Plumbing for the glory of God and good of others
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Plumbing for the glory of God and good of others.
The Bible has a lot to say about our work.
Work for the Christian is much more than just making money so you can help the church and others more or a place you can evangelize. No our vocations and work has real significance and meaning.
The work you do everyday is just as important to God as the work of a pastor or missionary.
In History with the rise of the Catholic church we saw the separation of the Sacred and the secular
In Church history the reformation was a great moment for the revolution of the churches understanding of Work.
Martin Luther questioned the catholic church that believed that the job of the priest was to pray, the feudal lord to govern, and the common worker to work. Thus we had the separation of the sacred and secular this exist to this day.
People still feel that the pastor/missionary is the only one who is serving God in His vocation. Luther said no, the baker’s work is sacred!
These Martin Luther quotes
“If you are a manual laborer, you find that the Bible has been put into your workshop, into your hand, into your heart. It teaches and preaches how you should treat your neighbor. Just look at your tools—at your needle or thimble, your goods, your scales or yardstick or measure—and you will read this statement inscribed on them. Everywhere you look, it stares at you. Nothing that you handle every day is so tiny that it does not continually tell you this, if you will only listen. . . .All this is continually crying out to you: “Friend, use me in your relations with your neighbor just as you would want your neighbor to use his property in his relations with you.”
"God himself will milk the cows through him whose vocation that is."
“The maid who sweeps here kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays – not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”
"What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels…God with all his angels and creatures is smiling - not because the father (or mother) is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.”
"All our work in the field, in the garden, in the city, in the home, in struggle, in government-to what does it all amount before God except child's play, by means of which God is pleased to give his gifts in the field, at home, and everywhere? These are the masks of our Lord God, behind which he wants to be hidden and to do all things."
“There is no true, basic difference between laymen and priests, princes and bishops, between religious and secular, except for the sake of office and work, but not for the sake of status. They are all of the spiritual estate, all are truly priests, bishops, and popes. But they do not all have the same work to do. …A cobbler, a smith, a peasant—each has the work and office of his trade, and yet they are all alike consecrated priests and bishops. Further, everyone must benefit and serve every other by means of his own work or office so that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community, just as all the members of the body serve one another.”
"If you find yourself in a work by which you accomplish something good for God, or the holy, or yourself, but not for your neighbor alone, then you should know that that work is not a good work. For each one ought to live, speak, act, hear, suffer, and die in love and service for another, even for one's enemies, a husband for his wife and children, a wife for her husband, children for their parents, servants for their masters, masters for their servants, rulers for their subjects and subjects for their rulers, so that one's hand, mouth, eye, foot, heart and desire is for others; these are Christian works, good in nature."
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
The way you do plumbing and heating shows the world who you worship.
All skill and intelligence comes from God - the holy spirit is the one that give you ability to do your plumbing. Plumbing and heating, working with Gas has to be one of the most warming jobs on the planet. You are helping to feed and warm thousands of people every day.
Quality, reliability, customer satisfaction matter to God - it’s all about love and loving your neighbor as yourself. When you make a product that last it’s about God’s glory and others good.
23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
1 Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.
9 Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, 10 for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, 11 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
The Bible teaches us that if we want to live a fulfilled life, first of all we need to…
1. Do our work - and work hard - the Bible has much to say about sloth-fullness and work ethic.
2. Love our work.
3. Re-narrate our work with the Scriptures.
4. Redeem our work with the truth of the gospel
Delight in Work
Proverbs 8:27–31 (ESV): When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28 when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
29 when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
30 then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight,
rejoicing before him always,
31 rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the children of man.