Sermon Notes (9.5.21)
Square: The Call to (Co)Mission
When we pray the Lord’s prayer, observed Luther, we ask God to give us this day our daily bread. And he does give us our daily bread. He does it by means of the farmer who planted and harvested the grain, the baker who made the flour into bread, the person who prepared the meal. We might today add the truck drivers who hauled the produce, the factory workers in the food processing plant, the warehouse men, the wholesale distributors, the stock boys, the lady at the checkout counter. Also playing their part are the bankers, futures investors, advertisers, lawyers, agricultural scientists, mechanical engineers, and every other player in the nation’s economic system. All of these were instrumental in enabling you to eat your morning bagel. Though God could give it to us directly, by a miraculous provision, as He once did for the children of Israel when He fed them daily manna, God has chosen to work through human beings, who, in their different capacities and according to their different talents, serve each other. This is the doctrine of vocation.
– Gene Edward Veith Jr., God at Work
God’s Plan. Our Purpose.
Genesis 1:26-31; 2:7-8; 2:15
GENESIS 1:31
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.
167 – It’s ALL Good & It ALL Matters
When someone asks how we are doing spiritually, we immediately examine our prayer lives, perhaps answering the question according to whether or not we had our “quiet time” this morning. When a preacher exhorts us to “return to our first love” or to “stop being lukewarm Christians,” we immediately know what he means. We need to beef up our devotions, expand our prayer list, and extend ourselves to more unsaved friends. These things may be the heart of the Christian life, but I wonder whether they aren’t overemphasized in some evangelical circles.
– Michael Wittmer, Heaven is a Place on Earth
IMAGO DEI
Dignity & Dominion
GENESIS 1:26-27
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.
A ROYAL NAMING
you are not your past
How do you regard yourself?
A ROYAL CALLING
you’re a living image
GENESIS 1:28
God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.
GENESIS 2:15
The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to work it and watch over it.
What do you do?
I am part of a global movement to bring order, beauty, and harmony out of the creation and the chaos of this world.
The Problem
when work becomes work
GENESIS 3:17-19
And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”
IDLE or IDOL?
2 THESSALONIANS 3:10-12
In fact, when we were with you, this is what we commanded you: “If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.” 11 For we hear that there are some among you who are idle. They are not busy but busybodies. Now we command and exhort such people by the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and provide for themselves.
Are you asking work to be your functional savior?
GENESIS 11:4
And they said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Let’s make a name for ourselves; otherwise, we will be scattered throughout the earth.”
…being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself – be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.
– Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
COLOSSIANS 3:23-24
Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.
The Provision
you can’t work well until you rest well
JOHN 17:1-4
Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent — Jesus Christ. I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do.
This webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and delight is what the Hebrew prophets called shalom. We call it “peace,” but it means far more than just peace of mind or cease-fire between enemies. (As a matter of fact, the area over which two armies declare a cease-fire maybe acres of smoldering ruin.) In the Bible, shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight — a rich state of affairs in which natural needs are satisfied and natural gifts fruitfully employed, all under the arch of God’s love. Shalom, in other words, is the way things are supposed to be.
– Cornelius Plantinga Jr., Engaging God’s World
HOW WILL YOU RESPOND?
Confess.
Celebrate.
Commit.
A Prayer for Salvation
“Heavenly Father, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but through your Son Jesus I can be more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you that he lived the life I should have lived and paid the debt and punishment I owed. Receive me now for his sake. I turn from my sins and receive him as Savior. Amen.”