Surviving the Stresses of Life: Career – Surviving the Rat Race

Career – Surviving the Rat Race

Date September 28,2014
Scripture Matthew 5:16; Ephesians 2:10; Colossians 3:23–24 
from the series Surviving the Stresses of Life

Scripture Reading

Let us rise to our feet and together and read Matthew 5:16; Ephesian 2:10; Colossians 3:23–24 

Matthew 5:16 

 “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and praise your Father in heaven.”

Ephesians 2:10

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Colossians 3:23–24  

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

This is the word of God. 

Thanks be to the LORD. 

May the sweet Holy Spirit add His manifold blessings to our text this morning.... Amen! 

You may be seated in God's Presence. 

Introduction 

As many of you know, I am an avid Reader... One of the reasons I love  books is because whenever I read them I’m instantly transported to a place where life is slower. With the help of those pages I’m able to visit a friendly little community where stress is almost non-existent - where people sit on their front porches after supper and talk for hours; where people watch the sunsets more than they do TV - where no one hurries anywhere and the pace of life is so relaxed and easy that everyone has the time to actually know everyone else.

A couple years ago, while on vacation, Sunita and I visited Shimla, North India. We found it to be just as we pictured Shimla-a quiet place where life is simpler and sweeter. In fact you can’t even hurry to get there because the only route in and out is the Highway and the speed limit is only 35 KMPH!

Now, wouldn’t you love to live in a place like Shimla? Can I see a show of hands? Sure! All of us would! We yearn for a slower pace of life that will allow us to actually “stop and smell the roses,” a place where we can enjoy the lives God has given us instead of rushing through them! And the reason we yearn for this kind of life is because there has never been a more stress-ridden society than ours. We are plagued with what has been called the “hurry-worry syndrome.” 

As Charles Swindoll writes in his book, Stress Fractures,

“Gone are the days of enjoying babbling brooks along winding pathways or taking long strolls near the beach. The relaxed bike ride through the local park has been replaced with the roar of a motorcycle whipping through busy traffic. The easy-come, easy-go lifestyle of the farm has been preempted by a hectic urban family going in six different directions, existing on microwave food, shouting matches, strained relationships, too little sleep and too much television.”

Well, he’s right isn’t he?! For many people these days stress has become a way of life. And the sad truth is all our experience with stress has taught us that not only does it eat away at the joy of life-it eats away at us as well because living with stress hurts us in several ways.

• 12-hour work days steal precious family time damaging or even destroying FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS.
• Stress hurts us PHYSICALLY and can cause everything from panic attacks and heart palpitations to high blood pressure and coronary disease.
• It has even been linked to cancer.
• And-our panicked efforts to complete our endless "to do" lists also can do incredible EMOTIONAL damage.

All our “shoulds” and “oughts” and “musts” hit us like strong gusts of wind, driving our lives onto shallow reefs of frustration-and even despair. Thanks to stress, the suicide rate for Indians under thirty years of age has increased dramatically in the past decade. Every day in Our METROS over seventy people take their lives-that’s more than three each hour, twenty-four hours a day.

Well, because stress CAN be so devastating, dealing with it has become big business. Stores stock everything from anti-stress CDs and herbal remedies and vitamins formulated to countering the damage stress causes to miniature rock sculpture water falls for home or office that keep the calm sound of a babbling brook constantly in our ears. Sales of expensive hot tubs and special motorized chairs that massage the tension out of every muscle in your body are also up.

But the problem is all these gadgets only deal with the SYMPTOMS of stress - not the CAUSE.

And to learn how to counter the root source of stress we need to go back to the Bible-this “instruction manual for life” that God has given us. As I have told you repeatedly over the years, God’s Word is the best place to look for help in dealing with any problem we face in life-including stress-and that’s what I want us to do for the first part of this summer. In fact we’ll FOCUS our study on what the Bible has to say when it comes to dealing with the top four sources of stress in life: money, marriage, parenting, and our subject for this morning: career-that daily rat race we all run in.

This is a good place to start because we spend so much of our lives involved in our careers. Did you know that over the course of an average lifetime, most people spend about 1,50,000 hours on the job? That amounts to 40% to 60% of our waking hours. And that percentage has grown over the years. In 1981 the average Indian spent 40 hours a week at work. In 1991 that amount increased to an average of 46 hours a week. Today, if you’re a professional you work an average of 52 hours a week and if you’re a small business owner or operator you work an average of 57 hours a week. The fact is no matter what your job, you and I will spend more time WORKING, COMMUTING to and from work and THINKING about work than anything else we do in life.

We’ll spend a greater number of hours involved in our CAREERS than we will with our family, or with friends, or in leisure, or in spiritual activities. Whether we like it or not our jobs dominate our lives so we have to learn how to go about them in ways that it don’t cause us stress.

Okay then, how can we survive the rat race? How can we change our attitudes such that we stop spending Monday mornings, mourning Monday? How can we counteract the stress that our careers tend to cause? In his book, Becoming an Authentic Christian, Bill Hybels suggests four things:

(1) Well, first of all we need to be sure we are working at the right JOB.

You see, all satisfied, happy, unstressed workers share one thing in common: They labor in careers day in and day out that are in line with their abilities.

Now, for the Christian the RIGHT job is a job that is consistent with their CALLING. You see as Ephesians 2:10 says, you and I were shaped for a specific task. All of us were custom-designed by God to fulfil a specific calling. J. B. Phillips paraphrases this text like this: “The fact is… what we are we owe to the hand of God upon us. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do those good works which God planned for us to do.” In Psalm 139 David puts it this way: “God…has created our inmost being…” He has carefully and intentionally, “…knit us together in our mother’s womb…”

Well, because this is true our lives tend to be meaningless and stress-filled unless we spend them doing the work that God has designed us to do-the tasks He has CALLED us to.

Now, many people will look at pastors like myself and think things like, “I have a job. But Pastor Lenin-he has a calling.” And people think like this-they embrace this misconception-because in the early years of the church a distinction was made between the sacred and the secular. Pastors and Missionaries were seen as having a SACRED calling from God while everyone else just toiled at worldly, SECULAR jobs. Well, this mind set continues to this day such that we have reserved the word “calling” for pastors and missionaries-or for special people like Billy Graham and Brian J Bailey. We’ve created a sort of artificial hierarchy where only certain jobs are considered “callings.”

But this is not what the Bible teaches. No, as texts like Ephesians 2:10 say, God’s Word tells us plainly that ALL Christians have calling - that God calls people to all kinds of careers such that there IS no distinction between sacred and secular. Being an electrician can be just as much a high and holy calling from God as being a pastor. Stocking the shelves in a grocery store can be just as much a calling as serving in Africa as a missionary. All Christians have a SACRED calling from God that He has designed them for. God calls people to all kinds of career fields-and each of them should be looked on as FULL-TIME ministry! I love what one of the professors at Southern Asia College said when we went up there a few years ago for Tinnu’s orientation. Speaking to an auditorium full of parents he said, “I believe it is my calling to help the young men and women who come to this college to find their calling.”

That really impressed me because that is very much in line with what the Bible teaches. I mean, there is a sense in which all Christians are “REVERENDS.” As someone has said, “You may not wear a collar but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a calling.” You do! And whatever it is-it is just as sacred a job as shepherding a church. But, the truth is, as Christians, each of us is ON A MISSION FROM GOD-a mission we are custom-designed to fulfill. All of us have a CALLING! I wish we could say it as if we believe it!

Now to help you grasp this important point let me list a few of the differences between a CALLING and a CAREER.

John Ortberg reminds us that: A CALLING is something I do FOR God. A CAREER is something which threatens to BECOME my god. A CAREER is something I choose for myself. A CALLING is something I receive. A CAREER is something I DO for myself. A CALLING is something I do for God. A CAREER is about upward mobility. A CALLING generally leads to downward mobility. A CAREER may end with retirement. A CALLING is not over until the day you die. The rewards of a CAREER may be quite visible but they are only temporary. The rewards of a CALLING last for eternity.

In the late 70′s Charles Colson was in the midst of one of the most high-profile careers in America. As chief legal counsel for President Nixon he had access to great power. He had enormous influence and prestige. Then Watergate came and he ended up in prison. At this point in his life he thought his CAREER was over-and in a way he was right. His former career was finished-but his CALLING was just beginning. He would be called to serve men in prison just like himself. He would be CALLED to serve a whole nation through His gifts and brokenness.

Referring to this he writes, “…the real legacy of my life was my biggest failure-that I was an ex-convict. My great humiliation-being sent to prison-was the beginning of God’s great use of my life; He chose the one experience in which I could not glory for His glory.” I’m sure Colson would tell you that his CALLING has been infinitely more rewarding and satisfying than his career. I mean, it is wonderful to know we are working at the job we are designed by God to do! Only then does our labor bring us the satisfaction and joy we long for. Only then does the stress levels of our jobs decrease. As Calvin Miller says, “The man who is ‘job-centered’ has more anxieties about his work than the man who is ‘God-centered.’”

So as Isaiah 55:11 says, “Why labor for that which does not satisfy?” Find and fulfill your calling! In fact, it is wrong not to do so-it is a sin to remain in a position that YOU know is not your calling. Arthur Miller puts it this way, “…it is a form of sin you have never considered-the sin of staying in the wrong Job. God did not place you on this earth to waste away the years in labor that does not employ His design or purpose for your life, no matter how much you get paid for it.”

Okay then-how can we FIND our calling? Well the word “vocation” comes from the Latin word for “voice” and I think that should remind us that to find our CALLING we have to LISTEN to the still, small voice of God. We also need to listen to others by going to friends and family members - especially our parents - and ask their input as to what calling they think best fits you. And then we have to “listen” to our individual gifts and talents. Remember you are custom designed for your calling so whatever it is, it will be something you are good at doing.

Also, a calling is often revealed by it’s enjoyment and sense of reward.. Frederick Buechner wrote that calling is “the place where your deep gladness meet’s the worlds deep need.” He’s right because doing the jobs God designed us for gives our lives a real passion. Miller says that a calling is… “…the lifeblood of a person, the song that her heart longs to sing, the race that his legs were born to run…there’s an electricity associated with gifted-ness.” And, by the way, it is never too late to find your calling. Dear Abby once got a letter from someone who wrote, “Dear Abby, I’m 38 years old. I’m a secretary and I really don’t like my job. I’d love to go back to dental school but it would take 12 years and then I’d be 50. I’m just stuck. What should I do?” Abby wrote back, “How old will you be when you’re 50 if you don’t go back to dental school? Go for it.” And I would agree.

Now, I don’t want you to get the idea that a calling is always fun or pain free. I mean receiving a calling from God is not the same thing as falling into your dream career. As I alluded to a moment ago, a dream career generally promises wealth, power, status, security, and great benefits but a calling is often a different story. Remember, God called Moses and said in essence: “Go to Pharaoh-the most powerful man on earth. Tell him to let his labor force leave without compensation to worship a God he doesn’t believe in. Then convince timid, stiff-necked people to run away into the desert. That’s your calling, Moses.” And Moses said, “Here am I. Send Aaron!”

God called Jonah and said, “Go to Nineveh-the most corrupt and violent city in the world. Tell its inhabitants who don’t know you and won’t acknowledge Me-to repent or die.” And Jonah said, “When’s the next boat leaving in the opposite direction?” God called Jeremiah to preach to people who wouldn’t listen. It was so hard and Jeremiah cried so much that he became known as the Weeping Prophet.

Doing what God calls you to do can be very tough - very painful. In fact God tends to call us to huge tasks that we are inadequate for… but that is where the fulfillment comes because a true calling gives us an opportunity to work day in and day out WITH God. You see natural talent alone is not enough to do your calling. We need ideas, strength, and creativity beyond our own resources to do what God asks of us. In fulfilling a calling then CREATION works with CREATOR!

You know, I’ve known several people in life who were miserable because they had refused to answer God’s call. They chose CAREER instead of CALL. Well, are you one of them? Are you unhappy and stressed at work? It could be due to the fact that you are not doing WORK that God called you to-the work He designed you to do.

Or it could be that you are in the field God has CALLED you to but you don’t look at your job as a calling - You don’t see your labor as the ministry it really is.

2. And this leads to a second thing the Bible teaches about this source of stress. We need to do our jobs for the right REASON…

…which for the Christian is: 

TO PLEASE AND GLORIFY GOD. As 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” When a Christian walks on the job site he or she should be thinking about more than making money, impressing the boss, or even how much he enjoys his work. He should be embracing a mind set in which he constantly strives to honor God through his market place endeavors. As Colossians 3:23-24 says, “Whatever you do work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. IT IS THE LORD CHRIST YOU ARE SERVING.”

You see, wherever we work, whatever our job description, our ultimate boss is Jesus Christ.

He’s the One we need to please. When we think like this, our work becomes a source of worship. Our job site becomes a temple. Each project we undertake - whether it’s defending someone in court or fixing someone’s leaky sink-becomes an offering to God.

You know, the New American Standard translates Ephesians 2:10 like this, “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should WALK in them.” Now, the word “walk” suggests our common everyday experience, not the unusual and heroic. And I point this out because we all have a tendency to rise to the special “heroic” occasions of our lives, but as Jerry Bridges writes, “God has created us to do our good works in the midst of the humdrum of daily living.” And we need to look at the “humdrum” of our jobs-even the little things we have to do day in and day out - as an opportunity to please God. Hudson Taylor, the great 19th century pioneer missionary to China once said, “A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in a little thing is a big thing… [to God].”

And the truth is when we do our jobs for the right reason, whatever we do big or small furthers God’s purposes - His kingdom. And, when we embrace this mind set our work takes on great meaning because we come to see that if we do everything FOR GOD, then we are part of the big picture; we are where the action is… on the front lines, fulfilling God’s purposes in this world!

Christopher Wren, who designed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, once wrote about the reactions of construction workers who were asked what they were doing. Some workers said, “I’m laying brinks.” Others said, “I’m carrying stones.” But one worker, who was mixing cement, seemed cheerful and enthusiastic about his work. When asked what he was doing, he replied, “I’m building a magnificent cathedral.” Remember, if you are doing what God designed you to do, you are building His church. You are part of God’s great plan-drawn up before the dawn of time! And, working for money or power or prestige can’t even touch the deep inner satisfaction that comes from knowing we are doing something that has eternal significance. Working for God’s glory brings praise from Him that satisfies something deep inside, as when a child receives a parent’s compliment on a task well done. So, to beat job stress another thing we must do is work for the right reason-to please our Heavenly Father - our Creator - our Designer!

3. And then a third step to de-stressing our jobs is to do them in the right WAY.

In other words, we enjoy our jobs most when we work hardest-when we constantly strive for excellence in everything we do-big or small! You know, an increasing number of people in our country labor according to this principle: “So much work for so much pay.” And when you boil it down to everyday practice what it really means is something like this: “The LEAST work I can do for the MOST pay.” The basic idea is, “I’m going to do the LEAST that is expected of me, and I’m going to try to get the MOST payment for it.” and that is NOT the way to find satisfaction in your work!

Now, I don’t want to speak too much against unions today. They certainly have had their purposes in our society but while I went to college and was a member of the local union. And as a teamster I saw several examples in which unions went too far. I mean there was almost an unspoken admonition in the plant AGAINST working hard. The emphasis was on doing your job but ONLY your job. Otherwise you would make it look like the laborer next to you wasn’t needed. Once we had to move a pick-up truck owned by the company so that we could unload a tractor trailer and since the keys were in the vehicle one of my co-workers moved it and we finished our unloading ahead of schedule. Well, he was punished for this action. He was docked for a certain amount of pay because moving that truck was someone else’s job. They inferred that by doing his best he was “stealing” income from another person even though his actions saved the company time because it made is possible for us to do our work more quickly. I remember receiving a warning from my union chief because I didn’t always take my breaks. He sternly instructed me to take a break even if I didn't need one.

In short, we were to work… but not too hard. Striving for excellence was simply not part of the game plan. We were only to do the amount of work that it took to get by. In hind sight I see that it is no wonder we never found any pleasure in working in that place for we settled for the mediocre instead of trying to excel. You see, workers who only do enough to get by miss out on the joy of accomplishment. They never feel the PRIDE that comes from knowing they made their mark on this world by doing their best.

To enjoy our jobs we need to obey Ecclesiastes 9:10 where it says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with ALL YOUR MIGHT…” for it is never fulfilling to do something shoddily. We’d enjoy our calling much more if we embraced the work ethic of the Shakers who were apparently called to build some of the world’s best furniture. Here is what they taught their craftsmen: “Make every product better than it’s ever been done before. Make the parts you cannot see as well ast he parts you can see. Use only the best of materials even for the most every day items. Give the same attention to the smallest detail as you do the largest. Design every item you make to last forever.” It has been said that every Shaker chair was made fit for an angel to sit on. They were Christians who loved their work because they did it in the right way!

So-we need to do the right JOB, for the right REASON, in the right WAY.

4. And if we do all this, not only will we be stress free, we will also enjoy the right REWARDS.

And as I have already pointed out one reward is the intensely satisfying feeling of accomplishment that comes from doing the jobs God calls us to - and doing them well.

The late Methodist minister, William L. Stidger tells the true story of the owner of a small drugstore who hated his job. But one day, for some reason, he decided to have fun with his work by striving for excellence in delivery times. In an effort to get the needed medicines to his customers as soon as possible he came up with the following strategy. When a customer who lived nearby would call an order in on the telephone, the man would repeat each item being ordered and his assistant would listen and fill the order as he spoke. With the order filled, the owner would keep the customer on the line while a delivery boy would dash out the front door.

When the delivery boy reached the home of the customer, who was still on the line with the owner of the drugstore, the customer would excuse herself for a minute to answer the door. Coming back to the phone she would express great surprise at the quickness with which the order was delivered. Well, news got around about the drugstore that filled orders so promptly and soon Charles R. Walgreen, founder of the great Walgreen drugstore empire, had more business than he could handle. He found the JOY OF ACCOMPLISHMENT in work he had once despised because he strove to be the best at what he did!

But there are other rewards to doing the right job in the right way for the right reason.

For example - when we team up with God and use the talents and abilities He has given us we develop CONFIDENCE in ourselves and in God. We also grow and mature SPIRITUALLY. I mean, if we stay at our jobs until they are done right even when it is frustrating to do so, we develop PERSEVERANCE. When we resist the temptation to yield to some unethical practice we develop HONESTY. By working alongside of irritating co-workers we learn TOLERANCE and PATIENCE. Our jobs can indeed help us to develop as disciples of Jesus. Bill Hybles writes,

“The marketplace can provide graduate-level instruction in character development that can transform our lives and free us to be the men and women God wants us to be.”

But the best reward of doing the right job in the right way for the right reason is seen in the fact that we are then given an opportunity to SHARE OUR FAITH. I mean hard workers are rare so when people see us giving our all we earn their respect and the right to share our faith in Christ with them. A few years ago Jamie Winship wrote an article in DISCIPLESHIP JOURNAL in which he told of his career as a police officer. Knowing that as a policeman he would often be dealing with people who were faced with extreme crisis, He said that it was his deep desire to share his faith on the job. One of the first fellow workers he talked to about Jesus was his street-hardened sergeant. He said, “I was barely able to tell him I was a Christian before he interrupted and asked what kind of police officer I would be. Startled by this question, I said that I didn’t know yet. ‘Neither do I,’ the sergeant replied. ‘When and if you prove yourself to be a good cop, then you can come talk to me about God.’”

Winship said that at the end of his second year he was named OFFICER OF THE YEAR and at the ceremony he gave credit to the training he had received from superiors. He also explained that he wore his uniform every day in service to Christ. Following the event, that street - hardened sergeant congratulated him and said he was ready to talk about God.

You know the sad truth is we have often been ineffective in our attempts to make an eternal impact because we have neglected two vital elements of honoring God in the marketplace: Either we have been careless workers whose shoddy methods an inferior standards offended coworkers or we have been inconsistent Christians whose behavior was shaped more by marketplace mind-set than the mind of Christ. In either case we’ve forfeited our credibility and turned an opportunity into a closed door. Hybels writes, “Jesus never commanded us to engage in theological debates with strangers, flaunt four-inch crosses and Jesus stickers, or throw out Christian catch phrases. But He did tell us to work and live in such a way that when the Holy Spirit orchestrates opportunities to speak about God, we will have earned the right to do so.”

Christians must obey the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your GOOD WORK and praise your Father in Heaven.” We must do this because our co-workers are the congregation God has given us - those people He has called us to be salt and light… and if we do our work in a Godly fashion, we will get a “pulpit” from which we can share God’s love.

Invitation and Final Challenge

Today some of us may need to respond by saying God, I want to find my calling and fulfill it. Others of us may simply need to commit to be God’s ministers on the job, fulfilling our calling by working in the right way for the right reason. Some of you may feel led to join this church, to help us fulfill our unique work assignment from God by becoming a co-laborer with us in this community. Others may not know God personally and today you feel led to ask Him to be Your Master and Lord. I promise that making this commitment will bring you a level of joy and fulfillment you have never known before-not just in your work hours but every moment of your life. For, you were not only designed for a specific work. You were made to exist in personal relationship with God. We invite you to make any of these decisions public by walking the aisle and sharing them with me as we stand now and sing.

-- 

The Rev. Lenin Kumar
The Potter's Home International Church
The Christian Living

Preparing the Bride...For Christ's Coming!
www.pottershomeinternational.org