Latest / Finding God at Work / Episode 9: Builder

Transcript

Episode 9: Builder · Finding God at Work

• 0:06
  (Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
• 0:07
  This is Finding God at Work.
• 0:14
  In our current series, Imagining Work, we're asking
• 0:16
  the question, what story about work am I
• 0:19
  living in?
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  Because the story we live in is the
• 0:22
  story we live out.
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  And we need help living in the story
• 0:24
  that God is telling on the pages of
• 0:26
  scripture.
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  We need to latch onto the images that
• 0:29
  he's giving us.
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  So we're looking at several key images about
• 0:32
  work.
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  And today's image is builder.
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  What does it mean for us to be
• 0:37
  builders?
• 0:38
  And what does it mean for Jesus to
• 0:40
  be the builder?
• 0:45
  We'll be looking at a key text from
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  Isaiah, Isaiah 58, that talks about the people
• 0:51
  of God being builders.
• 0:53
  But before I get there, I want to
• 0:55
  give an example from my own context.
• 0:58
  So I live in the city of Aurora,
• 0:59
  Illinois, and there's this old hospital called the
• 1:02
  Old Copley Hospital that's been in disrepair for
• 1:05
  about 30 years.
• 1:07
  And it got to the point where it
• 1:08
  was full of black mold and asbestos and
• 1:11
  lead.
• 1:12
  And some of the floors had completely rotted
• 1:14
  away.
• 1:15
  There were these local teenagers that would, you
• 1:17
  know, dare each other to go in and
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  vandalize the place because it was supposedly haunted.
• 1:21
  It was just an eyesore and actually a
• 1:23
  danger to the community because of the way
• 1:25
  that it was falling into disrepair.
• 1:27
  And so thankfully, a team came in with
• 1:31
  a new plan for this property to restore
• 1:34
  it to do restoration work.
• 1:37
  And now it's going to be a senior
• 1:38
  housing development with some educational spaces and some
• 1:41
  office spaces and some apartments for community with
• 1:44
  adults who have developmental differences and needs along
• 1:47
  those lines.
• 1:48
  And this project is already underway.
• 1:50
  When I drive past the property, looks like
• 1:51
  some of the offices are already open.
• 1:53
  They already have new signs up.
• 1:54
  But there's still also the construction fences and
• 1:56
  tarps.
• 1:57
  So the construction and renewal work is ongoing.
• 2:00
  But you can see it's really happening.
• 2:01
  A change is taking place there to make
• 2:04
  this thing that was dark and dangerous and
• 2:06
  abandoned something beautiful where there's life and where
• 2:09
  people can live and work and thrive.
• 2:11
  And it's so exciting.
• 2:12
  I'm just seeing it happen in my own
• 2:14
  backyard.
• 2:16
  So that's an image to kind of keep
• 2:17
  in mind as we listen to this text
• 2:19
  from Isaiah chapter 58.
• 2:22
  So let me just read verse 12.
• 2:24
  It says, your people will rebuild the ancient
• 2:26
  ruins and will raise up the age-old
• 2:29
  foundations.
• 2:30
  You will be called repairer of broken walls,
• 2:33
  restorer of streets with dwellings.
• 2:36
  It's a powerful image of the people of
• 2:38
  God as restoration workers, people that go to
• 2:41
  somewhere where there's a broken wall and repair
• 2:44
  it.
• 2:44
  People who go to somewhere where there's a
• 2:45
  street with no home and build a home
• 2:48
  there.
• 2:49
  So the question is, what is it that
• 2:51
  the people of God do?
• 2:52
  That gives them this title of repairer of
• 2:55
  broken walls and restorer of streets with dwellings.
• 2:58
  Well, if you back up a little bit
• 2:59
  to verses nine and ten, it gives us
• 3:02
  the if.
• 3:03
  If you do this, then you'll be that
• 3:04
  kind of restoration worker.
• 3:06
  So verse nine says, if you do away
• 3:09
  with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing
• 3:11
  finger and malicious talk, and if you spend
• 3:13
  yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy
• 3:16
  the needs of the oppressed, then your light
• 3:18
  will rise in the darkness and your night
• 3:21
  will be calm.
• 3:22
  Like the noon day.
• 3:24
  So you see here, it's talking about something
• 3:26
  that's happening in the broader community, in the
• 3:28
  city of God's people, that there's been oppression.
• 3:31
  There's been malicious talk.
• 3:33
  There's been people going hungry.
• 3:34
  There's been people who are oppressed.
• 3:36
  And God is saying, what I care about
• 3:38
  is that you address those things.
• 3:41
  If you actively work for the welfare of
• 3:43
  the whole community in general and the vulnerable
• 3:46
  in particular, then your light will rise in
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  the darkness.
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  Then your night will become like the noon
• 3:52
  day.
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  Then you will be the repairers, the restoration
• 3:56
  workers.
• 3:58
  And so we have this calling as the
• 4:00
  people of God from this passage to think
• 4:02
  about our whole community, to think about the
• 4:05
  city that we dwell in and or the
• 4:07
  community that we dwell in as a place
• 4:10
  where we need to think about what's going
• 4:12
  on here.
• 4:13
  Are there people who are oppressed?
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  What's going on here?
• 4:15
  Are there people who are in hunger?
• 4:17
  What's going on here?
• 4:18
  Are there is there malicious talk?
• 4:20
  Is there a way that people are affected
• 4:21
  by deceit or by darkness in different ways?
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  And what can we do to actively work
• 4:26
  for the welfare of this community?
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  Now, there's a phrase for all this, which
• 4:32
  is the common good is kind of a
• 4:35
  philosophical phrase or a political science phrase that
• 4:37
  people will use to talk about the good
• 4:40
  stuff that we all have in common, right?
• 4:42
  Common, good.
• 4:43
  And so that's what we want to work
• 4:45
  towards as disciples of Jesus, as Christians, in
• 4:47
  light of texts like this one from Isaiah
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  58, we have a common good calling.
• 4:53
  Now, when we think about what does that
• 4:54
  mean in practical terms, because this is a
• 4:56
  podcast about work, you might be like, okay,
• 4:58
  how does that relate to my everyday job?
• 5:00
  This goes beyond the work that you do
• 5:02
  at your job or in your home, right?
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  This includes things that are above and beyond
• 5:06
  that, like giving towards organizations that serve those
• 5:10
  who are vulnerable or participating in those organizations
• 5:12
  as volunteers, doing things in your own neighborly
• 5:16
  relationships with people who live on the same
• 5:18
  block as you or on a different block
• 5:20
  than you that's in your same broader community.
• 5:23
  So this is more than our work, but
• 5:26
  it's not less than our work, because one
• 5:29
  of the most powerful ways that we can
• 5:31
  contribute to the common good is by participating
• 5:34
  in the economy, participating in the world of
• 5:37
  work.
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  Jobs are essential to everything that we just
• 5:41
  talked about, people flourishing, people being able to
• 5:44
  live well, people being able to have food
• 5:47
  on the table for them and their families.
• 5:49
  Work contributes to all that.
• 5:51
  Just think about the old Copley Hospital restoration.
• 5:54
  That whole project takes construction workers and architects
• 5:57
  and designers and planners and city government officials
• 6:01
  doing their job to make sure that the
• 6:03
  zoning requirements can be met and a whole
• 6:06
  host of other jobs that are related to
• 6:08
  how the property will be used.
• 6:10
  So that common good reality that's taking place
• 6:13
  in the city where I live is full
• 6:16
  of people just doing their job and hopefully
• 6:19
  doing their job well.
• 6:20
  And I'm sure in our community that many
• 6:22
  of those people are Christians doing their job
• 6:24
  well, living out their common good calling as
• 6:27
  they do their work.
• 6:29
  So when we think about what it means
• 6:30
  for us to be builders or restoration workers
• 6:33
  in the kingdom of God, we can ask
• 6:35
  the question, how does my job, how does
• 6:38
  my everyday work build up my community?
• 6:43
  Okay.
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  Now, depending on your job, you might immediately
• 6:45
  have an answer to that question, or it
• 6:47
  might be a bit of a head scratcher,
• 6:48
  right?
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  There can sometimes be attention.
• 6:50
  You might be like, well, my, my job
• 6:52
  isn't even in my community.
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  If you're, if you work remotely or you
• 6:55
  commute a long ways to a job, you
• 6:57
  might think like, well, my, my job kind
• 6:59
  of indirectly serves my community.
• 7:00
  Maybe like I'm a software developer and I'm
• 7:03
  sure there's some business or some person who
• 7:05
  lives near me who uses the software that
• 7:06
  I design, but a lot of people who
• 7:09
  are in other places use that software too.
• 7:11
  So it's not always like an easy one
• 7:13
  for one answer of like, how does your
• 7:15
  work serve your community?
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  Uh, and, and we just, we need to
• 7:18
  acknowledge that tension and not exaggerate or oversimplify.
• 7:22
  We live in a complicated post-industrial economy
• 7:25
  where not everybody's doing something in their local
• 7:28
  village, so to speak.
• 7:29
  At the same time, we don't want to
• 7:31
  sell short the way that our work can
• 7:34
  contribute to the common good, including the common
• 7:37
  good in our own backyard.
• 7:39
  So I want to give an example of
• 7:40
  this from my own life.
• 7:42
  Um, currently I work at a food bank.
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  This is one of those obvious one-to
• 7:46
  -one things.
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  It's like, I go to work, I do
• 7:48
  my job and it helps my neighbors next
• 7:50
  door to me have food at the local
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  food pantry, but literally, so that's easy one
• 7:54
  -to-one.
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  But I used to work at a mortgage
• 7:56
  company and that was more complex.
• 7:59
  Um, sometimes I joke that, you know, I've
• 8:00
  been in banking for several years.
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  First I did mortgage banking and then I
• 8:03
  just switched to food banking.
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  Um, but when I, when I was in
• 8:05
  mortgage banking, it felt much more indirect in
• 8:09
  terms of how we were serving the community.
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  There were some aspects of what we did
• 8:12
  that really served our community in some really
• 8:15
  profound ways, but there were other aspects of
• 8:17
  what we did that felt like it was
• 8:19
  really just about helping people who already had
• 8:21
  homes, get bigger homes or nicer homes.
• 8:24
  So there was a tension.
• 8:26
  So for example, um, first time homeowners, when
• 8:29
  somebody becomes a homeowner and they're the first
• 8:31
  in their family, first generation to become a
• 8:34
  homeowner that can contribute to the common good,
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  uh, beyond their family and including their family
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  in several significant ways.
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  One is that, uh, owning a home builds
• 8:44
  equity and so it can help build wealth
• 8:45
  and break a cycle of poverty.
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  Uh, owning a home creates stability.
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  So that's good if there's kids in the
• 8:51
  family for the kids to have education in
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  the, in the same system or the same
• 8:54
  set of schools over time, rather than the
• 8:57
  instability of moving around all the time.
• 8:59
  Studies show that as the percentage of homeownership
• 9:02
  increases in a community, the percentage of crime
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  decreases, even if it was people, the same
• 9:06
  people.
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  So there's studies even about rental properties that
• 9:09
  were then kind of converted into home-owned
• 9:11
  properties, same residents, crime still went down.
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  Uh, and so you can find ways, uh,
• 9:17
  to help people who are in a community
• 9:19
  still stay in that community.
• 9:21
  And yet as home ownership increases, uh, there
• 9:23
  there's all these different benefits.
• 9:25
  So when I think about all that, and
• 9:27
  then I think about working at a mortgage
• 9:28
  company, well, yeah, when, when our loan officers
• 9:31
  helped a first generation homeowner buy that home,
• 9:35
  those loan officers were doing their work well
• 9:37
  in a way that helped facilitate something incredible
• 9:40
  for the common good.
• 9:42
  But then at the same time, sometimes there
• 9:44
  would be, you know, a millionaire who already
• 9:45
  owned two homes and they'd come to one
• 9:47
  of our loan officers and be like, Hey,
• 9:49
  you know, I think, I think I need
• 9:50
  a third home.
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  And, uh, you know, it's probably going to
• 9:52
  cost a couple of million bucks, but I
• 9:53
  got a couple of million bucks.
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  Loan officers would be really excited about the
• 9:57
  commission.
• 9:57
  They would get on a deal like that.
• 9:58
  So they also serve that kind of client,
• 10:01
  but that doesn't really serve the common good
• 10:03
  in the same way, right?
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  You might say, Oh, it's still part of
• 10:05
  the economy, but there can actually be detrimental
• 10:08
  effects of, of those kinds of like multiple
• 10:10
  homes, uh, kind of affecting the market.
• 10:13
  Uh, there's a shortage of affordable housing and
• 10:15
  sometimes there's a shortage of affordable housing because
• 10:18
  of the way that, uh, there's demand for
• 10:21
  luxury housing that isn't really needed, so to
• 10:23
  speak.
• 10:24
  So somebody might tear down an affordable rental
• 10:27
  complex and then build luxury condos and maybe
• 10:30
  one of those luxury condos is being bought
• 10:31
  by somebody who already owns another home just
• 10:34
  cause they want to have a spot in
• 10:35
  that city near the train tracks or whatever.
• 10:37
  And so you can see how, Oh man,
• 10:40
  at this mortgage company, we did some things
• 10:42
  that could really contribute to common good, maybe
• 10:43
  some things that were detrimental for the common
• 10:45
  good.
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  There was attention there.
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  And so, so we don't want to exaggerate
• 10:50
  the way that our work contributes to the
• 10:51
  common good.
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  Many of us will be stuck in roles
• 10:54
  or companies or organizations where the nature of
• 10:57
  our job is that we're just doing what
• 10:59
  we're given to do.
• 11:00
  And we can't necessarily affect the final outcomes
• 11:03
  of, of how it works out in the
• 11:04
  community in those ways.
• 11:07
  And so we, we need grace.
• 11:09
  We need the sense that God is at
• 11:11
  work, even in the messy, complicated situations that
• 11:14
  we're in.
• 11:15
  At the same time, we can take this
• 11:17
  as a challenge.
• 11:18
  We can take this as a challenge to
• 11:20
  ask the question, how does my work build
• 11:22
  up the community?
• 11:23
  And in as much as I do have
• 11:25
  a say about my work, in as much
• 11:27
  as I do see the patterns and my
• 11:28
  work can affect them and I can affect
• 11:30
  them in the way that I do my
• 11:31
  work, how can I pursue the common good?
• 11:35
  Pastor Tom Nelson has a book about work
• 11:37
  called Work Matters.
• 11:38
  And he talks about having a common good
• 11:41
  bottom line.
• 11:41
  We often think of a company, a for
• 11:43
  -profit company having a profit bottom line, how
• 11:46
  much money did we make?
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  But he says we also need a common
• 11:49
  good bottom line.
• 11:50
  Our definition of success at work needs to
• 11:52
  include the question, how did our work impact
• 11:55
  the community?
• 11:56
  How did our work contribute or not contribute
• 11:58
  to the common good?
• 12:00
  And so we can each individually be asking
• 12:02
  that question about our job and asking for
• 12:04
  God's grace to help us lean into that
• 12:06
  as we have opportunity, even if the opportunity
• 12:09
  is sometimes limited.
• 12:11
  The second implication here, besides us asking that
• 12:14
  about our current job, is asking that whenever
• 12:17
  we might change jobs.
• 12:19
  So we might consider a job change because
• 12:21
  of some problem in our current job, or
• 12:23
  we lose a job, or we might just
• 12:25
  have a sense of maybe God's calling me
• 12:26
  to something different.
• 12:28
  And Pastor Timothy Keller, whose work we've looked
• 12:30
  at before, he's helpful on this point too.
• 12:33
  And he also encourages us to think about
• 12:35
  the common good when we're making a choice
• 12:37
  of job.
• 12:38
  This is, again, a way for us to
• 12:39
  think about what does it mean for me
• 12:41
  to be a builder, for me to be
• 12:43
  a repairer of broken walls, a restorer of
• 12:45
  streets to dwell in, what could that look
• 12:48
  like in the kingdom of God when I'm
• 12:49
  picking a job?
• 12:51
  So, Keller writes this, many young people see
• 12:54
  the process of career selection more as the
• 12:57
  choice of an identity marker than a consideration
• 12:59
  of gifting and passions to contribute to the
• 13:01
  world.
• 13:02
  One young man explained, I chose management consulting
• 13:05
  because it is filled with sharp people, the
• 13:06
  kind of people I want to be around.
• 13:09
  Another said, I realized that if I stayed
• 13:10
  in education, I'd be embarrassed when I got
• 13:13
  to my five-year college reunion, so I'm
• 13:15
  going to law school now.
• 13:17
  Where one's identity in prior generations might have
• 13:19
  come from being the son of so-and
• 13:20
  -so, or living in a particular part of
• 13:22
  town, or being a member of a church
• 13:24
  or a club, today, young people are seeking
• 13:26
  to define themselves by the status of their
• 13:28
  work.
• 13:29
  What wisdom then would the Bible give us
• 13:31
  in choosing our work?
• 13:33
  And then Keller gives a few things, and
• 13:34
  then he says this, because the main purpose
• 13:37
  of work is to serve the world, we
• 13:39
  would want to choose work that benefits others.
• 13:42
  We have to ask whether our work or
• 13:44
  organization or industry makes people better or appeals
• 13:47
  to the worst aspects of their characters.
• 13:51
  So this is a question that might be
• 13:54
  challenging to us.
• 13:55
  It might feel risky to even ask, like,
• 13:58
  oh, I'm not just going to choose a
• 13:59
  job based on the paycheck and the benefits
• 14:01
  package and the status that it gives me,
• 14:03
  I have to think about what does my
• 14:04
  job do in the world.
• 14:07
  But it's also a freeing question.
• 14:09
  And it's freeing because it turns out that
• 14:11
  pay and benefits packages, while they're significant up
• 14:14
  to a point, they don't really contribute to
• 14:17
  an ultimate sense of well-being beyond meeting
• 14:20
  our basic needs.
• 14:22
  There's a lot of studies about this that
• 14:23
  show that as people's pay increases, their overall
• 14:26
  sense of satisfaction or well-being in life
• 14:28
  does not necessarily increase along with their income.
• 14:33
  But having a sense of meaning and purpose
• 14:35
  in your work does contribute to a sense
• 14:37
  of meaning and satisfaction on your job and
• 14:40
  in your life in general.
• 14:42
  Now as disciples of Jesus, we don't just
• 14:43
  want to pursue things because of the sense
• 14:45
  of satisfaction they give us, we want to
• 14:46
  be following the voice of Jesus, doing his
• 14:49
  will, doing his work in the world.
• 14:51
  But I think that those studies are showing
• 14:52
  something about the heart that God designed, that
• 14:54
  when we dedicate ourselves to serving others, and
• 14:57
  when we make our work about that in
• 14:59
  as much as we can, that there's some
• 15:01
  sort of payback for that existentially, because that's
• 15:04
  just how God made us to be.
• 15:06
  So the next time you're thinking about a
• 15:08
  job switch, don't just follow the cultural narrative
• 15:10
  of more influence, more power, more money.
• 15:13
  Consider how can I best serve the common
• 15:15
  good?
• 15:16
  How can I be a builder?
• 15:18
  Okay, that's what it means for us to
• 15:21
  be builders.
• 15:22
  But as you've probably felt, even as I'm
• 15:24
  talking, we're not restorers of streets who leave
• 15:30
  a little bit of rubble behind us as
• 15:31
  we go, right?
• 15:33
  We aren't able to repair everything the way
• 15:35
  we wish we could, even if we are
• 15:36
  in a job that serves the common good
• 15:38
  very directly.
• 15:39
  And that much more so for in a
• 15:40
  job where it feels more tenuous or more
• 15:42
  indirect.
• 15:43
  What we need is a builder who's better
• 15:45
  than us.
• 15:47
  And that's what we have in Jesus.
• 15:49
  And of course, this is specific to Jesus's
• 15:51
  own embodied human experience.
• 15:53
  He was a carpenter.
• 15:55
  And sometimes when we hear that word carpenter,
• 15:56
  we imagine like Pinocchio's Geppetto in a workshop
• 15:58
  working with auls and shaving minute things off
• 16:01
  with tiny chisels.
• 16:03
  But the Greek word tecton, which is translated
• 16:05
  carpenter could also be translated builder.
• 16:09
  And it was probably somebody who worked with
• 16:11
  wood and stones and whatever else was needed
• 16:13
  for building and construction projects, more along the
• 16:16
  lines of what we call a carpenter today,
• 16:18
  like someone who's a general contractor or working
• 16:20
  under a general contractor at a construction site.
• 16:23
  And so Jesus probably did, among other things,
• 16:26
  restoration work.
• 16:27
  When he was doing his job as a
• 16:30
  carpenter, if a home needed repaired, you would
• 16:32
  call it tecton, a builder to come repair
• 16:34
  it.
• 16:34
  And those were probably some of the jobs
• 16:36
  that Jesus worked on.
• 16:37
  We don't know the details, but I like
• 16:39
  to imagine Jesus repairing a broken wall there
• 16:42
  in Nazareth or somewhere else.
• 16:45
  And of course, that's what Jesus does in
• 16:46
  us too, because in order for us to
• 16:49
  be this kind of builder that we want
• 16:50
  to be in our jobs, we need some
• 16:52
  internal repairs in our hearts.
• 16:55
  We might need some courage to take a
• 16:56
  job with a lower paycheck or some patience
• 16:59
  to keep going in our work, even though
• 17:00
  the progress seems so tenuous and so partial
• 17:04
  toward the people we're trying to serve.
• 17:07
  Or we might need some faith to trust
• 17:09
  that God will show up in our work
• 17:10
  if we welcome him in this way.
• 17:12
  And if we ask him to show us
• 17:13
  how our work can serve the common good.
• 17:16
  And so Jesus can do that in our
• 17:18
  hearts.
• 17:19
  He can build those things into us and
• 17:21
  he can do the cleanup work too.
• 17:23
  He can take the mold of fear out
• 17:26
  of our hearts and the asbestos of resentment
• 17:29
  and the lead of unbelief.
• 17:31
  And he can do that remediation to get
• 17:33
  rid of all that stuff and put his
• 17:35
  life and his love in its place.
• 17:38
  Jesus is the builder who is doing God's
• 17:41
  restoration work in our hearts.
• 17:43
  And as we welcome that in our lives,
• 17:46
  he can make us builders in the work
• 17:47
  that we do every day.
• 17:52
  Lord Jesus, we want to meet you as
• 17:54
  the builder of our hearts, the restoration worker
• 17:57
  who's making a change where we need it
• 17:59
  most.
• 18:00
  And we want our work to count in
• 18:01
  the world.
• 18:02
  And you know the complexities of our jobs
• 18:04
  and their imperfections, the things that work and
• 18:06
  the things that don't show us how you
• 18:09
  are working in us and show us how
• 18:11
  to do our work with you.
• 18:18
  Thanks for listening.
• 18:19
  Finding God at work is a production of
• 18:21
  Mission Central, a ministry based in Aurora, Illinois,
• 18:24
  dedicated to forming Christians for mission in everyday
• 18:26
  life.
• 18:27
  You can subscribe to the podcast wherever you
• 18:29
  listen to this episode to get 10 minutes
• 18:31
  of teaching on faith and work every Tuesday
• 18:33
  and Thursday.
• 18:34
  To get resources to go deeper with each
• 18:36
  podcast series, read our blog, and get info
• 18:39
  about upcoming courses on faith in the workplace,
• 18:41
  go to our website, missioncentral.church.