The Dude's Guide to Manhood A Man and His Work

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The Dude’s Guide to Manhood A Man and His Work | Colossians 3:22-4:1 Darrin Patrick January 26, 2014 Keywords = Work, Colossians, Curse, Identity, Judgment, Reward Note: This sermon has been edited for readability 2014 Copyright The Journey INTERVIEW W/ MIKE MATHENY Darrin Patrick: In 2013, it was before the game, we were doing our prayer time like we did every home playoff game and I walked in, I don't know how you found it, I don't know whose it was, but you had a guitar and you were playing and you were worshiping and all the players were late, like they always are and it just struck me how ... it was a big game. I don't remember which game it was. Mike Matheny: It might have been the last game against LA and yes, you came in, and you were blown away. You actually took a picture and you said, "I want to show my wife what it is that you do to prepare for a game." And you know we have quite a few guys that do play guitar or at least try to, but for me it's kind of psychotherapy. After the games, I'll take it on the road all the time. I'm no good. I think I only really play for my kids' entertainment and they enjoy singing along, but I do a lot of praise and worship stuff and it helps the time go by on the road, but I don't do it a lot at home. You just kind of caught us as I found a guitar and we were in a meeting, but that was pretty special how that group got together before every game and it started out, it was a few guys and ended up 20 plus guys in this room, it just kind of ... we just stopped, let's give ... let's give God a little bit of our time right now, let's slow down and realize how cool it is that we are where we are right now. And not praying necessarily for let's win. But just praying that we go out and we do things the way that we're supposed to do it and let's honor Him by how we do it and let's compete and let's be men of faith and action. Darrin Patrick: I coached my kids in little league and I can barely contain myself sitting, watching them, it's all I can do to not freak out, cry, yell, scream and then we see you on camera, in the dugout and you're calm as a cucumber. You are just as steady and as just—how do you do that? Mike Matheny: Well I know it does drive people crazy and they want to see more emotion. Basically I get back to what I truly believe my job's all about. When I'm doing this right and my head's in the right place, it is 100% about my players and what they need. What I believe they need, and even the feedback that I've been given from them, is consistency. One of the things I tell our young players early on is “never believe the things that they're saying about you when you're going great because you're not going that good” and “make sure you don't listen to the things that are being said about you when you're struggling because The Dude's Guide to Manhood: A Man and His Work

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you're not going that bad.” And if you can find that level—because 162 games in about 180 days is a tall order and if these guys are watching me at the end of the dugout and they see me just sky high when things are going well and in the absolute ditch when we're struggling, they can't help but go there with me and it's too much of a roller coaster for us to be consistent. We're going to have loses, we're going to have some tough, ugly loses, we're going to have bad place, we're going to have human error, but what they need to see from me is that I'm into the game, which there's no doubt that that's the case. And am I internally going through all those things that you talked about? Absolutely. I know, I get the rise when guys are going great and something perfect happens and when something doesn't, I know the feeling of that just hitting the bottom of your stomach, but I know for my guys. We're talking about people out there and if they look over in that dugout after an error has been made and they see me throwing the water cooler, and they see me crying or throwing something, that's not going to help them not make the same mistake again. They're looking for consistency and I believe for me personally too that in order for me to make it through the long season, I have to have that level playing and it may be boring television, and I apologize to everybody watching, but not really, because I know that that's truly what the guys need to see. --What would it be like, to be fully engaged, but totally at peace when you're at work? I meet people all the time and I think this could be an over-statement, but I don't think it is. One of the hardest things to do is to actually enjoy your job, to actually fully embrace it, to not let your emotions control you but to actually be fully immersed. A lot of people aren't there. They hate their job, they hate the major they chose, the boss they have, and the place they work. They just—it's drudgery. On the other side, I meet all kinds of people all the time like love, love, love their job. Can't talk about anything else besides their job. They love their job. Maybe they love it too much because it seems that their identity is whatever the title of their business card is. And what we'd like to do today is maybe say what if there's a third way? What if you can really enjoy your job, but not be addicted to it? What if you could really love what you do, but not be defined by what you do? That's where we're going. Master-Slave in the 1st Century But before we get into it, we have a little sociological issue to deal with in our text and some of you who are new with the New Testament, you need to know this slavery-master language is all over the New Testament. Our mistake is—and if you have kind of a thin understanding of history, culture, theology—your temptation would be to lay over these passages what happened in the darkest hour of American history with regard to American slavery. American slavery was race based, it was forced. People were kidnapped and brought here, which the New Testament does forbid. And it was lifelong. You were never not going to be a The Dude's Guide to Manhood: A Man and His Work

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slave. In the New Testament however, it wasn't race based. All races had slaves, all races were slaves and sometimes you had slaves of the same race. A third, if you can believe this, a third of the population were slaves in the 1st century. And one of the reasons, the two main reasons why they were slaves—certainly there were wars and then the conquering nation would come in. But mainly and plainly, slavery was there because there was no welfare system. Literally, orphans—people would literally leave their children outside, expose them to the elements or just leave them for dead. People would snatch those children up at times and they would be able to work. And then on the other side, poor people would be able to pay their debts by becoming slaves. And so the thought is why would the Bible even endorse it? Why would it not challenge it from the beginning? Because to do so in the first century, would have absolutely broken up the culture, because there was no welfare system, there was no way to take care of orphans, and there was no way for poor people to make it out of poverty other than to work. Boss-Employee in the 21st Century It's a whole big subject. I encourage you to study it. We've done sermons on this in the past, specifically dealing with this issue and it's a whole deal. But here's what I love about the Bible, even though we can get distracted by “okay, how does that all work?” The principles from this passage do help us because one way to take the 1st century now into the 21st century is to see a master as a boss and a bondservant or a slave as an employee. It's not one to one, but the principles work, and we're not just relying on these obscure texts where we have to translate. Work from the Beginning We go all the way back to the beginning of human history where God put Adam in a garden and He said "I want you to take care of this garden. That's your job Adam. Take care of the garden. I want you to cultivate. I want you to take the raw materials of the earth and make something of it." And this is really the heart of what it means to work. This is the essence of work because work at its heart is to desire to take what's in the world to make something better and in so doing, you actually enjoy it. For a man, here is the equation that we would like, a man doing good work equals a man experiencing great joy. That's what we're after right? Now, this was not my philosophy at all, growing up. I had a dad, he was the hard—still the hardest worker I've ever met in my life, just unbelievable. But that was the problem too right? He would work all day and then he had bought land and was developing a subdivision—he could put in the roads, he was a construction guy, put in the roads and the sewers and build the houses and—so he would work and he would come home and he would work more. And me, like most kids, you always rebel against your parents' idols, right?

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You create your own, you're not like your righteous, right? We point out what's wrong and we do our own thing. OUR PHILOSOPHIES OF WORK His idol was work, mine was play. Even when I would work with my dad, I had little games that I would play. I'd throw dirt clods and do different things and I'm at the construction site or whatever and that's just the way it was. So, that was my philosophy. I didn't know and you have one too right? You don't know what your philosophy of work is. You probably haven't written it down or articulated it, but you have one, you're operating from it. And I was operating from this philosophy that work is mainly about play. You play as much as you can which got me fired from my first, literally, 3 jobs. And I begin to realize, “Wait a minute, they’re not paying me to play? What? What’s that about?” Polar Opposites After I became a Christian I started to understand, “okay, maybe there’s more to this.” And really for me and I don’t know if it helps you, but for me, it’s very helpful to have things that are polar opposite almost in order to work through what is the truth about something, how should I think about something. And there was a movie back in the 80’s called “Chariots of Fire.” This movie depicted two men who were both competing in the Olympics for the British Empire. This is based in the 1920’s. One was a guy named Eric Liddell and his ultimate goal was to be a missionary in China. And there’s this interchange between he and his sister, Jenny, who thought, like many of you think, that the only time that you can really do something good with work is if you’re doing some kind of ministry thing or some kind of social help thing. That actual work is not good in of itself. And she said it this way, she said, “Quit training so hard. Quit working so hard, toward the Olympics and go and do spiritual stuff in China.” And Liddell says this awesome thing, he says, “God made me for China, but he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” Now on the other side in the movie, there’s this guy named Harold Abrahams and both very talented and Abrahams has the exact opposite perspective about what he’s doing. He says in one line, in one scene, “I’m 24 years old. I’m forever in pursuit of something. I don’t know what I’m chasing. I know there’s a finish line but I just don’t have any hope that I’m ever going to cross it.” And then he says these haunting words, because he ran the hundred, he says “I have 10 lonely seconds to justify my existence.” Now, those are poles, those are opposites and my guess is all of us philosophically are leaning towards one or to the other. Right? What would it look like for you to enjoy your job but not be defined by it?

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“Work is Mainly a Curse” A lot of you are with Abrahams, right? You think work is mainly a curse? I’m using Biblical language. Back in Genesis 3, sin breaks the world and God says I’m going to give a physical manifestation of what sin has done. Adam has this beautiful garden. And I imagine all these roses everywhere and all of a sudden sin breaks the world and now—bad 80’s song—every rose has a thorn, so there’s thorns now, the ground now is going to rebel against mankind the way mankind has rebelled against God and that’s the result of the curse. And so there’s this thing that we see early in the chapters of Genesis, that work really is cursed. You know this, my dad was in construction, it rains. Can you imagine being a construction guy tomorrow? You know, like last week, like it’s cold. If you’re in sales, you have skeptical people. If you’re a dancer, you have gravity, right? If you work with computers, you have, well—you work with computers. It’s computers, right? They’re cursed. Murphy’s Law, it’s kind of true, right? It’s always rebelling against us and for some of us that is our mentality. And I remember as a teenager getting my license, which was a big deal and I got this car, and it was my grandma’s old car, so it wasn’t cool, but I had to make it unique and special and so the way you did that was you got 1 or like 12 bumper stickers, right? And you put them on the car and I remember you start to turn 16, you’re not paying attention to anything, right? Where you’re going, where the store is, where the … and then all of a sudden, in about 6 months you’re like “Oh, my gosh, I got to know this stuff” right? And so this is before GPS and so I’m kind of paying attention, I ought to get a couple bumper stickers, just kind of erase the grandma effect here on the car and so I started noticing all these bumper stickers on all these cars and I see this one, I’d never seen it one a kid car, like in a teenager car, always on an adult car, this is back in the 80’s. Maybe you remember it, this is what it said: “Off to work I go, I owe, I owe.” What is that philosophy? That is work is mainly a curse. “Work is Our Identity” On the other side, some of us had the philosophy—and this is more where the extreme, kind of where Jenny was pushing Eric to really make even his missionary calling his identity. Work can be mainly a curse, work can also be mostly our identity. And you know you’re in danger of this because when you meet new people, the first thing you do is tell them what you do. And you like to get your little business title in there, or where you went to high school, or whatever your deal is, right? You want them to know something about what you’ve done and so they can relate to you based on that’s your identity. Work is your identity. What would it look like though if work could be part of our calling but not our full calling? We know how big a deal work is right? You know when you’re doing work and it’s enjoyable, it’s like “I’m making the potential actual, I’m being creative here, I’m actually moving the

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needle, I’m helping people, I’m a lot like…” You know that’s a big deal, but what would it look like to be able to do that but not be defined by that? HOW TO WORK RIGHTLY? That’s the opportunity I think we have from this text. Look with me in verse 22 of Colossians chapter 3, says “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.” Work as if you’re always being supervised. This is why I’m a horrible manager, because I just expect people to work hard. And people need to be managed, right? And I’m not good at that and that’s why the text says, listen, “Work as if you think your boss is looking over you not”— and then we’ll get into who are really pleasing—“but work hard,” that’s what he’s saying. Stop avoiding the curse. A lot of us think: “if I don’t work hard, then I won’t have to…” “if I don’t care, if I don’t really put my heart into it, then I won’t get emotionally attached, it really doesn’t matter what I do, doesn’t matter if I get fired, doesn’t matter if our business does well, doesn’t really matter, I’m protecting myself.” Here’s the problem with that: God uses your hard work to work on your heart. God uses your hard work to work on your heart. And if you’re not fully engaged, even in your less than perfect job, you’re going to miss something. Before we planted The Journey, I was a part of a great church in Kansas City. I’d gone to seminary and went on staff with this church and it was a great church. All my friends, all my like seminary buddies were like jealous, because it was such a good situation. But the last 2 years I was there, people, I was miserable and I was so tempted to check out and you know when you’re there man, when it’s just like, “oh my gosh, like you’re just anything” and I was just—I’d look at the guys collecting garbage and like, “Maybe I could do that.” I would look at the guys driving. “Anything but that…” and there wasn’t—in a sense it was nothing with a job, it’s what was going on in me and God was working and God was making me kind of holy discontent. And it was just awful and I would just come home, my wife would be like “What is wrong with you?” In this great house, in this great neighborhood and we just had a baby, our first baby and everything was awesome. And guess when the vision for The Journey came? It was in those 2 years. God is Doing Something in You! A lot of times, you being fully engaged in your job, even when it’s not your passion, God is doing something in you, God is preparing you. And a lot of times, if you’re not engaged, you miss it or if you’re just kind of busy, you miss it. You’re just kind of distracted, you miss it. I’ve been in the ministry 25 years, and I’m only 30. I know it’s weird but I started early, but literally, 25 years as a pastor, for real. And I look back and when you’re fully engaged, a lot of times you can discern what God’s doing in you, but if you’re not, you don’t, and so you have to look back and even me, I have to say, I wasn’t always fully engaged or I was too distracted. But I The Dude's Guide to Manhood: A Man and His Work

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look back at college and God was doing something to me in that time of my life. He was teaching me that deadlines matter, that details are important. When I went to get my master’s degree, taught me a ton of stuff, because I was working, I was a janitor, I was a volunteer youth pastor. My wife was working at Inner City School. And we didn’t have a lot of money and I had to prioritize all this stuff—3 year degree in 2 years. I had to learn to prioritize stuff. We moved to Saint Louis to plant The Journey and I learn that I will never plant another church again, it’s too hard. You people are stuck with me, I’m not leaving man. It’s too hard. It’s too hard. No, but really, here’s what God taught me, what God is doing in me is more important than what God is doing through me, because what God does in you is the fruit that lasts, not just all the cool stuff that goes “Oh that’s cool, that’s cool, look at that.” It’s what God is doing in—so I learned all of that. If you’re just flying by in your job, but you’re not really engaged, or you’re always in nostalgia about what could have been, or you’re always in fantasy about what could be, you’re going to miss what God’s doing in you and so you got to work hard, you got to fully embrace it. Here’s the other thing and this is one of the catastrophic events of our society—and a lot times, I remember, I was a Gen-Xer, and now we’re blaming the millennial’s for being lazy. Our generation was blamed for being lazy. All you boomers. I’m sure your parents, I mean it’s always the next generation, that’s the problem right? And “oh God, the whole society’s going to go down with these people,” like it’s all—but listen, listen, we have generations of people who have not been fully engaged in what they're doing and so you know what happens? That produces a softness, a lack of toughness, and it doesn’t matter if you’re 20 or 70. Our society is soft, because I think we don’t bloom where we’re planted. See working hard toughens you up in a way that nothing else can. Let’s here Mike Matheny speak to that issue as well: Darrin Patrick: There’s this famous YouTube clip of you as a player, you were playing with the Brewers, taking a fast ball off of the face. And then you just kind of spit some blood and teeth and I think you tried to go to first and they maybe wouldn’t let you. What was going on internally and maybe in prayer? I mean how did … or did you just kind of react? Mike Matheny: Yeah. I don’t think there’s a lot of prayer going on at that particular time. I wasn’t really happy. Anytime a ball comes up in that area most guys take offense to it, so I was pretty hot, I knew there wasn’t any intention to it—I was the tying run. Basically I was mad that I didn’t get out of the way and then I realized I’m bleeding like a pig and I didn’t want to pass out on national television, so I had to make a decision, either try to make it to first or get to the dugout, and figured the dugout was the safer route. But you know that was a really wild turn of events. I didn’t realize how much of an impact it would make, all my coaching staff and my manager. So they sent me straight to the hospital, I come back and they stitched me up and I had a couple teeth that were gone or messed up—but The Dude's Guide to Manhood: A Man and His Work

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for the most part, they were going to let me play and so it was a great opportunity to walk back into the manager’s office and say “I need to play tomorrow. I want to show the team one, but two, I want to jump back on the horse.” And the manager was blown away by that. And the impact—I still hear teammates talk about it today. I could barely get my catcher’s mask on, but it made an impact on them. And once again, we’ve had this conversation already, Darrin, about responsibility as a Christian man. There was a period in the game of baseball where there was this flow of new followers of Christ that were so heaven-minded they forgot about earth. They forgot about their opportunity and it really came across as this soft “whatever happens, if I strike out, I’m still going to go to heaven,” which in theory is true, but in application is so wrong on so many levels, giving the name of Christ, such a bad, weak name to where it was repulsive to people on the outside, saying “I want nothing to do with that business.” But I believe that’s not what we’re called to be. I believe we’re called to be warriors. And sometimes you’re going to get hit in the jaw in life and you’ve got to either stand up and fight and try and do it a little different, to stand up for what you believe is right and to stand up for this Christ that we’re following. And in other times we are going to have to sit back and just take, take abuse, but we shouldn’t do it laying down. I believe men are called to stand up and fight and I believe there’s a toughness that ought to come with one, man being a man, two, being a leader, and three, just being a competitor in this game of life. --What would it look like if just in this room, the men, hit with the 98 mile an hour fast ball in the face, said, “You know what? I’m getting back up, I’m not going to try to get transferred, I’m not going to try to change—I’m going to stay in there.” And listen, Mike’s a tough guy, he’s got tons of sins. We’ve spent time together, he’s not perfect, but there’s something about what he says. There’s something about saying “You know what? I’m coming back.” It doesn’t make sense, right? But I’m going to stand in there.” Now how the heck did he do that? How the heck can you come back—how can he maintain his emotional level? What is it in a man that enables that kind of response? Well I don’t think it’s natural. I don’t think it’s natural to a man. I think it’s supernatural, which is why in verse 23— read it with me—it says, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily”—work hard—“as for the Lord, not for men, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done and there is no partiality.” There is an element that fuels a man that says “You know what? I’m going to do the right thing and I’m going to trust God to deal with all the craziness. I’m working for God, “yes, I got a boss, but there’s a boss standing behind the boss.” And “my boss may be a moron, but I’m not really serving him or her, I’m serving Christ.” And it matters how I respond when injustice happens. And there are times when I need to confront injustice and there are times that you need to work the HR chain or have the hard conversation, but there are times, friends, and you know this if you’ve worked any length of time, there are times when there’s nothing you can do and The Dude's Guide to Manhood: A Man and His Work

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in those time you go “You know what? God’s going to make that right, God’s going to judge that.” Connecting God’s Judgment to Our Work Let me explain judgment real quick, because this is a confusing thing and it’s imperative that you understand. There are two judgments spoken about in the Bible: One judgment is called “the Great White Throne judgment”, meaning we are going to stand before God. Every human being will stand before God and give an account of what they did with their sin. You’re going to stand before God and God’s going to say “What did you do about the sin problem?” And we’re not going to be able to excuse it, rationalize it, justify it. We’re going to know we’re sinners by nature and we’re sinners by choice and it’s not just behavior, its attitudes and actions and motives. We’re going to—I mean God knows—you’re going to know and so the answer will be either you dealt with your sin or you let Jesus deal with your sin? Those are the two answers. You try to be your own savior and your own king or you let Jesus be your Savior and your King by trusting Him and giving your life to Him and ceasing from your own good works and trusting his work or it’s going to be your own doing. Now that’s one judgment. The other judgment is what’s called, “the bema seat,” where you’re not asked about your sin, you’re asked about your life. And this is for everyone that follows Jesus, because you will stand before God. And this is where accountability comes into Christian life. We’re saved by grace through faith, but we’re called to do good works, and part of your good works is your work. You will be accountable, every thought, every attitude, every action matters, it will be rewarded. The bema seat was a part of the early Olympic Games, where people were rewarded, so it’s a place of reward, it’s a judgment of reward. I don’t know how that works in heaven, but [the doctrine] is clear in Scripture. What that means practically is you need to know that everything you do as you’re serving God in your job, the stuff people don’t see, the stuff people don’t reward, the promotion that isn’t given that should be, God sees it, God sees it, God will reward that. You may not get it now—it may not show up in a promotion or a paycheck—but God will reward you and that will give you fuel as you work your imperfect job. You Can Plug In Where You Are Some of you are like, “Darrin, I mean I appreciate this message but in my heart, I’m just not…this is just not what I want to do.” Let me tell you something, you have a choice in the matter. You really—listen to me—you really can quit. No one is forcing you. Like nobody comes to your house in the morning, opens your mouth and then pours coffee down it. And then no one ties you up and brings you to the office or wherever you’re—you can—seriously, you can really quit, you really don’t have to do this. Find something that you’d like to do. That’s not practical, all right then, all right. Now we’re talking. Because you can plug in where you are.

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And here’s your big temptation if you’re a young person, you go, “Well, I got to get out of the city, that’s the problem.” “It’s Saint-Freakin-Louis, that’s my problem. That’s the deal. I want to go somewhere cool,” I mean warm, metaphorically cool, right? “I want to go somewhere…” Here’s the problem, here’s the problem, see God gives us tests all the time, the Scripture talks about that all the time. Now the thing with God’s tests, the cool thing is you never fail, the bad thing is you just keep taking the same test over. So you’re like, “the problem is Saint Louis, the problem is this job, I’m going to move.” No, the problem is you’re taking the problem wherever you go. You’re the problem—most of the time—we’re the problem, it’s not our environment, it’s not our boss, it’s not our industry, a lot of the time. It’s us. And God is trying to work in us and we think it’s our environment. What would it be like to respond to God right where you are? I mean like right where you are. I mean “I’m not going to—I’m not going to try—I’m going to just—right where I am, I’m going to respond to what God is doing in me.” Those are the type of people that will be able to say “When I work I feel His pleasure.” That’s the hope of Scripture. It really matters what you do. “[But] I got to do something spiritual.” Listen, at your job, you’re relating to real life. Did you hear, I love what Mike said because those are real people out there. I know we like to criticize, I mean I wish they got traded and why are they doing it? Those are real … those are His guys. You are surrounded by real people that need to see something different. Most of you are going to get to work for decades and why not fight for joy? Why give in to this malaise, this entitlement, that’s killing all of humanity, but specifically Western people, specifically Americans. “I just oughta get stuff and I’ll just…” No, you got to work for it, got to earn it, it’s hard. But you also have to know that God has to empower you for you to be joyful in that. You say ”How’s all that work? Give me three steps… ” I don’t know, I don’t know. Here’s what I know, work hard, work hard, work for God. Your boss is not your boss. And then work for the true reward. It’s not about a promotion, it’s not about a paycheck, it’s about standing before God and Him saying, “Well done good and faithful servant. You had a terrible job and I put you in that job but you were faithful and you learned a ton about your character and you provided for your family and it helps you do this and it helped” … but you responded, those are the words we need to hear, those are the word we want to hear. And ladies I want to acknowledge and this is part of the challenge of the series, like I want to acknowledge all you ladies, some of you are kicking butt and taking names in the market place, like you’re getting it done. Good job, we appreciate your work, we really do and those of you who have the tension of family and how to prioritize your husband and your kids above your job, which is the Biblical order and how all that works out, I know that’s always a struggle, we are praying for you, we’re for you and so God bless you. But guys, I want to talk to you and I want to do something more. We don’t do this all the time, if you’re new and this is in no way meant to embarrass, quite the opposite, it’s meant to honor. I want every single man in this room to stand up right now. College age and above. Every man in this room, stand up right where you are. The Dude's Guide to Manhood: A Man and His Work

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And here’s what I want to do, I want to talk to you just a second guys. Listen men, God sees every sacrifice that you’ve made. Thank you for being faithful. Thank you for doing the unseen things that have benefitted other people. Thank you for all the education that you put yourself through, formal and otherwise. Thank you for not giving up. Thank you for being willing to bear pain on behalf of others because that’s what leaders do. Thank you for not quitting. Thank you for having the hard conversations. Thank you for not just giving up completely and ending your life, when you lost your job and you were tempted to. Thank you for being men. And I want you to know, we’re for you, and we’re with you, and you have a community here that’s here to back you up. Now if you’re near one of these guys, let’s pray for them and let’s lay hands on them and let’s ask God to meet them in this time. Let’s pray together. Lord, I thank You for these men, I thank you that You hear every cry. I thank You that You their hearts, You know their struggles, You know their passions. I thank You that You have put dreams in some of their hearts God, for something that’s beyond their job, it’s from You and You will bring it to pass. I thank You that times, Lord, You crush our dreams and help us to get in line with Your will, but there’s always joy there even though it’s painful and I pray for the men that they would know that You’re with them, I pray that they would know that You’re for them, I pray God that they would know that You’re using them now and that You will use them later for your glory, I pray they would know this church is a safe place for them to be courageous, to be challenged, to take risks. We entrust your men God to You and we want to love them well. In Jesus name. Amen. Okay guys, stay standing. Everybody else stand up now, join them standing. COMMUNION: Resting in the Finished Work of Jesus Here’s the counter intuitive thing about Christianity, because what we do is we say “Work hard, work for God, do all this stuff” and then we come to communion and we say “the work has been done.” And it’s true, and it’s true. Communion is not about D-O, it’s not spelled D-O, it’s spelled D-O-N-E. Christ has done the work for us. He lived perfectly so that we didn’t have to. He died brutally so that we didn’t have to die. He rose again so that we don’t have to strengthen ourselves. You have the opportunity at communion to rest in His finished work. Some of you men and women, you’ve never done that, you’ve been trying to work for God, all these stuff I’ve been saying, “Work hard,” you’ve been doing that with God, guess what? You’re never going to be perfect and that’s what it takes to meet God, but there was One, who was perfect. And He did all the work for you and you can meet Him today. We’re going to have pastors and elders up here during communion, after the service for you to say. You know what? Some of you are exhausted in your job because you’re trying to work for God in your spiritual life and you’re exhausted. It’s exhausting to try to please God to be perfect. It’s never going to happen. The good news is you don’t have to do that anymore, you can rest in the finished work of Christ for you. He can be your Savior, instead of you trying to be your own savior. He can be The Dude's Guide to Manhood: A Man and His Work

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the Boss instead—and this the hard one—instead of you being your own boss. You can give your life to Him today. Those of you who are in the family, this is our time to meet Christ together corporately and so you come when you’re ready. But let’s see what God can do in this time. Let’s not turn it off, let’s keep responding to God. You come when you’re ready.

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