I wrote yesterday about sharing with the folks at our church Sunday about the importance of work.

• You serve God by your work. Your work is a continuation of God’s work in the world.
• You serve people at your work: your clients and co-workers
• If you do #1 and #2 well, you can advance the Kingdom from your work.

Then I flipped the script and suggested that in addition to “taking our faith to work,” we ought to “bring work to our faith.” Our church is experiencing loss because our pastor is being treated for advanced cancer. I told the folks:

Coming here used to be routine. We come, Pastor Dave is here to challenge and encourage us, and, as only he can, love on us, and now he’s not here. Our faith requires a little more work these days. – Bob, in a sermon, September 3, 2023

I reminded us that life has always been tough and believing in Jesus doesn’t change that. Paul finished his letter to the Ephesians with these words:

God is strong, and he wants you strong…This is no afternoon athletic contest that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels. Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. (Ephesians 6.10 – 13, MSG)

I then suggested a few folks who brought work to their faith:

• The Apostle Paul: commitment

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.12 – 14, ESV, emphasis mine)

• Epaphroditus: service

I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. (Philippians 2.25 – 30, ESV)

• Epaphras: prayer

Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis. (Colossians 4.12, 13, ESV, emphasis mine)

You can listen to the sermon at mcpcusa.org. It’s the whole service: the sermon itself runs from about the 19-minute mark to the 41-minute mark.