Watch Your Work Ethic Colossians 3:23-25 Proverbs 6:6-11 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 John 5:36 John 4:34-35 John 17:4-5 John 9:4-5 John 5:16-17 Ephesians 2:10 Ephesians 5:15-17 Psalms 90:17 09.02.20

WATCH YOUR WORK ETHIC

BREAD

²³ Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, ²⁴ since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. ²⁵ Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.  Colossians 3:23-25 (NIV) 

⁶ Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! ⁷ It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, ⁸ yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. ⁹ How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? ¹⁰ A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest-- ¹¹ and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.   Proverbs 6:6-11 (NIV)

⁶ In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. ⁷ For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you, ⁸ nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. ⁹ We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow. ¹⁰ For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”  ¹¹ We hear that some among you are idle. They are not busy; they are busybodies. ¹² Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. ¹³ And as for you, brothers, never tire of doing what is right.  2 Thessalonians 3:6-13 (NIV) 

 ³⁶ “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me.”  John 5:36 (NIV) 

³⁴ “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵ Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”  John 4:34-35 (NIV) 

⁴ “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”  John 17:4-5 (NIV) 

⁴ “As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. ⁵ While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”  John 9:4-5 (NIV)

 

¹⁶ So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. ¹⁷ Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.”  John 5:16-17 (NIV) 

¹⁰ For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  Ephesians 2:10 (NIV) 

¹⁵ Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.  Ephesians 5:15-17 (NIV) 

¹⁷ May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us--yes, establish the work of our hands.  Psalms 90:17 (NIV) 

BUTTER 

“Let us work as if success depended upon ourselves alone, but with heartfelt conviction that we are doing nothing, and God everything.”        St. Ignatius Loyola

“It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, but why he does it.”   A. W. Tozer

“The fact that Jesus Christ is to come again is not a reason for star-gazing, but for working in the power of the Holy Ghost.” Charles Spurgeon

“God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.”  Hudson Taylor 

“Greatness is not made through one trial or one victory.  It is hammered out over and over on the anvil of daily demands.  Most often this work is done alone – in complete obscurity.  But God sees every word, every choice, and every action.  Devoted hearts are never wasted.  He frequently uses the obscure, the broken, or the outcast for some of His greatest work.”  Charles R. Swindoll

“Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them.”   Ann Landers 

“A primary qualification for serving God with any amount of success, and for doing God’s work well and triumphantly, is a sense of our own weakness.  When God’s warrior marches forth to battle, strong in his own might, when he boasts, ‘I know that I shall conquer, my own right arm and my conquering sword shall get unto me the victory’, defeat is not far distant.  God will not go forth with that man who marches in his own strength.  He who reckoneth on victory thus has reckoned wrongly, for ‘it is not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts’.  They who go forth to fight, boasting of their prowess, shall return with their gay banners trailed in the dust, and their armour stained with disgrace.  Those who serve God must serve Him in His own way, and in His strength, or He will never accept their service.  That which man doth, unaided by divine strength, God can never own.  The mere fruits of the earth He casteth away; He will only reap that corn, the seed of which was sown from heaven, watered by grace, and ripened by the sun of divine love.  God will empty out all that thou hast before He will put His own into thee; He will first clean out the granaries before He will fill them with the finest of the wheat……Your emptiness is but the preparation for your being filled, and your casting down is but the making ready for your lifting up.”   C. H. Spurgeon  

“We are never more like Christ than when we walk in the power of the Holy Spirit – clothed in His righteousness – being about the good works which the Father has prepared in advance for us to do.”  BHY

“Cheered by the presence of God, I will do at each moment, without anxiety, according to the strength which He shall give me, the work that His Providence assigns me.  I will leave the rest without concern; it is not my affair.  I ought to consider the duty to which I am called each day, as the work that God has given me to do, and to apply myself to it in a manner worthy of His glory, that is to say, in exactness and peace.”  Fenelon 

“Let us see that we keep God before our eyes; that we walk in His ways and seek to please and glorify Him in everything, great and small.  Depend upon it, God’s work, done in God’s way, will never lack God’s supplies.”   Hudson Taylor

“Our word ‘professional’ came out of the Reformation when Christians declared that there was no separation between the sacred and the secular. Reformers decided to use their life's work as an expression of their faith.” Donna Evans

“He (God) buries his workmen, but He carries on His work.”   Charles Spurgeon

“I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him.  I ended up by asking Him to do His work through me.”  Hudson Taylor

“Our task as divine-imagers in Christ, in this life and forever, never gets old or boring. Because God is never boring. There is always more of him to see and enjoy and show. The most exciting, never-ending, ever-creative, ever-enthralling calling in the universe is to visibly (and audibly) image (and echo) the invisible God in his created world. This is amazing dignity, and the greatest possible ground for human dignity: designed by God as his special representatives in this world — and not just in creation, but as recreated ones in Christ. Even greater than our original design and commission is our being brought back from the dominion of sin, through the death of the sinless image of God, and then conformed to his image….To speak as Christians, we speak of sin and salvation. We speak of a destiny fulfilled only in Christ. And we remind ourselves of our calling to real, tangible, sacrificial acts of love and good works that bring glory to our Father.”  David Mathis 

HEART SAVOR

• ·        God supplies His workers with all they need through the power of the Holy Spirit to be profitable for Kingdom work and the One that gives the power get the glory.
• ·       Christ was always doing His Father’s work and we too are to be working.  We do not do Kingdom works for salvation rather because of salvation.
• ·        God has prepared good works for each of us to do.  Never tire of doing what is right and good and pleasing to the Father.