Labor Of Love

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​So many of us don’t know much about labor day and we are just happy to have a day off of work…

Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday in September… It honors the American labor movement and the contributions that workers have made to the strength, prosperity, laws and well-being of the country…

What are you working for?…

To provide for yourself and your family?…  To acquire the things you want to acquire?… To be able to go the places you want to go and do the things you want to do?…

All those things are good and Godly…

1 Timothy 5:8
8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

The question is whether or not the Lord is a part of the work you do?… Does God just receive an occasional “thank you for this job Lord”?…

In preparing this message I realized how many of us don’t know the origins of Labor Day and also how many of us have significantly limited God’s involvement in our labors…

John 3:16 is the love verse most of us know…
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life

Genesis 3:16 is the “Labor” verse and where our spiritual “Labor Day” began…

Genesis 3:16-19
16 To the woman He said: "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; In pain you shall bring forth children; Your desire shall be for your husband, And he shall rule over you." 17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life. 18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.”

See because of sin our labor has taken on a burden of pain and negativity that continues to burden many of us in our labors today…

We were supposed to live in a “Labor of Love” where all that we did would be done in awe of our creator and in awe of the bodies He gave us that could work and the minds He gave us that could think…

When God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden He placed a flaming sword and an Angel at the entrance for protection and to show them the way back… I hope that we can see some things about “Labor” that will give us hope that God has offered us a way back into a “Labor of Love”…

Psalm 127:1
Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it; Unless the Lord guards the city, The watchman stays awake in vain.

We labor in vain and we defend our increase in vain if the Lord is not actively involved, and consulted, and obeyed in our labors…

God wants to carpool to work with you in the morning… He wants to share a cubicle with you… He wants to crack jokes in the warehouse with you… He wants to dig with his shovel right next to you… He wants to go into every meeting with you…

Colossians 3:22-23
22 Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. 23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men

Its a lot easier to work as unto the Lord when He is there with you…

We’ve all heard this scripture but I think we look at it as a challenge to be a good example of what a Christian should be in our workplaces but if we only see it this way we miss so much…

Let’s read it again with the next verse included…

Colossians 3:22-24
22 Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. 23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.

Our labors are in service to Jesus and we are supposed to “know” that we will receive an inheritance from our Lord connected to our labors…

The inheritance is joy and fulfillment and impact and “Loving to Labor” as it was meant to be for us in the beginning…

It doesn’t matter what we do if we do it with this understanding… I do believe we will start to consider whether or not our labors are worthy of our lives and whether or not they honor God but it won’t be about position or title or notoriety… We won’t want to be bar tenders but we will not under value being janitor when we understand the inheritance of “Laboring in Love”…

Ephesians 4:28
28 Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.

What an amazing part of our labors that we must consider that God would give unto us so that we would be able to give unto those in need…

Proverbs 28:27
27 He who gives to the poor will not lack, But he who hides his eyes will have many curses.

Nehemiah 2:1-5
1 And it came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, that I took the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had never been sad in his presence before. 2 Therefore the king said to me, "Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart." So I became dreadfully afraid, 3 and said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?" 4 Then the king said to me, "What do you request?" So I prayed to the God of heaven. 5 And I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' tombs, that I may rebuild it.”

As the cupbearer Nehemiah’s job was to risk his life several times a day and test the kings wine to make sure it wasn’t poisoned…

Brings a new perspective to laboring as if unto the Lord…

It’s easy to say I would take that job for Jesus to be His cupbearer but to do it as if unto Jesus but for the king of your captors is another story right…

Because Nehemiah was so faithful in his “wordly labor” he was granted the freedom to go and do his “Labor of Love” for the Lord… Many of us have jobs that prevent us from doing what we’d like to do for the kingdom but we need to realize the two are more closely connected than we think…

Proverbs 13:22
22 A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, But the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.

We will take the wages from non-believing companies and use them to further the gospel and to send ourselves into the harvest…

Nehemiah 2:11-18
11 So I came to Jerusalem and was there three days. 12 Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me; I told no one what my God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem; nor was there any animal with me, except the one on which I rode. 13 And I went out by night through the Valley Gate to the Serpent Well and the Refuse Gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down and its gates which were burned with fire. 14 Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King's Pool, but there was no room for the animal under me to pass. 15 So I went up in the night by the valley, and viewed the wall; then I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned. 16 And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I had done; I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, or the others who did the work.17 Then I said to them, "You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach." 18 And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king's words that he had spoken to me. So they said, "Let us rise up and build." Then they set their hands to this good work.

This is a good work and we can poor our physical effort AND our heart & soul into it because we believe in it… It is a “Labor of Love”…

Nehemiah 4:16-21a
16 So it was, from that time on, that half of my servants worked at construction, while the other half held the spears, the shields, the bows, and wore armor; and the leaders were behind all the house of Judah. 17 Those who built on the wall, and those who carried burdens, loaded themselves so that with one hand they worked at construction, and with the other held a weapon. 18 Every one of the builders had his sword girded at his side as he built. And the one who sounded the trumpet was beside me. 19 Then I said to the nobles, the rulers, and the rest of the people, "The work is great and extensive, and we are separated far from one another on the wall. 20 Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us." 21 So we labored in the work

So this would be a great place to end this morning…

Use the worldly labor you have been given to develop your skills and resource the work of God…

Find a labor you can love and fight to the end to keep doing the work of the Lord!!!…

The thing is though that we were also promised rest from the Lord…

Matthew 11:28
28 Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Hebrews 4:1-3
1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. 

The rest is in the gospel…

The problem and mistake too many of us make is we begin and continue in labor without being rooted in the gospel…

If we don’t understand the gospel we cannot labor in love because we know not the love of the One we claim to be laboring for…

Remember Jericho and the victory of Joshua…

Hebrews 4:8-11
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. 11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. 

There is a rest that comes after Jericho…

Jericho remember represents the battle that only God can win…

After our sin is conquered and death is conquered and the walls of separation between God and man are broken down yes we take the land… and yes we protect our borders and build new walls to put watchmen on… and yes there will be more ground to take and more labor to be done but we have to find the rest from the work of earning salvation…

Many of us have connected our labor in the kingdom with earning something from God and that is where we've gone wrong…

We worked so hard for it and never got it and then when we understood the love of God that He had to give it to us our Jericho wall fell down but then for some reason we began to work in the spirit of “I’m now going to show God and other people that I deserve the gift I received”…

Picture a "Spiritual Publisher’s Clearing House"... What would you do if you no longer had to labor because you were going to begin to receive $10,000 a week for a lifetime???

See after the deliverance from Jericho and sin and the gospel makes clear just how deep and how high and how far and how wide the love of God truly is… We are rich beyond our wildest dreams and can rest from our laboring for a wage and begin to participate fully in the labor of love…

Luke 10:38-42
38 Now it happened as they went that He entered a certain village; and a certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house.39 And she had a sister called Mary, who also sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. 40 But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me." 41 And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. 42But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her."

There is labor and love all over this scripture but it is misguided and immature…

Jesus is showing perfect love as He comes in where He is invited and He shares His word of truth and life and hope with them…

Mary didn’t appear to be laboring as she sat at the feet of Jesus while there were still things to do…

Martha was laboring for Jesus and frustrated that her sister wouldn’t labor alongside of her…

Martha should have been more concerned with Mary fulfilling her destiny than she was with someone helping her with the work… Message for all those in ministry…

Hebrews 4:1-3
1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. 

To know the gospel and to know Jesus is to be rich beyond your wildest dreams and be given the choice with the rest of your life to do what you want to do rather than what you have to do…

The challenge is that many of us say we would do this and we would do that if we we're rich but what we do in the kingdom tells us the truth about what we would do if we were rich…