Do What You Have to Do

Work is a Gift from God

In the Garden

In God’s ideal situation He commanded Adam and Eve to go to work.

At the Fall, work became toil.

Adam’s part of the curse introduced bugs, weeds, and drought.

Work has always been a big part of God’s interaction with people.

Who ultimately controls the climate?

Sabbath laws

Every 6th day rest, don’t work

Every 6th year don’t work.

Then, the 50th year don’t work

7th Sabbath year, year 49, and year 50.

What does that say about the crops in year 48?

Who worked the fields and who worked the climate?

The crops didn’t bring themselves in.

Hands

You can tell a lot about a person’s work by their hands.

Callouses to be specific.

Some ppl work w/ their hands and others work while sitting on their rear ends.

Hardest I have ever worked in my life was the summer of 1980 baling hay, tagging cattle, and mowing fields.

I finished college, went to seminary, and now the only stress on my hands is typing and swiping.

Now, I’m a teacher, thinker, studier.

That’s why the only callouses I have on my hands are from swinging a golf club w/ my rings on.

What do you do when God calls you to a work but that work cannot support your family financially?

Quit?

Leave the calling? Assume God make a mistake?

Blatant disobedience?

What did Paul do?

Here’s where we’ll land.

You have to do whatever you have to do, get wherever you have to get, to get done whatever God has called you to get done.

From where Saul started to where Paul landed he had to resolve this issue in his life and ministry.

Start w/ Saul and the status he had attained.

This is where he was when we first met him.

Saul’s Status

Galatians 1:13–14 NIV

For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

Pre-Christian days known as Saul.

Powerful Pharisee

Attained at an early age.

He was a peer w/ men much older.

Authority to put Christians to death

The Romans left him alone.

They were most concerned about peace and they didn’t care how he attained it, just keep it.

Bel’d he was doing the right thing for God

Handsomely paid for this.

Powerful, authoritative, wealthy, He was somebody in the community.

Then God got ahold of Him and changed everything.

He thought he already was somebody. Really he was nobody.

But God called him and gave him a new identity.

He couldn’t not do this.

Paul’s Calling

Galatians 1:

Galatians 1:15–16 NIV

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

Notice, when was he first called and set apart?

From his mother’s womb.

What happened between the womb and the work?

He murdered Xians.

God knew and He still called him and kept the calling.

A powerful testimony for those of us w/ a past.

God knew and He still called you.

Paul’s calling is to preach to the Gentiles.

Peter becomes the apostle to the Jews.

That’s the calling. Nothing more, nothing less.

Get it done.

This is a major change for him.

God changed him on the inside immediately. Now, he had to go to work changing his mind.

Knowing God’s will requires a transformed mind.

Only God can transform a mind like this.

So, what’s the first thing that he does? He goes to school.

He studies to find out what he missed.

Paul’s Study

Galatians

Galatians 1:11–12 NIV

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Galatians 1:16–18 NIV

to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days.

Galatians 1:

He went into the wilderness and pulled out the Scriptures.

What did he have? What did He study? The OT.

He hadn’t written the NT yet.

He found what he had missed all his life.

He found Jesus in the OT.

Jesus showed up and taught him what he needed to know.

Much of what He wrote in his NT letters.

Galatians, Romans, Philippians, etc.

3 years he studied.

Already an adult.

Knew what the OT said. Games they played in Pharisee school.

Missed what it meant.

Common occurence today. People start careers and don’t like what they are doing so they go back to school to learn a new career.

Seminaries, law schools, med schools, bsns schools, teacher programs are all filled w/ older adults who have families.

Part-time students who have to work to support their families b/c their spouse has to stay home and take care of the kids.

Dirt poor. But pursuing a calling.

So, Paul studied and then it was time to go to work to fulfill God’s calling on his life.

Paul’s Status

Acts 18:1–4 NIV

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.

From his status as Saul to his status as Paul was quite a change.

He went to work and traveled throughout the region.

He needed to go where he could find people who he could relate to, he’s still new at this, and when they had time to interact w/ him.

The synagogue on the Sabbath.

The Jews aren’t working, hanging out around the synagogue.

There were plenty of Greeks around to engage, as well.

He burned through whatever he had saved from his Pharisee days while he was studying.

Now, he’s bi-vocational; a tent-maker.

Here’s a man whose hands had no callouses except maybe from throwing stones.

A professional man. Educated. White-collar.

He used to have servants.

He bought tents. He didn’t make them.

Professionally, this was a ginormous step down.

But the work of his calling would not support him.

And, rather than become a burden on anyone, he went to work making tents during the week so he could fulfill his calling on Saturdays.

He went where he had to go and did what he had to do so he could get done what God had called him to get done.

So many of my friends in Seminary we called to little churches that couldn’t afford a full-time salary. So, they had to find a second job.

Or, called t/b missionaries. Committed to not being a burden on the people they were called to serve among.

Who will listen to someone who tries to give them a blessing w/ one hand while holding the other hand out for money?

They had to get part-time jobs. English teachers, rug-makers, carpenters, house-builders, baristas.

All ginormous steps below their professions prior to their ministry. But, now happy to be able to creatively fulfill what God had called them to do.

Early in Paul’s ministry.

Eventually, he ends up in prison. Not only did he give up the stuff from his previous life, he gave up his freedom, too.

This was easy for him, right?

He’s Paul. He glowed. The beatings didn’t really hurt, right?

Hardly. Get real.

The struggle was real.

Paul’s Struggle

Romans 7:

Romans 7:7–8 NIV

What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.

What God took away

Paul cracked the door into his own life here.

A personal example about the law and how it helped, or didn’t help, with real-life situations.

Think about what he had left in his previous life.

Wealth, power, authority, status.

When he walked into a room Christians cowered and Jews admired.

God called him out of that so he left it.

But, all his Pharisee friends were still in it.

They had the wealth, power, authority, and status

He admitted he struggled coveting what he used to have and what they still had.

The houses, camels, cars, clothes.

The respect, reverence, and real estate.

When you covet something you believe you deserve what you don’t have. You’ve earned it. You’re worth it.

But, for whatever reason, you don’t have it.

It’s an obsession and it’s not fair.

Early in his ministry, while he was studying and starting his work, he saw what they still had and it was hard for him.

So, he went to the law to find help in his struggle but it didn’t help at all.

The law said, “Thou Shalt Not Covet.” King James

So, he focused, concentrated, memorized, and repeated.

Don’t covet. Don’t covet. Don’t covet. Don’t covet.

At the end of the day all he did was covet the stuff his old friends still had.

The law didn’t help him. The struggle was real.

So, how was he able to overcome his resentment toward God for taking all this away?

By focussing on his relationship and all that God had given him.

What God gave him

Romans 8:5–6 NIV

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

Romans 8:

Focusing on the law only made him aware that he was breaking the law.

By concentrating on what not to do ended up making him do it.

Focusing on the negative rarely works.

Focusing on the positive almost always works.

By concentrating on his relationship w/ God, filling his mind with the things of the Spirit, he discovered he was more likely to do the things of the Spirit.

IOW, when he focused on what not to do all he did all day was what he didn’t want to do.

But, when he spent the day focusing on his relationship w/ God he realized at the end of the day he hadn’t coveted anything all day.

What God gave him was life and peace. And, when God was the focus of his day, the stuff he left behind meant nothing.

He didn’t miss it.

This was a personal illustration. His struggle was real. He missed his stuff from his previous life.

But when he found what God had replaced it with in no longer meant anything to him and he found real satisfaction.

Paul’s Satisfaction

Fulfilled his calling

Philippians 1:12–14 NIV

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.

In spite of it all he was still able to fulfill what God had called him to do.

Who knew?

His calling was to preach to the Gentiles. Nothing more, nothing less.

There was nothing in the calling about how much money he’d make, where he’d live, or how he’d do it.

He just needed to do it.

He ends up in prison, guarded by a rotation of soldiers from the most powerful army in the world. These soldiers would routinely be reassigned to different regions around the Roman Empire.

Many accepted Christ and took the gospel w/ them.

A friend in Minot, ND was recruited in Amway by a guy who recruited many Air Force active duty personnel into Amway, too.

These Air Force members took Amway to Japan when they were stationed there. The Japanese love MLM programs.

This guy in Minot built a hugely successful business and became incredibly wealthy b/c the military members took the message and the products with them as they were reassigned.

Paul didn’t get wealthy, but his ministry became wildly successful while he sat in prison b/c the people he led to Christ took the message w/ them as they traveled.

So, what about his financial situation? Where did he end up with his attitude about surrendering everything he owned to fulfill his calling?

He learned a secret

Philippians 4:10–13 NIV

I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Sitting in prison, near the end of his life, owning nothing.

His heart was filled with joy. Real, genuine joy.

There had been a day when he had an abundance of wealth.

He was currently at the mercy of the Roman army and anything his friends would do for him.

And, he was content.

Notice, too v.13. Too many athletes quote this verse as if it means God will give them the strength to throw a touchdown pass, hit a home run, or nail a quadruple axel in the Olympics.

The strength that Jesus gives you is the strength to be content no matter how much you make, how many jobs you have to have, no matter if you’re filthy rich or dirt poor.

If you live your life in faithful obedience, fulfilling your calling from God, you will be deeply satisfied.

Go wherever you need to go, to do whatever you need to do, to fulfill whatever God called you to fulfill.