Balancing Work, Faith, and Family Commitments

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I do start with the assumption that, except for rare seasons, he really should prioritize daily communion with God in the word and prayer, as well as leading his family in daily focused attention to God's word and in family prayer, and in seeing to it that they are serious participants in their local church. [00:02:06]

When we work for man, we really do add value to man's business or project or ministry. He is the lesser. If we do shoddy work or no work, he is dependent on us or somebody doing what we do to have something he would not otherwise have. Working for God is never like that. [00:04:30]

We don't add anything to God. He is not dependent on us. He can raise up from stones anything or anybody he wants. Second, when we work for man, we really do earn just payment. Our employer owes us wages. Our work for him puts him in our debt. He commits a crime if he doesn't pay us. [00:04:52]

That's never, never the case with God. We never put God in our debt. He never owes us anything. Third, when we work for man, we rely upon ourselves, not on our boss, for the capacity to do what he hired us to do. That's never the case with God. [00:05:35]

We always are dependent on God for life and breath and mind and heart and emotions and intellect and energy and willpower to do what we're called to do. Now the basis for those three distinctions between working for man and working for God is Romans 11:35-36. [00:05:56]

By the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, and I don't doubt that Steve could say something like that probably. I worked harder than any of them, and then Paul adds, and Steve should add, and we should all add. [00:06:55]

Though it was not I, but the grace of God that was with me. We do work hard. It's right to work hard as Christians, and when we work for God, the way we ought to realize that is that we are the receivers. When we work for God, we are the ones being blessed. [00:07:21]

God is not being enriched by our work for him. We are. We are not earning anything. If we gain an inheritance through our work, which we do, it's all of grace, and in the process, we rely on the supply of God's sustaining grace at every moment. [00:07:46]

God can do more in us and through us in five seconds than we can do in five hours without his help. Five seconds, yes, he can. Or same principle, God can do more in us in five hours than we can do in five days. Here's one way I've experienced this. [00:09:40]

God can feed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish of my time and energy. God can make a hundred-year-old man and a barren woman have a baby because the angel says, is anything too hard for God? Jesus said to his disciples, with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. [00:10:54]

In other words, Steve, I'm suggesting that you might experiment with giving yourself to prayer and to your family in a way that you feel is biblically appropriate, and then asking for God to create out of nothing what you thought had to be given up at work. [00:12:54]

Thank you for joining us today. You can ask a question of your own, search our growing archive, or subscribe to the podcast. You can do all of that at desiringgod.org forward slash ask pastor john. Well, we are going to begin next week asking whether or not we should encourage non-Christians to pray for faith. [00:13:19]

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