The High Cost of Not Doing Good

You know, doing good looks different for different people, doesn’t it? I mean, for some people it’s rescuing someone from a life of prostitution. Or for someone else it’s providing shelter for someone that doesn’t have a place to crash.

And for others it’s remodeling a whole high school and using your gifts and talents and design and painting, and for a whole different group it’s, you know what? Remodeling a high school is great and we did that but you want to love the kids and be at after school programs and teach them the Bible and get to know their parents. It just looks different for different people.

And for some of you, you’re at a stage in your life where your ministry really is right in the marketplace and you lead a team or you go to work every day and maybe it’s a division or maybe you’re the CEO or maybe the owner and you have just absolutely said, “I’m going to do good, and how people get treated and what our policies are and what our values are, we just work in such a way where people get to see the love and the grace and the holiness of God.”

But regardless of how we express it, you’ll notice on your notes, here’s some things that are true about all of us: Doing good is not a suggestion, it’s a command. When you know Christ personally, it’s a command, “Do good unto others.” We know it’s powerful.

But I mean, there’s something powerful about when you see hurting people and the love of Christ connect.

Third, it can be risky. I mean, we’re afraid to do good, we’re afraid to get out there but I’ve never met anyone that when you’ve taken a risk and done good that you said, “Oh, I wish I wouldn’t have done that.”

Doing good starts with who I am, not just what I do. And I would like to suggest that the price of doing good can be costly.

It might be social rejection, it might be time, it might be energy, it might be money, it might be going to a meeting or and preparing for things when you’re just overwhelmed and dead tired but you know it’s what God wants you to do.

And then finally, here’s what I’d like to talk about. Sometimes not doing good can be even more costly. You know, we always think of the price tag of something and, boy, I mean, “If I just had more time or just more energy or just more money or, sure, I would like to do something, someday, someway,” but I want to tell you there is a high cost of not doing good.

Three things I put in your notes. The first is a Barna study on Christian families. Right now, about seventy percent of the high schoolers in Evangelical churches, five years after high school, are not in church and are not walking with God.

The research says that the reason is they do not see the reality of Christ in their home, and they never come to own their own faith.

Another Barna study, in terms of spiritual engagement in America, there is a category now, used to be very, very small, when they survey all around the country, people who say they have no spiritual affiliation. And in the sixteen to twenty-nine-year-olds, it’s astronomically high and growing.

And finally, there is a perception of Christians in America, David Kinnaman in his book, unChristian, says, “True or not, Christians in America today are viewed as harsh, judgmental, intolerant, anti-intellectual, and hypocritical.” And I don’t know about you, but that’s a big PR problem.

In fact, it’s worse than a PR problem because what you know and I know is that there are a lot of corners in which that’s true. In fact, there are times where it’s true of me and there are times where it’s true of you.

So here’s the deal: How do we push the dial? How do we, in our homes, and in this church, and in this city be shining different exceptions where we do good in such a way that people would say, “Well, they’re not intolerant, they’re not judgmental.” Now, they may say that but when they would see the facts and see your life and experience you, they would say, “I guess I was wrong.”

We need to ask and answer the question, “So what does it look like, very specifically, for Christians to live like Christians when there are problems in the home, there are problems at work?” This is exactly the situation as Paul writes to this young pastor, Titus.

The new Christians weren’t walking with God, they weren’t moral, they were in a culture and a society that was pulling them away from God. And just like today, there were a lot of false teachers that were telling people a lot of crazy things and families were being ruined.

And so at the very end of chapter 1, he tells them, “You’ve got to silence those false teachers, you’ve got to rebuke them. You’re young but you need to stand up and tell them, ‘This is what’s true.’”

And then in chapter 2 he says, “Now, here’s what you must teach,” in fact, open your Bibles if you would, Titus chapter 2, and it’s an emphatic position. He goes, “Look, those false teachers are ruining families, they are discrediting the gospel, they are making the Church to look crazy, so you, Titus, here’s what I want you to do.”

“Teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good.

“Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, and to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands,” purpose clause, why should older men, older women, and younger women live in a way that reflects Christ? “so that no one will malign the Word of God.

“Similarly, encourage,” literally it’s “exhort or admonish”, “the young men to be self-controlled. In everything set an example for them by doing what is good. In your teaching, show integrity and seriousness and soundness of speech that can’t be condemned,” second purpose clause, why? “so that those who oppose you may be ashamed that they have nothing bad to say about us.”

Finally, he goes from the home and those relationships to about sixty million slaves were in the Roman Empire. The Church was made up of at least eighty percent slaves. And their masters usually were not very kind. And he gives them this charge that when you read it, if you read it in the first century, you would shake your head and say, “How could anyone do this apart from the power of Christ?”

“Similarly,” he goes on to say, “teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please their masters, not to talk back, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.” Last purpose clause.

Live in such a way, in the marketplace, that, literally, your life, your work ethic, your integrity, your competence would make the Christian life and the person of Christ attractive.

And so what I want to do is I want to dig in with you and let’s look at what this really is at home. Christians living like Christians at home. He says older men are to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled.

Philo quotes Hippocrates, and he says, “There were six stages within a man’s life,” and this word is used in the ancient Greek at this time for a man who is between fifty and sixty-five years of age. It’s the sixth stage of a man’s life.

When he says, “the older men,” this is different from the elders. Chapter 1 it was the shepherds of the Church, the episcopos, the people that were in charge of the Church, the leadership.

He is now saying, “the older men, the guys that have been around that people look to,” he says, “here is what needs to characterize their life.” Temperate. Literally it means a life of moderation and stability. It’s a person that has their passions under control. They don’t drink too much, they don’t work too much.

A person that’s worthy of respect, literally, is a serious-minded person with regard to their purpose. It has the idea of not being a clown. Not someone that people look at and they’re just kind of an embarrassment, their life is a joke.

Instead, they are worthy of respect. They are wise, they are above reproach, they have a track record, you look at their life, you look at their work, you look at their family, you respect them.

Self-control here is a matter of, one, self-discipline. It has the idea of having your appetites under control and whether that is for sex or buying or food or money or work, it’s just discipline. It’s living in a way that is – it makes sense. You’ve come to your senses; you know what’s important and your life reflects that.

And then he goes on from these character qualities and say, “Sound in faith, in love, and in endurance.” And the word “sound” literally means “to be healthy.” You have a healthy faith. In other words, you walk with God. You take risks, you’re in His word, you have a healthy love, you care about people, you walk in a room and you’re around an older person like this and you think, “You know, I’d like to love my wife the way that guy loves his wife when I get to be that age,” and, you know, people this age, they have their kids that are grown and you say, “I’d like to have a relationship with my adult kids the way he has a relationship with his adult kids.”

When you meet him at work, it’s a person that isn’t easily threatened or overly insecure. It’s just, it’s they have healthy relationships. They love people, they care about people, they’ve kind of grown beyond trying to prove they’re a somebody.

And then finally, they have endurance. Hupomeno, an interesting word. It has the idea of holding up under pressure and adversity. Paul uses this phrase a lot. Faith and love and then often he says, “Hope.” And to this particular group, I think maybe because it’s Crete, there’s hope but when you really hope, biblical hope is the certainty of Christ’s return, the certainty of His promises. What that does, that gives you endurance.

And it’s the kind of person that you say, like, I have a couple of friends, they’ve been bankrupt a couple times. Or they lost their wife eight or nine years ago to cancer and they keep pressing ahead. Or you know what? They got a really raw deal and you know what? They’re not bitter, they’re not resentful.

In fact, to summarize, older men, you fifty to sixty-five and above, basically he says, “What’s it look like for an older man to be a Christian who lives like a Christian?” It means you are a wise, godly example of a vibrant walk with God, you have authentic relationships, and you finish well.

Older men, that’s what it looks like for a Christian to live like a Christian. And when you live that way, people don’t malign, that’s a weird word, but it means they don’t discredit the Word of God. They don’t think that what you believe is crazy. What they say is, “I don’t know where you got that, but I’d like to explore what you believe and why.”

The next group is older women. This is women that are sixty and above. The phrase is “reverent in all their ways.” The word literally means “they live a holy life.” Or it was used of a priestess in a temple. They would live like a priestess in the temple, a life of reverence.

Negatively, they’re not slanderous. We all have struggles with our tongues but when your kids get grown, apparently, and you have a little bit more time on your hands, Paul thought, you be careful, ladies. It’s easy to talk about other people when they’re not around and he says, “This is the kind of woman that doesn’t do that.” And she’s not addicted to much wine. It’s that same word for “self-controlled,” just a little bit different view of it. But it’s someone that, as she gets older, her priorities don’t slide and she doesn’t spend her time thinking about her and, “Have I lost my youth?” and what’s really important?

And I need to find my role again because the kids are out of the house, and so I can talk bad about other people, because it makes me feel better or, sedate my pain in some ways. Paul says, “No, no, no.” The Spirit of God says through him, this is a woman that is holy and godly.

In fact, that’s her heart and her character, but then her focus is, she teaches what is good. It’s a beautiful word. She teaches what is beautiful, she teaches what is winsome, she teaches what encourages. And then the focus of her teaching is younger women and we’re going to find out, literally, the word “younger” here, it’s not just an age word. It means, literally means, “new or fresh,” and probably refers to, not exclusively, but probably refers to a lot of women that just got married. And, it’s new and it’s fresh and they don’t know what they’re doing.

What she sees is, you know us men don’t know much about you women. I mean, we’ve taken courses, I’ve read so many books with Theresa I can’t hardly stand it. I’ve listened to tapes; I’ve watched DVDs; I’ve gone to seminars; I’ve been to counseling and I still…right?

I mean, there are some things I just accept. They are a mystery. I mean, they really are. And only another woman can teach another younger woman about what it means to be a woman of God. What it means to respond and live in the culture that we live in and what do you do when you’re pregnant with that first baby and what do you do with the first boyfriend and what do you do when you’re bombarded by all those magazines that say you need to be super skinny and super this and super that and you struggle with your self-image. It’s an older woman that comes along with focus and she helps younger women understand what matters and who matters and who she really is.

I’ve watched my wife do this ever since Annie was a little girl. They’d read books together and then as she was flourishing and beginning to grow and becoming a woman, I noticed they had all those talks and they would go out and have coffee and share and it seems like about every six months they were reading a book together and then before she got married I noticed they were spending a lot more time together.

And then when she got pregnant they were spending a lot more time together. And then when she had a baby it was, like, you know what? I just stepped back and said, “This is an amazing thing.”

And left to myself, there have been seasons where I’ve kind of felt left out. If you’re a young father and your wife has a baby, you kind of feel like, after about two weeks, do I not even count anymore? Right? And then, two months, and then three months and you’re thinking, “Hey, everything is okay. Why don’t we just go out? We get a babysitter?” “A babysitter! What?” You know? But as you get a little older, I have watched this amazing thing happen between my wife and my daughter.

And I have just thought, “It’s a picture of beauty.” But God wants that for every young woman.

My wife and one of her friends, Janet, have done a Bible study, and literally, scores and scores of women in our church over the last few years - it’s called Five Aspects of a Woman. And it’s really a study about how to be a woman of God and what are those aspects? And

It’s just exciting to see women, about sixty and above, investing in young women around here. Because when that happens, you know what? It validates, it gives credibility.

It’s tough to be a young man, it’s tough to be a young woman. But when that kind of relationship happens, it authenticates God’s Word and His truth.

The third area is these young women, either newly married or they are at least young in life. And there are couplets, there are three different couplets, he pairs them together. He says, “Older women, you need to teach them to love their husbands and their children.” There are a lot of demands on a woman like, “How do you do that?”

And to be self-controlled and pure. Same word about mastering their own life and their own discipline and their own appetites and that word “pure” literally just means: holy, set apart, having the right kind of thoughts, putting the right kind of things in your mind, being pure in how you think about life, and in your behavior.

And then busy at home and be kind. Literally the “busy at home” is “a keeper of home”. And what you need to understand as you read this passage is the average woman, when this was written, she lived in a home, in a separate apartment.

When the men ate, she didn’t eat with her husband. The idea of a family meal? That didn’t happen. She ate by herself or with the children.

Most of the men, as we learned last time, were not a one-woman man, they were a three woman man. They had a slave girl that they could have sex with, they had a temple prostitute, and then they had a wife to bear children for their lineage.

And so, life – life for a woman was terrible. Like in some countries that we could probably name today that are just horrendous. Well, now this revolutionary comes named Jesus. And He starts talking about women being co-heirs of the grace of God, and an equal in God’s sight and loved and cared for and He gives these ridiculous commandments in this culture that men should lay down their life for their wives and care for them and love them and protect them and provide for them and connect with them and communicate with them.

Well, in Crete, you have this wild culture going on, apparently some of the younger women were getting emancipated, but in their emancipation were starting to take their emancipation where they were violating some of the cultural cues to such a point that it was undermining whole families.

And Paul is saying, “You know, be careful about your focus. And there are a lot of things you can do as a woman, but make sure your priorities are in order.” There are certain things that no one else can do but you. No one can love your husband or be a mom to your kids like you. No one can have the self-control and model purity like you, especially in that culture, or in ours.

And so he’s saying to them, “Make sure that how you live, how you relate, honors what God says.”
I have had people, I’m sure it’s unintentional, but they’ve asked my wife, “So what do you do?” And she said, “Well, I’m actually a homemaker,” and she has worked at different times but she goes, “You know, during this season, when our kids were small and then on up through when we sent them out, I just felt like that was my greatest priority.”

And I’ve just had people look at her like, “Oh, so you don’t really have a real job? So you must not really be an important person.” And instead we have had an entire world, for the last twenty years, bombard women and tell them that, “You don’t really matter if you don’t work outside the home. In fact, beyond working outside the home, I mean, really, really make it happen.”

And all that liberation has done is most women I know have two jobs. They have the job where they work and I know all the theory about all the things that are going to be shared at home. It really doesn’t work that way, does it?

Who feels the moral weight of nurturing? Who feels the moral weight of what happens with the kids? Who feels the moral weight? And I just, I think women have really been pulled apart.

Does it mean you can’t work? I don’t think so. But I think what it does mean is your priorities in a season of life, you can only work or get needed income after you know you’re taking care of what no one else can do.

And I look at my wife and I look at the time that she spent investing in our kids and I think of our greatest joys. And what is happening, our kids are impacting far more people than I ever will in all my life.

Your investment is a long-haul investment, very painful, and very difficult with not a lot of reward during the journey. But the payoff is deeper and greater.

And so you have to have a long fuse, you’ve got to really believe. This may feel kind of hard, but you’re really talking maybe, what, fifteen years? Ten, twelve that are super, super critical and then you launch the kind of people that change the world.

And so now he says, “Older men, this is what a Christian looks like, who lives like a Christian. Older women and younger women,” and then notice he says, here’s why, “So that God’s Word will not be discredited.”

That’s the idea. People won’t speak evil of it. In other words, God’s Word, wow! This must be true! Why? Because of how older men and older women and young women actually live.

Summary here is that our character and relationships at home – are you ready for this? should cause our children to want to be like us and cause our neighbors and our friends to admire our marriages and our parenting, not question our faith.

I remember talking to a guy that was very “famous” in a very technical field and a friend of a friend conversation, and it was relayed to me as we were talking about this, he had a young man, he was, like, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old.

And in the interviewing process he says, “Well, what do you really want to be when you grow up?” And he goes, “I want to be like my dad.” “Oh, you want to be a famous engineer like your dad?” He goes, “Oh, no. I want to be a Christian like my dad. My dad is the greatest person I have ever met.” You know what? That’s what I want.

But that means whether I’m an older man or an older woman or a young woman… Can you see, what would it take for our kids to grow up in environments where they would say, “I want to be like you. I don’t want to do what you did, I might have different gifts and different passions, but the kind of person, the kind of Christian, the kind of friend, the kind of mom, the kind of dad, I want to be like you.”? See, that’s how the revolution of Jesus Christ turned the world upside down.

He now goes to the young men in the home. And he says, “You younger men,” he says, “you need to be self-controlled,” and interestingly, the word changes. As you go through like I did in my Bible, the word teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, train, encourage, exhort, teach, teach, what you realize is, people don’t know how to do this. If people already know something, you don’t have to teach them.

Go through your Bible, if you would, or if you have a Kindle, and highlight, “teach”, “teach”, and what you’ll see is all of chapter 2, except for the second half, which we already covered, it’s all about people have to learn, your kids have to learn, your friends have to learn, the people you disciple, that we have to teach them.

And the culture in Crete, just like the culture today, is the opposite of Christians living like Christians. In fact, the tragedy is, in most churches, the culture is different than Christians living like Christians. And so, our work is cut out for us.

And so now it gets a little stronger. He says, “I want you to exhort, I want you to admonish the young men.” And it’s interesting, there’s only one thing you’re supposed to tell them: Be self-controlled. You make your own conclusions on that one.

The word “self-control” has showed up in every single one of the relationships and it simply means “to master one’s self; to be disciplined,” and I would say to young men here to be disciplined or controlled over your passions for success, for wealth, for sex, for power, and for fame.

And when young men are disciplined and aligned, by the power of God, with their time, their priorities with their family, their own spiritual development, in prayer, in God’s Word, and they don’t allow their work or their hobbies to dominate their lives, they step up and they change the world.

They have the energy, they have focus, they have dreams. Those are the kind of Christians that change the world.

And then he says to Timothy, you know, “Well, how do you do that? How are you going to teach them to be self-controlled?” And he says to Titus, excuse me, very similar comments to the other young pastor, Timothy. He says, “You set them an example. You tell them, ‘Be self-controlled,’ and then tell them, ‘Just look at me, guys.’” Boy, how would you like to be that pastor? You model self-control, you model godliness, you model loving relationships, you model faith, you model how to treat women, you model how to treat your kids. And then demonstrate it, he says, in the integrity and seriousness of your teaching.

The word “integrity” has to do with motives. Notice the false teachers, they did it for money. He says, “Titus, you teach in a way where people will know you’re not into their wallet, you’re not into fame, you’re not into impressing people, you’re just living it out.”

And then, now, also it needs to be serious. Don’t come halfhearted and give half-baked messages. You need to give messages that are well researched and you need to do it with dignity, and you need to do it with a sobriety, and you need to do it before the living God.

And notice why. I mean, the reason here. So that the critics may have no basis for their accusations about the Church! Literally, it’s about us! When young men are self-controlled and don’t lust on the job and don’t log onto porn sites and don’t tell dirty jokes and love their wives and take time and don’t get addicted to work and are good dads, not perfect dads, good dads – tell you what – that’s a rare breed. You meet a man like that, pretty soon, all that criticism about Christians, and the Church, and intolerant, and hypocritical, and nya, nya, nya, nya, nya, nya, nya. I’ll tell you what, that’s, you just you start exporting more and more of those kind of people,

“Man, you don’t have it all together but you don’t live like I live. You live a lot like Jesus.” And when you don’t, you don’t fake it. You own it. You’re real. You’re authentic.

That’s like spiritual honey drawing the bees who long for life and they are all around us, where we work and our neighborhoods.

He shifts it now and says, “Christians need to live like Christians for the credibility of God’s Word and for the credibility of His Church. But not just, not just in our homes and our relationships but he shifts gears now and talks about work.

Now, obviously, it’s a different world so we have to make a little transition here. He’s going to talk to slaves because the great majority of the Christians were slaves.

And, by the way, what he’s going to say to slaves make your calling in your job really easy compared to what he’s going to ask them to do. Because you need to understand, the view of slavery and slavery in the world… Aristotle said this, Aristotle said, “You can’t misuse or abuse a slave because it’s a piece of property, not unlike a washbasin or a woman.”

How would you like to live in a world where you are a piece of property and therefore if you were beaten, you know what? It’s like my car. If I want to wreck it, I can wreck my car. If I want to beat it up, I can beat up my car.

Now, to be fair, many people were very kind to their slaves. But no rights, and by the way, if it’s not going real well, this was not one of the options, “You know, Master, I, um, I know I’ve been here for quite a while but I’m, um, I’ve asked for a transfer. I’m going to be quitting.” You know? There is no plan B.

So listen. This is why the Church changed the world. What he’s going to tell them is impossible. And yet they did it. But they didn’t do it in their own strength, they did it by the power of the Holy Spirit working in the power of God’s Word, in the context of authentic community where they would meet and hear the teaching of the Scripture.

They were all illiterate and so these scrolls would be read and they would memorize them out loud together and go over them, over them, over them, over them in their mind and then they would meet in homes and they would share a meal and they would talk about “That letter we got that was passed around. That one to Ephesians and that other little one to the Colossians and that one to the Thessalonians.”

And then they got up and they went into horrendous working situations and they responded, by and large, by His power, the way Jesus would have responded if He was actually living inside their body, which He was. And so, he says to them, “Slave, whether you have a Christian or non-Christian master, be subject to your masters.” That’s the overarching… the idea is you’ve got to submit to them, you have to obey what they say. “Try to please or satisfy them.” The idea here is just, “Do a good job.”

I was in New York City and I heard Tim Keller speak and he was talking about impact in the marketplace and he said, “You know, we have a generation, both young and old, that we really want our work to have such meaning and we want it to change the world and,” he said, “you know, that’s great, but part of serving God, sometimes it’s just doing a great job.”

You know, if you’re a dentist and drilling teeth, I mean, this bicuspid is going to, ZzzZzzZzz, change the world? No, but it will really be important to that person that you’re putting that crown on.

Or if you’re an airplane pilot it’s like, “All I do is fly from here to Beijing, all I do is fly from here to the Southwest, back and forth.” When you land correctly, we love you! Do things with excellence! Create software with excellence, come on time, do a great job, please your masters.

Then it says not to talk back to them. So there is a respect, there’s an attitude.

Those of you that are supervisors or employees, you know that people show to work but you know sometimes it’s like this, “I got attitude. I’m here. But I don’t like you. And I’m going to do it as little as possible to make as much as possible. And I’m just going to sort of poison things.” He goes, “When you find employees with a good attitude…”

And then petty thievery was just common. So the slaves would steal. He says, “Don’t steal from them,” and then show that you can be trusted. I mean, can you imagine a master who realized, “I don’t know what this Christian stuff is and this Jesus and all this talk of resurrection and this is wild and crazy but all I know is, if I had another ten slaves like that, I’d change the world. If I had a hundred, our company would be…” That’s what God wants us to be where we’re at.

I was picking up my laundry yesterday, and the fellow is a guy I’ve gotten to know, and he’s come to church some, but his wife works at another church so he doesn’t go here, but I know he’s a believer.

And I was behind the guy in front of me and the guy in front of me said, “Oh, is this my shirt? Did you get that stain out?” And he goes, “Well, I really tried,” he said, “but it was blood so it didn’t come out.” He said, “Well, I want the stain to come out.” He goes, “Well, I can do it more but I’m afraid it’ll go right through the fabric.” And he said, “Well, man, if you can’t get the stain out, I don’t want to pay for that.”

And I’m sitting there thinking, “Let’s see now, who got the stain in the shirt? You brought the shirt. He cleaned the shirt. He tried to get the stain out of the shirt.” And he goes, “No, I don’t want to pay for that.” And this guy’s response, I saw, you know how you can see his eyes flash like…

But then, the guy didn’t even catch it. He goes, “Absolutely, sir, that’ll be okay. I’ll take that right off your bill.” And he took care of him and I got my stuff and I walked out and, you know, I had one of those little promptings.

I thought, “You know what? Man, now, that’s a Christian living like a Christian.” I went back in there and it had cleared out, I said, “Hey, can I tell you something?” He said, “What?” I said, “Man, way to go. Way to go. That was such a great attitude. That was such a great response. You could have talked back, you could have argued. And you know something? You just handled that with class.”

Colossians 3:23 and 24 says, “Do your work, not as unto man, not for eye service, not for their reward. Do your work as unto the Lord, as an act of worship.”

I’m going to create this for God, I’m going to build this for God, I’m going to fix this for God, I’m going to write this software for God, I’m going to lead this team meeting for God. And His inspection is what I care about.

Why? So that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. Attractive. It’s a really amazing New Testament word. It’s the picture like taking a very special gem and dropping it into a setting, but then around the setting you put all these other very, very precious gems and with a background in gold, so it just adorns it. So it just makes it awesome looking.

And God says, “When we do our work that way, it makes people scratch their head and go, “So everyone else left early and you didn’t? Why? You didn’t really have to turn that in on your expense report but you did. And you knew we had a problem that wasn’t even in your area but you covered for another guy? And you… What’s this about?”

And I would recommend, this is not the exact, “It’s Jesus…” But it’s Jesus. And in the right way in the right time, you can verbalize and share as you earn that kind of respect.

Well, turn to the back page if you will, because I’d like to wrap it up as we think about being the kind of older men, older women, younger women, and younger women, and slaves, workers that really are Christians that live like Christian at home and at work. But we live in a day where our reputation as Christians has taken a hit. Our influence is marginalized, and our children are abandoning the faith.

So let me ask you, what has the power to convince an unbelieving world that God’s Word is true? Second, what has the power to restore credibility and influence to the Church? And third, what has the power to make people want to explore a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?

And the answer to all three is: Doing good where you live and where you work. Doing good. Not talking about it. Doing good in the power of the Holy Spirit, as a person who understands you can’t do it apart from time in God’s Word. And it is impossible unless you can do life with people that give you the strength and the encouragement and the accountability to become who God has saved you to become.

You don’t need any more of God. He needs more of you. And when He gets more of you, and can allow His life to flow through you, you will be an older man that we’ll admire and respect. You’ll be an older woman who realizes that the greatest beauty that you have to share is beauty that is on the inside and not the outside.

And you’ll be a young woman who has clean and clear and wise priorities. And you’re going to invest in the thing that matters most and use your gifts to help other people.

And you’ll be a young man who says, “You know something? I got a lot of passions and there’s a lot of ditches and a lot of potholes out there, but I’m going to set my face like a flint and I’m going to be a man of God and a great father and a godly husband, and I’m going to go to work and work will not own me. But I’m going to work in a way, unto You, and I’m going to ask You for the opportunity with the energy and the dreams you put in me, to change the world. But it starts with doing good.