So we've been going through this series, as you know, in looking at faith and work.
And we're in number five of six.
So next week is the finale.
But if you were to draw in a pie chart, okay, some of you who deal with pie charts can do this easier than others,
your life, and what took up not just the most of your time, but also your mental energy, your emotional energy, your physical energy,
how big a slice of that pie would be your work?
And remember, we've said work is anything that is not leisure.
How big a slice of that pie would be your work?
Because if you're like me, and if you're actually like what the majority of Hong Kong people seem to be like,
given that the number of working hours that we have in Hong Kong is the longest in the world,
and given that all of the recent debates about lowering the working hours,
have you been seeing some of the debates about trying to lower the working hours because people are so stressed,
and there's so much anxiety, and it's impacting so many families,
and all of this stuff that's going on,
then as a church we need to be thinking about,
and as individuals we need to be thinking about,
what is it that actually drives us to work the way we work?
Because even secular people are calling,
I read an article which said,
work is the new idolatry.
This was not a Christian article.
Work is idolatry.
And it's fascinating because we all kind of,
when I talk to people,
everybody knows they're working like too much.
Everybody knows there's a problem in Hong Kong, right?
But we don't seem to be able to do anything about it
because we keep continuing on the same treadmill.
We keep doing what we have always been doing, right?
And today, we're going to kind of look a little bit at what truly drives us to work.
We're going to be looking at the idols and how we make work too much.
We make it, it's a good thing, but we make it a God thing.
We make it so much bigger than what it should be in the way that God has set it up.
So by way of a little bit of a recap from where we've gone so far,
it's Iraq, somewhere before 2000 BC.
And men and women are fighting for survival in a restless, tough land.
Their mission had been to take over territory throughout the world,
working hard to fill it with beauty, with culture, with technology,
with communities which reflected the honor and the glory and the beauty
of their commander, God.
They were to worship him with their work
and to serve others through their work.
Remember, we've looked at that.
Work was good, but in an act of complete insanity,
they rebelled against their commander.
They went out by themselves into the world
without any assurance of his presence,
without his know-how, without his protection,
and they moved eastwards.
And they deliberately sought to avoid his detection.
Deliberately sought to avoid him.
And as a result of their rebellion, work had become tough.
Thorns and thistles had come up.
Remember, we talked about that a couple of weeks ago.
And what Bernard began to talk about last week was,
work was no longer kind of just black and white.
There was a grayness to it.
And in this gray of life,
God eventually raised up a group of people called the Israelites
who were called to be distinctive.
They were called to kind of go back to the original plan.
But instead, what had happened,
the land that they had been put in,
they were thrown out of.
They became exiles in another land called Babylon.
And it wasn't kind of obvious
how they were supposed to kind of act as God's people.
And so they had to navigate the challenges
and the difficulties that they faced every day
with reliance on their commander, God.
Now, we're going to go back in the story today.
We're going to go back about 1,500, 2,000 years
to that same place in Iraq where Babylon was.
We're going to go back before it became Babylon.
And we're going to go back to a time
where this group of original people,
they grouped together,
and they settled down on a plane
and they started the first startup.
Okay?
They invented a new technology.
It's kind of,
this was going to revolutionize the construction industry.
It was called the brick.
Okay?
They might even have called it the i-brick
or something in those days.
But they created the heat-fired brick
which set them light years ahead
of all the surrounding countries.
Stone was just so last millennium.
They were the brick guys.
And with this new technology,
there came new ambitions,
new opportunities,
new ventures.
And so they came up with a great business plan.
Let's build a city
with walls which is so strong
they can withstand invaders
and a tower so tall
that tourists will come and marvel at it
and marvel at their ingenuity
and how great
that even the gods of the heavens
would look at them and say,
wow,
these humans,
you know,
they're pretty cool.
And the interesting thing
in this story today
that we're looking at
is, well,
God certainly sits up
and takes notice of them.
And he notices a couple of things.
If you look in the verse,
it says,
verse 5,
and the Lord came down
to see the city
and the tower.
And then afterwards,
he then disperses them
throughout the land.
Two things that he does.
First thing,
he notices how puny
their little tower is
because it doesn't even reach up
to his window.
You know,
he's got to take a kind of heavenly lift
and he's got to come
all the way down
to go and see
this great thing
that they've built.
The second thing
that he notices
is that the plans
of their hearts
are such that
in their rebellion,
their desire
to just keep
making themselves great,
keep making themselves
look good
all the time
will only escalate
if he allows them
to continue
to work together.
So,
in verse 6,
he basically says,
okay,
these guys,
this is only the beginning
of what they're going to do.
Listen,
if this is their business plan now,
just imagine
if they get successful
at this one.
where they're going
to go next.
And so God,
when he sees their ambitions,
he shatters their dreams.
He confuses their language.
It's worse than going
to the tourist information
in a foreign country
where no one speaks English.
And no one can communicate
with each other.
And humans' attempt
at trying to make themselves
as great as they can
ends with God
spreading them
throughout the entire world,
just as he'd actually
asked them to do
right at the beginning.
Okay?
That's the story.
Babel is half built.
God is still God.
Humans look
little puny.
Now,
what does this story
that is told
over many,
many years
tell us
about work?
I think it asks us
two questions.
It says,
what are you doing
your work for?
What are you doing
your work for?
And second is,
what will give you
perspective
on how to work?
Okay?
What are you doing
your work for
and what will give you
perspective
on how to work?
So,
what are you doing
your work for?
They say to themselves,
come,
let us build ourselves
a city
and a tower
with its top
in the heavens.
And let us make
a name for ourselves
lest we be scattered
throughout the world.
You see,
on the outside,
the people at Babel,
they,
and what we'll call
them the babes,
okay?
Just for simplicity,
okay?
Because,
you know,
the bablers,
and I know there's
a Babel babble thing,
but it's Babel,
so we'll just stick
with that.
They,
on the outside,
they were simply
building a city
and a tower.
That's okay,
right?
God's not kind of
against towers.
He's not against cities,
okay?
And they're just
doing a job.
They're doing a good job.
They're actually doing
what God kind of
tells them to do,
build culture,
create,
do all these things.
So,
why does God
have a problem?
The problem doesn't
seem to be either
that the fact
that they're ambitious
because you remember
in the story
we looked at
a couple of weeks ago
about Joseph,
Joseph was ambitious.
So,
ambition isn't
the problem here.
The problem
is something else.
God has a problem
because what was
underneath
driving
their work
was something
other
than the worship
of God
and the glory
of his name.
You see,
there's a couple
of things
which drove them.
They were driven
by fear
and pride.
Fear
and pride.
And those
two drivers
were driving
them to work
and they were
driving them
to build
a tower
for themselves
which,
if you look
later in the language
of the Bible,
is called
idolatry.
When you set
something else
up to make
yourself glorious
instead of God.
You see,
what were they
fearing?
Well,
they feared
attack.
They were
vulnerable
because,
you know,
in those days,
cities were
protection.
They were
people around.
They feared
insecurity.
They feared
insignificance
because if you
scatter them
around the world,
they're just
going to be
small.
They're going
to be weak.
They're going
to be vulnerable.
And why
were they
like that?
Because they
come out
of their
relationship
with God
and because
they were
no longer
finding their
security in God.
They were
no longer
finding their
worth and
their significance
and their
security in God
and they were
like a street
kid,
scavenging,
looking through
the rubbish
heap for
anywhere,
anywhere to
find their
sense of
identity and
their worth.
And where
were they
beginning to
look for it?
Their significance
and their value,
they began to
look at it in
their work.
Because when
you have no
assurance that
anybody else is
going to provide
for you,
then you've
got to find
your significance
somewhere else.
for the
babes,
as for most
of us in
Hong Kong,
the rubbish
heap that we
often look to
find those
things that we
crave for
is work.
And that's
when the Bible
says work
becomes an
idol.
You see,
an idol is
a God
substitute,
something you
look to to
provide what
only God can
truly provide.
it's when you
make a good
thing,
like we said,
into a God
thing.
And I think
if I'm honest,
and I think
probably if most
of us are
honest,
the reason we
often turn our
work in Hong Kong
into an idol is
because we also
fear, right?
We fear
insignificance.
We fear
failure.
We fear
financial insecurity.
We fear what
other people are
going to say
about us.
I read an
interesting piece
in the New York
Times.
Donald Trump.
The piece was
about Donald
Trump,
and it said,
I think the
headline was
something like,
What Drives
Donald Trump?
And it said
in the article,
Ultimately,
Mr. Trump
fears more
than anything
else being
ignored,
overlooked,
or irrelevant.
Now,
for all the
different views
on him,
isn't that also
true of most
of us?
Isn't that
true of most
of us?
If you walk
along the
corridor,
don't we
fear like
someone turning
the other
way and
ignoring us?
Don't we
fear never
doing anything
that counts
in our lives?
Don't we
fear that
somehow we
will be
irrelevant,
insignificant?
significant?
I opened up
a kid's book
the other
day,
and I
read through
it,
and I
flicked
through,
and I
got to
the end,
and then I
looked at the
kind of blurb
about the
author,
and you know
what?
Suddenly,
it shocked me.
The author
was 10 years
old,
and then it
had like a
page and a
half of
their resume,
of all the
things that they'd
achieved,
all the accolades
that they'd
got in their
10 years,
and their
resume was
longer than
mine by
about five
times,
and as I
read it,
I suddenly
thought,
what have I
done in my
life?
Am I just
insignificant,
what I've
achieved?
She's 10
years old,
but don't we
just get like
that?
We fear
our lives
don't count,
but the flip
side of fear,
and it works
together,
there is also
pride.
You see,
pride is when
you have nothing
bigger than
yourself to
elevate.
You're the
one you
elevate,
because like
the babes,
you have to
make a name
for yourself.
They had to
get,
because of that
insignificance,
they had to
get recognition
for themselves.
They had to
justify who
they were.
They wanted
success so
everyone around
them could look
at them and
say,
you're cool,
you're good,
you're great,
I want to be
like you.
And to get
the things that
they craved
for,
they turned
to work
to get it.
And those
things,
there's approval,
success,
those are the
idols underneath
our work that
often drive so
much of what we
do.
I don't know,
have you ever
come out of a
meeting,
or even a
situation in
your work,
where everything
just went
perfectly?
You know,
it just,
I mean,
it was a
breeze.
You came out
and you just
knocked it out
of the park.
I mean,
it was amazing.
Like,
in my work,
I had a
situation,
a marriage
counseling
situation.
I went to
meet this
couple,
they're having
all kinds of
problems,
and I was
like,
God,
I just
don't know
what to
do.
It's like,
give me
words,
give me
wisdom.
I was
worried about
what I was
going to
say.
I go into
the situation
and suddenly
everything just
flowed.
Everything clicked
together.
By the end
of it,
they were
just kind
of reconciled
together.
Everyone was
like,
yeah,
we're going
to work
on a marriage.
It was
wonderful.
They texted
me later,
saying thank
you.
That was
so amazing.
And you
know what
was going
on in
my mind?
This kind
of little
live stream
kind of goes
through your
mind.
It goes
something like
this.
Hmm,
I'm pretty
good at
this.
I know
how to
do this.
Yeah.
I just
wish somebody
else would
kind of see
just how well
I'd done
that.
Maybe they
could kind
of soak
up a little
bit of the
wisdom that
I can impart.
And if it
happens again
and again,
whatever in your
industry it works
like,
if you're
successful and
you do it a
few times and
it keeps being
successful,
you begin to
start thinking,
hmm,
I deserve some
credit.
I know how
to do this.
I actually
don't really
need God
in this because
I'm pretty
well able
to do
his job
for him.
Right?
You see,
once you
become
successful,
your identity
becomes resting
in that and
you kind of
don't need
God
because you
think you're
okay by
yourself.
Maybe I
should write
a book and
tell everybody
else how
great they
should do it,
do it my
way.
But whenever
your success
becomes the
place where
your worth
is based,
that becomes
pride.
It's inflated
by pride.
C.S. Lewis has
this great quote,
he says,
pride is
essentially
competitive.
Pride gets no
pleasure out of
having something,
only out of
having more of
it than the
next man.
We say people
are proud of
being rich or
clever or good
looking, but
they're not.
They are
proud of
being richer,
cleverer or
better looking
than others.
Right?
Because when
you're successful
then what
happens, you
just compare
to everybody
else.
And you
either think
that you're
better or
you think
that you
are always
behind and
you've always
got to catch
up.
You know,
go to a
school reunion
or meet
with an
old colleague
and you
will see
how this
works.
Just you
notice your
reaction when
you find out
that somebody
else is doing
better than
you.
Right?
They got a
bigger bonus.
Their grades
were better.
They climbed up
the ladder
quicker than
you.
They are
getting more
recognition in
their field
than you.
How do you
respond?
Oh, praise
God.
I'm so grateful
that you got
that extra
bonus and I
didn't.
you see,
when we
think we
are less,
it raises
those fears
in us that
we're
insignificant,
but it
also causes
us to
start focusing
on ourselves
and think,
how can I
make myself
great?
How can I
make myself
better?
You know,
and in my
pride,
either success
goes to my
head or
success goes
to my heart,
it either
puffs me up
like a
balloon or
it deflates
me to the
point I'm a
popped balloon.
And that's
what it's like.
The babes
wanted their
tower to be
taller,
their city to
be stronger,
to have a
name,
which means a
name greater
than every
other.
But pride
leads to
idolatry and
it's grown in
the garden of
comparison.
And we do
it all the
time.
So what I'd
like you to
do is,
I have a
slide at the
back that I'd
like to
show.
When work
becomes the
place where
you're looking
for your
identity,
through success,
through approval,
for all these
other things,
other things
begin to
suffer.
What I'd like
you to do is
just take a
minute to
have a look.
There are
ten signs if
your work has
become an
idol.
I'd like you
just to look
through these.
I'll move this
out of the way.
And spend a
minute thinking
about, does any
of this apply
to me?
And after a few
seconds, they'll
move on to the
next one.
When in the
last two weeks
has this ever
been true of
me?
I'm
during
10.
Who
else
that céu
are
going to
Hakim?
Have
didn't
that thing
have
ever
become
firm赤
you log
in two
areas
are
Thank you.
Anyone?
Anyone's relevant?
I think I tick half of the boxes myself.
You see, I don't think there's a person in this room, and we could have had, there could have been a hundred more on there.
Okay, I just didn't want to go all day.
Okay.
But work is good.
But so often when we take it away from being what it's meant to be, which is an opportunity to serve and worship God, we make it God itself.
And we make it this God through which we try and find all these other things.
And then it actually ends up crushing us.
You see, what happens in the Babel story is God comes down, and their ambitions, he wipes their ambitions out.
And I don't know if you've had that in your life, when sometimes you've had a dream, an ambition, something you were chasing after, and God has just kind of, it just seems to be shattered.
If God would have scattered your work right now, if your career was to go up in the air, if your reputation was to go in tatters and you go in in the morning to work and no one wanted to talk to you,
if your workplace was to go up in the air, would you simply go and seek to build another tower, to build another job, to get what you really crave?
Or do you have something more significant, more strong, more foundational, which will last you whether your dreams are fulfilled or not?
Will you turn to find God?
That's the question.
Because here's the thing.
Sometimes God will kill your dreams because he's got an ambition that is greater for you.
Do you know what?
When the people of Babylon, of Babel, the Babes, when they, the tower was scattered, well, initially, the whole of their tower was just about themselves.
Right?
The whole of their world was shrunk down to like a little world of them.
Even though it looked great, it was all about them.
But God had a plan to make their lives global.
That's why he scatters them.
Because he wants to make a bigger impact than just about me.
And when I'm released and freed from work being about me, then I can be free to make work more significant about him and about others.
And the impact is far greater in God's eyes.
That's what do we do work for?
For him or for ourselves?
For getting something out of it.
Secondly, how do I get work in a right balance, in right perspective?
Now, there's a verse in Jeremiah which says,
Do not seek for great things for yourself.
Don't seek them.
Okay?
End of sermon.
Just stop making work an idol.
Get some work-life balance.
Okay?
Have a bit of God and you'll be fine.
Okay?
Is that enough for you to go out tomorrow and suddenly I'm going to work for God?
Well, you may think, okay, yes.
But that's not the gospel.
That's not the gospel.
I was in court yesterday.
Fiona got admitted as a solicitor, as a lawyer.
And it was really fascinating because the judge was telling the junior lawyers who were about to be admitted,
he was telling them,
Stop working such long hours and get some work-life balance.
Okay?
The judge was telling them this.
Okay?
You know, that's quite, I mean, you don't hear that a lot.
I thought, wow, that's quite refreshing.
But the problem is, try it.
If you think work-life balance is going to be your goal, right?
Work-life balance is your goal.
You're going to get so frustrated because different elements of your life are always going to be in competition with each other.
And what will happen is, because there's always this tension in life.
Life isn't this kind of perfect balance.
You know, once you think you've found it, then suddenly your kids get sick.
Or your colleagues are off sick and you've got to then pick up all the work that they had to do.
Or a new project comes in and you're just up to your eyes again.
There's this kind of constant rollercoaster.
New demands, new circumstances.
Work-life balance, if it's your goal, you're always going to end up getting frustrated.
The Bible's solution isn't to kind of try and find this mystical balance that exists somewhere.
The Bible tells you to Sabbath.
And Sabbath means a number of things.
God works on six days and then he rests.
Okay?
We know that.
He ceases from his creative work.
But God actually is working all the time, you know, otherwise the world would collapse.
He sustains everything, through everything.
We're not God.
That's why we Sabbath.
God doesn't actually need to have a rest.
God doesn't need to have a rest.
He rests to show us our utter need for him and for rest.
Now, for some of us here, that's going to mean you actually have to turn off your phone.
You actually have to be physically present with your families.
You actually need to take time to stop and to rest and to Sabbath throughout your week.
I'm guilty of not sometimes, of trying to work through everything and not stopping because
I've just got to get this done.
I've just got to get these things.
One of the first steps for you may be to break an idol, maybe just to actually put some boundaries
to stop and say, I need to Sabbath.
But that's only a first step.
Hebrews 4 says this.
There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has
also rested from his works as God did from his.
If you want to have work in right perspective, the New Testament says, Sabbath and rest doesn't
simply mean taking time off work.
It means taking time off the throne of your life and letting God be the throne of your life
because it says, whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did
from his. That means, what are we working under our work?
What are we actually working for?
We're working for approval.
We're working for success.
We're working to get greatness for ourselves.
But you're not going to replace an idol of work by simply stopping working.
Because what you'll probably do is you'll probably make an idol out of leisure or out of your Pokemon
Go or something like that.
Jesus says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
What's he saying?
Fear always pushes you to faith in something.
Jesus says, let it push you to me.
When you feel afraid of being insignificant, let it push you to me.
Pride always inflates you by being comparing with someone else.
Someone else.
But why don't you let the comparison look upward to someone greater than yourself, which is Jesus?
Jesus.
I remember when I was a kid.
We went to this Christian camp.
And they had this song, which was from Hebrews 11, verse 6.
And it said, without faith, it's impossible to please God.
And they just sang it again and again until I was just kind of completely nuts.
But they missed out the rest of the verse.
Okay?
They missed out the rest of the verse.
The rest of the verse says this.
It says, without faith, it's impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Did you get that?
You must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
That's the basis of faith.
Interesting.
What faith starts with, it doesn't start, it's not some kind of mystical power that you've kind of got to work up in yourself.
Faith that overcomes the fears which drive us is about fixing your eyes on Jesus who says, come to me.
And it says, come every day to me in your work situations and trust me with whatever is going on with you daily.
In fact, your work situations, whatever is causing you to fear right now is an opportunity for you to fix your eyes and turn to him.
Did you get that?
You know, he rewards those who seek him.
You know, why do we not turn to God?
Because we actually don't think that he really is going to give us good things.
We think that in my work he's going to give me what I really want.
That's why we turn to idols.
I don't know if you've read, do you know Jimmy Kimmel?
He's got a show in the States.
And I watched this show where, it was a Christmas show.
And basically the title was, my parents gave me a bad Christmas gift.
Anyone seen that one?
So what he'd done on the show, he basically told all his audience who are parents, go and give the worst gift you can to your kids and film their reaction.
Okay, it's kind of a loving, nice thing to do.
So what he does, so these parents study kind of Christmas stocking.
They get the stocking out.
Kids are excited.
They open it up and it's like a raw potato.
Like another one opens it up and it's a raw, it's like a half-eaten sandwich.
And they're like, but I thought you loved me.
That, I think, is exactly how we view God in our lives.
The reason I go to all of my idols is because I think God's just going to give me a half-eaten sandwich.
I think he's just going to give me a raw potato for things, so I better come and get it myself.
Because I'm not going to get anything good from him.
Jesus, in Romans 8 it says, if Jesus Christ died for us on the cross, if he gave his own life for us,
isn't he, if he's given the biggest, greatest thing that he could possibly give,
don't you think he's actually going to, he's not going to be like stingy thinking, ooh.
I'm not going to help you in your work situation because, you know, you've been a bit bad recently.
He's not like that.
If he knew you at your worst and he died for you right there,
do you not think he's going to give you something so much better than a raw potato?
And in your work situations, day by day by day, it's a constant call.
Am I going to fear and then run to my idol, run to my work,
increasingly work and work and work to just find the success, find the significance,
find the approval, find the things that I want?
Or will I use that as an invitation to turn to my father who will provide everything good that I need,
who says, I exist and I will reward you with good things?
Friday, this week has been a crazy week for me.
Friday, I'm just doing the sermon, just typing it up.
My computer completely dies.
Like, dead.
Although, dead in the kind of way where it kind of, it looks at you long enough and says,
I might work, but don't hold your chances on it, you know.
That kind of way.
So I borrow another laptop.
And I'm finishing off the sermon.
And then I find that it won't print.
And the drivers to my computer are incompatible with this new computer.
So it wouldn't work.
It was later at night.
And the office community center, the printers are not working there.
It was too late to print for anywhere else.
And I'm beginning to think, oh, no, what's going on?
I can't believe it.
What's going to happen?
Am I just going to get up there and look like a prized plum?
You know, what are people going to think?
Am I ever going to get this done?
How is it going to happen?
I don't know where.
I don't know what.
I don't know what's going on.
I can't believe it.
Why did the community center not have the printer working yet?
Is that faith?
Now, what I discovered was after I kind of wallowed in this for a little while,
I then caught myself.
I caught myself and thought, what if God exists?
What if God is actually God, right?
He says he's God.
What if he's in this very moment, God?
That means he's in control of it.
That means he's also the father who says he'll provide everything I need.
That means he's the one who's sovereignly going to work through every single situation
for his glory.
What if he exists?
And what if he also will reward those who seek him?
What if he's the one who provides good things, not bad things?
What if I can trust him in this situation?
Do you know how it changed my perspective?
Suddenly, it was like, okay, I can live with this.
And then I got the idea, my dad has an iPad.
So I have this morning an iPad that I'm doing, not my notes.
You see, God provides.
In amazing ways.
But think about it for you this week.
What are you fearing this week?
What has got you wrapped up so much in your work?
What is running around your mind at night?
What keeps you up at night?
Have you ever considered this is an opportunity for you to run to God who says, come to me.
Come to me.
Start fixing your gaze on him and to trust him.
To not make yourself so pride-filled that I've got to...
Because you see, what I'm doing in those moments, I'm thinking, okay, here's the 15 ways I've got to fix the situation.
Because it all depends on me.
That's pride.
What if my reflex was to say, God, I need you, but I know you're good.
And I know you'll provide.
I trust you.
And however this works out, you're the one.
You're the one who runs through all of this.
To be great in the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, you've got to be small.
Small, that means it's not about me, it's about him.
And when it's about him, you know, the God who was the CEO of everything stepped down to the lowest pay scale and served you on the cross.
So that you might experience the rewards of his grace.
And the blessing of that relationship with him.
So whether you're in a low position, he went lower for you.
So this week, will you trust him?
You don't need work-life balance.
You need God balance.
And that will then help you to actually navigate the priorities, the circumstances that you face every day.
To have a clarity in your mind to trust him.
Let me pray.
Father, so much of life is lived building my own tower.
So much of life is lived making my own dreams.
Thinking that I can be successful.
That I can make a name for myself.
But so often that just leads to pride.
But also to a fear.
Because when my identity is in myself.
And in my accomplishments.
And in what other people think.
And what other people say.
And in my work.
Then so much more rides on it than should be riding on it.
I pray for each one of us.
Those of us who we know that we're just putting so much of our life into our work.
It's not just our bodies.
It's our minds.
It's our souls.
It's our very identity that is wrapped up.
And I pray that you would show us.
You've already given us an identity.
So that when we work.
We don't have to work up an identity.
We have significance in you.
So help us then to just work well.
Work with a desire.
To just serve you and honor you this week.
I know it's tricky.
I know it's challenging.
Please help us.
To see you day by day by day.
In Jesus name.
Amen.