We’re looking this week at Psalm 127: Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labour in vain.
How do we know if we’re working for God or not? How do we know if we are building with him, rather than for ourselves?
We need to know what God is working on. His big story, and where we fit into it.
Bible tells a story with four parts:
1. God created and cared for a good world, where we’d be in close personal relationship with him. IN harmony with world around us, providing needs, us working to sustain it. Were only asked to work with him, and not to try and be him.
2. We found ourselves longing to know what God knew, and rebelled against God in favour of working for ourselves. We separated ourselves from God, and now everything, including our work, is dysfunctional. Even our attempts to get back to God are broken.
3. God hasn’t given up on us, and in fact, became one of us in Jesus Christ in order to close that separation between us, and resolve the dysfunction.
4. He’s inviting us to join with him in recreating that original way of life, us and God in close personal relationship in harmony with our world, in something called his kingdom, moving towards a day when that is the only reality.
Good work is about participating in God’s ongoing creativity and cultivation…working for him, instead of putting our own goals first.
I had a friend studying Environmental Science. He was learning this kind of worldview (simplified to save space, but this was the gist): We are animals, wildly out of control like a virus, destroying the rest of nature, and the solution is to drive a hybrid, recyle, use less energy, the list goes on.
One day, he was finally crushed by the responsibility laid upon him, and said he felt he needed to change degrees. I asked why, and he said it was because I was a better recycler than he was! He felt he needed to save the world, and couldn’t…in fact I seemed to be doing better at it, and it wasn’t even my job or area of study.
The difference between us was that my environmentalism came from knowing and believing that God created, loves this world, and I should too. In fact, he put humans here to care for it, not as a virus. Of course, the dysfunction brought into our world by our rebellion against God (sin) is obvious in our many environmental issues – global warming, pollution, deforestation, etc. I can’t save it myself, but I know the one who can and is – God. I have a job to do, but also know it’s not in vain or overwhelming and futile, because I’m working for and with God.
We’ll see tomorrow some examples of how this good news story impacts other areas of work.
Question: Think about the example of a contractor – how would a home builder build in a consistent way with God’s story?
Then, watch the attached video of Kimberly’s story.
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Jesus said this about judgement:
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:1-5 ESV)
This is one of the best known, but most misunderstood and abused sayings of Jesus.
Often people will quote this passage to suggest Jesus says no one should ever judge anyone else. It makes it seem like Jesus was saying to turn a blind eye to injustice, brokenness, hurt in our world.
One take on why people quote this passage, is that when we see other people hurting, we often love ourselves too much to tell the truth…we want no pain for ourselves so we let others hurt, and use this as an excuse.
Jesus is not saying there should be no courts of law, no one should help another person out of a bad situation they don’t recognize.
How do we know? He judged.
Right in this passage, he spoke about hypocrites. He expected his followers to judge, discern, too. In the Sermon on the Mount, he told them to be more righteous than Pharisees. Later, he speaks about false prophets. He wants his followers to see the difference - to judge.
You can also see, right here in this passage, he commands his followers to engage in judgement: to be aware when there is a speck in someone’s eye.
So what's the difference, between good judgement and bad judgement? Good judgement is to see truth, then speak the truth in love. A healthy critique based on standards we can both recognize and try to follow is okay.
As Paul said in Romans 14:4: Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4 ESV)
The problem is when people go looking to judge others by standards they don’t keep. This turns to harsh self-righteousness, as if we are becoming the master of others.
We all do it – if someone criticizes us – we will immediately look for a way to criticize them.
We'll see more tomorrow, but first,
Question: What is difference between critique and judgement?
