wisdom lit (part 4 - how to be successful at...

WISDOM LIT (Part 4 - How to be Successful at Work)

•Detasseling corn and hoeing beans

The secret to being successful at work is:1. Do the work.2. Do the work when you don’t feel like

doing the work.

The question then becomes: What motives you to do your best work? Just 46% of Americans say their religious beliefs impact their daily work.

•Compartmentalizing our lives show a low view of who Christ is

Copyright © 2014 Thor Ramsey www.canyonlakechurch.org

http://www.canyonlakechurch.org


Colossians 3:2323 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,

•Motivation - what motivates us day in and day out to continue to do good work?

•Work in terms of our dreams

•“Find something you love to do and figure out how to get paid for it.”

Part 1 - DreamsPart 2 - Dreams RealizedPart 3 - Dreams InterruptedPart 4 - Dreams Informed by the Gospel

Part 1 - DreamsProverbs 12:1111 Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.

a) Chase your dreams responsibly. For example, let’s day you want to be a writer...

Proverbs 22:2929 Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.

If you find something you love to do, you have to get good at it.

We often fail to understand how skillfulness develops.

b) If you want to get good at something, you have to put in the time.

•The Malcolm Gladwell examples from Outliers: the Story of Success

•Violins in Berlin

In the early 1990s, a team of psychologists in Berlin, Germany studied violin students. Specifically, they studied their practice habits in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. All of the subjects were asked this question: “Over the course of your entire career, ever since you first picked up the violin, how many hours have you practiced?”

All of the violinists had begun playing at roughly five years of age with similar practice times. However, at age eight, practice times




began to diverge. By age twenty, the elite performers averaged more than 10,000 hours of practice each, while the less able performers had only 4,000 hours of practice.

The elite had more than double the practice hours of the less capable performers.

Natural Talent: Not Important

The psychologists found a direct statistical relationship between hours of practice and achievement. No shortcuts. No naturals.

•The Beetles

In 1960, while they were still an unknown high school rock band, the Beatles went to Hamburg, Germany to play in the local clubs.

By 1962 they were playing eight hours per night, seven nights per week. By 1964, the year they burst on the international scene, the Beatles had played over 1,200 concerts together. By way of comparison, most bands today don’t play 1,200 times in their entire career.

Part 2 - Dreams Realized

Proverbs 12:2424 The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.

How many of you have waited until the last second to do something?

c) Little by little adds up to a lot.

Proverbs 13:44 The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

Proverbs 12:2727 Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth.

Proverbs 10:4-54 A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.5 He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.

Part 3 - Dreams InterruptedProverbs 21:25-2625 The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor.26 All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back.




d) You want comfort more than results.

Proverbs 18:99 Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.

Who wants a doctor who kind of just got by in medical school?

Cutting corners during construction can cause a building to collapse and lead to death.

Proverbs 21:55 The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.

95 percent of the population never achieves financial independence.

If you start saving for retirement at age 25, you only have to save about $4,830 annually to reach $1 million by age 65.

Proverbs 26:13-1613 The sluggard says, “There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!”14 As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed.15 The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.

16 The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.

e) Stop making excuses.

I would venture to say that for most of us the problem with our dreams is that they are too small. We don’t really have kingdom dreams, we have comfort dreams with just enough effort to get by.

This is why the question becomes, “Why am I doing this?” It becomes a question of motivation.

•The accolades fantasy

Part 4 - Dreams Informed by the Gospel1 Thessalonians 4:11-1211 and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, 12 so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

1 Thessalonians 5:1414 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

2 Thessalonians 3:6-15Warning Against Idleness




6 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.

Nothing fuels your dreams like an all-powerful, infinite God who is for you.

7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, 8 nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. 9 It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. 11 For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. 12 Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

The reality is that many of us may never have our dream job. We may just have an ordinary job. But the job is not an end in itself. If you are walking with Christ, then your job can become a means to glorify Christ. Your job can be a ministry environment where your dream is the expansion of the Kingdom of God in this world.

Nothing fuels your dreams like an all-powerful, infinite God who is for you.

Because if don’t view your job in light of the gospel, unhappiness and discontentment will be your lot.

•Dominoes

13 As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. 14 If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. 15 Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

How does the gospel relate to our work?

Christ did the work that we could not do, meaning he obeyed the law perfectly, so that now we can work for Christ without the burden of guilt.

The ethical barrier between us and God has been removed by the cross of Christ.

Now, we are free to work for Christ.

But we do not experience this freedom by trying really hard. We experience this freedom by diligently trusting Christ. The more we see that we can trust Him, the more we will truly love Him. And when we truly love Him we will want to truly work for Him.

How do we grow to trust Him? Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ.




We trust what He says here, then we see if played out in real life. Seeing it played out in real life we then love Him because we see that He truly does love us. Thus, we begin to trust Him more. And in trusting Him more we love Him more and begin to truly live out His desires for our lives.

We begin to want to be engaged in the diligent means that the Lord uses to facilitate this process of change: reading His Word, by being involved in a local church, by trusting His word and obeying His Word in the context of a local body of believers.

We begin putting in the time in all these areas.

We do it little by little.

We begin to see the change.

And seeing some change, we have faith for even greater change.

We begin to believe that He can change the world by using us at an ordinary job around ordinary people.




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