Faith and Work News ~ Links to Interesting Articles

• How Do I Prioritize My Busy Life? On this episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast, John Piper responds to a question that reads in part “How do I balance the importance of working hard for the Lord, while still having enough time for God, spiritual growth, and my family, when my job won’t allow it? Should I accept that I will have to sacrifice much for my work, consider a career change, or do something in between?”
• How Can the Average Christian Serve the Lord? For Christians who aren’t ordained ministers, what does it look like to serve the Lord? From one of Ligonier’s live events, Stephen Nichols and Robert Godfrey address the biblical and Reformation doctrine of vocation.
• What Does Loving God Have to Do With Your Job? Steve Lindsey cites four reasons why the comprehensive command to live in wholehearted devotion to God and love for your neighbor on a consistent daily basis throughout your life is not only possible, but is, in fact, achieved mostly through your work.
• How Can I Move Past a Disagreement with a Colleague? Russ Gehrlein writes “I was asked to reflect on a difficult situation at work. Although it may have been hypothetical, I gave it some thought. The individual asking had a pretty stressful few months as he or she had a sharp dispute with a coworker. They both apologized for the way it was handled at the time, but ever since, it has been difficult to move on. It is still awkward to be around each other as the issue was never truly resolved. He or she was wondering how to approach this situation in a such a way that it would bring glory to God and would be in line with the gospel message of Jesus Christ.”

Click on ‘Continue reading’ for:

• More links to interesting articles
• The Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week
• My Review of Grace at Work: Redeeming the Grind & The Glory of Your Job by Bryan Chapell
• Quotes from the book You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly Kapic

• How Non-Believers Can See God Through the Biblical Meaning of Work. Anna Arnold asks “How do you help your non-believing co-workers connect the dots between their work and a loving God who has a perfect design for their lives and who desires a relationship with them ( 8:3-4)?”
• Lance Acree, Aeronautical Engineer: Teamwork. On this episode of the Working with Dan Doriani podcast, Dan talks with Lance Acree. What does a cargo plane have in common with an operating room? You’ll find out in this episode, an interview with Lance, an aeronautical engineer and fighter pilot turned healthcare consultant.
• Called to Lead. My book Called to Lead: Living and Leading for Jesus in the Workplace is available in both a paperback and Kindle edition. Read a free sample (Introduction through Chapter 2).
• 20 Quotes from Bryan Chapell on Working with Grace. Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra shares 20 of her favorite quotes from Bryan Chapell’s new book Grace at Work: Redeeming the Grind and the Glory of Your Job.
• Integrity in the Life of a Leader. On this episode of the Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast, Stanley and Lane Jones discuss the importance of maintaining personal integrity in the context of leadership.
• Grace At Work Redeeming the Grind and the Glory of Your Job. On this episode of Equipping You in Grace, Dave Jenkins and Bryan Chapell discuss the doctrine of vocation and the Christian, connecting Sunday to Monday, dealing with frustration at work, and his new book, Grace At Work Redeeming the Grind and the Glory of Your Job.
• Clarifying Your Purpose is the Third Third of Life, Part 2. Mark Roberts offers the second and third of ten suggestions of things you might do in order to clarify your purpose in the third third of their life.
• A Reformed Theology of Work in New York. Katherine Leary Alsdorf writes “How should committed Christian workers actually engage the brokenness and beauty of this complex and pluralistic city?”
• What Working Women Need to Hear from Their Pastors. Michelle Myers writes “Pastors, you can proclaim truths from God’s Word with love and authority. Here are a few things working women need to hear from you that will help drown out our culture’s counterfeit offers and shortcuts.”
• How to Pray When You Hate Your Job. Tom Nelson writes “We may deeply struggle with our work, our workplaces, and the fellow image bearers we encounter in our vocational responsibilities. Yet it is in and through our jobs that we are called to provide for our material needs, to worship God, to be spiritually formed, to incarnate and proclaim the gospel and indwell common grace for the common good.”
  

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Top 10 Faith and Work Quotes of the Week

• Success isn’t so much what you do with your life; it’s what you leave behind. Which may be what a calling is all about: leaving a legacy that matters. Jeff Goins
• Not only does our day of rest and worship distinguish us from the world on Sundays but leads to a distinct work ethic on Mondays. Christians rest diligently, and we work diligently. Both are a witness to the watching world. Burk Parsons
• A person’s career or vocation can become an idol. The person becomes so obsessed with getting ahead or making it to the top that both God and family take second place. Jerry Bridges
• In the life to come, we will truly enjoy the work of our hands. We will no longer toil in vain. Russ Gehrlein
• The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship. Martin Luther
• Parenting is a good and beautiful and necessary work in its own right, and must be honored and esteemed along with all other vocational callings. Scott Sauls
• We glorify God when we use our talents joyfully and effectively. Dan Doriani
• Organizations with remarkable cultures are led by effective leaders. Those with toxic cultures are managed by bad bosses. Dee Ann Turner
• The best leaders I’ve met are humble enough to continue to learn – and ask for help and instruction. Nathan Whitaker

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FAITH AND WORK BOOK REVIEW:

Grace at Work: Redeeming the Grind & The Glory of Your Job by Bryan Chapell. Crossway. 213 pages. 2022
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This book was based on a sermon series delivered by the author at Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois, when he served at the church as Senior Pastor. You can watch those sermons here.

The book is designed to help us understand and more fully experience personal dignity and divine purpose in the varied jobs that we do to serve God and all that he loves. The author tells us that when we realize that every honest job exists on the holy ground of God’s calling, then we will rejoice in the mission we have at work. The author writes that Sunday is for Monday, and we are called by God to do his work not just in worship but in the workplace.
In this book, he emphasizes that our work is a holy calling where we honor Christ in everything we do – whether it’s a business meeting, an important project, or even a phone conversation. We bear the name of Christ and have obligations to reflect his character in the workplace.
The author writes that God’s people are being called to his mission not just in Sunday worship, but in the everyday workplace. God calls us to use the work skills, talents, and resources that he provides for extending the influence of the kingdom of God into every dimension of our lives and world.  In the skills we express, in the products we make, in the way we work, in the impact of our labors on society and on the relationships affected by our work, we are instruments of God’s redeeming work in a broken world.
Among the topics that the book touches on are dignity, purpose, integrity, money, mercy, success, glory, humility, evil, leadership, forgiveness, balance, rest, and witness.

Below are 25 of my favorite quotes from the book:

• Ultimately, we do not serve a company or a boss or even our family’s needs, but our Lord, who smiles upon our labors, values our sweat, and dries our tears with the grace of knowing he will use every effort that honors him.
• Your work is your mission field, and because of that, there is a God-given dignity in what you do.
• When we begin to recognize that work is not evil but is actually something that gives our days purpose and our lives a sense of worth, then we begin to view our labor in a very different way.
• Work gives us dignity, because work itself is dignified.
• When we begin to understand God’s perspective on work, then we realize that it is actually a form of worship.
• God requires us to represent him with integrity, giving our energies and resources to the job we were hired to do.
• When we begin to see that there’s dignity in every vocation, we realize that every job has a purpose of serving others and bringing glory to God.
• When we use God’s gifts in the calling he gives us, we fulfill his purposes.
• Each Christian should be willing to ask, “Can I stamp Christ’s name on this product? Can I take Jesus with me on this job?”
• No matter how challenging or mundane our duties, our job is holy before God because it is contributing to the world he is building for his own purposes.
• You can be in an undesirable job and still do God’s work, because you’re not serving men but the Lord.
• God is calling you to a profession. His name is on you. Profess him in all you do. Honor him, and he will use your work for his purposes.
• The reason we know that our work honors God is that we who do it are made in the image of God. Because God so dignifies us, the work of our hands has dignity.
• If your goal is to bear Christ’s name in the workplace, as well as into the world, then you recognize that the measure of your success is how well you have magnified the name of Jesus.
• We are to take the features of his glory to every place we inhabit and to every job we do. As we express his character and care, our work pushes back the darkness of a fallen world and brings the glory of God to light.
• Our work is not so much ennobled by the tasks we do or the skills we exercise, as by the purpose God accomplishes through us.
• The world may not recognize the significance of our labors, but believers have the assurance that our jobs matter to God and make a difference in the lives of those he loves.
• Christ is present in us as we work, he is present with us as we work, and he is made present to others by our work.
• Not only missionaries and preachers, but all who labor with the intention to honor God through their business, skills, sweat, politics, creativity, and conduct are participating in the mission of God
• Each believer’s occupation and tasks are significant not because they receive the recognition and reward of the world but because we engage in them with a divine commission to glorify God through them.
• The true glory of many jobs is being faithful to God in them, despite the misery of them.
• A biblical leader is someone who uses God’s gifts to champion God’s cause regardless of personal costs or challenging circumstances.
• Biblical leadership exists for the benefit of others and requires understanding that God intends for leaders to be an instrument of his blessing in others’ lives.
• If my business decisions allow no time for counsel from God’s word or a Christian friend, then I am being ruled by a schedule that has put God on the sidelines of my life.
• Work is worship. If we work with diligence and care, our jobs glorify God.

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Faith and Work Book Club – Won’t you read along with us?

We are reading through You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News by Kelly Kapic. The list of demands on our time seems to be never ending. It can leave you feeling a little guilty–like you should always be doing one more thing.
Rather than sharing better time-management tips to squeeze more hours out of the day, Kelly Kapic takes a different approach in You’re Only Human. He offers a better way to make peace with the fact that God didn’t create us to do it all.
Kapic explores the theology behind seeing our human limitations as a gift rather than a deficiency. He lays out a path to holistic living with healthy self-understanding, life-giving relationships, and meaningful contributions to the world. He frees us from confusing our limitations with sin and instead invites us to rest in the joy and relief of knowing that God can use our limitations to foster freedom, joy, growth, and community.
Readers will emerge better equipped to cultivate a life that fosters gratitude, rest, and faithful service to God.

This week we look at the first half of Chapter 5: Is Identity Purely Self-Generated? Here are a few quotes from the chapter:

• A healthy Christian view of human limits and differences encourages mutual delight, an awareness of our dependence on others, the integrity of relationships, and contentment.
• All of us owe our existence not simply to God but to other human creatures.
• Only when I stop thinking of myself as chiefly an isolated center of consciousness and begin to consider my identity in terms of my relationships to others can I start to see clearly who I am.
• We are more a product of things outside us than things inside us, and we cannot talk about what we love without referring to other people.
• Humans are necessarily social creatures with histories.
• Our identity in Christ isn’t something apart from our cultures and backgrounds but rather his transformation of them as he brings us to himself.
• We need our neighbors to even know ourselves in relation to God.
• Knowing one’s self rightly can only occur in the context of being known, of being in relationships, of being loved.