Jesus Loves His Job
Speaking through Isaiah's prophecy as the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah 49:1-6, we learn that Jesus Loves His Job because he's the right person in the right seat. You also are the right person in the right seat. Work for Jesus in whatever you do, and you'll love your job too. January 8, 2012.
Jesus Loves His Job. No doubt about it. If you were to survey his job satisfaction level as the Savior of sinners, Jesus would score perfectly. These days as much as unemployment remains a problem, a growing dilemma is the number of people who do have jobs but dread them. According to studies, two big reasons why some workers can’t wait until the workday is over are 1) they’re not the right person in the right seat, and 2) they receive no encouragement from above. According to the Scriptures, Jesus is the right person in the right seat for his job, and he receives encouragement from above. Jesus Loves His Job.
The right person in the right seat
Author Jim Collins taught the business world that there’s more to success than having good people. It comes down to getting the right people in the right seats; that means positioning people where they can perform in their greatest skill with their deepest passion. Jesus Loves His Job because he’s the right person in the right seat. Speaking through Isaiah’s prophecy as the Servant of the Lord, Jesus says, “Before I was born the Lord called me; from my birth he made mention of my name.” Would it be invigorating for you to be recruited as the top manager of the premier department at a new company, and then hear that they had their eye on you for the last ten years as the only one they’d hire to do the job well? Jesus had God the Father’s eye from before his birth as the only Savior who would fulfill the Christmas angel’s words, “Give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
To make sure he’d remain the right person in the right seat, the Father equipped his Son with powerful tools and talents. Jesus continues, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword…he made me into a polished arrow.” God provided his Son with something so powerful that it could slash open any human soul to perform spiritual surgery and save life eternally, it could pierce through a heart hardened by unbelief and plunge into it God’s life saving forgiveness. What is that tool? “The sword of the Spirit which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). Wielding the eternal Word, preaching to the crowds, telling parables, promising forgiveness, speaking to us through the Scriptures, Jesus Loves His Job, as both Message and Messenger.
Ever feel like you’re the wrong person in the right seat when it comes to your Christian living? Your passion for fighting temptations of selfishness or lust fizzles. Your thrill for studying and memorizing God’s Word and applying it to life situations becomes more like plowing through a mundane class assignment just because you’re supposed to. You want church membership to be a spectator sport or private quest without all the “let’s follow Jesus together and win souls” hype. You find that your religion is becoming too contained within the walls of church and doesn’t impact your real life in ways you’d like. That kind of person is the wrong person. And a wicked person. But that person isn’t you—instead it’s your sinful self who hates Jesus and his work. What do you do with your sinful self? Don’t just spray your sinful self with a squirt gun of regret; drown him with repentance! Don’t just avoid your sinful self and hope she’ll go away; crucify her! Live every day in the right identity of your baptism which connects you to the Father’s Son. “Through baptism…our old self was crucified with him…If we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him…Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:4,6,8, 11). Baptized into Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, your identity is by faith connected to his identity, his work, and to his Father’s divine assignment for him and divine equipping of him. When you think you’re just all wrong or you don’t have what it takes to get it right, live by faith in the power of your baptism and cheer, “My God has been my strength.” You are the right person in the right seat.
Encouraged from above
Study after study shows that the single most important factor for job satisfaction is making progress in meaningful work. And to help work have more meaning, managers should facilitate accomplishments, provide feedback, and recognize everyday contributions. The other reason Jesus Loves His Job is that he’s encouraged from above. Standing in the Jordan River with the world’s sins pouring over him in the water of his baptism, he’d have to carry that spiritual burden all the way to the cross without ever putting it down. How would he do it? Couldn’t it be assigned to someone else? Might there—as he cried aloud in Gethsemane—be another way? “A voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased’” (Mark 1:11).
Encouraged from above, Jesus went to work. While working as Savior on this earth, Jesus spent hours and hours in divine communication with his Father, privately meeting in the inner chambers of the Holy Trinity. His Father reassured him, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.” Jesus became what the people of Israel should have been, but were not, and what we were not—not wrestling with God like Jacob but too quickly and too easily giving up the spiritual struggle of prayer, of perseverance in suffering, of challenging ourselves to grow in grace, of contending for what is right. Jesus Loves His Job and never gave up, whatever the struggle he faced, whatever the sin he bore, whatever the suffering he endured. Encouraged from above, he is “honored in the eyes of the Lord.”
Want to love your job more and honor the Lord? I’m not just talking about your career, but any other calling God has assigned you. Parent, child, husband or wife; single, student, or separated from loved ones; divorced, widowed, or just beginning to fall in love; accountant, engineer, manager, musician, or teacher. Then begin by believing that you are already “honored in the eyes of the Lord.” With unique skills and interests that God weaves into your being, he equips you for special tasks you can do better than most others. Leverage more of God’s gifts, using them for his glory like Jesus did, and you’ll learn to love whatever you do whenever you do it. Secondly listen for your heavenly Father’s encouragement from above, and then don’t be surprised when your Father says to you like he said to his own Son, “It is too small a thing for you to…bring back those of Israel…I will also make you a light for the Gentiles.” Jesus Loves His Job, not as the Light of the Church, but as the Light of the World. And he commissions you to let your light shine to not only church people but to all people. Go to work wherever you are as a witness for Christ with joyful confidence, trusting God’s encouraging promise, “I will make you a light.” And shine on!
In today’s economy fewer workers have the option to quit a bad job and go find a better one. The job market is just too risky. Instead, some suggest that those who dread their jobs can often think about their work with a different approach. That may not solve everything, but it can help. We Christians call that faith. So what is the most difficult job in history and future of this world? It’s not yours, and not mine. It’s being the Savior of all sinners. And Jesus Loves His Job. Work for him in whatever you do, and you’ll love it too. Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on January 8, 2012
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