Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for the Daily Challenge. Today is Thursday, we’ve been exploring a topic all week and today, we are going to try to apply it to our lives. This week we’ve been talking about how Jesus resets every area of our lives including how we see work. We’ve talked a few times this week about how work can take on a life of it’s own. Work can consume us. Work can drive us. Work can become our idol. It can become something we worship, something we elevate above all other things and that drives all other things in our lives. Work can become our god. Whenever we take something good in this world, we make it our ultimate good. It becomes our ultimately bad for us. That’s a definition of sin.

Back in our series that we did this past summer on work and rest, we explored what it looks like to work well as a follower of Jesus and we saw four ways to approach work as a follower of Jesus today. Way to apply what we learned from Colossians on Tuesday about work and working continuously, working for God, working well and try to apply that in the early practical way of life today.

Sometimes our work can be redeemed. Sometimes we have been doing work maybe for ourselves, maybe just for the money but you know what, it’s good work consistent with God’s kingdom and we can continue to do it well and now we can offer it up to God. I told the story in that series about an animator who had been animating for work and now she had the opportunity to animate scripture for a church I had started. That was the way for her to offer her work to God. That was great.

Sometimes our work needs to be challenged. Sometimes we have been engaged in work selfishly that simply cannot be done by somebody in God’s kingdom. Say you have been working in the porn industry. You become a follower of Jesus, that needs to get reset. You can’t continue working in that industry, but you can challenge it. Your role in God’s kingdom maybe to challenge that industry. To speak out against it. To let people know what it’s really like the dangers of it -how it’s actually a form of modern slavery. I could go on but you can see how some kinds of work can’t be offered or redeemed for God, they have to be challenged.

Finally some work can be subverted. There are times when our work is something that we have been doing for all the wrong reasons. It’s not directly supporting God’s kingdom to do that work but it’s also not something that needs to be completely confronted and challenged and what we can do is we can be there as a follower of Jesus and subvert what’s happening there that is selfish, that is sinful, that is broken. We can undermine people’s belief in the idol of work and money and power and show them a different way  by being there.

Followers of Jesus can’t withdraw from every industry. We can’t withdraw from finance and art and culture. We can’t withdraw from transportation, from supply chain management. We can’t withdraw from consumer products. We can’t withdraw from construction. I could go on and list all these industries. We can’t withdraw completely from the world. Christians need to be there and sometimes that looks like challenging and sometimes it looks like redeeming and offering it and sometimes it looks like subverting it and I highlight this one because that’s really what Colossians was talking about.

Paul was talking to slaves who happen to have become followers of Jesus. They are stuck in a system of slavery. It is the status quo where they live and what he wants them to do is undermine it. He wants them to subvert. He wants them to continue working for their owners but he wants them to know they are not truly owned by them. He wants them to be free, even though the world thinks they are slaves.

Now most of us have more freedom than the slaves that Paul is talking to but sometimes circumstances or responsibilities give us no choice. Sometimes we find ourselves in the kind of work where our only choice is to subvert. We have to stay there. We have no other choice to leave that work, we have to stay and subvert it. To undermine work’s ability to control us, to own us.

Really no matter what work we do, we can find ourselves feeling owned by that work. We can’t find ourselves handing over the entirety of our lives, our entire identity, our entire sense of security and confidence in life to our jobs. We can use our job titles to describe all of who we are. When we are doing that, we are selling out to work, we are selling ourselves to slavery, willingly. That is the system in our world. That is the system of slavery in our Western world. We willingly sell ourselves to work and if that’s happening in your life, then please subvert it. Undermine its power over you and continue to show others while you work alongside them, what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus in your industry.

Keep working. Work well at it. Show them what it’s really like to be an artist who does art for the Kingdom of God. Show them what is like to build for the Kingdom of God, to create for the Kingdom of God. To organize for the Kingdom of God. To lead for the Kingdom of God. Whatever kind of work you do, show people what that work looks like when it is done well and done for God and so doing it will subvert works power over yourself and over others.

Work may think it owns you, it may act like it owns you. The world may think that your work owns you, but you can undermine its power over you. Break yourself free from the chains of slavery and the only way you can do that is by turning to Jesus Christ as your soul source of self worth, of security and identity in this world. When you turn to him, as that soul ultimate source of meaning in life, you will find that things like work and money and so on, all comeback to the place they were always meant to hold in your life. Not the center or ultimate place, but on the periphery.

When we work for the Kingdom of God, living in the Kingdom of God, even well for the Kingdom of this world surrounds us, what we are doing is we are showing, to react to some of the things I said yesterday, that work could go wrong. We are showing people that we are not our own saviors but we are saved by God’s grace.

Our self worth and our self identity are not found in our work but they are found in Jesus Christ and that’s where we see ourselves as workers in God’s creation, advancing God’s kingdom and not as the creator ourselves. We see ourselves for who we truly are, we see other for who they truly are. That’s what Paul is telling bond servants and masters to do it in his letter to the Colossians we explored on Tuesday and that is what we can do in our working lives today.

And my challenge for you today is to think what concrete tools can I use to help me do the three things we’ve really talked about this week. What tools can I use in my workplace to keep working. To keep working there I can be a presence for God, I can either challenge it or subvert it or redeem it. What can I do to work well there? How can I show that this is work for God’s kingdom, for the sake of work being good and finally how can I work for God and doing you are going to bring other people along for the ride too. Map that out today. Think of what concrete tools you can use to actually make this happen. To keep working, work for God and work well.

Well have a great time discussing with your group what that looks like to put that into practice. I’ll see you tomorrow as we take time to pray and reflect. Don’t forget to read the Bible in sync as well. Bye for now.

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - March 19, 2014

Wednesday - Change It - Reset Nature

Reset

Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I'm Ryan your host for the daily challenges. Today's Wednesday it's the day in our weekly rhythm where we see how the Bible's take on our topic has challenged and transformed our thinking. Yesterday, we read a passage from the Bible from Paul's letter to the Romans. We saw how connected God's creation, the natural world around us, is with God's plan for human beings. We saw that it's pretty impossible to separate out soul from body and spirit. Because God has one plan for all of humanity, for all of creation that involves both the physical things he created, as well as spiritual beings like human beings. We've spoken about how God created us to be in perfect harmony with other human beings, with God, with the natural world around us. It sounds beautiful, the Garden of Eden right? Humans and God walking together in a natural environment where everything is provided for us. But you probably recognize it's not the world we live in today. Since we live in a world that isn't exactly what God created it to be, something’s broken about it. We can see a variety of responses in our world to how to fix that. A lot of people in our world even if they don't call themselves followers of Jesus recognize something isn't quite right with our natural world. There are a range of responses. But we'll talk about two of the extremes. One extreme would be what we call pantheism. It would be the extreme view that says nature is to be worshiped. In this view nature essentially becomes one's God, to be worshiped above all other things. Unfortunately, what that does to humans is it tells us that we are essentially a parasite. We're a part of the natural world that has gone terribly wrong. We are the problem, we need to go. There are certainly some who act that way, even if they wouldn't verbalize that belief. They certainly act as if we are a virus or a parasite in the world. We don't belong here, and we're destroying it by our mere presence. It's challenging, in that kind of view you either have to love nature or love people, you can't love both. Human rights become very questionable, in that kind of view. You have to decide what takes precedence, the natural ecological world or human lives. We've built up the civilizations that we have based on an idea of human rights. That would be very much in question, if we were to elevate the rights of nature far above the rights of human beings. You can see some of the conundrums that come up when you start to think about these issues. But pantheism is one extreme view. That basically says, that the natural world is God to be worshiped. Maybe even God is the natural world to be worshiped, and we, since we eat things in this natural world by destroying them. Since we want to burn fuels to stay warm, to get places, are a virus and we need to go. Another extreme view would say that essentially human beings are some day going to be sent to a disembodied heaven. We might picture it in the sky or in the clouds or something like that. But we'll have the sense that heaven is somewhere else, and our goal as human beings is to somehow get to heaven, and leave all this behind. This natural world is just to be thrown away, it's disposable. This view, of course, has its problems too. Because this view says, that the natural world that God created and said was good, is actually no good at all ... it's garbage. Since God said we were very good, we have to wonder how much better than the natural world we are. Are we going to be thrown away and disposed of too? Wouldn't be consistent for God to say that something was good and very good, and then to destroy it all just in a fit of rage. If he wanted to do that he probably would have done that a long time ago anyway. No, God seems to have some kind of a plan for the natural world and for us. That's where the Christian story comes in. The Christian story does not say that we're all going to fly off to some disembodied heaven someday, and that none of this matters. There was a Christian pastor who, just about a year ago, said something to this affect that caused quite an uproar. His name was Pastor Mark Driscoll, and he said, "I know who made the environment, and he's coming back and going to burn it all up. So yes, I drive an SUV." After he said that he had to backtrack and apologize. He claimed it was just a joke. But, you know what it represents the view of some Christians out there. That this world's just going to be burnt up, and doesn't matter. I think a true experience with Christian faith looks more like a middle road. First of all, Christians worship the God who created nature, rather than worshiping nature itself. You know, I love the God moments I've had in nature. I told you about one of them Monday. Another one was when I was sleeping on a beach one night. I woke up to feel this sudden cold front coming, and watched this wall of cloud come in over Georgian Bay, roll over the beach over top of me. It was just this moment of awe and wonder at the power of majesty of creation. Which only points to the power and majesty of God. For a Christian, nature isn't to be worshiped in and of itself. But it can certainly point us to the one who is to be worshiped, God. This means nature should be treated with respect. It's a creation, it's God's work of art, it's his masterpiece. So it's not to be disrespected, not to be destroyed for no good reason, it's meant to be treated with respect. Secondly, the Christian story says that human beings are part of that creation. We are part of nature, we are animals, we're mammals, yes that's all true. However, it says we have a special role. We've been asked to take care of God's creation, as what the Bible calls stewards. Or, in the very first story in the Bible about God creating the world he said, "We were to have dominion over the earth." In the big picture this seems to look like human beings having a special role of care for creation. We're invited to take care of it. Not as if it's our own ... that it's something we've been given to play with, or destroy, or keep, or do whatever we want with. But rather that it's God's, and he's offered it to us for a time, to take care of for him. Think of how an investment advisor is supposed to look after somebody's money. They're not supposed to take it as if it's their own money, and use it for whatever they want to use it for, and buy things, and invest in their own companies. No, instead they're supposed to take that money, and care for it in the same way that the owner would have cared for it. They're supposed to invest it in ways consistent with the owner's risk tolerance, the owner's ethics. Things go very wrong when the steward, the investment advisor, takes that money and treats it like their own. Uses it consistent with their own beliefs and ethics rather than the owners. The natural world around us can be seen in a similar kind of way. It's been given to human beings to steward and take care of. In a way that's consistent with God's values, God's ethics. It's not just ours to keep, destroy, spend however we want to. Rather this is God's, and God has a purpose and a plan for it, and we're supposed to care for it in a way consistent with that plan. Now we humans unfortunately, didn't do that at the very beginning. We rebelled against God. Decided to use nature for our own purposes. We can see evidence all over our world of how broken this world is as a result. How broken our lives are as a result. But amazingly, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has given us a second chance. The first Adam messed up. The second Adam, the second man is here to make it right, and he's given us human beings a second chance to start living, and practicing God's kingdom now in all that entails. Yes, moral living. Yes, in terms of following Jesus in everything we do and decide, and that includes how we use the resources we've been given. The natural world around us, is not ours, it's God's. He's invited us, he's given us the amazing privilege of looking after it for a time. But we have to do it in ways that are consistent with what he would want especially because this is our second chance. So I've got a question for you to think about today. I hope you'll discuss it with somebody else you know from the train or bus, from work, or from the neighborhood. Just watch the videos on the same days, and then whenever you are together discuss what you've been learning. Question: How else do you think following Jesus might be connected to taking care of the natural world around us? For example, one thing I can think of is how could we possibly say we're loving our neighbors if we pollute the water that they need to drink? So, Jesus saying we should love our neighbors is actually very much connected with how we use the earth. How else do you see connections between what Jesus said, and how we use the earth? Have a great discussion. Don't forget we're reading the Bible in sync together as a community. Check our website or app to see what today's reading is. Have a great one, bye for now.

Related Topics: Ecology, Environment, Nature, Reset | More Messages from Ryan Sim | Download Audio

From Series: "Reset"

When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again? The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate. What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives: Reset: Goals Reset: Time Reset: Money Reset: Work Reset: Body & Food Reset: Sex & Marriage Reset: Family Reset: Compassion Reset: Nature Reset: Society Reset: Death Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.

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