The Christian and his workplace

The Christian and his workplace

SIBKL/Pastor Chew Weng Chee/15/4/12

For the next 3 weeks SIBKL will be having a special emphasis on the workplace but why is the workplace so special? One survey showed that 90% of people are in the workplace and spend 60-70% of their waking hours at work. However, it is a sad reality that workplace believers do not integrate their faith at work and are typically different persons at work and on a Sunday. 70% of Christians are said to be dissatisfied with their work. Yet Jesus said we are to be the salt and the light of the world. Still, workplace believers are not practicing what they hear in church.

In most cases, if you were to compare a Christian entrepreneur with a non-Christian entrepreneur or a Christian worker and a non-Christian worker, you would find no difference in conduct. Over 90% of believers are not able to apply the Word in work-related behavior and it is also true that the average Christian hears messages irrelevant to workdays. Pastors need to be able to bring down Bible truths to everyday life. It is applied truth that will set us free. In the life and ministry of Jesus, He constantly modeled workplace ministry. 54% of Jesus’ sayings were in response to work-related issues. He spent 90% of His life in a carpenter’s workshop, 30 out of 33 years. Out of the 132 times recorded in the New Testament where Jesus appeared publicly, 122 of those times was in the marketplace.

We don’t want Christians who can jump high on a Sunday but cannot walk straight on a Monday. Do you make a difference in your workplace? If you don’t, you are not integrating your faith in your work. The main thing is to make a difference because we are Christians. The late P.T.Barnum famous last words was asking his wife “How were the receipts at Madison Square Garden?” How sad, that this man made money so important although he couldn’t take any of it with him when he died.

Before I became a Pastor, I spent 24 years working. I went through the challenges you face. I know all about having to balance family and ministry. 2 years ago, during a Watchnight service in 2010, I shared from Psalm 90. Psalm 90 is one of 3 psalms written by Moses and focuses on the brevity of life. Psalm 90:10 says “The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” People generally live up to 70 years old, or at most 80. Psalm 90:12 says “So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.” What Moses was saying was “Lord, everyday, as I work, make it count.” Psalm 90:17 says “And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands.” It means “May God be with you as you work”.

Workplace ministry is a philosophy, a mindset change, something incorporated into our DNA. We need to have a holistic approach of integrating our faith with our work and bringing Jesus to our working life. At SIBKL, we have two objectives, to strengthen our members holistically so that they can withstand and overcome challenges of the workplace and to send the church into the 9/5 window. Every heart with Jesus is a missionary and every heart without Jesus is a mission field. Romans 10:14-15 says “ How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,
Who bring glad tidings of good things!”

Consider the following verses in Genesis. Genesis 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 2:2-7 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. These verses show us that God works and it is His will for us to work!

The Hebrew root word for work and worship I is the same. God put Adam in the garden of Eden to work. Work and worship are the same. Work is worship and worship is work. Some people think that work is a consequence of the Fall. This is not true. Work started before the Fall as we see in Genesis 2.

However, there is a difference in work before and after the fall. In Genesis 3, after the fall, Eve and all women would have labor pains and in Adam’s work, there would be painful toil. The ground would have thorns and thistles, and Adam would have to work by the sweat of his brow. Before the fall, work wasn’t painful. It was a delight. There were no thorns and thistles in the garden of Eden. Thorns and thistles are a symbol of the suffering of work after the fall. However, at the cross, Jesus Christ nullified the curse of work, making it no more a drudgery but a delight again. Jesus wore the crown of thorns and His blood redeemed the curse of work for us. Today when you go to work in Jesus, you are blessed! In fact, if you don’t work, you are missing out on a blessing of God. Work is a purposeful tool to go to the 9-5 window.

No matter how difficult your boss is or how sticky your colleagues are, theya re your mission field. Work is no longer a chore, but a calling. Homemakers also hold a very important job, bringing up children. If you are a politician, be a good politician. If you are a businessman, be a good businessman.

See your work as a calling from God. Don’t ever think that what you do is less important, even compared to the clergy. Christians needs 5 paradigm shifts in particular in their attitude to the workplace. A paradigm shift, is a revolution, a metamorphosis in thinking. It is seeing things in a new way. It is having an “aha” moment.

1^st paradigm shift – Shift from building walls to building bridges. God’s church has never been about physical structures in the Bible. A church is a church without walls. We are the ones who inadvertently create walls and barriers so that there is no connectivity between us and the world.

2^nd paradigm shift – Shift from measuring attendance to measuring influence. Numbers are important. With a critical mass, we can make a real impact. However, it is not the most important thing. The main thing is never about size, but rather about strength, about influence. Big is not strong, small is not strong, strong is strong.

3^rd paradigm shift – Shift from caring to equipping the saints. Ephesians 4:11-14 says:” So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” A church must shift from just caring for the needs of the members to equipping the saints to serve the people. Otherwise, the church will end up a very self-centred church. A church should be like an aircraft carrier, and we should be the fighter jets. We fly off to fight and then return to refuel before going off again.

4^th paradigm shift – Shift from fellowship ministry to functional ministry. We need to move away from a holy huddle mentality to organizing practical ways to change the world.

5^th paradigm shift – Shift from condemning the city to blessing the city. People curse KL everyday, cursing the traffic jams and other things. Malaysia is beautiful country. KL is wonderful. Don’t condemn! Pray for your country, for your city. We are in SIBKL not for ourselves but for the nation. The prophet Jeremiah encouraged the people to seek the prosperity of the land where they went to in exile for if the land prospered, so too would they prosper. We are supporters of the government. We are not anti-government. We want a just government.

May the Lord help us embrace these paradigm shifts and begin to view our work as our calling, and allow God to work through us to help improve our workplace, our city and our nation.