Joseph Prince - Navigate The Workplace With God's Word
This excerpt is from the sermon, New Covenant Keys To Interpreting the Bible, preached on Sep 25, 2022.
The Scriptures are able to make you wise unto salvation. Because the word "salvation" includes healing. It even includes, listen, wholeness, and nothing lacking in your life. I'm telling you, Christians, listen. You are people with creative, inspired ideas. When you go to work, amen, go to work with the attitude of like, you know: "I'm here, alright, to make my company successful". Do you know that is the Christian position at work? Amen. And by doing so you are in a position to be able to share the gospel or even shine for the gospel. The gospel can be preached with words and without. It's preached with your life. So much so that your Pharaoh (your boss) will look at you and see that the Lord is with you. And whatever Sarah touches, prospers. Your boss will be able to see that the Lord is with you.
But if you have the attitude that: "I'm working for a non-Christian boss and I just do my bare minimum". No, Jesus says go the extra mile! Amen. Be the person in your company that thinks through problems, prays true problems, and finds the solution. Don't apple polish your boss, not with the intention. The Bible says: "Do everything as unto the Lord, not for eye service". Eye service means you do things only when your boss is watching. "but unto the Lord, knowing", you see, "knowing that of the Lord, you shall receive the reward of the inheritance". Amen. Others might not see, your boss might not see, someone else might be trying to play office politics. The Lord sees and the Lord is able to promote you. Don't forget, Joseph had so much favor. He was lied about, he went to the dungeon. From there, he prospered even in the dungeon and went even higher after that. Amen.
So look forward to Monday, okay? "Praise God that it is a work day". "I'm going to glorify the Lord in my work". Amen. I'm going to have ideas, witty ideas that other people don't have. The devil has succeeded down through the years in making the church appear like old, foggy people, you know. Like boring, you know, just like—all the music here is organ music, you know, as if the modern inventions of music and all that. Hey, who knows David might be the first one to invent the guitar. He played the lyre and the—and the harp, excuse me. I need help. Amen. And then the Bible says he played skillfully on the string instruments. Amen. So I believe that all these ideas are from God but the devil is always trying to make the church appear—no, the church is not a building. So whenever people change, right, they gear to the times but are anchored to the Rock. Alright? When people try to change that, but they say that you got to be old-fashioned and all that kind of thing.
Now, I'm not talking about fashion in the sense of dressing and all that, but in the way of thinking. He (the devil) managed to keep the church at bay, with no impact. Amen. You see, I always thought like this. Jesus says: "Be careful of wolves that come to you in sheep's clothing". Remember that? In the sermon on the Mount. "Beware of wolves that come to you in sheep's clothing". How about we send some people into the world? Alright, sheep in wolve's clothing. Okay nevermind, alright? Nowhere does it say it is forbidden. Amen. After all, the tribe of Benjamin, the animal that marks them on their banner is a wolf. Alright, so the end-time generation is a Wolverine. Haha. Alright. You just got to be careful that you don't devour the sheep around you. The Benjamin generation. They are marked by the wolf. Okay.
And so I think that we need to be wise. Amen. We don't compromise the core fundamentals of the Word of God, especially the gospel of Jesus Christ. The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, some people will just say: "Well you know, this is an evil thing. This is bad and this is bad. This is evil, this is from Satan, this is from Satan, everything is from Satan. Don't watch TV, it is from Satan". Satan says: "Thank you very much. I'll put my shows on it". Amen. If the Christian goes on television and all that: "Oh, we got to watch out, the devil will make sure that he's attacked". When actually the idea came from God, for the purpose of the gospel. Come on, Church. Come on. Airplane. The airplane was invented by who? Two young men, brothers. What were their names? Orville and Wilbur Wright. Do you know they are sons of preachers? Do you know their generation? Their father is a preacher. Amen. They are both Christians.
How many Christians have impacted history? Amen. With their ideas, inventions creation. Amen. Recently, even modern times, the one that, the first man, the first scientist to successfully name all the genomes, our genes. Amen. He's a strong believer in Christ. And he received a lot of flag because he's a believer. You have access to the One who is the source of all wisdom. Who gave Solomon wisdom. Amen. And best of all, favor. Your colleagues don't have favor. The one that apple polishes, he puts the polished apple for the boss. Amen. The boss eats the apple, right? Alright, that one doesn't have favor. You have favor. Favor means they can do all kinds of thing to you and all that but you are like the buoy in the water. They try to push you down—but it comes up again. Push you down, no man can push down what God elevates. And God promotes you. The Bible doesn't say: "Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and stay there". It says: "Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time".
Your due time is coming, folks. Your due time is coming. Praise the Lord. Amen. So whatever job you're doing, whether you go to work on your work from home, and whatever you do, right, be fruitful, be productive. The very first command is to be fruitful and be productive, amen. We are not like people of the world who have no hope. The Scriptures give us hope. That in the midst of the last days, and all these negatives that we see, and all these horrible things that you see, you can get discouraged. But before that, God says: "This is what you do, Child of God". Instead of going out there, and we might think, get involved more in service and that kind of thing, God is saying: "Spend time in the Word". "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God". Inspiration of God is just one word in the Greek. It means: "God-breathed" The very breath that gave—the breath that gave Adam life. The breath that gave you life in your mother's womb is the same breath you breathe in when you are in the Scriptures. Amen. Praise God.
"And it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof". Doctrine is teaching, right? "Reproof, correction" Reproof is for wrong behaviour. Correction is for wrong doctrine, amen. "for instruction in righteousness, that a man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work". Now this word "that the man of God may be complete", this word "complete" is very interesting. It is the word "fitted". If you read carefully, one of the scholars in Greek defined this word for "complete" as—by spending time in the Scriptures, what is imparted to you is a special aptitude. A special intelligence. And if you look at the word "aptitude", I looked it up in the dictionary, I know what it means. But I want to see what the dictionary says. Alright, it even has the meaning of "quickness".
Spending time in the word of God will make your complete. Complete, fitted with a special aptitude. Amen. You're very quick to see things happen and have the right interpretation. I think Joseph had that. Daniel had that. Even the kings of their day do not have that. The kings can dream a dream, but only they can interpret the dream about the future. Amen. So I believe that it will come to you a special aptitude, you're able to see things happen even in your life, you are able to translate and see things happen. The picture here is during the time of Paul, when he wrote this. The picture is of a vessel that's supposed to go to a foreign land, alright? A far, far journey through the ocean. And it's fully equipped, which means it has every supply, every cargo, everything that it needs to make a successful journey. Enough food, enough water, everything that you need.
The Bible says the Scripture is able to completely fit you. If you lack something, you can get it from the Scriptures, I can't begin to tell you because I don't want to get personal about this kind of things. Or call attention to myself to these kind of thing. But let me tell you this. There are times I read the Scriptures, there is an impartation. Something was dropped into me that I never had before. Now it does not say that a man of God may be complete through Instagram, thoroughly equipped. All right, or through social media. You must get all the knowledge you have from all this. All these knowledge can confuse you and depress you. It makes you feel out of it and disconnected. It's funny, isn't it?
These things are supposed to connect you and make the world smaller. But most people who are in it end up with depression of varying degrees. Some less depression, some more. Young people are being depressed, the more time they spend on social media. They need to fast social media for a while and see how wonderful life can be. You know, the world. I pity the world. I pity the world. I pity the world. Do you know why? When the world looks forward, they say: "Oh man, I'm now 70. Oh no, I'm now 80. I'm now 90". It's like they look forward with no hope. No, friend. Amen. Your best years are ahead of you! And have have a blast in Christ while you're doing this! Amen. Have a high adventure in Jesus while you're doing this! Praise the Lord. Enjoy every day because you will step into eternity with more better days. Amen. The better world is coming! Praise God. Amen! This same earth. Praise the Lord. Jesus is coming to reign on this earth, and we're coming to reign with Him! Praise the name of Jesus. Amen. Praise God! Hallelujah!