I preached on “Work: Prison, or Place of Destiny?” at King’s Church, Hastings this morning out of Colossians 3:22-25.
This is a message I’ve done at Christ Church, and as a seminar at the Together on a Mission conference, but I put some new illustrations in there and it seemed to really take off in a new way.
My contention is that most of the time we spend between the ages of 18 and 65 we spend at work, or doing stuff related to work, (even if our work is unpaid.) Yet many Christians see work as a bit of a grey area. At worst, we endure or survive work, and live for the more obviously spiritual elements of life (e.g. sung worship, church meetings). We embrace a sort of passive Gnosticism, whereby there is a sacred/secular divide. We struggle to find God in our work. My thesis is that the solution begins in basing our theology of work on the fact that God created work before the fall, and not after. Work was NOT introduced as a burden as a result of the fall. So the sermon is all about God having a spiritual purpose for us in our work, and that we glorify God through our work in and of itself, irrespective of how much time or success we have sharing the gospel with our colleagues. This is all very releasing and I felt the pressure lift off people, as I went into this. But if you read the passage, it is very challenging (e.g obeying the boss at all times, working for your boss as if he/she were Jesus) but I really felt the anointing of the Holy Spirit in the last 10 minutes, and it did seem like a prophetic encouragement for the church, or at least the pastor Paul Mann said so. I encouraged my friends at Hastings with the fact that the Kingdom of God is within you, and that Christ in you is the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27).
On a personal level, I was delighted to see Rosie & Alwood Wick, who are leading lights in the church. I first met Rosie when she was a 15 year old firebrand in the church where Julia and I met. It was amazing to discover that she’s now been in Hastings for 10 years and has 4 children. How time flies!
I also saw Tony & Val Bailey who did marriage prep for Julia and I back in 1997! We owe them a huge debt of thanks.
And most surprisingly I also met Roxanna Chung, a giant of the faith from our very own CCL, who’s doing an 8 week placement at the Conquest Hospital just across the street from the Kings’ Centre.
The church had produced some huge posters advertizing my visit. I took two of them home and they caused great amusement amongst our children.