Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for the Daily Challenge. Today is Thursday, we’ve been exploring a topic all week and today, we are going to try to apply it to our lives. This week we’ve been talking about how Jesus resets every area of our lives including how we see work. We’ve talked a few times this week about how work can take on a life of it’s own. Work can consume us. Work can drive us. Work can become our idol. It can become something we worship, something we elevate above all other things and that drives all other things in our lives. Work can become our god. Whenever we take something good in this world, we make it our ultimate good. It becomes our ultimately bad for us. That’s a definition of sin.
Back in our series that we did this past summer on work and rest, we explored what it looks like to work well as a follower of Jesus and we saw four ways to approach work as a follower of Jesus today. Way to apply what we learned from Colossians on Tuesday about work and working continuously, working for God, working well and try to apply that in the early practical way of life today.
Sometimes our work can be redeemed. Sometimes we have been doing work maybe for ourselves, maybe just for the money but you know what, it’s good work consistent with God’s kingdom and we can continue to do it well and now we can offer it up to God. I told the story in that series about an animator who had been animating for work and now she had the opportunity to animate scripture for a church I had started. That was the way for her to offer her work to God. That was great.
Sometimes our work needs to be challenged. Sometimes we have been engaged in work selfishly that simply cannot be done by somebody in God’s kingdom. Say you have been working in the porn industry. You become a follower of Jesus, that needs to get reset. You can’t continue working in that industry, but you can challenge it. Your role in God’s kingdom maybe to challenge that industry. To speak out against it. To let people know what it’s really like the dangers of it -how it’s actually a form of modern slavery. I could go on but you can see how some kinds of work can’t be offered or redeemed for God, they have to be challenged.
Finally some work can be subverted. There are times when our work is something that we have been doing for all the wrong reasons. It’s not directly supporting God’s kingdom to do that work but it’s also not something that needs to be completely confronted and challenged and what we can do is we can be there as a follower of Jesus and subvert what’s happening there that is selfish, that is sinful, that is broken. We can undermine people’s belief in the idol of work and money and power and show them a different way by being there.
Followers of Jesus can’t withdraw from every industry. We can’t withdraw from finance and art and culture. We can’t withdraw from transportation, from supply chain management. We can’t withdraw from consumer products. We can’t withdraw from construction. I could go on and list all these industries. We can’t withdraw completely from the world. Christians need to be there and sometimes that looks like challenging and sometimes it looks like redeeming and offering it and sometimes it looks like subverting it and I highlight this one because that’s really what Colossians was talking about.
Paul was talking to slaves who happen to have become followers of Jesus. They are stuck in a system of slavery. It is the status quo where they live and what he wants them to do is undermine it. He wants them to subvert. He wants them to continue working for their owners but he wants them to know they are not truly owned by them. He wants them to be free, even though the world thinks they are slaves.
Now most of us have more freedom than the slaves that Paul is talking to but sometimes circumstances or responsibilities give us no choice. Sometimes we find ourselves in the kind of work where our only choice is to subvert. We have to stay there. We have no other choice to leave that work, we have to stay and subvert it. To undermine work’s ability to control us, to own us.
Really no matter what work we do, we can find ourselves feeling owned by that work. We can’t find ourselves handing over the entirety of our lives, our entire identity, our entire sense of security and confidence in life to our jobs. We can use our job titles to describe all of who we are. When we are doing that, we are selling out to work, we are selling ourselves to slavery, willingly. That is the system in our world. That is the system of slavery in our Western world. We willingly sell ourselves to work and if that’s happening in your life, then please subvert it. Undermine its power over you and continue to show others while you work alongside them, what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus in your industry.
Keep working. Work well at it. Show them what it’s really like to be an artist who does art for the Kingdom of God. Show them what is like to build for the Kingdom of God, to create for the Kingdom of God. To organize for the Kingdom of God. To lead for the Kingdom of God. Whatever kind of work you do, show people what that work looks like when it is done well and done for God and so doing it will subvert works power over yourself and over others.
Work may think it owns you, it may act like it owns you. The world may think that your work owns you, but you can undermine its power over you. Break yourself free from the chains of slavery and the only way you can do that is by turning to Jesus Christ as your soul source of self worth, of security and identity in this world. When you turn to him, as that soul ultimate source of meaning in life, you will find that things like work and money and so on, all comeback to the place they were always meant to hold in your life. Not the center or ultimate place, but on the periphery.
When we work for the Kingdom of God, living in the Kingdom of God, even well for the Kingdom of this world surrounds us, what we are doing is we are showing, to react to some of the things I said yesterday, that work could go wrong. We are showing people that we are not our own saviors but we are saved by God’s grace.
Our self worth and our self identity are not found in our work but they are found in Jesus Christ and that’s where we see ourselves as workers in God’s creation, advancing God’s kingdom and not as the creator ourselves. We see ourselves for who we truly are, we see other for who they truly are. That’s what Paul is telling bond servants and masters to do it in his letter to the Colossians we explored on Tuesday and that is what we can do in our working lives today.
And my challenge for you today is to think what concrete tools can I use to help me do the three things we’ve really talked about this week. What tools can I use in my workplace to keep working. To keep working there I can be a presence for God, I can either challenge it or subvert it or redeem it. What can I do to work well there? How can I show that this is work for God’s kingdom, for the sake of work being good and finally how can I work for God and doing you are going to bring other people along for the ride too. Map that out today. Think of what concrete tools you can use to actually make this happen. To keep working, work for God and work well.
Well have a great time discussing with your group what that looks like to put that into practice. I’ll see you tomorrow as we take time to pray and reflect. Don’t forget to read the Bible in sync as well. Bye for now.
Read the Bible in Sync Today
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Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I'm Ryan, your host of the Daily Challenges. Normally, we follow a weekly rhythm that helps us explore different topic and how following Jesus impacts to that topic. This week is going to be a little different. We're going to be taking an opportunity to just kind of see where we're as a community. Now, you probably know this is a mobile app and website for busy commuters. We're also trying to become a Church community. As we explore what it means to follow Jesus as individual people engaged and in a busy lifestyle. I want to make sure that we're completely disconnected from one another. Even though we're usually quite scattered as a community, we want to take time to gather as well.
As a gathered community, we want to make sure that we're committed to some of the same things in common. That's why through this week, this week alone it's going to be kind of a special week. We're going to be looking at each of the things our community is committed to, one-by-one and seeing how we're doing as a community, by hearing the stories of individuals, who are part of our growing online community or in-person courses, who are seeing their lives changed. We hope they'll inspire you to see some transformation on your own life as well.
Five things that we're committed to as a community; I'll start with being committed to growth in discipleship. We have some common content to learn together. We also want to be committed to God in worship, committed to generosity in our resources, committed to grace in our lifestyles and witness, and finally, committed to groups in community. Well, today is Wednesday. As part of our commitment this week to looking at the five things that the Redeem the Commute community is meant to be committed to as it becomes Redeemer Church, today we're looking at how we want to be committed to God in worship.
When we had a baptism service, about a month ago, we had a number of people come out and experienced the Redeem the Commute community for the first time in-person. One of those people came to the service, heard some inspiring music, heard me speaking on grace and baptism, and afterwards, came right up to me and said, "Wow, why don't we do this all the time?" That was really encouraging to hear. I'm quite ready for it, but the fact that somebody wants that is a really good sign that we're on the right track as a community.
We're learning what it means to follow Jesus, those who are ready to actually worship Him as Lord and Savior. That's really where we've headed as a community. It's the fullness of Church. Church includes the opportunity to meet regularly to worship God, sing songs, pray together and learn together as one large group community, not just small groups.
When you hear the word "Church," what do you think about it? You probably think of a building, right? Or maybe an institution or denomination or weekly event that people go to. I can't really blame you. That's one way the word can be interpreted in the English language. There is much more to the word "Church" than that. Church community is actually a word from … The word "Church" actually comes from the Greek, "Ekklesia," which means gathering of people called out for a specific purpose.
See, there is a gathered mode. They're gathered community of people. They're also called out for a purpose. They have a job to do out in the world. I think this describes a community of people who are gathered, so they can be scattered. Both modes are important for the Church. I know our mind usually goes to the gathered mode first, but we need to make sure Church communities are effective in the scattered mode as well. That's what we're going to try to be as a Church community. As Redeem the Commute becomes Redeemer Church, we want to make sure that we're effective in scattered mode first, that we're learning to follow Jesus on our own through our website and mobile app that we're praying, that we're gathering together in small group communities.
Then, we're going to start gather together for large public worship occasions, starting this fall. At least every month, we're going to start meeting regularly, just to worship God, learn together, pray together, sing songs together. That's going to be the gathered mode of worship for us as a community. We can be effective both in gathered and scattered mode.
Now, to be ready for that kind of ambitious goal of meeting regularly for worship starting this fall, it's going to take an army of volunteers and people who are gifted in various things like music, children's ministry, who are good welcomers, who are good in technology, things like that. It's going to take a number of volunteers. To be honest, we haven't met enough yet. If you're one of those quiet people watching Redeem the Commute's content, you haven't reached out yet to let me know that you're part of our community that you'd want to come in-person to worship with us, and you have those kinds of gifts that I'd love to hear from you.
Like I said, we need those who are gifted in music, those who are gifted with technology, those who are gifted in welcoming and serving others, making a good cup of coffee, maybe, and those who can simply let us know they're going to be part of this community as it starts to meet together regularly for worship. We need to know that you're committed to being a part of this before we take the huge risk of actually going ahead and launching a regular worship services.
This is a very strange way to start a Church. Normally Churches start gathered, start just having services and then eventually you try to get people to be followers of Jesus for the rest of the week. We've gone about the opposite way. We started by paying attention to Monday to Friday and Saturday, and now, we're going to add Sunday to our routine. We need your help to do that. I'd love to hear from you. That's why your challenge today is to fill in our worship survey. You'll find a link to it right at the bottom of today's content. Let us know. Leave your email address, please, so we can get in touch if you'd like to be involved, or just let us know what kind of worship experience is going to best help you worship God as part of this community.
That's your challenge for today to complete that survey, maybe talk with your group first if you're meeting regularly with a group, talk over what kind of worship experience would be best for you. It makes sense for you to how children in worship with adults or to have children's ministry as a separate occasion from adult worship. How long would the speaking be? Where it would be held, in a Church building with a steeple or in public space? Those are the kinds of questions we have on our worship survey.
