminates the incentive
00:42:04.760 | or the need for work.
00:42:09.400 | Some of us here yearn for wealth and we're completely missing the contentment that comes
00:42:15.580 | from the simple knowledge in life that where there is a clear connection between working
00:42:22.760 | and eating.
00:42:25.400 | And those of you that are parents need to remember that that connection is important
00:42:29.720 | to teach to your children.
00:42:33.880 | We work so that we can be humbled, so that we sleep well, so that we can provide for
00:42:45.660 | others and, of course, so that we can eat.
00:42:47.840 | You're familiar with that.
00:42:49.520 | And then the last one there is so that we can stay out of trouble.
00:42:54.900 | And I thought that one might be a hard one to swallow, but someone already talked to
00:42:57.740 | me tonight.
00:42:58.740 | They saw the outline and they said, "I get it.
00:43:01.240 | That's why I'm working."
00:43:02.240 | It's to stay out of trouble.
00:43:04.860 | It's biblical.
00:43:05.860 | Second Thessalonians 3.10 says, "For even when we were with you, we used to give you
00:43:10.860 | this order.
00:43:11.860 | If anyone is not willing to work," there's laziness, "then he is not to eat either.
00:43:18.460 | For we hear that some of you are leading an undisciplined life."
00:43:22.420 | There's a second sin, an undisciplined life, doing no work at all but acting like busy
00:43:26.860 | bodies.
00:43:27.940 | That's somebody who has way too much time on their hands.
00:43:31.500 | Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in a quiet fashion
00:43:37.900 | and to eat their own bread.
00:43:41.300 | There is a connection between work and staying out of trouble.
00:43:46.280 | The book I told you about, Men Without Work, either version of those books, devotes several
00:43:52.160 | chapters detailing data and statistics regarding criminal activity, disability statistics,
00:44:00.440 | and mortality bearing out the truth of Second Thessalonians 3 in the United States of America
00:44:05.780 | right now.
00:44:08.920 | Laziness and undisciplined life and too much idle time does not end well for a man or for
00:44:13.300 | a nation.
00:44:15.740 | We need to work.
00:44:17.620 | So leadership is not a title.
00:44:21.040 | It's defined by character and formed by God's truth and is designed for a man that work
00:44:25.620 | is worship.
00:44:26.620 | It's a fact of life.
00:44:28.460 | It's a gift from God.
00:44:31.660 | It's hard and it's purposeful.
00:44:36.020 | And understanding that compels a man to work hard with integrity and grace and to submit
00:44:41.600 | to the authorities over him at work.
00:44:44.820 | And if that's you, in an honest assessment of your work life, you are leading at work.
00:44:54.140 | And to the extent you're showing that at home to your wife and to your children, you are
00:44:59.180 | leading your family in the area of work.
00:45:04.260 | So to wrap up, let's just take a minute by looking at what little direct guidance there
00:45:08.760 | is for those of you who have achieved the title and the responsibility at work where
00:45:15.100 | others work for you or where they report to you.
00:45:23.020 | Ephesians 6, 9 comes right at you.
00:45:25.860 | It says, "Masters, do the same things to them and give up threatening, knowing that both
00:45:33.700 | their master," capital M, who's their master?
00:45:38.580 | It's Christ, whether they love Christ or not.
00:45:43.300 | Both their master and yours is in heaven and there is no partiality with him.
00:45:48.820 | That's some pretty profound words there.
00:45:51.900 | If you're in a position where people report to you, there's really three commands there.
00:45:56.500 | One is do the same thing to them.
00:45:58.120 | What does that mean?
00:45:59.260 | Well, that goes back to verses 5 through 8, those same three commands that we looked at
00:46:05.780 | earlier.
00:46:07.280 | You are to be obedient, you are to serve with integrity, and you are to serve with goodwill.
00:46:14.700 | That didn't change when you were promoted to management.
00:46:19.100 | That's what that means.
00:46:21.140 | The command in the first few verses of that passage are that you and I as employees are
00:46:26.060 | to be obedient, we are to have integrity, and we are to serve with goodwill.
00:46:33.820 | Then the command to those of us, those of you promoted to management is to do the same
00:46:39.900 | things to them.
00:46:42.420 | In other words, you lead by example.
00:46:45.260 | The second command or imperative there is don't forget where you came from.
00:46:52.560 | Don't forget where you came from.
00:46:55.860 | Being a good servant wasn't an exercise to achieve a position where you could lord it
00:47:02.540 | over other people.
00:47:04.100 | That's the third command, stop threatening.
00:47:05.980 | You see that?
00:47:07.900 | Give up threatening.
00:47:08.900 | There's some direct management consulting.
00:47:13.940 | Give up threatening.
00:47:16.380 | There's no place for arrogance in leadership.
00:47:22.140 | If you find yourself pulling rank or title to motivate people, you have lost the battle.
00:47:30.900 | You're to lead by example and by persuasion.
00:47:33.940 | Then in 1 Timothy 6, 1 and 2, there's a word about how others view you as a supervisor.
00:47:42.700 | All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters.
00:47:47.300 | This is talking about you now, how people are supposed to view you.
00:47:51.120 | This is why people like management or they think they do.
00:47:55.940 | They are to regard you as worthy of all honor so that the name of God in our doctrine will
00:48:01.820 | not be slandered, but those who have believers as their masters must not be disrespectful
00:48:08.820 | to them because they are brothers, but they must serve them all the more because those
00:48:13.460 | who partake of the benefits are believers and beloved.
00:48:20.820 | Teach and exhort these things.
00:48:23.620 | You look at the commands for those who are under your leadership.
00:48:27.260 | Honor, they are to honor you, they are to respect you, and they are to serve you.
00:48:35.460 | Who doesn't want to be honored, respected, and served?
00:48:41.380 | Therein is the enticement to management, and therein is the danger in management for a
00:48:47.580 | proud man.
00:48:50.500 | These are obligations of the employee before the Lord, by the way.
00:48:53.980 | You have no right to make that demand of anybody.
00:48:59.260 | As a manager, you must earn it, and that is the difficulty of leadership.
00:49:05.140 | You're supposed to respect, honor, and serve you, and if you find that nobody does, the
00:49:11.380 | problem might be you.
00:49:14.780 | You need to earn it, and here is what engenders trust, respect, and service.
00:49:20.820 | Ephesians 6, 5 through 9, serve with integrity, serve with goodwill.
00:49:28.540 | In Colossians 3, the same thing, integrity, hard work, that is the role of a leader in
00:49:35.300 | the workplace.
00:49:37.700 | Lead by example.
00:49:38.820 | You work as hard as anyone.
00:49:40.820 | You have an attitude of service and live a life of integrity.
00:49:47.100 | That is the biblical supervisor and manager.
00:49:51.980 | The result is that your staff might honor, respect, and serve you.
00:49:57.180 | And just to conclude, wherever you are on the org chart at work, remember your title
00:50:04.080 | doesn't define your leadership.
00:50:06.800 | Wherever you are, lead.
00:50:10.460 | Work hard, be excellent with integrity.
00:50:15.860 | Work hard with integrity and grace to the glory of God, your master, capital M, and
00:50:23.100 | for the benefit of your employer, small m.
00:50:27.460 | And always remember who capital M master is.
00:50:31.140 | Okay?
00:50:32.220 | Let's pray.
00:50:33.220 | Lord, thank you for your word.
00:50:34.780 | Lord, I pray that your word would do its work in all of our hearts, even now.
00:50:42.340 | And Lord, as we go to talk about these truths, I pray that you would give in these men a
00:50:48.140 | transparency of vulnerability to talk about an area of life that is sometimes very, very
00:50:55.740 | difficult.
00:50:56.740 | I pray that you would encourage the hearts of these men.
00:50:59.180 | Lord, may we go from here, hundreds of men, into the workplace in Southern California
00:51:05.180 | and be different, increasingly different, just simply by remembering the truths that
00:51:11.340 | you've designed work, that it's for our good, that it should be a joy, that it's a gift
00:51:19.500 | from you, and that our work truly is worship, and that we work for you.
00:51:23.780 | Lord, may that be impactful in our workplaces for the advancement of your kingdom and for
00:51:30.540 | your glory.
00:51:31.540 | In Christ's name, amen.
00:51:32.700 | [BLANK_AUDIO]