Pastor Elwin Ahu
February 27, 2011 - W1109

Today we are talking about “Making a Marketplace Difference”. Before we get into this topic, I want to first raise a question to all of us. What does God expect us to do in the real world today? It is a question we should ask ourselves every day. It is indeed difficult to live in today’s world especially in the marketplace. Our job becomes a focal point of our lives because we have spent so much time in it. Each person would spend an average 100,000 hours at work in an entire life, which would add up to be 66% of our life time. So it is actually a great opportunity for us to shine His light in the marketplace! However, there is often tension when we move from our safe Christian bubble into the marketplace because there is full of temptations and conflicts between God’s ways and the world’s. It would seem great if we just live in a gated Christian community and deal with everything with God’s way with Christians, but this is not what God wants us to live in. When life is so difficult in this world, we didn’t ask what God expect us to do, and even wonder why God doesn’t remove us from this world. But God said in the Bible that “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one…As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” (John 17:14, 15, 18) So God sends us into a world which hates us because it is His desire for us to go and tell the unreached people about Christ and His words instead of removing them. God also wants us to build characters through this process, too. He wants us to learn His good characteristics such as peace, patience, joy and love; and the best way for us to learn is to be in an environment that is totally opposite to what we want. If we want to learn how to love others, we will be in a position that is surrounded by unloving people. And we will be able to learn to have inner-joy, inner-peace, inner-love and inner-patience in God not based on the circumstances. In other words, it is God’s assignment to us that we need to go in the real world and tell people about Him, and to build characters through this process.

There are three questions we need to keep asking ourselves in order to be able to do these assignments.

3 Questions to keep us focused “on the job”

The first question is:

1. Who ARE YOU?

“Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.” (Titus 2:9-10 NIV) We would mess up the Gospel if we handle things our ways in the real world. So this leads to the second question:

2. Who’s YOUR BOSS?

There is a lack of accountability in today’s world and leads us to forget who our boss is. We even follow different kinds of gods according to our own wills. We maybe following god of money or god of promotion, and we choose to respond to whichever we like to. In the Old Testament days, Elijah was living among people who worship the false gods Baal and Asherah. One day Elijah gathered the people together on Mount Carmel, it was written that, “Elijah came near to all the people and said, ‘How long will you hesitate between two opinions” If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.’” (1 Kin. 18:21) Elijah told the Baal prophets to sacrifice one bull without setting fire, and Elijah himself sacrificed another bull without setting fire; then each party called on the god/God they follow, and see which one will be set on fire. The Baal prophets called on Baal from morning till noon and nothing happened. Elijah poured water over the sacrifice and wood, and once he called on our true God to show Himself, the sacrifice and the wood were set on fire right away even though they were all wet! And the people admitted that the Lord is the only true God at the moment and seized the Baal prophets.

So in our lives, we acted similarly but in the wrong way. When God doesn’t answer us right away, we might follow others who seem to answer us but not a true God at all. And we even created a “god of whatever” in our culture these days. This “god of whatever” loves us to praise whatever and to do whatever, so that it frees people from commitment and responsibility. Then people would start not to keep promises because of whatever. And workers would call in sick the other day just because of getting drunk from a party the night before. And we might start to take things from office to home as it seems “free” to take, and neglect to see if it is right to do so because of the “god of whatever”. However, the Bible said “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything you do. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you. Serve them sincerely because of your reverent fear of the Lord. Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ. But if you do what is wrong, you will be paid back for the wrong you have done. For God has no favorites.” (Col. 3:22-25 NLT)  So if we do wrong, even though we are Christians, we won’t be able to get away from the consequences. You might not be paid back for the wrong you did right away, but it will catch up on you eventually because God has no favorites. If you think the boss in your office is not good, change your boss…change to see that Christ is our boss instead. We actually report to Christ, not the supervisor at work. So we need to do and act according to Christ’s ways and please Him in everything we say, act and do every single day including the time we are at work. He is our true boss.

My son Jared lately developed an attitude of “I don’t care”. There was a time that he didn’t do his homework and lied about the responsibility by erasing the homework from the list so we didn’t know. We got a call from the school about this. We disciplined him and told him that his privilege will be taken away if it happened again. Then we got a call from the school about the same problem within one week! So I took out his privilege of playing baseball and also spanked him. At beginning when I was spanking him, he was still having an attitude of “I don’t care”. But at the end he started crying, knowing that he couldn’t escape from the consequences. I took him to the baseball game without letting him to play. It was very painful for him. I did this not because I want to be harsh on him. I really have to discipline him and let him to learn from this lesson, and grow into the person God wants him to be. Then I realize that when we don’t care, we will never shape ourselves to what God wants us to be, and fail to choose God every day. So what do you choose today? We can only choose one, and may the God Almighty be the one you choose to serve not only on Sunday, but every single day, and even when you are at your marketplace. Lastly the third question I want to ask you is:

3. What’s your OBJECTIVE?

“Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.” (Phil. 2:14-15) God calls us to be His light in this crooked and perverse generation in the real world but not of the world. God loves every single one of us regardless what career we are in, so He would send missionaries as a teacher, a construction worker, a plumber, etc, respectively into each career field, so these missionaries can be His light for other coworkers and lead them to Christ. As it is also written, “Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us.” (1 Pet. 2:11-12 NIV) God creates moments and opportunity for us to reach others at work and this is our objective in the marketplace.

(Romans 10:13-15 NLT) We are His messengers to reach people in the marketplace. We need to keep reminding ourselves who we are, who our true boss is and what our true objective is in the marketplace every day, so we can shine His light and bring others to Christ.

Discussion Questions:

1. Who are you at work before this message?

2. How can we serve our true boss, Christ, at your workplace?

3. What other gods you have to get rid of for you today?

4. What is your objective now at work?

5. What can we do to not grumble and dispute at work?