>> There are times when I do some sharing
and people come up and ask me, Timothy, are
you in full-time ministry?
And tongue in cheek I jokingly say, I'm in
overtime ministry.
I have a full-time job and I help run para-church
ministries as well, and in my church I serve.
I was given the following title: God has a
dream that all will be saved.
What would the workplace look like if God
would have his way?
And it is a great question, but it has also
been laden with many assumptions if we hear
it from different world view or perspective
of what scripture is all about.
God has a dream that all will be saved.
I have no doubt that to be true, but is that
all?
Is that all?
I believe God's dream, as we read the Biblical
text is much more.
If you go back to the Abramic covenant, in
Genesis 22:17, it says, I will surely bless
you and make your descendants as numerous
as the stars in the sky and as the sand on
the seashore.
Your descendants will take possession of the
cities of their enemies and through your offspring
all (inaudible) of the earth will be blessed
because you have obeyed me.
All the nations will be blessed because you
have obeyed me.
Salvation is the start of the process, not
the end.
We are to make disciples of all nations, but
also to teach them to obey everything that
I have commanded you, says Jesus.
We have a tendency to forget part 2.
If I read correctly of God's dream as revealed
in holy scriptures, it is in the final consummation
of all things in the new heaven and the new
earth, in the new city of Jerusalem.
Evangelisation is the halfway point.
Lausanne and the global church needs to see
beyond evangelism into the building of the
people of God and the blessing to the nations.
We can do this through empowering believers
to live out each of our calling in the workplace
and in the marketplace, products and services
being provided that meets the needs of people
and to the care of God's created order.
The second part of my title given was what
would the workplace look like if God would
have his way?
I find it to be a rhetorical question, because
what makes us think that God isn't having
his way?
Do we assume that because there are so many
wrong and injustices, believers somehow had
to charge in to save the poor or fight -- save
the poor souls, fight for the liberty, elevate
the poverty?
I'm not saying those things are wrong.
I'm saying the manner in which we do it.
We need to have humility even as we are careful.
You shall not misuse the name of the Lord
your God, for the Lord will not withhold guiltless
-- anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
Misguided fervor is a destructive force.
Wise passion, for the poor, the needy and
oppression builds up.
If God would have his way we are able to catch
a glimpse of God's vision in his revelations
to the Apostle John at Patmos.
In chapter 17 and 18 we find the (inaudible)
of Babylon establishing ties with nations
and governments deceited on the many waters
representing the people, the multitudes, the
nations and the languages.
For God -- it says in Revelations 17:17, for
God has put into their hearts to accomplish
his purpose by agreeing to give the beasts
the power to rule until God's words are fulfilled.
The woman you saw is the great city that rules
over the kings of the earth.
Even in the worst of times God is still having
his way.
To think otherwise is folly.
See, this dream is not this very nice, beautiful
dream, because it is going to be messy and
it's going to be like a nightmare.
The fourth religion of Babylon was the centralizing
and amassing of economic and political powers
through the trade, technology, et cetera,
we no longer need God in our lives these days,
it seems.
We can spend our way through a recession,
manage currency trades, manipulate inflation
through monetary policies.
As somebody has coined it, it's the economy,
stupid.
The merchants of Revelations of 18:11 say
the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn
over here because no one buys their cargoes
anymore, cargoes of gold, silver, precious
stone and pearls, fine wine and purple silk
and scarlet cloth.
Every sort of wood and articles of every kind
made of ivory, costly woods, iron and marble,
cargoes of cinnamon, spice, wine, olive oil
or fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, horses,
carriages and bodies and souls of men.
See, a vision for the work of the gospel,
particularly in the marketplace and the workplace,
cannot be triumphant, idealistic and even
naive.
It has to be realistic in the leading up to
the final chapters of Revelations 20 to 22.
We are living between what is and what ought
to be.
Choices in the workplace is usually not between
good and bad but between bad and worse.
It means that our hands will get dirty.
We may have to work with and through corrupt
system to bring about godly work.
It's easy to criticize, perhaps, from the
comfort and safety of a glass house, watching
a thunder storm go by without even getting
our hands wet or muddy, but I do not believe
this is what is meant by to be in the world.
The fact that there is a continuity and discontinuity
between this side of heaven and earth and
the new heaven and the new earth gives us
encouragement that genuine work formed in
faith and love in factories, research fields,
fields, hospitals, stock exchanges, restaurants,
shopping centers, market, airports, train
stations, businesses, Hollywood and Bollywood,
design and engineering labs are redeemable
and not all in vain.
We must do what we can, by all means, to administer
God's kingdom in a fallen world.
The vision of the new city is glorious.
The materiality, the streets of gold, the
foundations of precious stones, all the fine
things and splendor outshines everything imaginable
today, but what contrast between the city
of Babylon and the city of the new Jerusalem
is to whom glory is due.
One, to mankind, the other to God himself.
Today's challenge of the gospel is not whether
people believe it is true, as we have heard
today.
They also want to know that it is relevant
and real.
Christian witness can only be achieved through
three commitments of believers.
One, being involved in genuine and meaningful
work amidst the toil and the drudgery.
Second, a sacrificial demonstration of God's
love -- a demonstration of love for God and
neighbor, and yes, that means -- includes
back stabbing colleagues, incorrigible bosses,
corrupted officials and unethical professionals.
And three, a witness of lives that are lived
under the value and the discipline of scriptures,
through the pain and the disappointments of
life.
The new paradigm, therefore, is not to send
missionaries to the workplace or missions
field.
The new paradigm is to mobilize, support and
equip every believer who is already in the
workplace or in the field as a new breed of
missionaries.
The implication is tremendous.
It not only changes the workplace, it must
also change how we do church.
Let me give you a final image that we have
been studying in our church, and it's about
Joshua taking and going into the promised
land.
The Israeli at that time thought that that
was it, and they were quite happy with the
land allocated.
But what was the original plan was far beyond
that.
And I hope that Lausanne do not miss this.
Evangelism is not the end point.
It is the starting point to build the kingdom
of God, and we need to see that all the way
through and make sure that this time around
we claim the entire promised land.
Praise the Lord.
