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WORKING FOR JESUS

In his 1993 book, SeinLanguage, comedian Jerry Seinfeld confesses that “one of life’s great pleasures was watching other people work.” And as a kid, he wasn’t exactly a workaholic.

“Parents make the best employers,” he writes, “because no matter how bad a job you do they’re stuck with you. I used to mow the lawn for 5 bucks on the weekend. I was the worst. Sometimes I wouldn’t even turn the mower on. I’d just make the lines with the wheels and say I was done. And there was nothing they could do. My father couldn’t go, ‘Listen son, you’re not really cutting the mustard out there on the lawn. Now I know you’ve been in the family for 15 years, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go. Don’t feel too bad about it. We’re making cutbacks all over the house. The dog’s only coming in 3 days a week.”

Well, in eight or so seasons of Seinfeld, it never looked like Jerry had to work very hard — an occasional gig on Leno — and George Costanza was perenially out of work and pretending to girls that he was an architect, and Kramer . . . well, Kramer has to be the television epitome of a person who never works and who still seems to get by somehow, living in an expensive New York City apartment and always starting up new businesses like a make-your-own-pizza-pie restaurant. In actuality, however, you probably know that the four regular actors on that long-running sitcom were among the hardest-working, perfectionist professionals in the entertainment business.

I’m sure they didn’t adopt that work ethic in obedience to the words of Scripture, but the words are there nonetheless. Here at the finish line of Ephesians chapter four we find a few words about time clocks and getting in your 40 hours.

“He who has been stealing,” the apostle Paul writes, “must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need.”

In the Message paraphrase the interoffice memo runs this way:

“Did you used to make a living by stealing? Well, no more! Get an honest job so that you can help others who can’t work.”

In case you think that today’s radio discussion is just aimed at the thieves and hustlers out there in radio land, let’s observe that honest work and faithful labor for everyone are a divine blueprint going clear back to the Garden of Eden. Unless there are truly some debilitating reasons why, it’s inappropriate and sinful for anyone to expect to live off the charity and labor of others — either from the government or the church. In fact, would it be going too far to suggest that for an able-bodied person to NOT work can be a form of stealing itself? (By the way, we’re certainly not discounting the reality that full-time stay-at-home parenthood is often a huge job, making an invaluable contribution to society.)

You know, it’s interesting how the Lord’s timing blesses us, because within the last week a wonderful new book landed here in our mailbox. It’s entitled God and Your Stuff, by Wesley K. Willmer and Martyn Smith, published by NavPress, one of our favorites. These two writers inform us that way back in the 1700s, John Wesley, the great Methodist preacher, did very well for himself in that chosen profession. Not that preaching paid so very much in itself, although he was compensated for his many thousands of sermons. But as a writer, some of his book sales brought in as much as 1400 pounds a year, and this in an era, the writers observe, when a single man could live decently on 30.

And we ask: what about that? Is it wrong to work hard and then make a big income? Is it wrong to be rich? I’ll tell you in a moment what Wesley did with the money, but two chapters later, we get to read Wesley’s own personal code of ethics regarding money. And his first one will surprise you: Gain All You Can. That’s right from the scholarly volume, The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley. “Gain All You Can.”

“There ought to be nothing different,” write Willmer and Smith, “about the occupations or work style of the Christian. Short of sacrificing family or health or religious obligations, he or she is to be industrious and use every means to succeed in business and work.”

So the Lord is honored when His children work hard and succeed — always with the Matthew 5:16 goal of giving the honor and glory to the throne of heaven. But after “Gain all you can,” John Wesley’s Rule #2 is this: “Save all you can.” And these two modern-day writers, Wesley K. Willmer and Martyn Smith, comment:

“This rule is not about stockpiling money, as one might guess, but meant to give Christians pause over the way they spend their money. Wesley’s advice,” they write, “is to ‘despise delicacy and variety, and be content with what plain nature requires.’ Wesley saw how much good money could do, and he was pained to see to what uses money was actually put. . . . ‘Lay nothing out’” — this is Wesley again — “‘to gratify the pride of life, to gain the admiration of men.’”

Again, friend, there’s nothing wrong with a Christian working hard and then owning good things, or taking a restful vacation in a comfortable place. That’s what work — and then saving — permits you to do. But what priorities govern your life? We all remember: Where your treasure is . . .

Rule #3 is obvious, then: “GIVE all you can.” Someone once suggested: “Save ten percent, give ten percent, and spend the rest with joy and thanksgiving.” You may be able to do more than that, but let’s go back to Ephesians 4 and notice that the specifically mentioned reason why we are commanded to work and not be welfare thieves is “so you can help others who CAN’T work,” says the Message paraphrase. In the Tyndale commentary for Ephesians, authored by Francis Foulkes, we find this:

“Instead of robbing others of the fruit of their labor, the Christian is to work for his own living. More than that, he is to work to earn that he may have to give to him that needeth. The Christian motive for earning is not merely to have enough for oneself and one’s own, and then perhaps for comforts and luxuries, but to have to give to those in need. . . . Giving becomes the motive for getting. We may note the place that giving to the poor had with our Lord and His disciples, in precept and practice, though their resources may have been very slender.”

I have to tell you something. The Voice of Prophecy survives precisely because there are people like this. People who want to “give to him that needeth.” I think, virtually without exception, that our donors are already saved Christians. They have assurance of salvation; they have a real and lasting relationship with a Jesus who is building them a mansion in heaven. They already know what they need to know about the Christian faith; if and when they tune in, it’s for the purpose of that deeper walk, of becoming ever more mature disciples. And yet these people, who don’t really NEED us — this is my point — contribute so that the spiritual “have-nots” can also hear the good news. There are people who take extra jobs so they can give. There are people who sacrifice out of their retirement so they can give. There are people who do without luxuries and maybe even without something that I would consider a necessity so that they can give.

And so here, on our end, where we spend those five- and ten-dollar gifts . . . that is a sobering thing. Our faithful staff members come in to work and put in a full day because they all know that their paycheck money was earned hard and given prayerfully. We have people who don’t take all the vacation they’re entitled to, because they know that some of our contributors cut THEIR vacation time short in order to sustain our work.

Back now to John Wesley, who had 1400 pounds in his pocket and could live on 30. I don’t know if he DID live on just 30, and no one would expect that. But at Oxford, one evening, while hanging some perhaps extravagant paintings on his walls, a “cumbermaid,” locked in poverty, came to the door. Could he help a little bit? And he couldn’t because he’d just spent his allowance on the pictures. The journal Mission Frontiers has the guilty soundbite he asked himself:

“Will thy Master say, ‘Well done, good and faithful steward’? Thou hast adorned thy walls with money which might have screened this poor creature from the cold! O justice! O mercy! — Are not these pictures the blood of this poor maid?”

He became such a paragon of generosity that the English Tax Commissioners actually came by, wondering why he hadn’t paid proper taxes on all the silver plates he must surely own. Wesley showed them the total of four spoons he had — “two in London and two at Bristol. This is all the plate I have at present, and I shall not buy any more while so many around me want bread.”

We all know those nostalgic stories where a kid says: “I’m going to get a job so I can help the family.” Well, friend, let’s put on our work boots, because we’re so glad we’re a part of the family of God.