Love Mondays | Mike de Vetter | Sunday 19th January

January 20, 2025 00:38:22
Love Mondays | Mike de Vetter | Sunday 19th January
Rediscover Church Exeter | Sunday Messages
Love Mondays | Mike de Vetter | Sunday 19th January

Jan 20 2025 | 00:38:22

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Show Notes

[PART ONE] Mike de Vetter shares the first part of this series exploring how God calls us into His ministry through our "ordinary jobs" or rather "holy callings".

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:03] Well, this morning we're starting a miniseries, three weeks called Love Mondays. I've got a friend back home called Simon Greening. He's a lawyer who had ministered for many, many years in church as a youth pastor, assistant pastor, pastored his own church, but God called him to go into the workforce as a lawyer. He is now working as a lawyer. He's a lay preacher, so they often preach in churches. But he's working for the Lord in this area of his ministry. [00:00:32] So many of us have found ourselves wondering whether the call of our life is actually true and authentic. I think many of us wonder whether what we do truly makes a difference. The whole heart of this series, Love Mondays. And I'm going to be speaking this week. Next week we've got Drew, who's going to be speaking. We can't wait for that. He's going to be speaking on spirit filled ministry. How do we take the spirit of the Lord into our workplace and minister and allow the spirit of God to minister in and through us? The next week we've got Mark Pugh who's going to be speaking again in the series and we're going to be anointing everybody for the work of ministry that they are called to. So every person in the place is going to be anointed for the work of ministry. So I think it's going to be an amazing few weeks just pressing into God's purpose and calling on each of our lives. [00:01:22] So we've called this Love Mondays. Love Mondays. How many people love Mondays? [00:01:28] And the rest of us go, oh, work starts again. So our heart is that you would come out of this series and you would want to get up out of bed on a Monday morning. If that's when your work week starts, if it's a Tuesday, that's fine. But that you would at the start of your week not go, oh no, I've got another 45 years of this thing called work to do. But we would actually wake up with a sense of purpose and calling and an excitement that we are stepping into what God has for us. [00:01:57] We are starting a week of prayer starting tomorrow and we're going to be allowing people to connect through prayer. Obviously, we have our Monday night prayer tomorrow. All ages. We can't wait to pray with all the generations. Tomorrow on Wednesday morning, we're going to have an online prayer from 7 till 7:15. All of this will come out in email and through social media as well. And then on Friday we will have another 7 to 7:15 online prayer. And our heart is to activate each of us in the area of prayer within our workplace. And so I just. I'm hoping that at the end of this week, as we come out of this week of prayer, that each of us will hold a new passion for what we're called to do. [00:02:40] I want to read the passage that has been on us for many, many months now, and certainly something Mark has been carrying. And we heard about it last week and the week before. Ephesians 4:11 through to 13. If you've been in church for the last few weeks and months, this is a passage that will become or has become familiar. It says so Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Let me pray as we look at this passage and others talking about a heart to love Mondays Father, we thank you that Lord, in this room there is no one the same. Each of us have a different calling, personality, gifts, skills, abilities. But Lord, each of us do have the same calling. That is to know you and to make you known. And so, Father, I pray that every heart would hear your heart for them, for their ministry, for their calling on their life, Lord, that we would recognize that each of us a grace to do something specific and intentional to build your kingdom. [00:04:03] Lord, our desire is to see the glory of God revealed within this area, within the southwest and beyond. And so, Father, would we play our part? Would you speak to us in Jesus name? Amen. [00:04:19] Amen. [00:04:21] Let me lay a platform for this message with this thought that we work is God's idea. Work is God's idea. When you look at the Genesis narrative, it begins with God busy at work. Sometimes we think that work is a curse. Sometimes we think that work is something that we have to endure. But we see right from the very beginning that God was at work. Let's read Genesis 2:2. By the seventh day, God had finished the work he had been doing. [00:04:54] So it began. God began the world by working. [00:05:00] So on the seventh day, he rested from all his work. Two very important principles in those verses. God works. [00:05:10] God rests. [00:05:13] Now, if we are made in his image, it's important we understand that we work, but we also rest. I love that the first day, the first moment that Adam and Eve spent with God was on his rest day. [00:05:31] God created mankind and said, it is Very good. Very, very good. Now let's rest. [00:05:38] Didn't send them straight to work. The first interaction with Adam and Eve was out of a place of rest, and that we should be ones that would minister out of a place of rest. Some people wear the badge of honor of, I don't take days off. [00:05:54] I'd say, well, you're a little foolish because you should have a day off. You should have a day of worship, you should have a day of rest. You should have a day where you recuperate and you recover and you gain strength and you find new vision for your life. It's called a Sabbath. How and when you take your Sabbath, Jesus said, it's entirely up to you as long as God is being put first. [00:06:19] Some of us, we work too hard and we don't rest. [00:06:24] Let's see if we can get that balance of work and rest. And then we see that God calls mankind to rest. Genesis 2:15. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it. [00:06:44] That was the purpose of Adam and Eve, to take care of the planet that God had given them, to work it, to take care of it. So we see that the Genesis narrative is God at work, humanity at work. [00:07:02] And we know that it was a part of God's perfect design for humans, because this is before sin came into the garden. So we know there was an issue where sin came into the garden, but it wasn't before work. It was after work had been established as a purpose and a calling for our lives. [00:07:22] What we found out that when sin entered, that the fall meant that there would be difficulty within work, sweat of brow, that we would toil, that there would be thorns. [00:07:35] So, yes, there are elements of work that are hard, but God redeems work. God brings his covering and his blessing and his favor upon the work that we do. [00:07:48] Timothy Keller, in his book Every Good Endeavor, he says the Hebrew word for work is. And I'm not even going to pronounce this right, but it's M, L, K, H. [00:07:58] Kind of looks like milk, but it's not milk. Milcha. The same Hebrew word is used for work, whether the work of human beings or God's work in creation. In Tim Keller, he writes this. It is wholly unexpected that the extraordinary activity involved in creating heaven and earth should be so described. In the beginning, then, God worked. [00:08:22] Work was not a necessary evil that came into the picture or something human beings were created to do. But. But that was beneath God. No, God worked for the sheer Joy of it. [00:08:34] When God works, there is a joy in how he works. Work could not have a more exalted inauguration. [00:08:44] So God loves to work and so should we. [00:08:48] In the year 1505, a 21 year old man was caught in a severe thunderstorm like so extreme that he was wondering whether he would even survive. He prayed a prayer. God, if you can save me, if you can rescue me from the storm, I will serve you for all of my life and I will go in and I'll become a monk and I will serve you. [00:09:13] And that's exactly what God did. And Martin Luther stepped into a new calling and he began to study. [00:09:21] He did his theology and as he went through it, he recognized that there were some issues with the way the church was administering the truth of God's word. [00:09:31] And on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 theses or statements challenges against the way the church was behaving. [00:09:43] The greatest criticism was that people had to get to God through a priest, through a person. But there were two clear things that came out of this Reformation that brought about the Reformation. The church, the Protestant church, which brought out the Pentecostal movement, of which Elam is a part of that two key areas. Martin Luther the revelation was that we are saved by faith alone, not by works. Meaning that I can't do enough to earn God's favor. If I work hard, if I do all of these things, if I tick all of these boxes, God will love me more, he will forgive me. And my works has achieved that salvation. [00:10:26] Martin Luther said, no, that's not right. We are only saved by faith alone. Yes, there is the works and as we're talking about it, that we live and we breathe and we live a life that would bless others and we serve and we love and we lay down our lives, but that won't gain salvation. Faith in God alone and in the death and the resurrection of Jesus. That is where we find salvation alone. The second thing he noticed and he wanted to change and challenge, was that the calling, the vocation, does not exclusively apply to the work of pastors or priests, but to all jobs. And that's the heart of this series, is that we are called to minister wherever we find ourselves. [00:11:14] Luther was the first person to associate the idea of a ministry, vocation or calling with daily work, whether it be working in the fields, working in our homes, or whether we are working within a business. [00:11:26] In today's era, let me remind us again, the majority of occupations hold incredible honor to God and people. I'm not saying Every single occupation. Because there are some jobs that we can get paid for that are not good and godly jobs. But I would say the majority of us would be working in some form of an industry that would give honor to God and would give honor to people. [00:11:51] In our daily work, no matter how important or mundane we think it might be, we love and serve God by loving and serving our neighbor. Now, in the 16th century, these were some of the jobs that were a part of a normal community. A blacksmith, a cabinet maker, candle maker, shoemaker, a cooper, a baker, a printer, which was quite a new occupation. A tailor, a wheelwright. [00:12:19] Now, Luther's radical idea was that these jobs were actually holy, divine callings. [00:12:27] Now, I think many of us, we do understand this, but back then this was quite a revelation. [00:12:35] People thought that only the priests or the ministers could really hear from God, were really doing what they were called to do. [00:12:44] What about us today? What are some of the jobs we have accounts administrators. We have IT consultants. We have customer service reps in a call centre. Plumbers, builders, electricians, accountants, teachers, car mechanics, bus drivers, sales reps, key account managers, CEOs, health consultants, HR consultants, healthcare assistants, computer programmers, homemakers, general managers, nurses, doctors. And there are more. On the count of three, call out the one I missed. One, two, three. [00:13:15] Exactly. That's exactly what I was thinking. [00:13:19] But the nature of work has changed. But the fact that there is no ordinary job but a holy calling, that has not changed. We are called to minister the gospel. I remember asking the church when we first started pastoring, going back about 15 years, I remember asking within the church, I said, how many of you grew up in church through the 80s and the 90s, and you had this impression that the true calling of God was found if you were a pastor or a missionary? [00:13:50] Over half the church responded and put up their hand and said, yeah, that's what we thought was the truth. Following the call of God to be a pastor or a missionary, I said, now how many of you ended up becoming a pastor or a missionary? About three people. [00:14:06] And that bothered me that so many people were probably in their workplace wondering whether or not they were doing what God was calling them to do. Now, I love that it's changed. I really do. I love that. That is not the language. That's not, I hope that's not what you've heard, that what you are doing right now, serving God, serving your community. It is a divine, holy calling that God has called you into. That's worth celebrating, that's worth getting up out of bed. On a Monday morning going, yes, I can't wait to get to work. How many people actually wake up on their first day of the week when they're about to work with that kind of mentality? I mean, there are a few people that are like, super excited. 1. How many actually love getting up and going to work? I love it. My hope is that if we would ask this again in the weeks and the months and the years ahead, that, yes, I love going to work. And here's why. [00:15:05] Because when I go to work, this is what God does in my life and what he does around me. [00:15:12] So I'm going to give you three reasons why we can leap out of bed on a Monday morning with joy. Here's the first reason. All right, let's see whether these hold. Let's see whether this makes a difference, whether somebody tomorrow morning will get up. Woohoo. Oh, pull the hammy. But I'm ready for work. Let's go. Here you go. First one. Our work can reveal the character and nature of God. Our work can reveal the character and nature of God. God created Adam and Eve. He chose Adam and Eve. He gave Adam and Eve a job to do. And God calls us as humans to manage the resource that he's given us. Whether it be financial, whether it be the planet that we're given, the families that we raise, the friendships, the relationships. God wants us to manage and steward those with great care. Human beings, we are God's agent for the work that he wants to do. Through our work, we are called to be stewards, managers of the resource God has given us. Martin Luther once said, we are God's masks. [00:16:18] So when people see me, are they also seeing God? [00:16:25] Are they seeing a glimpse of God and His character and his nature? [00:16:32] We can show kindness, love, goodness, faithfulness by the way that we interact with others. [00:16:38] Luther also said, God doesn't need our good works, but our neighbor does. [00:16:44] God doesn't need that from me. We're not here to prop God up. We're not here to help God out. [00:16:51] But our neighbor needs what we carry. The car mechanic loves his neighbor by doing a great job of repairing a car so that the car will get them safely from A to B. [00:17:05] The credit controller loves her neighbor by ensuring the accounts are paid so that the company doesn't go out of business, resulting in people losing their jobs. The IT consultant loves his neighbor by fixing or putting a program into a computer that will allow a heart monitor to function correctly so that somebody doesn't lose their life in a hospital. [00:17:28] Each of these roles are loving our neighbor. The contractor driver loves his neighbor by working for council, picking up rubbish bins every week to ensure good sanitation in our city. I've traveled in Bangladesh, we are blessed in Exeter. I can tell you that when you walk the streets of Bangladesh and rubbish is piled up, I can tell you that we are blessed because somebody is doing their job for the glory of God. [00:18:00] The manager of a government contract loves her neighbour by managing her team, managing all of the team members to do their best and to flourish within their organization. [00:18:11] You can fill in the blanks. You can think about your job as an electrician or a builder or whatever it is that you are called to do, Whether you are home, raising your family, looking after your children, educating them, teaching them, discipling them, you are making a difference and the call of God is on your life. [00:18:30] And if we love Mondays and we love what we do because we know that we're doing it to love God and love people, people notice. [00:18:38] Here's what I've discovered to be true. When I get squeezed, something comes out. [00:18:45] You're taking a nice juicy orange or a lemon and you squeeze it out comes orange juice, lemon juice. I haven't squeezed a banana and had apple juice come out yet, right? [00:18:59] But when I'm squeezed, something comes out of me. So my question is, what comes out? [00:19:07] Because if I'm really honest, sometimes what comes out isn't good stuff. It's the wrong kind of juice I want. When I'm squeezed, I want the stuff I want to come out is the holy spirit fruit juice. [00:19:23] The fruit of the spirit. That when I'm squeezed, my response is, oh, love you. [00:19:29] When I'm squeezed, it's like, oh, that's a difficult assignment. But, man, I've got joy. Because we're gonna get this one. [00:19:36] When the office has gone into chaos because the boss has just landed a whole new project on you and there's a tornado of anxiety around you, out of you comes peace. [00:19:52] We can reveal the character and nature of God in our workplace. [00:19:58] You respond to a challenge not by swearing or with blasphemy, but joy and a positive response. You speak highly of others in the workplace around the proverbial water cooler. Now, I know none of you have ever had one of those conversations, ah, did you hear about such and such? [00:20:16] What if we turned that around? [00:20:18] What if when somebody says, oh, did you hear about such and such and this and that, and gossip is starting, what if? Our response would be, you know what? I'm not going to talk about Somebody when they're not here with us. That's unkind and unfair. What if we turn those conversations and those situations around how that could look? [00:20:37] Then the world says, you're kind of different, you're strange, but I like it. [00:20:44] I've had people tell me that, or worse to that effect, you're different, you're strange, but I feel safe around you. [00:20:53] What if that's our response? What if we got up out of bed in the morning going, wow, God, could I be that blessing? [00:21:02] How many students do we have here? Give us a wave. If you're a student you are currently studying at the moment. Come on, let's bless our students. Let's honor our students. We love you guys. [00:21:13] You are at the beginning of your career. You are at the beginning of working out where God is going to place you in your careers. You have an incredible opportunity right now to nail down the values in which you are going to live. The way you are going to serve, the way you are going to bless others. You're going to pick careers based on what God is speaking to you about the values that you carry within your heart. There's a natural passion that you carry, there's an aptitude, there's a giftedness that you carry. And God is wanting to use that gift to be a blessing to other people. [00:21:48] And you can make these decisions right now. You can spend a whole career not going, oh, I can't wait till I retire. If you're thinking that at 25, it's a long road. [00:21:59] And I'll tell you what, that's a pretty bad payoff if we think, yes, I'm going to work so I can have those amazing three weeks of holidays. And then you're on holiday and you go, I've got to go back to work again, but at least I'll get another three weeks of holidays in 49 weeks time. [00:22:17] That's a horrible way to live. [00:22:19] God wants us to live with joy and passion. [00:22:23] In this church. We have people who are graced to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. If you haven't already done the apest test, I would encourage you to do so. [00:22:34] To learn and find out how God has graced you to make a difference. [00:22:39] Because our heart is that you would know what you're called to do and where you're called to do it. And that you would thrive authentically with that gifting on your life in the coming weeks and months. I want to hear some of these stories and I know we need to hear some of these Stories. I would love it if God has used you in a particular way within your workplace, within the environment that God has placed you. Could you share those stories, maybe first of all, with your life group leader? Come and share them with me. I want to hear them because we want to put them up on a screen. We want to hear some of the stories and the testimonies of God at work in your lives. [00:23:16] Because I'll tell you what, when I hear somebody else's testimony, I can identify and say, wow, I'm so encouraged by that person. [00:23:26] Bible says in Revelation, we overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb and by the word of our testimony. When somebody stands up and says, I was struggling in my workplace, but I gave God full authority to act on my behalf and I trusted him and I stepped out in faith and I heard a word or I spoke a prophetic word into a situation and God came through and brought change. [00:23:48] That impacts us. It impacts us. It impacts the people around us. So I would encourage you, if you have a story like that, come and share it. We want to hear it. We want to know what God has been doing. [00:24:02] The second thing, the reason why we can jump out of bed. The first was about the character. We can reveal the character and nature of God. The second is work is how God provides for the needs of people. [00:24:15] Work is how God provides for the needs of people. Why do we go to work? Well, think of these four E's. Earn, engage, evangelize, and economy. Let me quickly go through those we earn to make a living, to steward, to give, to save, engage. [00:24:36] Our work is our way to engage with the society, to people around us, our community, our neighborhood. When we work, we are engaging with others. [00:24:47] You know, a salt, you know, we're called to be salt and light. But I don't know about you, but I very seldom will take a whole lot of salt from a salt shaker. I like a little bit of salt on my, on my food to season it. I'm not going to take a whole teaspoon. That's not good for me. [00:25:05] But when we are sprinkled, when we are scattered, when we are put right throughout the world, we can truly make an impact. [00:25:13] E is to evangelize. We are called to be a witness with our words and with our actions, economy. [00:25:21] We're called to provide for others. You know, there's some people here that you may not even realize it, but you own a business and you have employees that are working for you. You are helping raising children. [00:25:38] You're putting food on the table. You're putting clothes on their back because of the job that you're providing for someone. [00:25:44] You're truly making a difference. You're helping people with the job that you're doing. [00:25:50] You're blessing people. You're loving God, and you're loving your neighbor by providing work and income for people. [00:26:00] Martin Luther suggested, there's a really important reason why you go to work. Why it's a holy calling. [00:26:06] It's because through our work, God provides for the needs of human beings. [00:26:12] I have the ability to provide for others with my ability to work. How many people like money? [00:26:20] It's okay to admit it. Wow. Eight of you. I love money. I think money's fantastic. It can buy things, it can build things, it can help people, it can save people. I think money's fantastic. I think you guys should love money more. [00:26:37] But don't misquote me, because the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils. [00:26:45] But money's good. [00:26:47] When we earn money, we can do incredible things with that money. We can be good stewards. We can be generous. We can use our money to build the kingdom through many different ways. [00:26:59] In the Lord's Prayer, we pray, give us today our daily bread. Do you know how we do that? We work. [00:27:06] A good part of us earning or receiving our daily bread is not God just opening up and dropping a loaf of bread on our plate. [00:27:16] He gives us the ability to work. He gives us health. He gives us strength. He gives us the mind, the physical strength to be able to do what we need to do so that we can receive our daily bread enough for us and maybe enough for others as well. [00:27:32] Psalm 145, 16. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. How does God do that? Through your work and through mine. God values you and he values what you do. And so it's through goods and services and products that God provides for the needs of every human being. [00:27:54] So as the team come and I bring this to a close, we want to pray for people this morning. [00:28:00] Pray for people who are saying, I don't know whether I truly understand my calling and my purpose in life, but I want to wake up on a Monday morning with a passion to do what God's called me to do. [00:28:16] So we've talked about our work reflects the character and the nature of God. We've talked about the fact that our work provides for the needs of others. And the third thought as we close this morning is, work is an opportunity for God to minister through you. [00:28:31] Work is an opportunity for God to minister through you. [00:28:37] I read that verse earlier. So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. [00:28:58] The word equip in the Greek means to mend, very similar to the word that was used when the two brothers were found by Jesus mending their nets. Mark 1:17, James and John, they were mending their nets, they were preparing their nets, they were equipping their nets to make sure that they would hold the fish. [00:29:26] Simon and Andrew, they were fishing, they were fishing. [00:29:32] But James and John, they were mending, they were equipping, they were preparing their nets. [00:29:39] The purpose of the church is to mend our nets. [00:29:43] Part of what we're called to do is to make sure that the nets will hold the catch. [00:29:49] We're told to go and reach the lost, to make disciples of all nations. [00:29:54] Jesus said to the disciples, you've been fishing for fish, but you're going to become a fisher of men. [00:30:02] God's heart is that we would reach the lost. We've got to make sure that the nets are well equipped, are mended. [00:30:15] Church is the. It's like the pit stop. [00:30:18] You want to like the Formula one flying out on the track, but there's a point where the pit crew are saying, you got to come in, you're out of fuel or you need new tires, we need to change something in the configuration of the car. You got to come back in, you got to come and pit. [00:30:37] Sunday mornings, it's kind of like the pit stop. It's like we're out there Monday to Friday, going 300 kilometres an hour around these bends and we've got to come back in, we've got to refuel, we've got to put on new tires, we've got to get ourselves ready. Not to just stay here in the salt shaker, but to go out, to get on the road again. [00:31:00] Maybe it's like a locker room. [00:31:03] We don't hang around in the locker room. I hate the locker room. [00:31:09] If I was only in the locker room. [00:31:12] I feel like I'm missing out. I want to get back out in the game again. [00:31:17] So when we come and we gather, it's not enough just to gather here. We gather here to equip, we gather here to mend, we gather to prepare ourselves so that we would go out into ministry and do what God's called us to do. [00:31:33] So our work is an opportunity for God to minister through us. [00:31:39] You are a priest at work, in your community, in your sports field, in your neighborhood, in your home. You are a priest called to serve the Lord, to love God and love people. [00:31:52] Yeah, I played football all of my life. The round ball game, the true, the beautiful game. Boo. [00:32:02] And you know, I've been in all sorts of football teams, but most of the time the majority of the team, they're not worshipers of Jesus. [00:32:13] There's a certain amount of blasphemy and language and stories. And I remember growing up as a teenager being the sober driver for a bunch of 25 to 30 year old drunken louts. I'd have to drive as an 18 year old, a bunch of drunken men back from a, yeah, two hour drive. I didn't enjoy that part of it. But you know what, I made some decisions as a young person that were good decisions, put God first in my life. I made a decision that anytime I was in that environment, I would just live my faith and speak about it. [00:32:46] I remember a few years ago, started playing for a football team and our coach was giving us one of those talks. If you've ever played football, you know, or sport, you know what it's like. He was absolutely grilling us and he mentioned the name of my Lord and saviour in a way that wasn't honour and worship, but it was an expression of frustration. [00:33:13] And out it came. And in the middle of this really tense teen talk, I said, pretty sure it wasn't him now. I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't doing that now. He knew I was a Christian, he knew I was a pastor. And he actually apologized in the moment. He said, I'm sorry Mike. I said, no, I appreciate that. I said, Jesus is my everything. This is in the middle of the team talk. We're supposed to get fired up for the second half. [00:33:40] But you know what? I lived my life. I was there, I was in the middle of it. [00:33:46] I had a guy come to me and sat down after a game, we're having a drink together. [00:33:54] I said, tell me your story. [00:33:58] And he began to tell me about his bankruptcy. [00:34:02] He had a building company Covid hit, he'd over capitalized, he lost everything, went into this deep dark depression. [00:34:12] So for the coming weeks and months I would pray with him and we'd talk. And Wednesday afternoons, evenings after football, back in the club room, having a drink, having some food together, we'd talk. We'd have these conversations. He came to church. He was surprised that the roof didn't fall down on his head. In fact, he said, can I take a selfie? Takes a photo of me and him at church, sends it to the group chat of the football guy saying, guess what? I made it to church and I didn't burn. So he said it was so much better than we thought it would be. [00:34:46] You know, we can make a difference wherever we find ourselves. [00:34:52] Because a couple of months before we left, I'd injured myself, which was par for the course. Did my hammy about 30 minutes into the game. [00:35:03] And so I subbed off. I was sitting on the sideline, was going to go and have a shower after halftime. And our coach, who was also playing, quickly subs himself off. [00:35:14] I could see something wasn't quite right. And he shared with me that he'd been struggling with panic attacks and that anxiety and something pretty horrific had happened at work. And so he was really struggling. He was on medication and seeing the doctors and doing all the right things, but I could tell things weren't right. So after half time, I went into the changing room. He was there. He was just kind of shaken. [00:35:42] I said, are you alright? He says, no, I'm not. [00:35:46] Just had a massive panic attack. I just had to get off the field. I just had to get out of this space. [00:35:52] Because of the hours of conversations I'd had with him and with others. [00:35:58] Right there in the middle of the changing room, I was able to put my arm around him. I said, put some clothes on first and then I'll pray for you. [00:36:06] He had a shower. We sat there in the changing room. The game's playing out on the field. And I prayed and I ministered. God's love and his peace and his healing. I got a message just the other week. He still keeps in contact with me. He says, mike, they've taken me off my medication. [00:36:24] I'm in a whole new head space. God is doing some amazing things. [00:36:29] Wow. [00:36:32] But if I'm not there, if you're not there, you can't make that difference. You can't minister if you're not there. [00:36:43] So what if we got up out of bed tomorrow morning? [00:36:48] We said, God, who have you got for me to minister to? Have you prayed that prayer recently? [00:36:55] Have you prayed that prayer? Genuinely pray that prayer. God, would you use me today as I go about my work? [00:37:03] Let me be your hands and feet. Let me be your voice. Let me be wisdom for somebody, because I can tell you they have already looked at you. They've already seen something on your life and they're probably wondering if it's if the rumors are true. Is this somebody who really loves God? Is this somebody who I could go to when I hit a crisis? Because when they hit a crisis they will come to a safe place. [00:37:28] When you're squeezed in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control, when that gets squeezed out of you, people get to enjoy the Holy Spirit fruit juice that you have within you. [00:37:45] Work is an opportunity for God to minister in and through you. God is with you in the boardroom. [00:37:52] God is with you in the workshop. [00:37:55] God is with you in your home leading and serving your children. God is with you in the call center. God is with you as you serve in the hospital. God is with you and wants to serve you. Minister to be his hands and feast to be the mask that people would see that you are God in flesh representing him, this character, his nature.

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