Doing Stuff For God

We think we need to do stuff to earn God's approval. We need to do stuff to get his love when we already have it, or we need to do stuff to keep earning our salvation. But the Bible says by grace alone that we are saved, no works save us. We want to be productive, we want to get stuff done. We usually do it for our name, for our glory, for our reputation. Again, that's a perversion of how God designed it to be for his name, for his glory. Sin has changed a lot of our motivations. So it's important to see this tension that exists in all of us in this day and this age. Doing stuff God's way is not trying to earn anything for ourselves or from God. But doing stuff God's way, it's simply our faith in action. Your worth is not changed by how much stuff you do.

As we talk about how we were created to do stuff and there's this tension of sin always pulling us away to do it for our name. But he designed us to do stuff that brings his kingdom here on earth. This is Kingdom language. It's very Old Testament, but it's connected to the concept of ruling and reigning that the Bible talks about in Genesis chapter 1. Prior to that, God said we were made in his image. An image is a reflection of the real thing.

We are made in His image. Whenever we work, whenever we use the life that God has given us, we were meant to do it in God's image for His image, making how he would want the world to look here on Earth. It's how Jesus taught his followers to pray. In Matthew six, he said, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’

When you think of heaven, it's like the Garden of Eden. Heaven is where all things are right again. When the world is right again. When it is whole and complete and God fully dwells with His people. Heaven is the perfect picture of Shalom. Shalom is a Hebrew word, and it means peace. Not just peace as a feeling. Oh, it means so much more than that. It means peace as wholeness as everything being in its right place. That is shalom. And so what does it mean that we are called to bring about his kingdom and bring about heaven on Earth? It means that heaven is not just about some day thing.

It's not just a destination someday. Instead, it's about bringing his kingdom to earth today. It's not just a box you check. When we check the box, then we're done and we're good, right? And that can be an excuse to keep our heads in the sand. We were called to make it a today thing. Then in our little slice of the world, it matters to make things right, to bring about shalom, and to make it on Earth as it is in heaven. When there's a need, we meet it. When there's a wrong, we help right it. Whenever there's brokenness, we bring about healing. Whenever there is enslavement, we bring about freedom. Whenever there's a broken relationship, we help mend it. When there's despair, we give hope. It's making our little slice of the world just a little bit more like heaven.

It's why doing stuff matters. It's not just for the world. It's also for us too. It's the difference between a Sunday morning sermon staying on Sunday and it impacting our Monday. Doing stuff redefines deeper as not just a set of beliefs or more knowledge, but actions that reach out wide. It's not just about our content in, it's about an overflow that leads out. It's not about heaven someday. It's about bringing heaven today. There's freedom there. When our life is integrated like that, we're the same person in and out. It's simply the testimony of a transformed life. It's simply our faith in action.

Embrace the power of meeting a need. What I mean by this is that sometimes I think we can separate a person and we can separate the buckets they have in their life, that there are the spiritual needs and the physical needs and the emotional needs.

If we were to serve other people the way that we would serve Jesus here in the flesh, we would bring a little bit more heaven on Earth. Because God calls us to serve the least of these. He's not talking about the people that you get along with and who are like you. He's talking about the people that need clothing, the people that needed food, and the people that were prisoners. You see, ‘love your neighbor’ in the New Testament really means anyone that's in proximity to you. Jesus was meeting physical needs and meeting emotional needs in connection with the spiritual. He didn't see them as opposites or as competing. And I have to wonder if people are not receptive to their spiritual needs. Is it because there's an emotional or a physical need that's clouding their ability to see that spiritual need?

We're just called to meet needs because Jesus met them to learn relationships. Because Jesus made relationships and not as a trade. Not ‘I'm going to meet this need for you, and then I'm going to open up a tract and share about Jesus.’ Not as a trade, but as trusting the evolution of a relationship. And yes, I pray you get to talk about Jesus, but my goodness, start with where their needs are and see the power of that.

Start where God has planted you. We can look at all the needs in the world. I can look on Instagram and see all the needs in the world, and I can get overwhelmed. Or we can basically stop before we even get started because we can't even imagine the enormity of the need. But what does he tell us to do? He says, Love your neighbor. You see, God so loved the world and you're called to love your neighbor, right? He narrows it down to where you are planted in 2022.

Today I want you to imagine where you are planted in your communities and your schools and your workplaces. What if things looked in their right order? What if people were whole? What if things were in their right place? Would you pray for those spaces and peoples and communities to be in Shalom? Pray for shalom in the spaces you see, the places you are planted.