Lent 1 - PSALM 25 – LOVING AND FAITHFUL

Readings: Genesis 9:8-17, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-15, Psalm 25:1-10.
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on February 26th, 2012

A printable PDF file can be found here

If we expect everybody to love us we will be disappointed. People don’t love all people. People love some people. The people closest to them. Some family. Some friends. Maybe a special friend. But beyond that, generally speaking people don’t love people.

When a performer comes on stage or actor holds up their latest award and says, “Thank you, Thank you, I love you all, I love you!’ they are just using words. They like the fact that you help them love themselves, but that’s as far as it goes. Sadly that’s as far as it goes in a lot of relationships, even close ones. It's easy to declare love towards those who make us feel lovable.

So it is hardly surprising that when Jesus was asked about what the two most important commandments were He said they both had to do with loving things outside of our selves. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love is so tough, comes so unnaturally to us, and seems so alien to us that God couldn’t make it an option or a suggestion but had to make love a command.

I realize I'm dealing with generalizations here. So here's another one. When people are faithful they tell the truth because they have nothing to hide. But people are not faithful. People are unfaithful and to cover it up they tell lies. We are not a faithful society. The divorce rate is staggering. The amount of deception and half truths that go on in any single workplace in any single year is vast. Even those who have the greatest responsibility over us, those who excel in the realm of high finance or especially of politics are legendary in their ability to never tell the whole story.

The probability is that we learned unfaithfulness at an early age. Our parents asked us to do something and we didn’t want to do it, so we told a lie. We reinforced it in school when, if we could get away with it, we got away with it. We saw everybody else doing it so we did it. We probably carried it into our working life. We probably carried it into our relationships.

We are in the season of Lent and on each Sunday I'm in the pulpit I’ll be taking a look at a Psalm reading suggested by the Common Lectionary. Today it is verses 1-10 of Psalm 25 and I particularly want to draw your attention to verse 10 of the Psalm which reads;

“All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness,
for those who keep His covenant and His decrees.”

In this verse God’s covenant is associated with two Hebrew words ‘chesed’ translated here as ‘steadfast love’ (but in other translations as ‘mercy’ or ‘loving kindness’) and ‘emeth’ translated as truth or faithfulness. In the Old Testament the only place the words ‘chesed’ and ‘emeth’ are found together is in reference to God. They are never applied together to any human being in the Old Testament, only to God. God alone is pictured as being both loving and faithful.

This is good! Because when you look around at the world, the qualities of love and faithfulness exhibited by people like you and me are shaky. We can’t always count on each other. But we can always count on God. So it is that our Psalm begins by addressing God;

To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in You I trust;
Make me to know Your ways, O LORD; teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth, and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation;
(verses 1-2 & 4-5)

This Psalm is traditionally attributed to King David. David was quite a guy. In today’s terms, if you picked your favorite president, your favorite religious leader, your most dashing movie star, your most admired sports star and your most honored war hero… and you rolled them all into one… then you’d be getting close to the sort of regard that David was held in.

Yet despite what others were kind enough to say about him, David knew better. He knew he was quite capable of loving in the wrong way. He knew how deceptive his heart could be. He was acquainted with the reality of being a sinner. He was unfaithful and had paid a high price for his infidelity.

So when he wants help, he doesn’t look to his advisers or his counselors or his court. He cries out to God. Only God can really be trusted. It is God’s truth that David needs to set his life back on track. It is God alone who can be his salvation. It is God’s way that he desires to follow. He’s tried the other ways. They didn’t work. He needs one who can show real love and real faithfulness.

The gospel passage from the lectionary today speaks of Jesus beginning His ministry. Mark does not elaborate in the way Luke and Matthew do on all the details of His baptism and His temptations. We’re simply told that at His baptism He is declared the Son of God and then that the Spirit leads Him into the wilderness where He is tempted for forty years before being ministered to by angels. The impression given is that here is one who has broken the mold. Here is one who might just prove to be faithful and true!

With the benefit we have of knowing how the story unfolds we see how in the ministry of Jesus Christ, ‘chesed’ (that is loving kindness and mercy) and ‘emeth’ (faithfulness and truthfulness) were perfectly expressed. The characteristics David speaks of as only being present in God are plainly evident in the life and work of the Son of God.

In our prayers we can come in confidence through Christ before God and make the Psalmists prayer our own. Here are some of the things that the Psalmist seeks from God.

Protection from enemies. ‘Do not let my enemies exult over me.’ We all have enemies. Maybe not enemies in terms of specific people, but certainly enemies such as illness, and misfortune and tragedy. Such things are ever present threats to our security. So it is right that we join the Psalmist in this prayer. ‘Don’t let the things that would wreck our life have the victory over us, Lord’

Guidance. ‘Lead me in Your truth, and teach me’. There is no shortage of sources from which we can ask for guidance. Some can be good. Some can be bad. It can take time to learn the difference. But God has given us a way of discerning right from wrong in the Scriptures of our New and Old Testament. One of the defining things about the people of God was that when they were teachable and willing to learn they moved forward. But when their hearts were hard and in their arrogance turned to other sources for their values then they lost their way. To be Christian means allowing the teachings of Jesus to take priority over all other messages that come our way. Psalm 25:9 ‘He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble His way.’

Forgiveness. “Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions”. Sins of both the past and the present cause us to stumble in our walk with God. God is loving. God is merciful. God is faithful to the covenant God has made with us through Jesus Christ who died that we may be forgiven. We began our Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday by reminding ourselves that we all have fallen short of being the people God would have us be. We meet on this First Sunday of Lent to recall that through Christ we can be forgiven, our sins remembered no more and can walk in a better way with God. Psalm 25:8 ‘Good and upright is the LORD; therefore He instructs sinners in the way’

As you travel through this season of Lent, I invite you to hold in mind the love and faithfulness of God. People can let us down. People can be anything but loving. People can be unfaithful. But not God. In Jesus Christ we see One who perfectly expresses the ‘chesed’ and ‘emeth’ of God, His loving-kindness and mercy, His truth and faithfulness.

Maybe we can make the Psalmists prayer our own Lenten prayer;

“To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in You I trust”

To God’s name be the Glory.
Amen.


Rev Adrian J Pratt

“Moses shines” TRANSFIGURATION SUNDAY

Reading: Psalm 50:1-6, Exodus 34:27-35, 2 Corinthians 4:3-6, Mark 9:2-9
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on February 19th 2012

A printable PDF can be found here

We’ve heard today in our service the accounts of Moses face shining with the glory of God as he delivered the 10 Commandments to Israel, and of the disciples Mountain Top experience of the Transfiguration. We will reflect on Moses experience. I’d like to focus on just one aspect of that account by asking the question “What can make our lives shine for God?”

The simple lesson that Moses brings us is that we can only shine for God by spending time with God, in God’s Presence, communing with God, sharing with God our hurts and frustrations and our triumphs and victories, taking on board the life lessons that God teaches us.

Every worship service can be a mountaintop experience. Every time we gather there can be a window through which God’s love blazes down upon us and calls us to reflect God’s love towards others.

What were the things that caused Moses to shine?

1. Moses life shined because he talked with God

How’s our prayer life? Seriously, how goes our prayer life? Where on our list of priorities is ‘talking with God’? Moses shined because he had carved out a place in his schedule for talking with God. We talk to each other, we talk about each other, we talk on the phone, we talk to ourselves, we talk in committees, we talk to our pets. Some of us talk to our plants.

I have to confess there have even been days when some mechanical object such as a car or a computer has broken down, that I’ve found myself talking to it, as though some verbal encouragement is actually going to be recognized by an inanimate object. Am I the only one to have had a television set that never seemed to respond properly without a slap to the side and a few well chosen words? “What’s wrong with that picture... now... slap.. well that fixed it!”

We are verbally active in all sorts of situations, but without coming into the presence of God to share our lives with God, then we are never going to shine in our relationship with God. Moses shined because he talked with God.

2. Moses life shined because he accepted God’s Word

Prayer is not just about talking to God. It’s also about listening to God. Moses, when he went back up the mountain had a lot to talk about. God had already given the commandments once, and angered by the people’s worship of the Golden Calf, Moses had smashed them to pieces. “That’ll fix ‘em”. Leaving aside the question as to how breaking something can fix something, it was clear that Moses had a lot of issues to deal with.

The people were faithless, the whole thing was falling apart. Even those closest to him had fallen from God’s ways. This was not a good day for Moses. Yet spending time in God’s presence changed things. God reaffirmed the word that had been spoken and Moses had a new set of the same commandments to take to the people.

Often it seems to work that way. God doesn’t always give us something new, but recalls us to what we had long forgotten. When we approach the scriptures with a prayerful attitude, the Bible becomes for us an album of messages to our hearts. God’s Word challenges and instructs us. Moses life shined because he accepted God’s Word.

3. Moses life shined because he had a Servants Heart

Moses had confidence because he knew who was in charge. He came down from the mountain, not in his own authority, but with the authority of God stamped upon him. When he spoke the people knew that the commandments he delivered to them were not things he had made up but had been given by God.

Peter, James and John, on the Mountain of Transfiguration, when they saw Jesus with Moses and Elijah, when they heard Him declared the ‘Son of God’ by a voice from the heavens, as they witnessed the glory of God, they were inspired to serve. Yes, they had questions. Yes, they would face difficulties. But what happened on the mountain left them forever changed for they knew they had been on holy ground.

If our lives are to shine for God then the beam needs to be directed towards others. Not for our own glory, but for the glory of God. As we develop a heart for service then we also gain the authority to participate in others lives in meaningful ways. Until we develop a relationship with people that doesn’t really happen.

Like Moses when he came down from the mountain, and like the disciples as they headed to the valley, for sure we will face difficulties and challenges. We will have to deal with the consequences of our own and others actions. We will have to deal with all that every day stuff common to all people. We are not promised an easy life but we are challenged to take up a cross.

A reoccurring theme throughout the New Testament is that Jesus came to be the light of the world. He told those who wished to follow Him to let their light shine. He let them know that the light He had placed in their hearts was not something to hide away and keep hidden but to be shone brightly into the darkness of this world.

To be a disciple is to be a living lighthouse for the love of Jesus Christ. A lighthouse that weathers the storms and guides others through the storms in their own lives. A lighthouse built on the solid rock of the promises of God. A lighthouse that is well maintained through participation in worship and study of God’s Word. Our calling is to be that lighthouse for others.

You remember the old chorus? “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!”

Moses came down from the mountain and He was shining. Jesus went up and the mountain and Moses and Elijah and He were shining. The disciples, Peter, James and John, came down from the mountain and they were starting to learn about shining. We need to leave this place with our light still shining!

So let me offer you again the three simple ingredients to a shining faith.

• Talk with God.
• Accept God’s Word.
• Be prepared to act upon what ever God calls us to do.

Such are things we can contemplate every time we worship. We worship the One who shone with an even greater glory than Moses, our Lord Jesus Christ, who died upon the Cross and was raised by God on the third day. The Living Lord who calls us by name and knows every circumstance of life through which we are traveling.

May His Spirit now be with us, speaking to us as we turn to prayer, inspiring us to serve and granting us the power to shine in those things to which we are called. AMEN.


Rev Adrian Pratt

“RUNNING TO WIN!” Living a Holy Life in an Unholy World (5)

Readings: Psalm 30, 2 Kings 5:1-14, Mark 1:40-45, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin on February 12th 2012

A printable PDF can be found here

Back in the days when Paul wrote to the Corinthians the Greeks were sports crazy. Near to the city of Corinth were held the Isthmian games, in their day only surpassed by the Olympics. From Paul’s sporting references in 1 Corinthians (and elsewhere) we can assume that he himself was a sports fan, and probably a competitor at some time in his life.

Paul is usually pictured by artists wearing classic Greek attire. Flowing robe, scholarly posture, sandals, maybe carrying a scroll and wearing a worried look across his brow. The image he projects in these few verses makes a stark contrast. Here’s Paul, tracksuit and Reeboks, coming out of the gym after his morning workout, ‘Bible’ in one hand, ‘Sports Illustrated’ in the other. Here’s Paul writing in terms that he knows his sports crazy listeners could understand.

“Listen up, this is Coach Paul laying down the law here. You want to be out there on the running track? Then get out there and as soon as that pistol fires the starting shot, you have got to run like the wind, run as though the only thing that mattered in life was getting to the tape first. Anything less just doesn’t cut it.

And those of you who want to be great athletes? Got one word for you. “Train”. Train, train, train, train and keep on training. Be ready, always ready, so that if you are called on to compete today, you’ll do well, and if you are called on to compete tomorrow you will do even better because you are ready to rumble.

And those of you who are trying to coach others? Be careful. Don’t become so tied up with teaching others that you neglect to train yourself. The best way to lead is by the example of your own expertise. Go Team!”

Coach Paul the Apostle. Sports Person of the Year, Ad 45.
Or maybe not!

Paul’s real concern, as you know, is not with coaching sports but instructing in discipleship. To be a disciple he is telling us, takes application, commitment and constant vigilance.

1. Discipleship takes discipline.

The words disciple and discipline are very similar. In a race, although everybody competes, only one person wins the first prize. When it comes to running the race of discipleship, he encourages us to behave like we are going to be the winner.

There’s something about a winner. They stand out. They hold their heads up high. They exude confidence. Paul encourages to be like that in our Christian walk. Be bold. Be Confident. Walk Tall. Why? Because in Jesus Christ every one of us is a winner. Every one of us is a number one. Not because we run the fastest, but because Jesus died for us, pleads our cause at the Fathers side and has a prepared place for us in the Kingdom.

We are number one. But there are two sides to a winner’s perspective. The other side is that they have done their homework. They’ve put in the time.

Golfing superstar Gary Player always had an answer when people would say: “I’d give anything if I could hit a golf ball like you!” He would reply, “Would you? Do you know what you have to do to hit a golf ball like I do? You’ve got to get up at 5:00 every morning, go out to the golf course, and hit a thousand golf balls. Your hands start bleeding, and you walk to the clubhouse and wash the blood off your hands, slap a bandage on them, and go out and hit another thousand golf balls! That is what it takes to hit a golf ball like I do!”

Whilst our salvation is assured in Jesus Christ that does not remove from us the obligation of striving to be the best disciples that we can be. Winning teams are composed of numerous winning athletes. If you don’t put in the practice, you disqualify yourself from staying on the team.

What sort of disciplines does discipleship call us to? Faithfulness in worship and service. Being in church and involved in our church as God enables us so to do. Giving time and effort to the activities of Bible Study and prayer. Being faithful in our stewardship of time, tithes and talents. There’s nothing glamorous about these disciplines. Its good old-fashioned commitment and dedication. That’s all.

Paul also uses the imagery of boxing. He speaks as though he’s the fighter in the ring. He’s not running around aimlessly, he’s not just throwing punches in a haphazard manner, hoping one of them may connect. The man is focused. He knows that he is going to have to take the hits and he knows that when he gets knocked down, he’s got what it takes to get up again.

That too is part of the discipline of discipleship of Jesus Christ. Getting up again when life knocks you flat. Being down, but not out. Being faithful to Jesus Christ means we will get hurt, if not physically, then certainly emotionally and maybe spiritually.

Do you think this world wants you to be a disciple? Do you think there aren’t forces around that are totally opposed to the message of Jesus Christ? Then think again. Hear one of Paul’s comrade in Peter in 1 Peter 5:8 “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.”

Discipleship involves focus. But, is it really worth the effort? I mean I like coming to church, but “Yo Adrian”, your making it sound like hard work! So remember;

2. We’re competing for a prize that lasts forever

In Paul’s day athletes would be rewarded on the podium, not with a trophy or a big check, but with a wreath to show the world they were number One. The main ingredient of the victory wreath at their Olympic Games was withered celery.

So you have to ask the question, ‘If people are willing to go to tremendous lengths, just to stand on a box, have some withered celery wrapped around their necks, … should not we, who are promised the prize of eternal life in Christ Jesus, be willing to give our all for the gospels sake?”

Activity expended for the Kingdom of God has lasting results. Think of the benefits that the gospel message has bought to the world. Think of the tremendous impact the message has had on everything from medicine to education, from democracy to equality, from politics to government, from the arts to architecture.

Invest time and effort in the Kingdom and it changes the world! We’re promised that whatever we do for Christ in this life reaps benefits in the next life. But be careful. Don't let this go to your head! I also want to move on to Paul’s’ third point; that one of the dangers in serving others is that you can neglect to take of your own spiritual fitness.

3. Watch Yourself

Paul talks of taking care to disciple himself “lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified” (verse 27). In a similar fashion to physical fitness, spiritual fitness is not a road that anybody else can travel on our behalf. Somebody else cannot say our prayers or do our bible study or take our pew in church or fill our position on that committee or put our tithe in the collection plate.

God holds us personally responsible for the state of our soul. We live in a culture that is always trying to apportion blame. ‘It wasn’t me. They made me do it. It’s the circumstances I grew up in.”. It’s an evasive trick as old as the Garden of Eden. Adam said, “It wasn’t me, the woman gave me the fruit.” Eve declares, “It was the snakes fault, how could I resist?”

Returning to the race imagery, who’s responsible for seeing that you get to the finishing line? Is it your coach? Is it your team? Is it your parents? Is it your church family? Is it your friends? It’s up to you. You have the responsibility for your own spiritual development, for your personal discipleship, for your commitment to Jesus Christ.

Jesus gave all for us. He died on the Cross for our sins. He was raised that we may live with ‘Hallelujah’ for a theme song. God sends the Holy Spirit as our helper and teacher in the faith. We have the Scriptures for a game plan. We are in the company of brothers and sister in the body of Christ who love us and pray for us. We are surrounded by a great cloud of unseen witnesses; angels and saints in glory.

You want to live a holy life in an unholy world? Then run to win!
Look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
Recall that discipleship takes discipline.
We are competing for a prize that lasts forever.
Watch out for yourself.
And to God’s name be the Glory.
AMEN.

Rev Adrian Pratt

“WHERE DID THAT CALL GO? Living a Holy Life in an Unholy World (4)

Readings: Psalm 147 :1-11, Isaiah 40:21-31, Mark 1:29-39, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on Feb 5th 2012

A printable PDF file can be found here

There’s a hymn composed by George Herbert that is titled “Teach me My God and King, In all things Thee to see”. The fourth verse says, “A servant with this clause, Makes drudgery divine, Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, Makes that and the action fine.”

The thought behind the words is that whatever you do in life, whatever is your calling, however you make your living, you can do so to the praise of God. A job worth doing is worth, not only doing well, but worth doing to the Glory of God. Such an attitude can give even the most mundane of tasks meaning and worth.

That hymn was written back in the 1500’s. Times have changed. Dramatically changed. There’s been a huge shift from the idea that work is a calling to the notion of work as a career. There was a time when everything from medicine to teaching, from the Law to the Military was seen as being a vocation, a life choice that God had guided people to, rather than simply a way of making money.

Nowadays the bottom line in career choices:-
1. How much does it pay?
2. What are the benefits attached?
3. What will I personally get out of it?

Somewhere the notion of our work as a “Calling” has been lost.

The church is no exception. In recent years many “Business Models” for the church have been proposed. Their motive is admirable. The idea is that in order for the church to progress then professional models of leadership need to be promoted. Through such a process then the nations brightest and best would be attracted to a career in the church and congregations under their inspired leadership would flourish.

“A Job in the Church” was presented as a viable career opportunity, particularly if a person had an aptitude and concern for helping people and did not consider financial reward as their highest priority. Some even saw the church as a “Second Career”. Having made themselves financially stable in one field, they could retire earlier than planned and take on a church as a way of seeing out their working lives in a meaningful way.

Kenneth J McFayden, Professor of Ministry and Leadership Development at Union Seminary, presented a paper a couple of years back called, “A Vocation in Crisis?” As part of his work in ‘Career Development’ he felt that he had worked with too many pastors who felt trapped in pastoral ministry – lonely, isolated, burnt out, victimized and hopeless, and became poignantly aware that theywere simply hanging on until they could retire. He comments, “How tragic for them and how tragic for the church.”

Sometimes it seems the church mirrors society, but I think it also works the other way. Because you and I come across people almost every day, in almost every career path in life, who are in a similar position. Be it teaching or medicine or social services or ... well you name it… there are people who, in the face of changing times, have lost hope. Who are just sitting it out. How tragic for them and how tragic for those their work serves.

Now in each case, be it in the church or the workaday world, you can identify factors that cause people to feel that way. Changes in working practices. Changes in the world around us. Economic changes. Significant changes in the priorities of leadership, politics and policy.

Often there is the feeling that when a person entered a particular working situation, there was a definite game plan. But now the goal posts have been moved and it doesn’t even seem to be the same playing field anymore. The job description has changed so significantly that it doesn’t even seem to be the same job anymore. The pressures that are being exerted are not the ones that they had been trained to face.

I’m continuing today on our theme of “Living a Holy Life in an unholy world” and I want to ask the question, “Where did that call go?”

Chapter 9 of 1 Corinthians has Paul dealing with issues that relate to the church and those who work for the church. As is often the case with Paul, the particular issue he deals with outlines principles that apply to many different situations. In chapter 8 he used the controversy over people eating meat offered to idols to offer a lesson in living in a way that looked to the interests of the church community rather than individual freedom. In chapter 9 he deals with issues of career and calling.

The part we didn’t read this morning, the first part of the chapter, has Paul speaking about how a local church should take upon itself the responsibility for seeing that those who relied on them for support were adequately compensated. There was a problem in Corinth. Paul and Barnabas had never received material support for the spiritual fruit that they sowed in building up the church.

Even though they would be quite justified in claiming it, and even though the church was wrong in not providing it, Paul uses the situation, not to call on the church to do the right thing, but to give a lesson about the difference between a career and a calling.

He begins this lesson in verse 16, the first we heard read this morning. “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel”. ‘Preaching the Gospel’ was not Paul’s chosen career path. On the contrary he had spent most of his life trying to destroy the church, before his experience of salvation on the Damascus road.

He preached because that was what God had called him to do. He would preach if it paid him a million dollars and he would preach if it paid him not a cent. He would rather die than not preach, a fact he demonstrated by laying down his life. His calling was not about compensation. He was a free man. Set free by Jesus Christ who died for him.

If, in some way he could use the fact that the Corinthian church had not given to him and Barnabas the compensation that they should, if he could use that situation as a teaching moment, then that’s what he was going to do. He was prepared to go to tremendous lengths to fulfill his calling. To the Jews, he would be as a Jew, to the Gentiles, as a Gentile. Verse 22 “I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some. And I do all things for the sake of the gospel”.

I remember how my own calling to full time ministry in the church came about. I was in a mission meeting in a Pentecostal church. An overwhelming impression formed itself that, right there and then, God was calling me to offer myself as a candidate for the ministry of the Presbyterian Church.

I had a whole lot of sound reasons why God was making a mistake, and when I shared these with the Pentecostal pastors they were pleased about the calling, but less than enthusiastic about my entering the Presbyterian Church as it was, in their view, only a few steps away from the abyss of eternal destruction. Undaunted by their theological observations, I decided to visit my home pastor, the Rev Barrie Redmore.

I knocked on his door, stood on the doorstep. He opened the door. “I think I’ve had a call to Presbyterian ministry” I told him. “Well”, he told me, “Go away and think about it and if you’ve still got the Call in a years time, come back and tell me.” And that was the end of the conversation. I went back a year later. I still had a call!

The lesson Paul is offering us is not just about the vocation of serving a church, but applies to whatever occupation in life that you may be led to. The Reformation Church believes in a concept that’s called the 'Priesthood of all Believers'. Briefly stated, Presbyterians believe that your work place, (or wherever you spend most of your time if you are out of paid employment or retired) is your place of ministry, be it through the tasks you are doing or through the relationships you are forming.

You have to put bread and butter on the table, and of course anybody who gives any kind of service is entitled to adequate compensation for that service. That’s what the first part of chapter nine is about. The second part, the part we have been considering, is about how you view that occupation.

You can see work as simply 'work' or you can see it as a calling. To see it as a calling places everything in a different framework. It touches on the whole area of our working ethics, what we are prepared to put up with and what we will not go along with. It touches upon whether we are just going to sit it out as long as we can or ask the question, “If the ball game has changed, Lord, what are you now calling me to do?”

Paul demonstrates that a sense of calling sets us free. Free to see whatever we do, as a place to find God’s Grace. So I ask the question; “Where did that call go?” I encourage you to recapture that sense of vocation and calling that our society has sought to erase.

God may well have things in mind that you have not put on your personal agenda. Money really isn’t everything. You truly can’t take a cent with you. Only serving Jesus Christ has benefits that are out of this world. Presbyterians believe in the priesthood of all believers.

So again, I encourage us to be out in the world, but not of the world. To be about our business in a way that glorifies God. Whether it be sweeping a room, doing algebra homework, teaching a class, setting right a wrong or designing a new hat…. to God be the Glory for the richness of His Creative Work that enables us to get through another day.

AMEN.

Rev Adrian Pratt