-bulletin note from Sunday, March 24, 2013
I’m starting work on a series of messages I want to preach this year, on the Biblical work ethic. We live in a time and place where we have had ingrained into our thinking, a concept of work that is at odds with the scriptural model. Our schools, government and even churches have for years reinforced this errant concept of work. By and large, we have become a society of people who feel entitled to benefits of all kinds, without being able to make a connection between our work and these benefits. I read last week where there is a backlog of nearly one million veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars who are trying to get disability benefits. It sounds to me like that would have to be just about every soldier who ever went to Iraq and Afghanistan and then some! Congressmen serve a few short years, getting large salaries, incredible benefits and perks, and then lifelong pensions adding up to millions over time. I know a young man who has been in the California Highway Patrol for about two years. He was just given two months full paid leave because his wife is having a baby! Yes, he thinks it is as crazy as you do, but it’s typical of many government jobs. One of our sons, who worked for a time in a pizza place, told of healthy young men regularly pulling up to the pizza restaurant in a new Camaro, and picking up several boxes of pizza and so forth, and paying for it all with their food stamp cards! As he left work, he thought about their new Camaro, and boxes of fresh pizza, as he climbed into his ‘85 VW. He prayed it would start, as he tossed his sack with the two pieces of leftover pizza onto the passenger seat after a night shift schedule. I’d rather he remain in that situation than switch places with the young men in their Camaro. Even as America moves into the place of being a full on Socialist nation, we who know the Lord need to learn and practice, as much as possible, a Biblical work ethic. I believe the upcoming series of messages will be helpful to that end.