Hello Dear Readers,
It’s great to be writing to you again. As many of you know, I’ve been an intense writing season this month. I’ve turned in my manuscript for “The Light in Our Eyes: Deconstructing Our Way Toward an Evangelical Future”. I’ve also had the opportunity to preach this month at Redeemer Indy on a topic most precious to me: integrating our faith in the workplace.
Thank you so much to everyone who took time to pray for me this month. I was amazed and grateful to hear from so many of you.
Below are the two sermons I preached on integrating our faith and work. In some ways they are the culmination of a couple of years’ work, as they summarize lots of the ways I’ve learned to talk about faith and work through the Redeemer Faith and Work Cohort, a fantastic group of professionals from different industries…who, in many ways, helped me write that first sermon (as you’ll see!).
There’s a visual component to the second sermon, so I’ve included a video as well. It’s not mandatory, but I think it adds to things.
Work as Blessing - What are we talking about, when we talk about work? That might feel obvious to you, but when we take time to think about the answer, it really is quite profound. God invites us into his work of creation and providence through his work through four “streams”, which I outline in this sermon.
Here’s the video version of this first sermon, starting at 56:05
Work as Curse - If work is a radical act of dignity, honor, and sharing in God’s authority…why does it so often feel painful and fruitless? What should we expect from our work? I was somewhat surprised to find that though many people resonated with the practicality of the first sermon, the response to this second sermon was very resonant for folks. I honestly didn’t expect as much, downer of a sermon that it is (not really, but it feels that way for most of it!).
Here’s the video version of this second sermon, starting at 41:20
Thanks once again for your prayers and support. Very grateful for this community, and I do hope my writing this month becomes a blessing to you!
I just watched the second sermon. One of the best messages I’ve ever heard. God will make everything beautiful His / it’s time.
On the mystery of your single day as a hockey superstar, there are so many possibilities to explain it. Did you know that if a male sees one or more beautiful females just before he is about to perform anything, his performance will be greatly improved? Also, what you had to eat beforehand could have potentially made a significant difference in your performance. Your mom could’ve emptied a pot of coffee into whatever she was cooking for your pregame meal.
I watched only your first sermon so far. When you referred to God‘s creation as being “simple”, I thought, the poor guy has been working too hard and fried his brain. He was searching for another word and couldn’t remember it. That’s the only explanation I could think of for why you would refer to God‘s creation as “simple”.
Then, because you are such an obviously intelligent guy, I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. I thought of a pure blue sky and a green field seen from a distance, as being simple beauty. I also thought of the universe beyond the earth, and how in spite of its vastness, it is incredibly simple in so far as the ingredients that it consists of being so few.
But the creation on earth is mostly about incredible complexity. So I still had a little bit of difficulty fully connecting with your point on simplicity.
Having said all that, I think the most important simple beauty is the gospel message. God made it as simple as it can be. Whereas, all of the larger truth surrounding it can be very complex and mysterious.