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The Kingdom and Our Work Rich Nathan October 18-19, 2014 The Story of the Kingdom Series Matthew 5.13-16

When I was in college I had a part-time job for three years working in the maintenance department of our university. For most of that time I did roof repairs on the college’s flat roofs, spreading tar, fixing cracked flashing, repairing leaks. It was hard, dirty work. And in the summer months when I worked full-time it was really hot on those flat roofs. I lost a lot of weight working that job. But I actually really liked the work. There was a sense of satisfaction at the end of the day that our crew had really accomplished something. We kept the rooms dry. We preserved nice old university buildings. And I enjoyed the guys I worked with. To top it all off, I got to lead one of the guys, by God’s grace, into a personal relationship with Christ that changed his family’s life forever. For a few months, though, I was assigned to work with another crew fixing air compressors. These guys were a lot older than me; I was 20 years old. These guys were the biggest bunch of whiners I had ever met. They complained about management nonstop. Every time I got up to do something, someone would yell, “Slow down, Rich. Don’t make us look bad.” A typical day with these guys went this way. The day started at 8:00 a.m. We would get out of the shop at about 8:15. Invariably one of the guys would forget a tool, so we would have to drive back to the shop to get it. We would not arrive at the job until 8:45. Then they would study the problem and put in maybe 15 minutes of actual work before it was time to wash up for a coffee break. We would then drive to the student union to get coffee and donuts. After coffee, we would have to wash up because you don’t want to get jelly from your jelly donut on any air compressor. We would then study the problem a little longer and maybe put in another 15 minutes of work. Then we would wash up for lunch and drive back to the shop. We would repeat the process in the afternoon. Wash up after lunch; wash up before afternoon coffee; wash up after – these guys’ hands were so clean! And then they would be lined up at the door of the shop at 3:45 waiting for the 4:00 bell complaining all the time about how this work was killing them. Maybe the donuts were killing them, but definitely not the work!

© 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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I hated working with those guys. I came away from the week with this work crew depressed, unsatisfied, feeling like I was taking money that I hadn’t earned from the university, no sense of accomplishment at all. Why is work often so frustrating? Certainly, part of the reason is like the old joke about church. Church is completely wonderful except for the people. People make church hard – demanding, unreasonable clients, bad bosses, completely unmotivated employees, relationally challenged colleagues, lazy students, teachers just hanging on till retirement, self-protective bureaucratic principals. You can write your own list. Part of what makes work so hard is that we have to work with people. But another part of it is that we don’t understand the relationship between our work and God’s kingdom. I’ve been doing a series over the past couple of months that I’ve called The Story of the Kingdom. As I’ve mentioned, the kingdom of God was the central message of Jesus. The New Testament writers were unanimous in their view that God’s rule, God’s reign over this planet, broke in through the words, through the works, and through the wounds of Jesus, who is the Messianic King. Today I want to talk about the relationship between God’s rule and our work in a message that I’ve titled The Kingdom and Our Work. Let’s pray. Matthew 5:13–16 (NIV) 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. As I said, certainly part of the reason work is so frustrating and often so unfulfilling is the difficult people we work with. We always need to be careful when we talk about working with a difficult person, or having a difficult person in family, or in our small group, or having a difficult neighbor. I need to immediately remind you of something I discovered years. We are all someone else’s difficult person. Turn to your neighbor and say, “You are someone’s difficult person.” Are you aware of that? Are you cognizant of the fact that you are exactly the person someone else struggles with; that someone may be praying about you and about me? “God, give me the grace to work with that person. They drive me crazy.” So, yes, part of the reason work is so frustrating is the difficult people we work with. But another part of the reason that work is frustrating and often so unfulfilling is the deep misunderstanding we have about work. Our work can seem so irrelevant to what really matters in life. If you are a follower of Christ, and I realize that not everyone I’m © 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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speaking with today is a follower of Christ. Not all of you have turned control of your lives over to Christ and have asked him to be Lord of your whole life. But if you are a follower of Christ, if you’ve trusted him to save you and yielded control of your life and future to Christ; you may struggle with the way you spend your days. You spend your days teaching bored high school students geometry, or selling insurance, or processing worker’s comp claims, or working in a dry cleaners, or serving Pumpkin Spice Lattes with extra whipped cream for people who shouldn’t be eating extra whipped cream. All of these things we find ourselves doing, how does what we do connect with promoting God’s kingdom, God’s agenda, God’s plan for this world? What’s the connection between what we do on Sunday in worshipping God and listening to God’s Word taught, taking communion, praying for each other and what we do from Monday through Saturday? How do you relate your work – whether it’s paid or unpaid; we’re thinking broadly about work today, not just paid work. You may be a homemaker; you may be retired and do volunteer work. Your work may consist of caring for your children, caring for your spouse – cooking meals, cleaning your apartment, getting a graduate degree. How do you connect your work, whatever it is, with God’s agenda for the world? That’s what the kingdom is, God’s plan, God’s agenda, God’s plan for this world. The wrong way to look at work The biggest spiritual challenge to the early church in its first few centuries came from a religious group called the Gnostics, who essentially reinterpreted Christian teaching through the lens of Greek philosophy. This brand of Greek philosophy and Christian teaching wormed its way into the church. And for a period of time it wasn’t clear whether orthodox biblical Christianity would triumph over this Gnostic challenge. The Gnostics were an eclectic bunch. It is hard to define their philosophy exactly. They borrowed from Christianity. They borrowed from Judaism. They borrowed from Greek philosophy. But what all Gnostic teaching had in common was a dualism in which the physical, material world was seen as lower than the immaterial spiritual world. And so if we were to put a chart together, the chart might look like this:

Physical, Material World Temporary Earthly Lower Nature Body Evil

Spiritual, Immaterial World Eternal Heavenly Higher Nature Soul Completely Good

© 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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At least two times in the Apostle Paul’s letter, he takes dead aim against an early form of Gnosticism that was creeping into the church. Here is what we read in 1 Timothy 4:15: 1 Timothy 4:1–5 (NIV) The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. Paul tells Timothy that what looks like on the surface to be great spirituality, depriving the body so that the spirit is free to enjoy higher spiritual realities, is actually demonic teaching. It is not authentic spirituality, because true godliness respects all of the works of God’s hand including the physical world that he’s made. True godliness enjoys good food and respects the institution of marriage; indeed, true godliness enjoys all of creation. Godly people don’t run from creation; they welcome and enjoy creation. Or consider Colossians 2.8. Paul warns the church in the ancient city of Colossae this way: Colossians 2:8 (NIV) 8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. At the end of the chapter he explains what these basic principles are in Colossians 2.2023: Colossians 2:20–23 (NIV) 20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. The Gnostic approach to life seems so spiritual. What could be more spiritual than suppressing all your physical appetites so that you can contemplate heavenly things?

© 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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But this dualism between body and soul, between earth and heaven, between material and immaterial things, this Gnostic dualism came out of Greek philosophy and has wormed its way into the church like a cancer for nearly 20 centuries. And it is part of so much thinking in church today. We see this Gnostic thinking whenever a Christian says, “The reason Jesus died on a cross was to save our souls so that we can live in heaven forever.” The Bible doesn’t speak about saving our souls. That’s a Greek view. The Bible talks about saving people, not just your soul, but you – all of you. And your ultimate state is not floating around as some immaterial ghost. Biblical religion taught by both Jews and Christians teach that our eternal state is to live in resurrected bodies, not as ghosts, but as resurrected bodies. As I always joke, if you don’t like your body now, good news! You will get to trade in this body for a resurrected body when Jesus the Messiah returns. And our eternal home is not heaven. It is on the New Earth, freed from the curse of sin. We see this Gnostic dualism in contemporary discussions about gender identity. New York is poised to redefine what constitutes a transition from one sex to another. Historically under the law, if you wanted to change your gender on your birth certificate, you had to provide proof that you had gone through some sort of surgery. But now, New York is proposing that your gender is not tied to your anatomy at all. Your gender is not something that a doctor assigns to you when you are born. Rather, as one city councilman said, “Your gender is not about your physicality. It is about the way you see yourself.” More and more folks today in contemporary conversations about sex and gender, actually have a Gnostic dualist approach to gender. My real self is not my body. It is something else that I get to define. One woman said on TV recently, “I have a male soul. My body may be female, but I have a male soul.” How does this Gnostic dualism apply to work? One of the places you see this dualism concerns the supposed conflict between Heart vs. Mind Shortly after I became a Christian my pastor pulled me aside and said, “Rich, why are you wasting your time going to a secular college?” Marlene and I were attending Case Western Reserve up in Cleveland. He said, “Stop wasting your time filling your head with all the world’s learning. Instead, you need to go to Bible College.” Even though I respected my pastor a great deal, at age 18, by God’s grace, I knew myself well enough to know that my pastor was giving me dreadful advice. Jesus tells us in Mark 12.30: Mark 12:30 (NIV)

© 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (NIV) In many Christian contexts, being passionate is viewed as more spiritual than rigorous, disciplined thinking. Never allow someone to devalue learning, or hard thinking – thinking not just about the Bible, but about all of life. We’re to love God with all our minds. Figuring out how to grow the most beautiful flowers in your garden; figuring out how to repair your transmission; working in a lab to unlock the secrets of human DNA; learning how to play a difficult piece of music, developing a really helpful phone app – all of these discoveries glorify God. The purpose of the Bible is not to give us all that we ever need to know about all of life. The Bible is not the Encyclopedia Britannica. The Bible tells us what it is. Psalm 119:105 (NIV) 105 Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. A lamp is not something you look at. You don’t buy a flashlight so that you can stare at the bulb. The purpose of a lamp is to not light up itself, but to illuminate other things. The Bible is meant to be a light on the rest of creation, helping us to see the world that God has made. It gives us the lens in which we look at all the rest of life. We are called to study and investigate. The Bible illuminates the path in front of us. It shows us where we are going and whether we ought to go there at all. The capacity to inquire and ask questions, to search things out and discover, to put yourself in new situations that force you to learn new lessons, these are all part of God’s agenda for us. It is a way that God’s kingdom comes into the world. Here is another dualism that keeps us from finding meaning in our work. It is the dualism of: Secular vs. Spiritual In the Middle Ages the church taught that marriage was permissible, but celibacy was more spiritual. Possessions are permissible, but getting rid of all your possessions is really the ideal. It is OK to hold a 9-5 job, but it is better to be priest or monk who spends all day long in contemplation of God. Normal ordinary secular life is OK, but if you want to live God’s highest, then you need to go into a spiritual profession and become a full-time Christian worker. This secular vs. spiritual has so infected Christian thinking that it makes many of us feel like what most of what we do with our lives is completely irrelevant to God’s kingdom. You might say, “I spend my whole life basically cleaning up after my kids, being a mom, cleaning and repairing our home.” I spend my life ordering medical tests, checking © 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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people’s blood pressure, processing insurance claims, working in a government office. How could that possibly compare with preaching the gospel or praying for a sick person, or going to seminary, or being a missionary? Do you know what the Protestant Reformation was all about? The Protestant Reformation was all about breaking down this divide between the secular and the spiritual. It was all about recovering the view that we’re all full-time Christians, not just the priest who is handing out the communion wafer, but the person who is taking communion. Not just the monk who is spending his day in contemplation, but the person who grows the monk’s food and cleans his rooms. Christianity teaches that God’s kingdom comes as we serve other people through any legitimate work; as we show God’s kindness, God’s patience, God’s character to those we work with; as we improve our little corners of the world, we’re engaged in God’s agenda. The Protestant Reformation was all about restoring the goodness of every day work. All genuinely human tasks that serve someone else, that improve this world in some way for the sake of Christ, or keep it from falling apart, all genuinely human tasks are equally God-given and equally spiritual, they all bring God’s rule and reign, his kingdom into this world. Here is a third dualism that I often here: Doing vs. Being Have you ever seen that T-shirt? T-Shirt Picture I’ve heard Christians say this. It’s not a matter of doing, it is a matter of being. As if they’re drawing a Christian distinction. Here is what we read at the beginning of the Bible concerning God’s creation of the world. Genesis 2:1–3 (NIV) 2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. Genesis 2:15 (NIV) 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. The author of the book of Genesis describes God’s creation of the world as work. And he shows us human beings working in paradise. Now this is unique in all of the world’s ancient religions. The gods didn’t work; they lounged around all day. Humans did the © 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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work. The ancient Greeks used to say that work was something that was a necessary evil. Slaves did the work so that the philosophers could do something higher – contemplate; sit around and think. Just be. But God of the Bible works. In fact, he finds delight in his work. Here is what we read in Genesis 1.31: Genesis 1:31 (NIV) 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. God looks out at his work and he says, “This is good.” God is shown as a worker in the first two chapters of Genesis. God creates men and women in his own image to be workers. Part of our essential humanity is to work. I don’t mean work for a paycheck, necessarily, but to do something useful; to make a difference, to bring order out of chaos. When you clean out your desk drawer, when you organize your bills, when you clean out your garage, when you organize data on a spreadsheet, you are expressing the image of God – bringing order out of chaos. Because work is so connected to our humanity, one of the most dehumanizing things to ever happen to a person is to suddenly find yourself with no work, with no usefulness with no purpose. It is interesting that the proportions God gives us of work to rest is six to one. Six days you are suppose to work; one day you are to rest and be refreshed. The proportions are not the other way as we might expect – six days you rest and recreate and one day you work. That’s why so many people struggle with retirement unless they find something useful to do, some way to improve the world, some way to serve others. That’s why we often struggle spiritually when we have extended vacations, or when we find ourselves unemployed. It attacks our humanity. Our being and our doing are two sides of the coin of our humanity. They can’t be separated. Having too much leisure and not enough work is not good for us. Let me move on and talk about An inadequate way to look at work I gave you one list that separated the spiritual from the material, but let me offer you another list: SLIDE 1. God___________________________________________________________ 2. Family 3. Work 4. Friends 5. Recreation 6. Arts © 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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7. Athletics Certainly we worship God. If we worship anything else – family, our work, our friends, sports, it will destroy us. We will find ourselves deeply unsatisfied and we will be engaged in the sin of idolatry – worshipping something created instead of the Creator. But often when people read Bible texts like Matthew 6.33, Matthew 6:33 (NIV) 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. …we still think in terms of higher vs. lower activities that we might be engaged in. Higher activities are things like evangelism and worship, Bible study and prayer – things that directly involve God. Lower activities are my work, being involved in the arts, playing or coaching sports, spending time with family and friends. So a lot of time work feels irrelevant because we may not have that many opportunities to share our faith with someone else. All you do all day long is take care of patients. Every once in a while you might have a good conversation about Christ, or about church, but those conversations are few and far between. Now we definitely want to pray for opportunities to share our faith. We want to see people come to know our Savior. Why are you wasting your life as a physician, or as an attorney, or as a housecleaner, or as a teacher? The problem is the difference between Life Boat Theology vs. Ark Theology Life boat theology sees creation as being like the Titanic. We’ve hit the iceberg of sin; there’s nothing more for us to do than get ourselves into the life boats. The ship is sinking. God has given up on this ship called Creation. It’s going down. The only thing he’s concerned about is rescuing people for heaven. Any effort we make in fixing up God’s creation, caring about it, caring about the environment, and living in our normal work-a-day worlds is all rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Have you ever heard that kind of Christian teaching? Our job is simply to pluck as many people out of the water as possible and to bring them into the life boat. But I think true Christian thinking is not life boat theology, it is Ark Theology. Noah’s Ark saved not only people, it preserved God’s other creatures as well. The Ark wasn’t designed to flee the world; it was designed to restore the world. Once the flood subsided everyone and everything aboard was intended to return to the earth that God created, an earth cleansed of corruption, and start over. Humankind was given a fresh start. But God promised he would never destroy the world again. He cares about all of creation. The scope of salvation is as broad as the scope of creation.

© 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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Let me put it slightly differently. When you think about the future do you think about the world and everything burning up? Everything you’ve ever done just disappears and burns up except for the few evangelistic conversations you’ve had? That’s not a biblical way to think about the future. The biblical way to think about the future is not that creation and all that we’ve done is going to burn up. What’s going to burn up is sin. What’s going to burn up is corruption. What’s going to burn up is Satan. What’s going to burn up is the demonic. But the mountains, the streams, the animals, works of art, things we done in service to others, the great treasures of culture – these will not burn up. What do we learn in the Bible? All of our treasures will be laid at the feet of Jesus. They’ll be in the kingdom of God. I think the Sistine Chapel is going to be in the kingdom of God, perfected, though. And so will great literature and the remembrance of every act of kindness, every act of service, every improvement on this world; I think it is going to be preserved and reach its ultimate goal. So what’s A better way to look at work Matthew 5:13–16 (NIV) 13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. The kingdom permeates all of life like salt permeates meat and light permeates the darkness. Here is a better picture of how to think about life. Picture on page 98 Jesus says: “At your job be salt. Remember who you are and act accordingly.” Jesus is such an amazing encourager. He says: You, Christian, can arrest the decay in the world. Why does Jesus call us salt? Well, in the ancient world salt was primarily used as a preservative. The ancient world did not have refrigeration. People used salt to keep meat wholesome and to prevent spoilage. A little bit of salt rubbed into meat can have an amazing impact of preserving the meat. It is easy to grow discouraged when we think about how few we Christians are, that we © 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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are the only Christians in our classrooms, or in our workplaces. How you might stand alone in your family. Maybe your spouse is not a Christian, or your parents do not follow Christ. Maybe you are the only Christian in your entire extended family. Have you ever felt totally insignificant as a follower of Christ compared to the size and scope of what you are up against? When I taught at OSU, I was sometimes overwhelmed by the size of the university. I used to pray for God to visit the college that I was teaching in and in some of the other departments. Some of you who are down at OSU, maybe you feel overwhelmed by the hostility of some of the professors to your Christian faith, or the opposition you might be receiving from some departments or administrators, or in your dormitory or your fraternity or sorority. Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed, friend, as you look out on the decay in our city? Do you feel overwhelmed as you look out on the darkness in our world? Jesus is giving you and me a word of encouragement. He is saying: You do not have to be bigger than the world to arrest the decay. The mass of salt doesn’t have to be as weighty as the mass of meat into which the salt is rubbed. A little salt will preserve a much larger piece of meat from decaying. Remember who Jesus is talking to when he said these words. He is talking to a small insignificant rag-tag bunch of uneducated disciples who were up against the whole Roman Empire and the whole religious establishment. Jesus is saying: You lonely, isolated, tiny Christian grain of salt, do you know that whenever you refuse to laugh or even smile at a racist joke that is told in your work place, or by a family member, you keep things from decaying further? You insignificant Christian grain of salt, when you practice forgiveness and mercy, when you choose to take the high road in your family and reach out to an estranged family member that is separated by fighting. You, Christian, can bring healing to your whole family system. When you one, single, solitary Christian grain of salt act with integrity in the school system where it is hard to do that, the whole polluted atmosphere of that place can change. You Christian can be a fresh ocean breeze blowing through a smokefilled room. When one single person manifests peace and confidence in Jesus Christ in a situation where everybody else is panicked and hopeless and despairing, the salt is doing its work and God’s kingdom comes to that situation. You are keeping the world from despair. Be encouraged. You are the salt of the earth. Be encouraged. Remember who you are, Jesus says: “You are the light of the world.” Matthew 5:14–16 (NIV) 14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your

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light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. We often despair as we look out at the world. We turn on our TVs and say, “Look at the garbage that is pouring over the airways – messages about gratuitous sex, the distorted philosophies and views of humanity that’s coming out through so many movies and programs. We often ask, “What’s wrong with Hollywood?” Friend, whenever you look out at the world, you shouldn’t say, “What’s wrong with the world?” The world is just acting according to its nature. It’s dark. We ought to say, “Where is the light? Where are the Christians? Where’s the influence of Christians on Hollywood? Why haven’t more Christians gone to Hollywood and decided to write scripts, direct films, and run studios?” We look at urban areas and we see the decay. We see the gangs and the violence, the hopelessness and joblessness. We often say, “What’s wrong with this neighborhood?” That’s the wrong question. The right question is “where are the Christians in this urban area? Where’s the salt? Where’s the light?” When a room is dark, we don’t curse the darkness, we turn on a light. The kingdom comes in our workplaces when we live out of our identity as salt and light. We bring something of the kingdom and we ask about a colleague’s weekend, and then we listen intently to their response because of Christ. We bring the kingdom when we bring words of encouragement to those who are discouraged, when we speak the truth even when it embarrasses us, when we act with integrity even though it will cost us money, when we prepare a meal, sit down together as a family, and bow our heads in prayer to thank God for what we’re eating. We bring the kingdom when we get up from our seat on a bus for a person who is elderly, when we turn off our cell phones in a restaurant or in church out of respect for people around us. We bring the kingdom when we allow another car to merge into our lane, when we speak courteously at the airline ticket counter, even when we’re in a rush. And yes, we bring the kingdom when we share our faith and go into missions and pray for a sick person. Wherever you are you are bearers of the kingdom; you are salt and light and that fills every task and every moment and all of our work with dignity and with eternal value. Let’s pray.

© 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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The Kingdom and Our Work Rich Nathan October 18-19, 2014 The Story of the Kingdom Series Matthew 5.13-16

I.

The wrong way to look at work A. Heart vs. mind B. Secular vs. spiritual C. Doing vs. being

II.

An inadequate way to look at work A. Lifeboat vs. Ark Theology

III.

A better way to look at work

© 2014 Rich Nathan | VineyardColumbus.org

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